Origin and Earliest Memories

I was born October 14th, 1963, shortly before the JFK assassination.

My father Warren Emmanuel Woolhiser was and is an Electrical Engineer now retired.  He married my mother Paula Ann Ryan on St. Patrick's Day, 1963, and they made their home in a small duplex at either 16 or 18 Rendall Place, Melrose, MA. I do have memories of the shape of this house, particularly the garage entrance. It seems to me the color hasn't changed in 50 years either.

My recollection was that we lived on the lower floor.  It's pretty amazing what Google Street View can provide today.

Of course anyone now doing the math, will figure out that I attended my mother's wedding.  So I guess legally and technically, you may call me a bastard.  I don't see any particular shame in this, my parents were young and committed to each other in love.  It's just a technicality, that if anything tickles my funny bone.

I believe we lived here until 1967, when my parents bought new construction at 1 Blacksmith Rd, Chelmsford, MA. 

So without very strong particulars there were three memories from Rendall Place that stick out.

The first is siting on a small concrete wall on
Linwood Ave, where I watched at least a platoon or two of olive drab green soldiers marching down Linwood Ave. They were in battle dress, and I don't know where they were marching to or from, I just knew they were soldiers.  God bless them for their service and whatever they happened to be doing on that day.  I often wonder if they were actually marching off to Vietnam, of if this had just simply been a National Guard drill.   But for a small boy, it was impressive, and may have contributed to my military mindset early on.

The second thing that happened while at Rendall Place was that I was playing with another boy in a sandbox just a little ways up the hill from the house.  I can't remember his face or his name, we were simply two boys with Tonka trucks in a sandbox.  I don't remember the day but I learned that while at the sandbox I failed to control my rage, and I hit the other boy with one of the trucks in the face.

Apparently I hit him so hard, that I actually caused a permanent disfigurement with his teeth and jaw.

Again, I don't remember his face, but the story haunts me so that I consider this to be a pivitol moment in my life.  I often believe this is where I got my fist instruction from my mother not to hit anyone first.  I'm sure I was made to feel pretty badly about it.

I do think this was critical to my nature in human interaction.  Later in college, I would formally adopt Ginchin Funakoshi's quotation Karate ni sente nashi  meaning: there is no first attack in karate.

It still is often difficult to control my rage, but I manage as best I can.

Should this boy, or his family become aware of this blog, I do welcome contact as I feel it's an un-closed apology I need to make.  I still often wonder about him.  Did he not get the girl had had his real love for due to the injury I set in his face?  What other opportunities did he miss?  I really would like to hear about it one day.

The last thing I took away from Randall Place was that I managed to put my hand though the plate glass window on the East side of the house, and the scars are in my hand to this day.

In moving into 1 Blacksmith Rd, my mother showed me the water tower or tank in the backyard, and told me that was mine.  I believed it for several years, and asserted my ownership with the neighborhood children several times.

I'm sure she though it was ugly, assumed I would, and was just trying to put the best face on the situation.  It was right out my bedroom window, impossible to ignore.

My mother kept 1 Blacksmith Rd through her divorce with my father, and struggled to keep until she met her second husband.  There were other male figures in my life at this time who should receive attention in a separate post.

But I want to thank my mother for having provided stabilty, at 1 Blacksmith, which she recently sold in November of 2014.  This is in contrast to how I have moved my own wife and children around from Massachusttes, Ohio, Arkansas and now North Carolina.

BRAVO ZULU, Mom!