Paradise Found and Lost

If Heaven is full of Mormons, I think I’d like to go to Hell.

One of the last things my little brother asked me before he killed himself was why I was still active in the church that he had grown to hate so much. I told him that I believed that no one was perfect, but that the gospel they were trying to live was. Mormons had a lot to learn, but they were generally good people making an effort to be better people. At the time, it seemed to be the most sincere and thoughtful answer I could offer up to someone who had been scarred by judgment and maltreatment at the hands of Mormons, myself included. Having at last learned that to love one another is the greater law, I hoped that my words carried some weight, conveying the message that the self-righteous could change.

That was almost six years ago, and my brother is long dead by his own hand. In the years that followed his suicide, I watched my own faith wash away in the rain of despair, until I felt as though I was standing on a single block of stone, a belief in God the only remnant of a once firm foundation. Family discord, grief, anxiety, and frustration with a Mormon congregation that had seemed to move on without me and my unanswered questions drove me further and further away from happy Sundays at church. I found myself sobbing at the first notes of hopeful hymns, avoiding those who had once been good friends, and seeking escape from my parents and siblings.

So we moved to Utah, a drastic measure that will have demonstrated to anyone who truly knew me just how far down into the depths of despair I had sunk, and just how desperate I was to surface.

We chose a valley town at high altitude, a happy oasis surrounded by mountains, blessed by sunshine, and jam packed with Mormons. In our valley, horses run in open fields, every sunset lights the sky with fire, and a slight breeze from the canyon above stirs up sweet smells year round. Snow falls as ski-perfect powder, thunderstorms spark their way across the valley, and mosquitoes appear to have been outlawed. There are no stop lights in our town, you won’t get into trouble for riding in the back of a pickup, and the occasional traffic backup is due only to the yearly rodeo or loose cattle in the road. It is, when measured by all standards of beauty, a true paradise.

Our first two years here were blissful. For the first time in my life, I felt at home, and believed that I would never again feel the need to move. Our kids, although missing their friends back east, adapted by making new friends, getting involved, and benefiting from parents that were happy once again. Their social calendars were as full as they wished them to be, while Elizabeth and I were content to remain casual in our new friendships. It was enough for us to be happy, spending time together that didn’t revolve around grief and misery.

Not knowing any of our neighbor’s personal histories afforded us the freedom to love them without conditions. We didn’t need to know any more than whatever people were willing to tell us, and since many of them lived on the same street as their parents, siblings, cousins, and childhood friends, they didn’t feel the need to tell us much at all. We were fine with that; it freed us from pre-conceived notions and meant that we could be engaged without the baggage of the past weighing down our relationships.

Church became new and interesting again, and I felt a faith in the good influence that religion can wield in a person’s life begin to once again take foothold in my own. These were good people, with happy children and strong ties to common beliefs and family. They were small town, but they were by no means backwards and ignorant.  To me they seemed to be cut from the fringes of Utah Mormon cloth rather than the center, and I didn’t feel pressure to conform to a standard. I knew that we were something of a novelty, being from the East Coast as we were, and I rather enjoyed my life as a New Hampshire Yankee in Brigham Young’s court.

We threw ourselves into valley life. We enjoyed the yearly Independence Day rodeo, made sure we got tickets to the demolition derby, and I even pulled out my grandfather’s shotgun and fired it for the first time. We spent time in the local burger joint, took part in service projects, and for the first time in my life, I cheered for a high school football team. I stopped short of donning Wranglers and a cowboy hat, and none of my radio presets were changed to country music stations, but I did go horseback riding when invited, and even considered learning to hunt. The ultimate small town honor came when I was asked to serve as an emcee along the 4^th of July parade route. It took a few minutes for the street-lining crowd to warm up to my East Coast act, but I must have done something right, because I was asked back the following summer.

Along the way, l wrote a book about Jared losing his life just as I had found mine. Many valley residents took the time to reach out and let me know just how powerful the book had been for them. It had changed their way of thinking, loving, and living, and it had given them hope for their own families. It was important for me to hear that they loved my writing, but much more valuable to me was the sharing of their secret struggles, crushing fears, and troubling doubts. I hadn’t written the book to make money, but to change and perhaps even save lives, even just one. To hear their stories helped me to make something good and beautiful spring out of Jared’s life and death.

Life wasn’t without its speed bumps and disappointments, but it was good.

And then Caleb left for university. The day your first child leaves home to live their own life is bittersweet; you are excited and even envious to know that so many adventures and character-building challenges await them, but at the same time you are sad to know that your life has forever changed, and that you will spend the rest of your days missing them and trying to convince them to visit you. On that night, you shouldn’t be stirred from restless slumber by your youngest child, who has been frightened by shadowy figures lurking in your front yard at two o’clock in the morning.

But I was. I chased the culprits across our freshly toilet-papered yard to their car, managing to get a grip on one of them for just a moment before he slammed the door and they sped away. They came back the next night, and the night after that. It was funny (sort of) the first time; it was summer, and so I figured that mindless teenagers were just out doing what mindless teenagers do when they don’t have to get up in the morning to work for a living, go to school, or report to a probation officer. I thought they would move on to another neighborhood, another house, another town. But they didn’t. They came back the next week, or at least someone did. They doorbell ditched us, papered our trees, and drove past our house, honking their horns and shouting at us. They began calling our daughter’s cell phone over and over again, blocking their numbers and threatening to return and make our world white.

It wasn’t funny anymore.

I called the sheriff and reported the license plate that I had memorized from that first encounter. A deputy was sent to the owner’s house, but the parents told him that their son was away at college and they had been out of town that past week, so there was no way he or their Dodge Durango had been involved. I later confirmed that to be a lie, and while I understood their need to keep their mischievous child from having a permanent record, I wondered about their need to teach their son about accountability.

These unwanted visits went on for weeks, although once school started they took to giving us a break on weeknights. But our weekends were no longer restful; we felt like captives in our own home, dreading nightfall and the mayhem that would ensue along with it. We would sit and watch movies with the windows open, hoping to hear them out in the yard so that we could yell at them before they had a chance to fill the trees with paper or hammer on our windows and doors with their fists. Elizabeth would sometimes even wait for them by the front door, and she managed to more than once throw it open and startle a masked and hooded teenager as he approached our door. On a few occasions they were brazen enough to coat our trees in paper and make their honking drive-byes during the early evening hours before the sun had set. They must have felt invincible, knowing that there was little we could do to stop them.

As parents of a feisty teenage daughter, it did occur to us that Hannah might have offended someone, perhaps a former girlfriend that now held some sort of vendetta against her for a teenage disagreement or betrayal. We wondered what she could have done, however, that would warrant such a sustained barrage of abuse. We questioned her at length, which flooded out home with teenage tension. At fifteen, she already thought we were restrictive and untrusting, and our interrogations only seemed to confirm our lack of faith in her. She remained adamant that she had done nothing to merit such treatment, and we did our best to believe her.

One night I spied yet another shadowy hoard of small-town thugs in our backyard, except this time they were lurking near Hannah’s window. The thought that her blinds were more than likely open and that they had been watching her sent me into an adrenaline rage. I sprinted from the front door, and they made their escape. I gave chase, and nearly caught the fattest of the despicable herd as we rounded a corner north of our house. I followed them through the neighborhood and out to the state road that runs through town. I ran after them until they cut into a field and disappeared.

“I just want to know why,” I tried to shout through the wheezing of my lungs. Their laughter mocked me as they escaped.

After calling the sheriff’s dispatch line and huffing my way through a demand for action, I called Elizabeth, and between gasps for air asked for her to come and pick me up in the car. She was sure that I was having a heart attack, and worried over me until I calmed down enough to rant without gasping for breath.

The deputy that finally showed up that night told me the same thing law enforcement had told me every other time I had called and asked that they assist me in putting an end to out torment. I had to catch the culprits in the act, but I could do nothing to hurt them, or the liability would rest on my head, in spite of the fact that they were trespassing on my property. Just what they meant by “catch them” wasn’t made clear, and I wondered if I would have to actually tackle one of them and sit on his chest until help arrived.

By this point I had a good idea that some of the boys in our church congregation, boys that I had spent the past two years teaching on Sunday mornings, were involved. I made my suspicions known during an ongoing group text sent out to the young men about a youth activity at the church. My accusations were met with anger and denial, followed by an admission of guilt, conflicting stories, and a suggestion that my family needed to “relax.” I was also admonished by church leadership to hold such discussions in private, away from group texts pertaining to church youth activities. One of the accused (guilty) boys did at last call me personally, and although his story changed a few times throughout our conversation, he did say that he would stop, and that he would tell others to stay away from our home as well. I showed good faith and took him at his word, having little other recourse short of getting myself into trouble with the law for thumping him as soundly as I wanted to.

We decided to ignore any future property invasions, in the hopes that they would get bored with us and stop for good. In an attempt at humor, I bought a pile of dollar store toilet paper, set it up on a folding table out front, and posted a sign that read, “YOU WIN!” The paper disappeared that night, but it wasn’t used on our house. We hoped this was a sign that things would be calm moving forward.

In the meantime, Hannah declared her independence from both school and church. The family conversations that followed are private, but it is enough to say I wished for enough superhuman strength to lift the proverbial car off of her troubled body and save her life. We enrolled her in an online school, something that I had never before seen as an option for my kids, or as something my socially active daughter would ever consider.

It was soon after Hannah started her online classes that Caleb revealed to me that while at a Mormon missionary’s farewell party, he had heard a young man refer to his little sister as a slut. Caleb, a calm and well composed young man, trembled with rage as he told me the story. He expressed deep regret at his inaction at that moment. He had wanted to leap on the young man like an angry spider monkey, tearing the flesh from his face, but hadn’t, and it gnawed on his conscience.

Since that moment, I have found myself asking the same question Jared asked of me.

Why do I stay?

The next time the hooded figures came calling, I was ready. As they made to escape in two cars parked up the street, I gave chase in my wife’s car, following the last one to leave our street. We played cat and mouse for an hour; they would stop and try to wait me out, or fake right but turn left, thinking that they could trick me and get away. I laughed as they made every attempt to lose me. They didn’t know that I was well into the third season of “The Rockford Files” on Netflix, and after watching James Garner drive that copper-mist Firebird like Steve McQueen’s protégé, there was no way they were going to lose me. I didn’t have my phone with me, and as I followed our tormenters I could only imagine what Elizabeth must have been thinking back home.

Kids are generally stupid, and this bunch was no different. They eventually returned to our neighborhood and pulled into a dead end. I parked with my high beams aimed at their windshield, and when they tried to pass me I blocked their every attempt to flee past me. After several minutes, a young man summoned his courage and exited their car, walking over to my window. He trembled as he asked what I wanted.

“What do I want? I want you to stop harassing my family! I want you to stay off my property! I want you to tell me why!” I raged.

I then read him the riot act at high volume for twenty minutes, extracted from him a list of the kids involved, and threatened any legal action possible under the law. Another boy had found his stones and joined the one-sided conversation halfway through it. He too trembled as he learned that an angry father is a force to be reckoned with. They both confessed to following the lead of other kids, specifically two girls who allegedly hated Hannah, and to being dumb teenagers who had nothing else to do and no sense. (Their words, not mine.) I asked them if they thought they were good Mormon kids, and if they even listened to a damn thing on Sunday mornings about loving one another.

That seemed to cut them pretty deep.

I let them go and went home, adrenaline coursing through my veins. Worried that I had chased the kids off the road and was feasting on their mangled corpses, Elizabeth had called the sheriffs, and they had sent a patrol car to find me before I took drastic measures. The deputy sheriff turned up at our house a few minutes after I returned, and he informed us that he had pulled over a car with expired tags leaving our neighborhood, and found it to be filled with terrified teenagers. He had taken their names, and to that list he added the names that I had collected. I was given a case number and told to call should I wish to pursue matters any further.

Elizabeth knows far more people in the valley than I do, and some of the names I had collected shocked her. Knowing their parents as she did, she couldn’t believe that they would be involved in something so malicious. Some of them had been in our home, invited over by Hannah for movie nights and birthday parties. It cast a dark light on our view of this happy valley, to find out that so many kids from so many good Mormon families were the cause of our miserable and sleepless weekends. We decided against calling their parents, believing that word of my threats and the warnings of the deputy sheriff would spread throughout the school, bringing an end to the madness. We just wanted it to end.

I had mentioned the situation to a limited number of locals, and the looks and responses I got were anything but empathetic. A distinct sense that they believed me to be over-reacting forced me to shut down any further discussion on the matter. I took my frustration to bed with me each night, and passed many nights in restless sleep. Unhappiness is tiring to the extreme, especially when your dreams of happiness become a waking nightmare. I was exhausted, and so was my family.

Fathers embarrass their teenage children; this is a fact of life that you can’t understand and accept until you grow up and become a father of teenagers. By this time Hannah had passed from embarrassed to mortified, to hear of my running and chasing and threatening, but I felt that there was nothing else I could do. I hoped that she could somehow understand that as her father I would do whatever I could to protect our family, not only from physical threats, but emotional and spiritual menaces as well. Since our family was often exhausted from lack of sleep over the weekends, our Mondays and Tuesdays were tense, and we found ourselves at odds with each other, bickering and slamming doors, pushing each other well past our limits of tolerance.

If the harassment continued, something would had to be done, but I was frustrated and felt mired in failure; if I couldn’t provide a happy life for my family, just how successful could I count myself as a husband and father? Feeling powerless, I began looking at job boards in Arizona, New Mexico, and even California. I had been bullied as a child, and I didn’t want a bunch of teenagers to chase me away from my home as an adult, but to hell with them, I would do what it took to find happiness. Once we left, they could say whatever they damn well pleased, and I wouldn’t care about them one jot or tittle, nor would I give them a further thought.

There were of course, examples, people, and reasons to stay. We had made some dear friends in the valley, and although I thought that they might support us in our efforts to put an end to the late night raids, I didn’t want to drag them into it, nor did I want to risk finding out that they too felt I was overreacting. Elizabeth’s family was another reason to remain, due to the positive experience it had been to live near a warm and loving family. Time spent with cousins, nieces, nephews, siblings, and newborn babies had resulted in good relationships and lasting memories. I even enjoyed our limited time spent with my in-laws, which was a milestone very much worthy of being on the list of reasons to stay.

I wanted to fight, but had very little fight left in me.

We had one weekend of peace after the car chase. We did our best to ignore the onslaught, but it was hard to ignore. I began to wonder when they would begin throwing eggs, tagging our house with paint, and leaving lasting damage to our property. They had already trampled some of Elizabeth’s plants and flowers, and the summer rain had pulped the toilet paper into clumps that hung from high branches and littered our lawn. I stopped bothering to clean it up, because any that I picked up was always replaced with more. At the beginning of summer I had loved pulling into the driveway and looking at the beautiful gardening and grooming that Elizabeth had put so much time and effort into. By the end of the season, I had long tired of pulling up to see the scattered white mess and trampled plants.

Every car that passed in the night was full of assailants, and every noise in the wind a warning sign that we were about to get hit. The kids would stand in the dark living room and watch through the windows, while Elizabeth and I would stop and listen at every sound. I took to spending my Friday and Saturday nights in the upstairs den with the windows open and the sound muted as I played video games for hours past midnight, knowing that I couldn’t have slept had I tried, and hoping to deter the roving gangs from approaching through the dark. We got used to hearing the doorbell at two in the morning, waking to a mess in the yard, and hearing the honking of horns and the slow rumble of vehicles passing our house at a crawl. We worried about leaving the kids alone, for fear that the one night that we did would be the night the attackers would decide to escalate their assaults.

I stopped attending church youth activities in spite of being assigned to do just that. I couldn’t bear the sight of boys that I knew had been involved. Our family found began to find reasons for staying away from church on Sundays as well, and spent time together instead. I knew that the kids might grow accustomed to skipping church, but I had no desire to be there either, so what did it matter? Every week we skipped became easier, and I became more adept at pushing the guilt away with thoughts of teenagers running through the dark at night, then smiling their way through their Sunday morning classes and duties while adults who believed me to be overreacting sat nearby, full of The Spirit.

November came; months since Caleb left home and the start of our sleepless nights had passed. Elizabeth and I were sitting on our bed one Saturday night, the back door to our bedroom open to let in the crisp air of a moonlit night. Before dark I had stretched fishing line at chest and waist height between the trees in our yard in the hope that it would send a kid or two sprawling as they ran through our yard. I didn’t want to slice off any heads, but I did want to send a message.

“Did you hear something?” Elizabeth asked.

As part of what had become our routine, I paused what we were watching and stood to look outside. Sure enough, a pack of shadows ran from the backyard, hooting and hollering at me as they did. I ran to the garage in my boxers and tee shirt, jumped in the car and sped off into the night to give chase. After a loop around the neighborhood, I sped out to the state road and headed north. I saw them up ahead, and as I neared them they jumped a fence and ran off into a grove of trees. I continued north and saw what had to be their vehicles parked across from the local cemetery. I called the sheriff’s dispatch number and informed them that I was about to go mental on a herd of youth that were guilty of repeatedly harassing my home and family, and read off their license plates one by one.

They sent a deputy sheriff right away. As the night (and mayhem) progressed, he managed to pull over a car and speak to its single occupant, a teenage girl. She claimed to have been looking for her brother, whom she admitted had been out with the hooded crowd, but she stated that he had called her for a ride home after feeling uncomfortable with the herd’s activities. The deputy sheriff read her the riot act for her expired plates (What is up with expired plates on teenager’s cars in this valley?) and then waited for her brother to return on foot so that together they could have a chat with their parents. He then came and spoke to us, telling us what he had learned about our troubles and the kids involved. He advised us that we should talk to the parents and try to resolve the matter peacefully.

In the morning I looked out into the backyard and saw our trampoline in pieces on the lawn, and didn’t wonder twice about who had dismantled it. I dressed in a flash and sped over to the church, eager to spend a few minutes with the father of those two kids. By the time I entered the building I was calm, but my hands were damp with the sweat of anxiety. I approached the man and put my hand on his shoulder.

“We need to talk,” I said, a polite but serious tone accompanying the quivers that rippled through my body.

“Yes, yes we do,” he answered.

We chose an empty classroom, and after closing the door, we began to discuss the situation. He related what he knew, and then listened as I explained what our family had been going through, and my understanding that his kids had played a part in it. I was calm, but couldn’t help from trembling as I recounted the past few months and the lasting effects of the experience on my family. Not knowing him well but having no reason to doubt his integrity, I hoped for the best possible reaction. I hoped that he was a good man, a man who would hold his kids accountable, loved his neighbors, and went to church because he wanted to improve who he was, not just out of habit. By the end of our encounter, my hope had moved into cautious faith. We scheduled a meeting in his home that afternoon.

Elizabeth and I spent not quite an hour with that man, his wife, and their two older children. We were able to convey to the kids just how damaging the past few months have been for us, and relate to them the consequences of those late night raids. They were humbled, and tears made their way around the room, followed closely by a box of tissues. I sat with my arms folded and my eyes dry, trying to look as calm and in control as I wanted to be. As I watched the kids and listened to their heartfelt, tear-soaked apologies, I realized that I hadn’t shed a tear in months. This struck me as odd, because since my brother’s death, I had been somewhat of a big baby, crying at the very smallest of emotional moments and memories, happy or sad. I realized that in fact, the last time I had cried was on the very day the torment had started; I had cried as my son had left for university.

This knowledge steeled my resolve, and so I made it clear to them that while we were grateful for their apologies and believed that they had limited involvement in the late night raids, we were determined to end it all for good. If they were willing to help us do that we would be most grateful, and would not pursue matters with the sheriff any further. They promised to do everything in their power, and that with their parent’s help they would spread the word not so much that it had to stop, but more importantly, why.

We left feeling better and more hopeful than we had since summer. We had felt a spirit in that family’s home, a spirit of accountability, trust, and love. Elizabeth and I returned home and enjoyed a peaceful afternoon, with much of it spent napping away our exhaustion.

The following night, after the house was dark and quiet and we were all in bed, the doorbell rang. I looked at Elizabeth and felt the dashing of hope on the rocks of reality. I made my way to the dark front entry and flipped on the outside light as I opened the door.

There stood three teenage boys, each of them looking more humble and forlorn than his fellows.

“We are sorry it is so late, but we didn’t want to wait to come and tell you that we heard what has been happening to your family and we want to tell your family that we are sorry to have been a part of it,” the elected spokesman said.

I didn’t know what to say. I stood in the doorway with my arms folded across my chest, and for a moment I imagined smashing their heads together and slamming the door in their faces. I waited for the punch line, for the eggs to come flying at me, for a bucket of water to come around the corner and soak me.

The joke wasn’t on me, however, and so I called out to Elizabeth. She came and joined me in the doorway. Our kids refused to come out of their rooms, and I remarked that I didn’t blame them. I told the boys that they had helped turn our home into a living hell, and that if they had wanted an adrenaline rush, I would have gladly let them into my garage to box with me. We thanked them for their apologies, and asked them to please do their part and spread the word, then bid them goodnight properly, without chasing them out into the street and into the dark.

This story is far from over. As I write this, we have yet to see the weekend. We are hopeful, but cautiously so; the aftermath of these past few months is apparent in our home. We are struggling to rebuild our children’s love for this valley and its Mormon people, while we try to rebuild our own. Elizabeth and I have made a point of being positive, however, knowing that our attitude has been and will continue to be reflected in our children.

So, Jared…why do I stay…or will I?

The “will I” remains to be seen, but in that man and his wife, I have been blessed with two new examples to support the “why” that I offered to Jared, just days before he took his life.

In fact, if there are but a handful of such examples in Heaven, I’m beginning to think I’d like to go there.

So long as there isn’t any toilet paper.

Chapter One

Chapter One of "Frogs Don't Wear Tights" (a working title), a book for kids (but fun for any adult that has ever been a kid).

"Boys don't wear tights!" Randolph shouted.

“Go to your room,” his mother said in her quiet, firm, gritting-her-teeth-and-trying-not-to-yell voice.

Randolph turned and headed for the stairs. He stopped and glared at his mother before raising one foot high into the air and bringing it down on the bottom step hard and loud, as if he were crushing a big, juicy bug. He did the same on the second step, and then the third. His mother stood with her arms crossed, watching without saying a word. Randolph turned and stomped his way up the rest of the stairs and down the hall, into his room.

He slammed his door and leaned his back against it, holding his breath and listening for the clunking of his mother's angry footsteps on the wooden stairs. Hearing nothing but the sound of his own heart drumming against his chest, he relaxed and walked over to the window. A thick, white blanket of fresh snow covered everything in sight, and the storm wasn't over yet. Randolph wondered how his father would make it home from the museum without crashing their orange station wagon. The roads hadn't been plowed yet, and they were sure to be icy.

Randolph hated winter. It was cold, dark, and annoying. It killed the green grass, made the roads slippery, and froze the water pipes in the basement. Doing anything outside in winter was a pain. You had to dress in tons of heavy winter clothing just to check the mail, and if you wanted to go somewhere, you had to shovel the driveway, scrape the car windows, and put chains on the tires so you wouldn't get stuck. Plus, if you turned the heater vents on before the engine warmed up, you got a blast of icy air in your face. Winter was too much work.

All of these were good reasons for Randolph to hate winter, but they weren't the reason he wanted it to disappear, taking the cold and snow with it, never to return.

Randolph hated winter because in the winter his mother made him wear tights. Girl tights.

But not just girl tights. Randolph's mother made him wear his older sister's hand-me-down girl tights.

Randolph was a boy, he didn't want to wear girl tights, especially Becky's tights.

"Boys don't wear tights!" Randolph would shout every year. He would cry, stomp his feet, and refuse to put them on.

He sometimes tried to trick his mother by hiding the tights under his bed or in the closet under some toys, but she always seemed to know when he hadn't put them on. On those mornings, she would wait at the bottom of the stairs, and when Randolph came down for breakfast she would stop him and pull up his pant leg for a look.

"Go upstairs and put on your tights," his mother would say firmly.

Randolph would turn around, pounding his feet with every step as he made the trip up to his room to dig out the tights and put them on. Sometimes he was so angry he would punch his pillow until his arms ached, wishing it were the person that had invented tights.

"Olympic skiers wear tights," his mother would remind him as he left for the bus stop.

"I am not an Olympic skier," Randolph would mutter under his breath.

Wearing tights to school was dangerous, especially for Randolph. He was younger and smaller than the rest of the kids in second grade, making it easy for the other boys to pick on him. And pick on him they did; Randolph had been bullied since the first day of elementary school. That morning the kids at the bus stop had made up a song about his big red ears, and sang it to the tune of "Rudolph The Red-Nosed Reindeer." They changed the words to:

Randolph the red-eared loser,

had two very shiny ears;

and if you ever saw them,

you would laugh your way to tears,

Even the other losers,

used to laugh and call him names;

they never let poor Randolph,

join in stupid loser games! 

They sang the song over and over again at the bus stop on that first morning of school, and Randolph had tried to be brave, tried to ignore them, but the words were loud and they hurt. They sang it on the bus, and so Randolph curled up into a ball on the front seat, covered his big red ears, and cried until his head hurt. They had been singing that hateful song ever since, never letting Randolph forget that he was different, that he was a loser, and that he would never fit in. And the louder they sang their song, the redder Randolph's ears would get, because Randolph's ears turned red whenever he felt something. Happy, silly, angry, sad, or embarrassed, it didn't matter; if Randolph felt an emotion, his big ears would turn red.

And so Randolph knew that it was dangerous for him to wear tights to school. If even one kid found out that he was wearing girl's tights, the news would spread all the way up to the sixth grade by the end of recess. The teasing would start, and it would never stop. They would probably even make up a new song, a song much worse than "Randolph The Red-Eared Reindeer."

Randolph was very careful to never show his tights to anyone. He would pull his socks up as high as they would stretch, so that no one would see the white of his tights. He would go to the bathroom alone, and use the stall so that no one would see him pull down his tights to pee. Sometimes the tights itched, but Randolph tried his best to never scratch, because he feared that one of his classmates would see him scratching and wonder why.

Every day after school, Randolph would run straight home. He would crash through the front door, bound up the stairs, and run into his room. He would drop his backpack, kick off his shoes, pull off his socks, strip off his pants, and with one quick motion, peel off the terrible tights. Not until his pants, shoes, and socks were back on did he feel safe. He could breathe again, scratch again, and feel normal again. Well, as normal as a scrawny little boy with big red ears and a big round head could ever feel.

One night Randolph decided to tell his mother that he wasn't going to wear the tights, no matter what she said or did.

"Mom, I am not wearing tights to school tomorrow. Boys don't wear tights, and I am not an Olympic skier. I don't want to wear them, and you can't make me," he said, trying to sound stronger and braver than he actually felt.

"Randolph, you will wear those tights tomorrow, and that is final!" his mother said, gritting her teeth to let him know she was serious.

"I hate those tights, and I hate you! I wish that I had been born into another family, one where the boys don't wear tights because their mother loves them!" he shouted.

Randolph's mother looked down at him, surprised at Randolph’s angry words. He had never told her that he hated her before. After a moment of silence, she replied, "What a terrible and hurtful thing to say. I want you to go upstairs, brush your teeth, and go to bed. When you lay down, I want you to think about what you have said, and if it is really what you want. I know that you will feel differently in the morning." And with that, she sent him upstairs.

Randolph brushed his teeth, but only long enough to taste the toothpaste. He wasn't going to listen to his mother anymore. He slipped into his pajamas and climbed into bed, ignoring Harrison on the other side of the room. He decided that as long as he was hating, he may as well hate sharing a bedroom with his older brother. Randolph drifted off to sleep with wishes for new and perfect parents floating around inside his head.

He woke the next morning and saw that his mother had set out his clothes for the day. On top of the pile lay the dreaded tights. He sat on the edge of his bed, rubbed the sleep from his eyes, and wondered what to do. He hated those terrible tights, but he knew that his mother would be waiting for him at the bottom of the stairs to pull at his pant leg and check that he was wearing them. He thought for a moment before making his decision.

He tossed the tights aside and started to get dressed. As he lifted his right foot to slip on his jeans, he noticed a small green spot on his ankle. He sat down on the floor in a panic, bending over to get a closer look at the green spot.

"I told you that you'd feel different in the morning," his mother's voice boomed out of nowhere.

Startled, Randolph looked up and saw his mother standing in the doorway, her arms folded across her chest. She looked down her nose at him.

"I cast a spell on you last night while you were sleeping. If you don’t wear those tights, that spot will spread over your whole body until you become a frog," she said, then turned and walked down the hall to the stairs.

Randolph sat on his bedroom floor, listening as his mother's footsteps faded away. He looked down at his ankle, staring at it so long that he thought he saw it grow larger. He reached out with a finger and poked the spot. It felt like his skin. He pinched it, and it hurt like a pinch normally hurt. He rubbed his thumb over it to see if the green would come off. It didn’t; his thumb stayed thumb colored, and the spot on his ankle stayed green.

Randolph sat and thought about what to do. Ever since he could remember, his mother had told him that she was a good witch with special powers. He had never seen her use any of her special powers, but that didn’t mean she wasn’t a witch. Why would she lie about being a witch?

But if she was a good witch, why would she threaten to turn him into frog for not wearing the terrible tights? That didn’t seem like a very good thing to do. Randolph was confused, a little scared, and very angry. But there was nothing he could do.

After a few minutes of angry silence, Randolph stood and pulled on the tights, then his pants, and finally, the tallest pair of socks that he could find. He went downstairs and ate breakfast with a scowl on his face, then grabbed his school bag and left the house without saying goodbye. He walked to the bus stop without saying a word, and if any of the kids on the bus sang the song about Randolph's red ears, he didn't hear them because he was too busy being angry.

Later that day Mrs. Diamond had the class sit on the floor while she read to them from a chapter book. Randolph listened carefully, his imagination painting pictures of dragons, knights, and beautiful maidens in his head. After a few minutes he felt something poke his ankle once, then twice, and then a third time.

"Are you wearing tights?" Johnny Palaki asked, a teasing sneer on his face, his finger pointed at Randolph’s legs.

"No, they're thermals," Randolph said, his voice little more than a frightened croak.

Johnny pulled on Randolph's pant leg to get a better look. "No, those are tights. Tights are for girls, are you a girl?"

"No, they are special thermals, like the ones that skiers wear in the Olympics," Randolph said, trying to explain.

"No they're not, there is no such thing. Those are tights, and that means you're a girl!" Johnny said, his voice loud enough for the class to hear.

Randolph felt his ears grow warm, which meant that they were also growing red.

Mrs. Diamond stopped reading at the sound of giggling. “What’s so funny?”

“Randolph’s wearing tights!” Johnny declared happily.

“No I’m not, they’re Olympic skier thermals,” Randolph croaked.

“Johnny, sit still and be quiet,” Mrs. Diamond said sternly.

Johnny muttered something about punching on the playground, and Randolph decided he would hide inside during recess.

After recess, Mrs. Diamond led the class down to the gymnasium for a special surprise. They filed in and sat in a large circle in the center of the shiny wooden floor. Randolph was excited and worried at the same time. He wasn’t very good at sports, and just being in the gym made him nervous. To make matters worse, Johnny sat down next to him with a menacing smile on his face.

A man walked in holding what looked like a folded red flag. He crossed the gym, then stepped politely between two students and entered the circle.

“Hello kids, my name is Levi, and Mrs. Diamond has asked me in today to teach you about parachutes,” the man said.

Randolph and his fellow students squealed with excitement as the man began to unfold the parachute. He pulled at the soft, shimmering cloth, stretching it out until it covered the floor inside the circle of students.

“Okay, I want you all to stand up, then grab the edge of the parachute in both hands,” Levi commanded from outside the circle.

Randolph and his fellow students scrambled to their feet, then reached down and grabbed at the edge of the shiny red cloth.

“Okay, everyone hold on tight. On the count of three, lift the parachute above your heads, and then kneel down without letting go,” Levi said.

"One, two, three!" Levi shouted.

The class raised their arms, and the parachute dipped low against the floor.

"Now kneel down everyone," Levi instructed.

The parachute billowed overhead like a red cloud as the class dropped to their knees. A rush of wind blew over Randolph’s face as the soft fabric circle collapsed slowly to the floor.

“Okay, stand up and do the same thing, and try to keep the parachute billowing for as long as you can,” Levi shouted over the happy laughter coming from Randolph and his classmates.

They played with the parachute for several minutes, under Levi’s loud but gentle commands.

“Okay, let’s sit down and talk about gravity, and why the parachute acts the way it does,” Levi said finally.

The red silk fluttered gently to the ground as the students sat to listen.

“Who can tell me what gravity is?” he asked.

Randolph wanted nothing more than to raise his hand and answer Levi’s question so that Levi would notice him.

But Randolph didn’t, because Randolph couldn’t raise his hand; he was too distracted by the puddle that was growing on the floor around Johnny Palaki's bottom.

Johnny Palaki had sprung a leak.

“What are you looking at, red-ears?” Johny hissed.

“Um, I, Um, I,” Randolph muttered.

“Stop looking at me,” Johnny managed to say, as his eyes filled with tears. His voice was no longer the hiss of a bully. It was more like the squeak of a mouse.

“Hey, it’s okay,” Randolph said softly.

“Shut up, red-ears,” Johnny blubbered quietly.

“What’s going on over there?” Mrs. Diamond interrupted loudly.

“Um, there’s some water on the floor, and Johnny sat down in it,” Randolph explained quickly.

“There must be a leak in the roof,” said Levi.

Randolph looked up at Levi and nodded. “Yeah, I think so,” he agreed.

Levi winked at Randolph, and followed it with a broad smile.

“Johnny, do you need to go to the bathroom and dry off with some paper towels?” Mrs. Diamond asked.

“Uh, sure,” Johnny answered, his voice bubbled with snot.

“Randolph, I want you to go with him, and then the two of you can go to the office and tell Mr. Winters that he needs to send a janitor down here to mop up the water from a leak in the roof.”

“Yes, Mrs. Diamond,” Randolph replied.

The walk to the bathroom was quiet and awkward. Johnny had stopped crying, but his face was still red and his eyes were puffy. Once inside the bathroom, Johnny entered a toilet stall and closed the door.

“Hey Randolph?” Johnny said from behind the closed door.

“Yeah Johnny?” Randolph replied.

“Thanks.”

“No problem,” Randolph said softly.

“I’m sorry I told everyone you wore tights,” Johnny said.

Johnny flushed the toilet and opened the stall door. Randolph stood and watched as Johnny washed his hands, then dried to dry his pants with a paper towel.

“Hey Johnny?” Randolph said at last.

“What?”

“They’re not tights, they’re Olympic skier thermals.”

Mr. Tights Is Not A Frog

Call me Mr. Tights, all of my son's classmates do.

When I was in first grade, my mother made me wear white tights to school. Being a boy, I didn't want to wear tights, especially my older sister's hand-me-downs. One night I protested a little too much, and my mother sent me to bed with a warning that I would feel differently come the morning. I woke up the next day with a green dot on my ankle, the result of my mother having "cast a spell" on me as I slept. She told me that if I refused to wear the tights, the dot would spread over my body and I would become a frog.

I wore the damn tights.

It's a funny story (now), and I am using it and other childhood stories as the inspiration for a book that I am writing for 10-11 year olds. The book will be about a red-eared boy named Randolph, and while inspired by on my own childhood, there will be a measure of creative license included. I read the first chapter (about the frog that never was) to my son's fourth grade class a couple of weeks ago. To my great joy, they loved every word of it.

And immediately took to calling me Mr. Tights.

Which brings me to this morning. I spent it at the elementary school, assisting with the third and fourth grade Field Day. I decided to wear my kilt, because we live at 6500 feet, and so I think that Field Day can be looked on as a sort of Scottish Highland Games.

The kids had more than a few questions about why I was wearing a skirt, but they forgot all about it as soon as the events began. We had a great time out in the sun, playing a number of games and eating freezer pops.

After the games, we headed inside. Along the way, a bunch of the kids stopped in the hall to sip from the water fountain. They lined up, and I stood by to wait for them. One of the girls stood in line beside her father, who had also come to help with Field Day. She pointed at me.

"He wore tights when he was a boy. He told us a funny story about it," she said.

Another student chimed in, "Not just tights, but his sister's hand-me-down tights."

I stood there in my kilt, feeling my ears grow a little red.

"His mother did some weird things to him when he was a kid," added a third student.

"That's why we call him Mr. Tights," the girl concluded.

I smiled and said, "You tell these kids one little story about your childhood..."

Her father laughed politely. He looked as uncomfortable as I had in first grade, wearing my sister's tights. Had he been offered a hole to jump into, he probably would have taken it.

I looked at the kids and asked, why didn't you call me Mr. Frog?"

One of them laughed and said, "You didn't turn into a frog, because you wore the tights!"

Their sips of water finished and the point taken, we walked back to the classroom.

I think I'm going to like being called Mr. Tights.