Chapter 3

The first thing I did, after deciding to change my life, was take the test for a GED (General Equivalency Diploma) for high school. I had only made it through 2 and a half years of secondary school before dropping out. It was a rainy cold day when I sat and breezed through the pages and pages of questions. I walked out and sat for a bit in my car and watched the clouds roll down the surrounding mountains, obsessing about the exam results. I needn't have. I had gotten the highest marks ever received, I learned when I opened the official envelope from the State Board of Education a few weeks later. It was rather ironic, receiving my dispensation from Mr. Mulhaney's department. At any rate, clearly my mother had given me a precious gift by instilling in me a love of books. It wasn't practical knowledge, but I could use the doors opened to me by reading and learning to change my life.

I wasn't sure what to do next. One night a moderately pregnant Blair and I were sitting on our couch watching television when the first episode for "The Paper Chase" with John Houseman came on. You might remember this program, it was about the brutality of law school. In the pilot for the series, Houseman, as law professor, attacked his students repeatedly through humiliation in the classroom as a way to break them down and make them think. (An aside here I can't stop myself from making, the Socratic Method, as applied in our law schools, is evil. Someday I'll blog my rant about it.) At the same time, when one of his students got into trouble through naive foolishness, he fixed it for her behind the scenes in a rather tender caring way.

I had an epiphany. If I could go to law school and take the punishment, survive it, and become a lawyer, I would have redeemed myself. I would be cleansed by fire. I suddenly had visions of me riding in on a white horse, doing legal battle, and saving the world. Subconsciously, I think I had the childish hope that if I slaved hard enough, abased myself deeply enough, and by that full throttle exhaustion rose to the ranks of the exalted, my father would love me. My family had never known a lawyer personally, we were the working poor and one stop above the ranks of welfare dolees, but like many, we put lawyers on the pedestal of the elite in our minds. We believed them to be rich, powerful, and ranked just below God. That we hated them in the abstract only underlined our beliefs, as our resentment was that of disenfranchised underlings chafing against those far above them in station. What if, instead of seething in envy, I became one of the envied? It was all the better for me if it was nearly, but not quite, impossible for someone of my origins to do so. The emptiness formed inside me when I gave up drugs and alcohol could now be filled. I had a new addiction. I would achieve the inconceivable.

I never discussed my decision with Blair. Instead, I told her what I was going to do, and expected her to go along with it. It never occurred to me to think she wouldn't support me, or that her needs were different than mine, or to wonder what effect my plans would have on our soon to be born child. At first Blair acquiesced, my obsession wasn't too obvious yet and on the face of it, it appeared that my going to university could only help our situation in the long run. In the meantime there would be great sacrifice on her part, which I assumed she accepted because she didn't object. In fair truth, I didn't think much about Blair. I simply decided for all of us where we were going to go, and we went there.

I came to this decision in late summer, and determined to go to school immediately. The easiest way to do that was to apply to the only "real" college (university for our English readers) in town. The College of St. Josaphat (St. Joe's) was a Catholic college that was open to non-Catholics. It has a well deserved strong reputation for rigorous academics, even if it is very small and rather insular. There was also a local community college, but it only offered two year degrees, and didn't command much respect. I walked into St. Joe's admissions office, and presented myself and my GED scores. I must have impressed them somehow, they admitted me on the spot, and put together a package of grants and scholarships that covered all of my tuition and books. The biggest financial need, living expenses, would be on our shoulders.

Until that time, I had avoided living assistance, i.e. welfare. Now, however, Blair needed to stop working and we had to eat and pay our rent somehow. With bitter chagrin eating at the pit of my stomach, I shuffled over to the aid office, submitted to their belittling degradation, and applied for welfare. The philosophy at that time was to meaningfully get people off the dole, rather than just abandon them and blame them as it is now, so the rules actually provided for slightly more favorable treatment for those in college or training and ignored any financial aid they got for tuition and books; however, then, as now, you were made to grovel like an inch high worm to get help. Now that Blair and I had no income at all, we had to do something and there were no other options that we could see. We received food stamps, a heating fuel allotment, and a grant for rent and basic needs. After paying all monthly necessities, we had $40.00 left over. We didn't have a credit card. We didn't have the budget for a telephone, so we didn't have one. Our television died and wasn't replaced. We couldn't afford the van, so I sold it, and I got my childhood bicycle from my parent's house. I didn't know what I'd do when winter hit, but I'd figure it out when it came. If I worked part time, we'd lose the welfare under their rules at that time, and since I couldn't earn enough to cover us while going to school full time, a part time job was thus not an option. St. Joe's did not allow students to take classes on less than a full time basis. So, we were stuck on welfare.

That first semester was a shock. It was hard! I had to wrap my mind around thinking like a student after being out of school for many years. St. Joe's did not coddle students either, the academics were quite difficult and there were no remedial classes. Furthermore, St. Joe's did not use the typical grading system of 90 to 100 being an A, 80 to 89 being a B, and so on. At St. Joe's, you didn't get an A unless you achieved a 92 percentile or higher, and a B started at 85. Of course my obsession kicked in, of course I had to get A's and allowed myself no other option. By the end of the first week, every second of my time had become dedicated to doing the work. I almost forgot Blair existed. Had I stopped drinking and drugging? Yes, but the addictive behavior remained. Somehow Blair continued on while I turned into someone who was only ever present as a lump bent over the cheap metal and formica kitchen table, working, working, working.

By the mid-point of the semester, my self confidence was on the rise. All reports showed I was achieving the A's I struggled for. That I was so bleary eyed from exhaustion that I could barely read my grade report didn't faze me at all. I thought to show my grades to Blair, and she was effusive in her praise, and I gloated. She was trying so hard to contribute, and in fact took care of everything so I could go to school. I took total advantage and left it all for her to do. I ignored her so badly, I can't tell you today how she cleaned house or went shopping while waddling painfully along at 9 months pregnant, using public transit to get about. It all abruptly changed when one night, at 2:00 a.m., she woke me to say she was in labor. Ohmygod.

My son's birth was miraculous, there were complications and Blair was in labor for 60 hours. By the most amazing luck, the hospital had borrowed a fetal heart monitor on a trial basis, and put it on Blair toward the end. Fetal heart monitors were brand new technology then, and most hospitals didn't have them. When the monitor showed our baby's heart stopping at every contraction, the doctors did an emergency C-section. Our son was born perfectly shaped, and Blair was told her badly deformed uterus had been removed. They were astonished that she'd gotten pregnant at all, but there would be no more children.

Blair was in the hospital for a week recovering, and it took us the whole 7 days to come to agreement on a name for the baby. The nurses pushed the issue, and finally told us we had to name him before I took Blair and the baby home. Remember Lindsey Wagner, the Bionic Woman? Her character on the television show was named Jaime, a name used for both boys and girls. I didn't tell Blair that I had a little crush on bionic Jaime Sommers. I insisted we name the baby Jaime, riding roughshod over Blair's other suggestions. Finally, exhausted, Blair acquiesced to my demand and agreed to sign the naming documents. A funny thing happened. The nurses brought a form to Blair to sign naming our son Jaime Daniel Thomas, using her last name, rather than my Newsome. I was in class when this happened.

Blair pointed out the error.

"Oh," said the nurse snippily. "We just assumed Mr. Newsome wouldn't admit his paternity, and wouldn't sign as the father."

Blair was furious. "Of course he will. What are you talking about?" I had spent quite a bit of time visiting Blair and Jaime, and the nurses knew that.

"Well, the two of you aren't married, and we just assumed..." the nurse dithered.

"WE ARE TOO MARRIED," Blair screamed. Never mess with a women who is freshly post partum. "What makes you think we aren't married?"

"Uh, but, uh, we thought with the different last names..." The nurse was bright red and stuttering about.

Blair went up one side of her and down the other. Prejudices have a long time hanging on. There were two issues here. First, since we had different last names, they jumped to the stupid conclusion that we weren't married. Was it because we were welfare and medicaid recipients? Secondly, under Vermont law parents can give their babies any last name they choose, even Beeblebrox or Late-To-Supper. Blair could have named the baby Newsome whether or not I signed admitting paternity, and whether or not we were married. These nurses were applying their own values where they had no business doing so. Our boy was duly named Jaime Daniel Newsome after the nurses cringingly corrected their error.

If I thought I had been exhausted before Jaime was born, I didn't know squat. I was going to be a GOOD FATHER, and that meant I had to be there for him. At the same time, I couldn't cut back on schoolwork and meet my expectations for myself. So, I added my hours with Jaime to an already insane schedule. My sleep went from 6 or 7 hours a night to 3 or 4 hours a night. I was there to change his diaper, burp him, sing to him, rock him, heck, I would have fed him had I been equipped. I didn't give any attention to Blair, I don't know how she was managing. I'd give her a peck on the cheek as I ran by sometimes, but I left everything else but Jaime and school in her hands. I was so depleted that I could barely force myself to get out of bed yet one more time.

Through the fog of exhaustion, I had vaguely noticed that I seemed to be physically stiffening up, especially in the neck and shoulders. Shrugging it off as lack of exercise for which I no longer had time, I kept right on going. Within a day or two, the stiffness became acute pain, and I couldn't turn my neck. Whether I wanted to or not, I ran down and came to a complete stop. I was so out of it, Blair got me into a taxi and into the hospital. It didn't take long to get a diagnosis of mononucleosis. With my lack of bodily resources, I had a particularly vicious case. There is no cure except bed rest, so Blair put me back to bed at home. For the next month I crept to the bathroom and back to bed, with no other action. I didn't eat for a long time. It hurt so bad, I really wanted to die to be released from it. Slowly, slowly the pain slipped away and I was able to move about, but by now the semester was over except for exams. I was still not able to attend classes physically, and I had lost out on a month of instruction. With no other recourse, I asked the administration if I could withdraw from all classes without penalty, and try again in the spring. Knowing my situation, they kindly agreed.

I felt like I had been kicked in the teeth to have worked so hard and received nothing. Something not atypical for me happened - I got a hair up my butt and got pissed off. When that happened, I became absolutely determined to succeed through sheer will power no matter what I had to do, and would let nothing deflect me from my goal. I did spend lots of time with Jaime during the break, and even reconnected with Blair and her lovely body somewhat, but I was chomping at the bit to get back to work at school. I had learned nothing from having mono.

Sure enough, I jumped right into school with a vengeance, catching rides to school with other students now that winter had arrived. I pulled it off, too. None of my grades were less than an A ... except one. I had taken a ceramics course that first semester back because of a hole in my schedule and a lack of relevant classes to fill it. I liked art, and I figured it would be an easy A. I was shocked to see the B on my grade report. I pleaded with the instructor, who also happened to be the academic dean, but to no avail. Grrrrr. That was it, that damned man had put a barrier in front of me, and I was going to jump over it with air to spare. I signed up for the class again and made pots until I was covered with clay from head to foot, and I made my A. Every semester, I took ceramics, and an A in clay was never an issue after that. I had fallen in love with making pottery, and I created excellent work.

My success in ceramics didn't change my tunnel vision at that time. I was still going to become a lawyer come Hell or high water. The inherent problem with finishing an undergraduate degree at St. Joe's was that they offered no pre-law preparation. I was officially an English major, but I had filled my schedule with general requirement (gen-ed) courses only (plus ceramics, lol). After the post-mono year and a half of 18, 19, or 20 credit hours per semester I had taken, I had finished all of St. Joe's ged-eds. I came to the realization that I was going to have to transfer to another school to get the pre-law training I needed.

Throughout this time, I failed to give Blair the attention and love that she needed. I have no idea why she hung on. Jaime got more of me than Blair did, but as he became weaned and potty trained, and started sleeping through the night, my time with him decreased, too. I didn't do it intentionally, it's just that I didn't notice either of them. They were self-propelled, or at least interdependent, and if they had no problems needing my attention, I let other demands - school and getting high grades - fill my day. I did not see that Blair kept the house clean or got the shopping in without a car or managed Jaime, I just took it for granted that she did. In that vein, I simply announced to Blair that we were going to have to move to another college, and we were going to check out some different schools. We had a blazing row, but I was like iron, and I didn't care, frankly, that she would be leaving her small support network that she had built up. I shoved it down her throat that I was in school and pre-law for our family, and she could get out of my way and let me make the sacrifice for all of us. I cannot believe it now that I believed that hogwash then, but I did, fiercely.

What could she say, really, in the face of my alleged devotion and dedication? When I found a fellow student willing to drive us up to a school in the north for a site visit, Blair grudgingly agreed to go along, leaving Jaime with my mother for the day. The school, Johansen State College, was a three hour drive away, and sat on top of the mountain ridge that runs the entire length of the state. I remember the car laboring up steep side of the peak to the campus and being astounded at the sheer beauty surrounding us. What a place to put a school! I decided there and then I would attend JSC if I could figure out any way to get the academics I needed. The administration and students that I met were very welcoming, and you could tell this was a tight-knit community. We all ended up enjoying our visit, even Blair ... reluctantly.

In fact, JSC offered a political science (poli-sci) degree tailored for the pre-law student, and they even had an active ceramics program. I put in my application for admittance and financial aid, and hoped. Given my grades so far at St. Joe's, a school that demanded so much in return for its begrudged A's, I easily got into JSC. Grants and scholarships were offered to cover tuition and books, but living expenses would again be on our shoulders. Well, we'd lived this long on welfare, we could grit our teeth and continue to do so. As we came to know, the town of Johansen was isolated and extremely impoverished, and most local people not employed by JSC had to live on social assistance. Welfare was not a stigma in Johansen.

We cut ties to the College of St. Josaphat, and took leave of the City of Rottland. I loaded our detritus, my wife, our son, and Prudence into a rented box van, and made north. By pay telephone and a Johansen real estate agent, I had leased a small duplex sight unseen that was a mile from campus. I figured I could easily walk that distance. I had forgotten the final ascending peak, but later became very closely acquainted with it during the 45 minutes required to climb up it, and the 20 minutes needed to descend. I began and ended my academic day with that hill, usually in the abrupt and severe weather that often attends mountain top locations. I remember one day of driving freezing rain that covered my face in ice so thickly I couldn't open my eyes past a slit. Any way, I made the climb tolerable for myself by stopping every time for a quick breath when I reached the top, turning and looking at the surrounding mountains for just a minute or two. Every day they were different, perhaps in color or atmosphere, or by the array of mist and clouds covering them. One campus building was located halfway back down that hill, and so some days I had to go up and down two or more times when some of my classes were scheduled in that hall. It didn't kill me, so it must have toughened me.

I couldn't believe how easy the classes were at JSC. You could work hard and learn a lot, but you had to do so on your own incentive. If you paid attention in class, spoke up once in a while, and could string two coherent words together on paper, you would earn yourself an A. JSC employed the usual grading scheme where an A is given at 90% or above. After St. Joe's more stringent system, JSC's was a breath of fresh air. Lots of kids coasted by with C's and D's because they could, and still end up with a degree. Even so, JSC was a party school, and many dropped out when they couldn't even meet these easy standards. I didn't coast, and I didn't party, but I was able to cut way back on effort and still make the grade I wanted. As a result, Jaime and Blair actually got time with me. In fact, we began to take hikes and bicycle together, putting Jaime in a seat on the back of an old bike we picked up for Blair. We put in a garden come spring, we went fishing, and we had a social life. The state had just implemented a workfare system whereby welfare recipients could return to work and have the first $100.00 of income per month disregarded for calculating assistance. It would also pay for child care while you worked or went to school. What a great program. It was a meaningful way to get people permanently off welfare, rather than current programs that just cut your welfare after three months of working and dump you back into worthless employment and permanent working poverty or homelessness. Blair found a part time job after putting Jaime into a day care run by JSC's elementary ed department, and was very happy. One day, she and I found ourselves alone in the afternoon, as Jaime hadn't yet been picked up from day care. I remember the sun shining through the window on Blair's skin as my tongue trailed over every inch of her body as we lay in bed. That moment was the happiest of our lives together.

Alas, I had too much inner torment to let myself be happy, or to remain vulnerable by caring too openly for Blair and Jaime. The free time wore on me. I became entangled in extracurricular activities and some political groups, and I spent vast amounts of time in the ceramics studio. At the end of my first semester at JSC, I was offered the editorship of the campus weekly newspaper, Basement Medicine. What a resume booster it would be. I jumped in with two feet, and any spare moment I previously had disappeared into the ether. I was secretly glad that the paper took so much effort. There was an early computer department at the college, but computers were expensive and certainly not available to lowly student activity groups. We typed the paper up long hand on the typewriter twice, once with slashes filling in gaps at the ends of the column, and then once again so as to put enough spaces in the lines to justify (even up) the right margin. Then we waxed the back of the actual typed article and applied the paper to the master page on top of a light table. We had to have the paper to the local printing press by 8 a.m. The pressman would photograph our masters and embed the images on metal plates from which the newspaper was actually printed. Often, we had no sleep at all, rushing to get the paper laid out and driven to the printer in time. Whoever had a car drove it there. Production night came after a long week of interviewing people and writing articles, selling advertising, creating artwork for the ads, taking and developing photographs (all pre-digital) and the like. I barely remembered I had a son and a wife.

I was unable to maintain a perfect A average at JSC. I had always had trouble with math, and barely managed to squeak through JSC's algebra ged-ed requirement. I had a mental block, I could meet with the professor who tutored me himself outside of class, and I would remember what he said until the test was done, and then it was gone out of my head. I knew I was capable, but I couldn't hold onto it. I worked hard for the B I got. I couldn't torture myself into taking another round of math to make up for it, I truly despised math. The second B at Johansen makes me angry to this day. We had an extremely conservative guest lecturer, Frank Bryant, teach one of my poli-sci classes. He is well known in Vermont for having written Real Vermonters Don't Milk Goats. I put my usual over-the-top effort into my writings and oral presentations, and I know the quality was there, but the man hated my politics and graded me accordingly. I screamed about it, but since the grade was based on things like term papers and class participation, factors hard to break down into numerical scores, my grade was not raised after review. It was Bryant's right, said the dean's office, to evaluate me on intangible factors not related to academic rigor. Other students in the class were furious on my behalf. Since I was not willing to become an intolerant rigid redneck conservative prick like Mr. Bryant, there was no sense in taking more classes from the man and trying to improve my image in his eye. Sometimes you have to cut your losses and move on. That was the last B I got at Johansen.

Blair had a much harder time in Johansen, because life is physically harder there. We didn't have a car. We didn't have a washer and dryer, and we had a toddler still in cloth diapers. There was only one grocery store in town, and you could either order clothing at the Sears catalog outlet or buy used duds at a thrift shop. The weather was often harsh. Blair would bundle herself and Jaime up, put him in a child's wagon, and walk him and the dirty diapers in to the laundromat. Thank goodness there was one. Town lay exactly half way between our duplex and the college, but the formidable hill I climbed every day lay on the far side of town, in the second half mile. At least she didn't have to deal with pulling the wagon up the mountain. When she at last got the part time job waitressing at the Plum and Main Restaurant, she put her foot down - she wanted a car. I readily agreed, I was darn well sick and tired of hiking that hill in the winter, and we could just afford a car with her small income. My Uncle Jim, whom I trusted when it came to cars, found a reasonably good clunker that had been parked after blowing a water pump. Three hundred dollars was a bargain, even then, and I knew I could replace the water pump myself. He arranged for the seller to trailer it over to me. Now I had to get a water pump. I jumped on my bike and pedaled to the nearest car parts store, in Mauriceburg, 13 miles away, then back again, all in steady cold rain. It took me all day pulling the rusted in bolts on the fan to get at the pump, but once I got the part in, and got all the gaskets put in right (harder than you might think), the car ran. All the while I was working on that old 1972 Montego, Steve Miller's Mercury Blues was running through my head. Blair named the car Dusty, well, because it was dusty, and old, and held together with bondo and duct tape.