on growing up obstreparous

When I was a kid, even more so when I was a teenager, and to some extent when I was in my late twenties, the surest wa to get me to do something else was to tell me to do something. In my early twenties, I had a fit of cooperation and compliance. I have no idea why I made myself so much work!

Well, I take that back. I sorta know. I was a rebel. I caught my father in a lie before I was seven. Not a fib, a whopper. He told me something about the world, and I knew when he said it that what he said smelled fishy. I hunted for confirmation that I was right and found it. At that early age! I wish I could remember now what he said then, but it has long since escaped my memory. But I lost trust in anything he said.

But it got worse. Year after year, teachers told me things that just weren't true. My first-grade teacher told me I drew a ship wrong, that they didn't bulge at the stern. Do too! You can see them in photographs! I had seen them in port. I got to sit in the corner for a class-time when I told her she was crazy. My third-grade teacher - I was in Brasil - told me something about soccer and I said aloud, "Unh-unh!" Oops! Turned out she had never played soccer. I did every day at lunch. I grew to mistrust grownups in general and grownups in authority especially.

My junior high principal told me boys didn't behave like I had (that got me sent to his office) and I knew damned well they did, they just didn't get caught.

And if I couldn't trust them, then what authority did they have over me? Grownups saw things differently, of course.

Later, much later, I played Rebel a different way. I did what was asked for at work, even when I knew damned well that what was wanted was not what was asked for. Why do authorities speak gobbledygook? And mainly I rebelled in ways that didn't matter. I wore Levi's when professionals still wore slacks. I rode a Harley when professionals drove sedans. I had long hair and a beard when professionals were clean-shaven and close-cropped. Like that.

Freedom I called it then. I wonder now.