Once upon time on a warm sweet earthy fragrant Spring May afternoon in 1967, the sleepy New York suburban town of Seaside dismissed its 10th graders at 2:30 PM. Our crowd, better known as the dirty dozen, and interestingly called this because the boys wore Beetle shag haircuts and the girls went bra-less. The people who met to procrastinate and verse wits until dinner time were six persons or less out of about twelve or so in our crowd. The place most frequented for our gathering was the old abandon brick wallpaper building, right around the corner from Patricia’s split level gray ranch house, around three blocks from the High School, where we smoked cigarettes on the steps and platform underneath a flat cement type roof, next to a big chain locked factory entrance door. A thousand and one thoughtful lines got recited from our crowd’s members on various in vogue paperback texts read and talked about on the steps. The main reason for this Grande of maturity was to find sufficient mental distances from Seaside’s boring research topics such as dress codes; leash laws; protecting parks; Pledge of Allegiance in class; homelessness; and driver’s education. You see we really strived to be responsible although sometimes it did seem otherwise.
All of a sudden out of the blue the adult conversation of great authors’ prose grew cold and the talk slowly evolved into purely personal beliefs on that early afternoon. On this occasion parent/child care topics originated because of Paul’s mention of a problem his mother was discreetly solving with a familiar Math teacher. The passing association was a jump start for Matthew’s reminiscences of an upsetting ordeal with a Mr. Jean Mouse PhD. This flicker here set a precedence to stop lines in paper books and talk on parents’ different methods to solve their kids’ antagonistic mental stresses. It struck me kind of funny, you know, these perplexing social issues. If memory serves me well, Mathew dominated the entire time with his peculiar episodes, then Patricia, every so caringly cushioned a verbal expression of a verisimilitude to unfold her experience in response to Matthew’s story. I thought gosh the maxim was true opposites do attract. And surprisingly I mused there was something special about our parents.
It was around 3:30, when I try to remember when the sunshine felt so nice. Matthew a close friend since the beginning of time started to speak to the lazy foursome loafing and laughing all over the old factory steps. He looked at his watch, and the sadly reported; “Betty and George (his parents) considers me pecks bad-boy’ ’ he smiled jokingly, ‘the black sheep of the family.” Apparently, his mother Betty employed a psychologist. “Mr. Jean Mouse PhD”, Matthew mimicked in a silent performance a stuff shirt and tie guy before he verbalized a formal descriptive skit quoting, “sees what appear to be unconscious conflicts of memory and causes meaningless types of behavior instead of strong normal determinations. Patricia, usually very talkative, sat quietly and listened attentively to Matthew’s every word.
The Shrink, told Matthew’s mother the symptoms were memory obstacles that lead to a serious forgetful lapses of the proper learned adult patterns needed for quality behavior. Because of this defect the garden landscape of his mind gets too weedy and the only response he initiates during a lapse of remembrance was anxious ad Hominem demeanors and aggravated denial avoidance tempers. Matthew said, the psychologist interview his mother on her health history and her parents, as well as questioning her about George’s family. “I went to see, Mr. Jean Mouse PhD., for a session once; he gave me such a fright; he used exactly the same statement as mother did when we children fell ill. I mean, Mr. Mouse, got too close; he frowned, tracing his hand fingers with his thumb quietly saying, “Sometimes you draw a bad hand and sometimes the bad hand draws you,”
Patricia, the free thinker of our crowd moving from the intuitive to abstraction jump in for a moment. “Wow, how odd that must have been awful for you to experience!” “Well I tried’ ‘to change the subject , but I only thought of having a high fever or the death card popping out of the gypsy’s card deck, another one of Betty’s stories for a sick phenomenon identifying encounters with a toothache; a stomachache; a headache; a earache or a combination thereof.” Mouse asked me, if he could massage my head to release the pressure and dredge out symptomatic realities that cause memory loss but I refused that sort of thing. To Jean Mouse the talking cure of free association was the main therapy to help his clients out of anxiety.
Patricia, although very much in our crowd was the odd sock. Her nature is always to be beautifully dressed with nice hats, silk scarves, clean shoes and stylish coats. She had the gliding foot of a dancer and during a few minutes of careless nothing happening, spilled the silence with “I am just the opposite;” I have a memory that overflows with thoughts on receiving new impressions which seriously stresses me out.
“Jean Mouse,’ Matthew, looking up from the bottom step to Mary and I on the platform, explained, “it like this, there are arguments amongst the Truths, yet let’s not go there right away but allow the insights and outlooks of actions to be bold emotional truth; a kind of purposeful stepping stone production of actions that matters most to people. In a light address he suggested to Matthew that caring about what you do with emotional truth everyday helps develop good memory and he defined it as a simple communication vibration of virtuousness using energies that reside in that hidden place deep within the memory banks of the soul. I think if you listen to the method I propose it ought to be a good way for you to improve your self esteem and control your excessive emotional outbreaks. Several examples of this emotional truth, Mr. Mouse, reported were to be a guard in the kingdom and protect his king. Or if possible use friendship in conversation with an older cultured man. Or, perhaps, seeing a lady standing on the bus you offer her your seat even through you don’t really want too.
Jean Mouse liked his added value… he was a Rick Bass nature writer type of guy telling me the landscapes of the mind were too rustic and alone on a cold sunny day that needed company. Matthew admitted to us, Mouse did catch a lot of his crazy hellish mind with the cross questioning sessions but he found this quiet self actualization return to a puzzled confused noisy state shortly after he returned home. I heard Patricia tell Mary, Matthew did seem easier to be with lately. Mary suggested to us Patricia’s had a too generous father. We could see this started the snowball of Patricia’s mind to start collecting as it rolled downhill on a freshly covered powdered trail of perceptions. Matthew could hardly finish his tale because the girls kept on and on. He told us he asked his mother and father if he could end it with the mind diver rhapsodist and just grow out of this difficulty like the other kids do. He promised them he would follow all of Mr. Mouse’s advice. There response to Matthew was they would seriously think about ending the ordeal if he promised to practice the consider techniques. This possibility he exclaimed in a clam sort of manner, “made me feel like a new man.”
To be continued …..
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