Direct Loans Getting Direct!

Do Not Know Why I Did Not Take Action Before They Did.

With All The Bailouts, Where Is Mine?  

I guess slapping my mother with my inability to fend off Polio was the first mistake?  Taking a little beautiful handsome baby boy with a great disposition barely a year old then sticking him in an Iron lung because the government did not check to see if water was safe to swim in like they would have today but knew enough to separate my mother who was pregnant with my youngest sister along with my oldest sister, leaving my father to visit me for the family.  My mother could never figure out why God would let this happen, being a devout Catholic having a former alter boy for husband is what kept it together for this lady who was bringing children like many young family's into the new prospering society after a great depression and a world war; it was a time to start producing the first round of Baby Boomers.  My mother had hope for my future after seeing an older man with the ravages of Polio who assured her that the government would pay for my education like they did his.

What Happened To My Paid Education? 

Who needed a stinking education?  I guess that was my stupid attitude since my handicap never stopped me from doing what I wanted.  I actually thought I could exercise my way out  of the ravages of this Polio.  I  never worked on my weakness in Math which kept me back twice thanks to the City of Revere and the school system.  I never got to see the eight grade but was forwarded to the ninth grade with other troubled teens by a demented junior high school principle who was convinced I was on drugs because most of my peers in this transfer were.  I remember the huge desk he sat at and pounded in front of me as he rambled on with street names of drugs I never heard of except weed, I knew about that, insisting I knew about the other drugs he was talking about.  I  was happy just to have the chance of being a grade ahead since the stigma of staying back twice did not do anything for my confidence.  The best part was being stuck in my childhood sweetheart's homeroom as her last name started with a "Z" it was the only one with the room for the Bad Boys.  I was never diagnosed with ADD since it was just coming to lite at that time although I did have my share of phycologist; focus always was and still is an issue today.  What I did not need at this time was a new school which is what happened next.  Being among this group of Bad Boys entitled me to be eligible for the regional vocational high school that was just built.  My father was a mechanic, a good one which encouraged him to open two gas stations when he was younger.  I told him that is what I wanted to take at this Vocational school.  He did not want that life for me and since I insisted he told me if I have to be in the auto industry I should do what my uncle did which was Auto-body which was also dirty but much better money.  Then I suffered phycological trauma when I was thrown in the Auto-body tool cage for two weeks while the school administration decided for me that since they were stuck with me, in the name of safety, they had no choice but to stick me in mechanical drafting.  This teacher also had Polio. He thought he could make me a better person by making me draw over and over but this lowered my grade, until I proved to his superior that he was putting undue pressure on me by having a previously A graded paper by a peer giving me an B- on it.  I wanted to get into architecture and was offered to be personally trained by the other teacher but did not want special treatment sticking it out for the rest of the semester. After that semester I was seventeen and my family was  moving to another town into our first house after living in the Revere projects most of my life. My little sister and I started  going to a high school made for the three towns surrounding it.  This school you could say is responsible for my first ever published article but I would once again experience more trauma because I said the word shit while explaining something about my writing to the English teacher.  That was it, I was going to be a writer by working in a factory that made photo typesetters?

So Much For Trying To Be A Writer In A Factory!

I got my GED and the factory paid for my college education and books.  Before outsourcing became the new trend and unions were actually not a good thing I actually helped put my self out of a job by facilitating a team that found out how to reduce the cost of manufacturing photo typesetters.  Then cheaper technology put everyone out of work causing the downsizing trend.  After 23 years with this company, although their timing was a bit off letting people go two weeks before Thanks Giving and in my case I was in process of buying my first home, they laid me off with a great severance package.

Eventually this Polio crap caught up to me stemming from an accident I had on the job about 5 years before they let me go.  I went from what would take a quick paced walk to catch up to me to a slower than a turtles pace which I'm at now which is an improvement over walking on my ankle which I was doing before corrective surgery enabled me to walk on the soul of my foot.  With an under active thyroid battling weight gain is a daily struggle along with high blood pressure.  I'm sorry but this to me is a disability.  The Mass Rehabilitation Commission thinks that I do not deserve my SSDI check and have been doing their best to get that money back because drug addicts and alcoholics are worse off than a man who now admits he has a physical problem unlike drugs and alcohol which come from a choice, Polio was not a choice.