Following is a letter that my sister Duska wrote me from Angleton, Texas, back when I was a 15 year old heavy metal fan in Tulare, California. I doubt that I had become a Rush fanatic yet. This was during my rebellion against Top 40 Ad Nauseam, just before Moving Pictures was released. There is an implication that I liked the band KISS in this letter. My response to the allegation is as follows: No FREAKIN Way!!

Duska and Tim (and daughter Alanna) had just got their precious stork delivery, Nicki, only seven weeks before.

2/3/81

Dear Danny,

Got your letter today, so I better write back
First tell Dad, Mom & everybody, that Alanna was delighted with the books and tape. She is using “The Magic Garden” for a book Report at school.
Guess I’ll switch to a pen. And the baby book is Really nice.
I am proud of all your A’s Keep it up!!
I love your list of bands.
I don’t know about our favorites but I’ll make you a semi-list-
of the bands whose songs we do (By the way I’ve started to sing again – I mean I’m practicing with the band)

ANYWAY THE LIST —–
AC/DC – “You Shook Me” “Highway to H—” (Glen Sings)
Judas Priest – Living After Midnight I Sing
Pat Benetar – “Hell is for Children” “You’e out of Touch” (Me)
Blondie – “One Way or Another” (Me)
Ted Nugent – “Storm Troopers”, “Cat Scratch Fever” (Tim sings)
ZZ Top – “Francene” (Tim) “Automobile” (Tim)
Black Sabbath – “Neon Knights” (Me)
Sue Saad & the Next – “Prisoner” Me

Well that is part of our list. We listen to almost all the bands you mentioned – and have lots of the albums – EXCEPT KISS – Don’t care for them much. But before our last bass player quit we did “Detroit Rock City” and “I Was Made For Loving You”
Tim is a big RUSH fan.
The[y] are trying to make me one of the only “Heavy Metal Chick Singers” around. It is hard on the old throat.
I like to sing “blues” and I’m trying to work more in.
Don’t worry about not having a cool guitar. Everybody starts somewhere.
Too bad you’re not here so Tim could give you lessons. He’s good.

If you don’t let mom read this tell her Nicki is fine. And her name is spelled Nichole. Easy to mispell.
I got the “CASE” of vitamins. MY GOODNESS!!! I’ll become addicted. I smell like Vitamin B!!
We are going to get GOOD pictures of Nicki taken tomarrow. She [is] so cute, talks and slobbers all the time. And she only messes her pants when we go somewhere – (Doesn’t want to stink up the house)
Alanna is fine too.
Got to go now.

Love,
Duska

P.S. What’s Allen’s address?

I kept silent about my apostasy for eight years. I had learned early on that my parents could not handle even discussing the possibility that I might lose my faith, so I took my infidelity underground.

I dropped a few hints with my family here and there toward the end of those years, but I stopped short of making any grand declaration of apostasy. I’ll admit I even attended Baha’i community meetings out of curiosity when I’d heard that a controversial Baha’i holy book would soon be published (after 123 years of obscurity), or that a Baha’i community leader was leaving his wife for my coworker’s ex-wife. I also attended the funeral of a young Baha’i I had worked with at the Baha’i World Center, whom I had generally avoided of late for his sake.

I paid a visit to another Baha’i friend at one point in those underground years. He and I had previously served on our Baha’i District Youth Committee and had attended the same college in the mid-eighties, before I split for Africa (and ended up at the Baha’i World Center). He had always struck me as an honest, open, and modest person; not preachy like so many of my former co-religionists. Though I did expect openness from him, I was taken off balance when he admitted that he had recently struggled through a crisis of faith. I could have responded, “Dude! My faith isn’t in crisis. It’s dead and dismembered!”, but I wasn’t ready to come out of my closet yet, and I didn’t want to shake his faith, so I didn’t say anything. Had I let him down as a friend? I wonder what he thought. Did he think I had shut out his passing confession? I’ll probably never know.

It wasn’t until I got married that I came out. The Baha’i faith of my parents insisted on interfering in my marriage, so I finally had to draw the line, and I couldn’t be subtle, ambiguous, or even modest about it if I was to be understood. My parents would not believe that I wasn’t a believer, and their Baha’i leadership had not accepted my withdrawal without an explanation, so I gave them an explanation, and I published my explanation. It was finally perfectly clear that they need no longer concern themselves with whom I married, or any other decisions I made.

I was a little worried that my published criticisms of the Baha’i religion might make the wrong people angry; say, people with predispositions to violence. There have thusfar been no death threats, but some of the Baha’is whom I once respected most have not spoken a word to me since I came clean. A couple of my Baha’i family members have got nasty on occasion, but as a general rule, most of the Baha’is that I have encountered have treated me with civility. Maybe some of them do because they think I’m still a believer, but certainly not all of them.

I can’t say that I don’t sometimes miss being a part of the “Baha’i family”. I can’t say that I enjoy being shunned by old friends. It has not been a small price to pay, but what I have gained in integrity has been well worth it. I have no doubt of that.

When our son gets home, the first thing he does is run next door. He and the boy next door play on the same t-ball team, and spend a lot of time together.

The last time I remember talking to the boy’s father, Jeff, something had happened between our boys—our son had scratched their son’s face during one of their tussles. Jeff walked right up to me before a t-ball game. Was he upset about his son’s face? If he was, he didn’t show it. All he wanted was to make sure that there were no hard feelings. More than anything, I think he just wanted us all to get along.

For Father’s Day, our daughter has been collaborating with other girls on the block to organize a dramatic production for the dads on the block. Just like they did for Mother’s Day. Two of the girls—I think the oldest is eight—are Jeff’s daughters.

The Father’s Day production was dropped a couple days ago. Those three little kids next door have suddenly lost their father. Jeff is no longer part of the world.

That day on the ball field, I was overcome by Jeff’s need to keep the peace. I told him that there was no problem; that everything was fine, and that I was sorry about his son’s face. I wish now that I had done a little more to convince him that everything was good. I wish I’d tried a little harder to reach out to him.

As a realist, I don’t believe in heaven, but when I saw Jeff’s little boy struggling with his sudden loss, I heard myself telling the boy to believe. I could not stand to allow the child to acknowledge his loss.

Jeffrey John Mack

Our daughter took up violin just last summer.

I recently mentioned to her violin instructor that I’d like to take some lessons as well. I’d bought a violin awhile back, and I’d been practicing along with our daughter. I’d played violin and viola as a boy, when I was about as old as she is now. That was a long time ago. I cannot remember when or why I stopped playing. Was it the bully smashing my violin after school? Was it the move to Africa? Perhaps it was that terrible concert: I was so nervous I could barely play.

I love classical violin; well, romantic violin, to be precise. I’ve always regretted giving up on the violin. It doesn’t help to read about Einstein and his violin. What a pair those two made! So when our daughter expressed an interest in violin, there was no delay. A violin was provided, and shortly thereafter, an instructor.

I’d been doing pretty well during our practices. When I finally got my lesson, I had hardly started playing when our instructor noticed the bow bouncing on the strings. She asked me if I’d seen a doctor about it. She wanted to know whether I was certain that I don’t have a real medical problem. I told her that I don’t think I have Parkinson’s. I’ve always had a tremor; as long as I can remember. I remember that concert. Suddenly I feel like I’ve traveled back in time to childhood. I shrink into a corner as the world expands back to its former proportions.

I’ll bet Parkinson’s is a nightmare, but this is no picnic. I slipped into a funk. The next time our daughter and I practiced, I quit after 30 seconds, and we didn’t practice for another week. I would pick it up when she wasn’t around. I got frustrated immediately. I was ashamed.

My father, a chiropractor, describes that slight tremor as a cerebral palsy. I asked an MD once: he told me: “you shake a little.” Yes, I suppose it doesn’t really matter what you call it.

It can be aggravated by stress, but I don’t always know when the stress is there. It can be rather frustrating when I’m trying to cut my kids’ bangs or finger nails, but I don’t let that stop me.

My daughter recently scheduled a duet for us before several ladies. She had been having a little more trouble with the piece than I had, and just before the performance, she began to get agitated. She was afraid she wouldn’t be able to do it. I told her, “hey, let’s just do it, and if we mess up we mess up. No big deal.” When we began to play, I suddenly couldn’t focus on reading the music. It was as though the notes were slipping around the page; not literally, but I could not get a fix on them. I faltered repeatedly. I’d pick up at the next measure, but I couldn’t concentrate. I was disappointed in myself, but I couldn’t be more proud of her. She just kept going. She played the complete piece without a single pause. She was flawless, in spite of all the distraction that I caused.

She’s a performer, and she’s got one very proud father.

Sometimes I stop in Hanford or Tulare on my way to the Sierra Nevada, and look at my old homes, neighborhoods, and schools, trying not to raise the suspicions of the current residents.

Of all the kids I knew during my elementary school years, Chuck and Cora are among those I remember most.

Cora was known as a little sister of several football stars, two of whom went on to play in the National Football League. She wasn’t little, though—even in fourth grade. I remember her principally for her dominant presence wherever she went on campus, and her steely breasts which hovered out before her like two bodyguards. I don’t know whether she had any friends. A person would have to be pretty brave to approach her. I don’t think she was a bully, though.

Chuck was the star athlete at James Monroe Elementary School. He wasn’t quite the fastest runner on campus, but he was skilled in just about everything. His intense competitiveness was frightening, yet he was as fair in his dealings on the playground as any kid I knew. He was an angel to me, but of course it must be noted that I posed no competitive threat to him. There were times that, if it weren’t for intercession from Chuck, I wouldn’t have been permitted to play on either team in a given game. Sometimes, though, even the grace of Chuck wasn’t enough, for though I was put onto a team in say, kickball, I would usually mark the permanent end of every line. As a kid would take his or her turn and either run home or make out, he or she would inevitably consider the end of the line as the spot in front of me.

I didn’t keep in touch with Chuck, or any of my classmates. I remember seeing a two-page spread on Chuck in a sports magazine years later, and then several years later I heard on some late night show while crossing Nevada that he’d been forced out of the NFL after he hurt another player badly. I was surprised to read that Chuck had earned a reputation as an executioner, though I never doubted his competitiveness.

© 2007 Dan J. Jensen

You might say the sky was crying during the morning commute. Paul McCartney was crying out “The Long and Winding Road” on the car radio. Some memories from years back replayed in my head, and before I knew it, dammit, I was crying too…

My daughter’s teacher recently covered Helen Keller, and my daughter developed a keen interest in Helen Keller and braille. This inspired me to order a braille stylus, slate, and paper from Lighthouse for the Blind in the City.

So there we were with the equipment and supplies. And there she was with her blind grandfather (my father) up there in Washington. The rest was, as they say, academic.

She didn’t know what to write. Was his birthday coming up? No. We looked at the calendar. It was Presidents’ Week. Happy Washington’s Birthday? No. I knew of one date that would be on Grandpa’s calendar that she had never heard of. I hesitated, then I told her, “why don’t you write Happy Ayyam-i-Ha.” This was a reference to an upcoming event on the Baha’i calendar, and I explained it to her.

I punched out some braille for Grandpa as well. I chose a passage that he had recited many times when I was young. No doubt you have heard it as well:

Out, out, brief candle! Life’s but a walking shadow, a poor player that struts and frets his hour upon the stage and then is heard no more. It is a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.

Yep. You guessed it. That there’s Shakespeare!

Brief candle…

I may be the rebel of the brood, but I am not the black sheep. That honor goes to my oldest sister. She left home on a mission for the Baha’i Faith when I was a young boy. Shortly thereafter, she married another young Baha’i, but other than having a wonderful baby daughter, it came to naught. They divorced, and she never had another legitimate marriage. She did marry twice more, but neither was a Baha’i marriage. Mom and Dad disapproved of my interest in going to visit her, but they held out a hope that she and her husband might someday have a Baha’i ceremony.

I didn’t see much of Duska until I graduated from college, a couple years after I privately left the Baha’i Faith. She lived and worked near Yosemite, and I was soon doing the same. I took a bus up to visit her, and after that backpacked from Wawona to the Valley, and got a ride to my new workplace.

Over the years, Duska and I developed a new kinship, and she bonded with my wife and children as well. Duska and I would sometimes sit and laugh about how our parents would avoid us. They would drive within a couple miles or so of my house when visiting a doctor or the Bosch Baha’i school, and they had been avoiding Duska for years. Duska and I would, in contrast, go well out of our way to visit our parents, in spite of our differences, and in spite of the treatment we might get during the visit. There would be constant reminders that religion came first, and we often found ourselves upstaged by what was termed “our Baha’i family”. We laughed it off. We really did.

The Baha’i religion almost never came up, but when it did, you can bet that we laughed.

Duska got some free time a few years back, and decided to fly up to Washington to see the folks and family. She stayed the night with us, and made up a game that she played with our baby boy. It was simple: she would look through the window of a Fisher Price house and say “Hi!”, and he would giggle a “Hi” back.

I was a little distracted at the time—I don’t know what about, but I managed to take her to the airport.

She spent the next night at our parents’ house, and suffered from a massive brain hemorrage in the morning. I was able to speak to her again, but the doctor said she could not have heard me.

Mom made certain that Duska had a Baha’i memorial and burial. Mom said she had once asked Duska if she considered herself a Baha’i, and that Duska had responded in the affirmative. I didn’t want to fight about it, but I was horrified. I understood: Duska was still her daughter. Could I blame Mom if she was in denial?

Still, anger was heaped upon grief: what about the Duska that lived and died? What about her? Was anybody going to remember her?

Our neighbor told me, “Dan, the dead don’t care.”

I don’t suppose they do. But regardless, I still miss you, sister. Yeah, sometimes I see you. At the filling station. I was parked in line behind that tan Ford Escort you used to drive, and I could only watch. You got out, filled up, and then you drove away.

I can see lots of things, but that doesn’t change a thing.