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[sjc <indexer AT fairpoint.net>]

bob ford wrote:
> I thought your family waere all "plain".  From my understanding "plain" 
> people don't put much emphasis on formal educationa.  I thought you being so highly educated was 
> an exception, rather than the norm. Now, you indicate that your siblings are like you?
>   
Born to people who should never have had children in the first place, I 
have a brother almost the same age as I.  When we were 3-4, we were 
abandoned in a house in southern IN where we lived mostly by ourselves 
for nearly a year with nosy-neighbor intervention (kid point of view) or 
help (pragmatic adults), until removed by social services and made wards 
of the state.  We were dropped on my mother's mother, who was already 
well into her 60s, didn't want my mother, much less my mother's kids 30 
years later.  Shortly thereafter, another brother, then an infant, was 
delivered by social services to my grandmother.  That's a bad deal for 
everybody, but especially kids......Basically we lived there but were 
unattended except for the infant brother (now the guy with 27' ceilings 
who tiptoed around chicken poop it was gonna shoot off the ground and 
hit 'im in the eye), until, running loose in the community at large, 
(again!) the older 2 of us were re-placed with an Old Order German 
Baptist Brethren family, which was where we'd been hanging out most of 
the time anyway.  We spent the rest of our young years there, but not 
having been born into that sect, and being still wards of the state, 
were free to leave when we were out of the state's age limit.

Leave we did (couldn't wait to get away, at that point, too bad kids 
aren't born with brains installed), went to Lafayette, got jobs as 
nurse's aide and orderly (I guess those are long-gone occupations), went 
to school at Jefferson High from 7-2, hustled our butts up the hill to 
work at the hospital  from 3-11.  Hospital provided room (old 
nursing-school dorm) and board for $50/month.  Got up in the morning 
just in time to make it to school again.  Tuition (no longer ward of 
state and no parents in that tax district, tuition had to be paid) took 
up the rest of our money. 

From there I went into nursing school on a full academic scholarship 
and he went into the Air Force.  I married 3 years later, as soon as I 
was out of school, an Amishman; that marriage lasted 21 years.  Divorced 
in 1985 so he could marry the 2nd of his now-many wives, but I'm pleased 
to say, that, at the ripe old age of 70, he's turned a real corner and 
is again a delightful person, full of both fun and regrets, but I guess 
that's the price......

The 'baby' brother was reared by my grandmother, and although we though 
he got the good end of the horn at the time, it must be pure hell to 
grow up where you are actively not wanted; he has spent his entire adult 
life taking it out on life, and is just now, in his early 60s, beginning 
to be a person who can live comfortably with himself or anyone else.  He 
has, meantime, been very successful at a very high-powered job (his 
version of success, not mine) and has made many an effort to prove not 
only to his superiors but to his siblings that he is greater than they, 
which was a lost effort, I'm sure that frustrated him no end because we 
were not only convinced, I'm somewhat ashamed to admit that I really 
didn't care for a long time.  He's one of the most innately intelligent 
people I've ever known.   He's just now, at this point, beginning to 
recognize that the skills he possesses only work in a (very) thin strata 
of our society...... so I'm especially concerned about him and the 
impending mess, and I have been working hard to get off my stiff stance 
(my tendency for some while now has been to turn my back; I was "busy") 
the past few years because he seems like a prime candidate for suicide 
to me. 

So that's about it.  The whole thing taught me to rear my kids with as 
much stability and pragmatism as I could.....

> Also, what is the realtionship with the chicken poop stepping person who gave 
> press conferences.
>   
See above ;-)

SJ