A Life Wasted

Adopted

For most Americans 1963 was a memorable year. For me it was an important developmental year. It was the year Martin Luther King gave his "I have a dream speech" in Birmingham, the year President John F. Kennedy was assassinated in Dallas, and the year I found out that my dad wasn't really my dad.

It was the first summer I spent with Grandma and Grandpa Waagner. Grandpa Waagner was born in Austria in the 1890's. (when there were 44 states and the Sioux lndian uprising resulted in the battle of Wounded Knee.) Grandpa Waagner had interesting parentage,a family of wealth and deep Germanic blood lines. (If you want to know more his genealogy has been well documented.) From my earliest memories he was always very old. Ancient, even. He spoke seven languages, was cultured, even listened to Opera in German on his record player (you youngsters will have to Google that term). He taught me to play chess at a high level, but also taught me how to drive a mule pulled wagon, drive a mule drawn wagon and how to milk a cow.

I'm not sure about grandma Waagner's background, though I believe her family was American. She was a tall woman, pushing six foot, humble and practical. But by anyone's standard, she was a force of nature

I'm not sure what year my grandparents married, but my dad would have been born somewhere around 1930 and he was the youngest of seven children. My guess is that they were married around 1910. In that year they bought a rural Georgia farm outside of Augusta, where they lived their entire lives, and raised seven children.

To give you some historical perspective, when they bought their farm there were 47 states, women could not vote in national elections, there wasn't a federal income tax, there were no interstate highways, you couldn't make a phone call across most of the country, and U.S. Senators were still selected by each State's House of Representatives (as the Constitution dictates). It was a very different era.

Over the years the size of the farm shrunk as the the city of Augusta grew. By the time I came along my dad and uncles were grown and moved on. At this point the farm was about twenty acres. Everything was old, but well maintained. The acreage was long and narrow. It included the house, numerous chicken pens, two barns and a wild pasture that was bordered by two adjoining creeks, which represented their property line. The other side of the creeks had once been more pasture, but in 1963 there was a modern neighborhood full of kids.

Daily life on the farm began and ended with milking. There I learned to milk a cow, churn butter, ride horses (and mules) feed and care for the livestock and of course how to shoot a gun. Grandpa Waagner taught me all these things. He loved to teach. I am confident he was Iike this with all of his grandchildren,but at the time I thought he loved me most. He had the kind of focus that made you think you were the only person in the world. It is not the kind of attention a six year old generally experiences, so I responded to him with my love and respect. That summer was a great time of adventure and learning. Looking back, it's difficult to believe that summer would end with me in confusion and shock, but this is the case.

Near the end of the summer I overheard a conversation that would nearly destroy me. It happened late one afternoon when I woke from a nap to voices. Grandma was sitting on the front porch shelling peas with a friend of hers and they were talking about me. The guest bedroom had a window a few feet away from the porch, near where I laid in bed, so it was easy to hear what was being said through the open window. The conversation was about how well I had fit into my adopted family and how good a man Karl was for treating me like I was his own son. I remember those words, but I don't remember anything after that.

The revelation destroyed everything I thought I knew about my family and it hit me hard. I returned home to Savannah almost immediately to see a psychiatrist. One of the few things I remember about this time was the psychiatrist. I recall numerous sessions with him and I have specific memories of hating him and his stupid questions. I recall giving him a hard time to the point of frustrating him into declaring he couldn't help me.

After that I was enrolled in a private Catholic school for second grade. We weren't Catholic, but in 1963 in Savannah it was the only private school. I got into constant trouble with the nuns, who were big believers in corporal punishment. I have a perfect memory of the day President John F. Kennedy, our only Catholic President, was shot and killed in Dallas, Texas. I will never forget how the always calm and controlled nuns openly wept in pain. I remember being made to take a bunch of written tests and being told by the nuns that I was the smartest kid in the school. I also remember them saying I was a disappointment when I failed second grade.

My memories are pretty sketchy after this. I know the revelation about my dad hit me really hard. At some point after this my mom told me all about my real dad, about my sister Terry Janie and how she had died. She showed me pictures of my sister and pictures of her grave, but she didn't have pictures of my dad.

I recall asking her if I could talk to my dad. She didn't have his phone number, or any idea where he lived, but she knew how to find his family, so she called them and began the process of getting his phone number. I recall setting on mom's bed through the night as she made call after call trying to get his number. Eventually I fell asleep. I was groggy when she woke me up to talk to my dad for the first time since I was two. I remember very little about that conversation, except that it didn't help to fill the hole I had in my heart.

*Thanks for reading along with me. I am reading each section as I edit them and post them here. Growing up, dad always told stories. Some so exciting, I remember questioning if they were even true! They always were. He usually left out the painful things. Protecting himself. I knew he found out about being adopted by accident, and I always assumed it messed with him. But this is the first time I see it in his own words.