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“There were so many beatings,” Bobby recalls. “He didn’t use his open hand, but a fist, belt,
or rubber hose. I came to hate myself, and wanted to die. I thought I was a murderer, a
mistake, an unwanted intrusion, a bad seed - I just wanted to die.” He was so distraught that
he wet his bed — (provoking more rage from his father) until he finally quit school, at the
vulnerable age of 14, and left his fathers house. Sometimes when his father was drinking he
would lock Bobby in the fruit cellar for hours at a time while he drank himself into a stupor.
He would even turn off the light switch, so that the child was left in the dark, without food,
in the cold, frightening hole beneath the ground. As a small boy, Bobby was unable reach
the switch. He felt as if he were in prison, and would often cry himself to sleep until there
were no more tears to cry. Ultimately he grew accustomed to the darkness.

“I was dyslexic and unable to spell, add, tell time, or comprehend directions. My father
repeatedly told me I was mentally retarded, and I believed that lie for years. I was ashamed
because I couldn’t read out-loud.” To compensate for Bobby’s disability he would memorize
facts, figures, and whole pages so people would think he was reading. As a result, he
developed an exceptional, photographic, memory for names, numbers, and information —
especially about history, and geography. No one learned the truth that he couldn’t read until
God miraculously touched his dyslexia at age 65. Then he was quite suddenly able to finally
read in front of small and large groups — and even to draft his own story for publication!

There were many hurtful times in Bobby’s early life, but he remembers the worst day of all,
when he was ten years old. On that day a neighbour sexually assaulted him in front of other
men who laughed and shared in his perverted glee. “My mind went numb and I blacked out
from the severe pain of the violation,” he recalls. “The horror of it smashed and shattered my
already broken life. I was in shock, full of remorse, and predictably again, was still deluded
into thinking I murdered my mother.” Bobby blamed himself for what had been done to him.
His self-esteem hit rock-bottom, and he kept this terrifying and heinous secret buried for the
next 45 years.

Bobby’s father always had alcohol in the house. The boy discovered many of the hiding places
his father used, and would frequently steal drinks. When Bobby was just becoming a teenager,
he had already become an alcoholic. While most kids his age were just getting into high school,
Bobby was just getting high.

“I looked for happiness in the bottle because that’s what my dad did,” Bobby say’s.
“But all I found at the end of the bottle was a life filled with black-outs, and hangovers.”
Ultimately, that was his rationality — for survival.

In the early 1940s there weren't any special-education classes for dyslexic, and dysfunctional
children. Bobby failed Grades 1 and 6. Under constant stress, he wet his bed almost every night.
He was dispirited and frustrated because - with the "encouragement" of his father - he truly
thought he was mentally retarded, with nothing to look forward to. The overwhelming thoughts
of death became his only friend, until he finally quit school in 1949 and, at age 14, left home.
Working hard at manual labour, he continued drinking heavily.

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