Youth Gone Wild. Robert "Bob" Sorensen
I’d seen enough. I’d been through enough embarrassment for one night. I just wanted to go back to my cell.
*****
Let’s stay in the same month and year to give you some brief insight into Christmas at the Sorensen house. Like any other child, I would spend several months putting my wish list together for Santa. We were always told that if you were a good boy or girl, Santa would be good to you. By this time (third grade), I was hearing stories about Santa not being real. In actuality, your parents were the ones providing the gifts. I tried not to listen, but in reality, I didn’t care. As long as I get what I want, I’m a happy camper. I carefully made up my list. Like they said, I checked it twice. I gave it to my parents to forward to Santa well in advance of Christmas Day. Better safe than sorry.
It was now Christmas Eve. We put out cookies and milk for Santa and his reindeers and ran off to bed. I had a hard time falling asleep because my mind was working overtime (more than usual). After many hours of tossing and turning, I was back awake. It was 6:00 a.m., and I was raring to go. I woke up my oldest sister, and we headed down. The tree was all lit up, with presents surrounding the base. We looked for each of our piles and began to touch, feel, shake, etc., trying to get a hint of what was inside. We were going to bust. We tore down to my parents’ bedroom and swan dove into their bed.
“Wake Up! Santa came!”
My parents hemmed and hawed. They told us it was too early and to go back to bed.
“Are you crazy? Didn’t you hear me? Santa came, and I’m ready to tear into those presents while I go down my checklist.”
They lay motionless. We headed back to the tree and proceeded to wait another forty-five-plus minutes until they wandered into the living room. Instead of letting us go crazy, my parents had this tradition of only opening one present at a time in order from oldest to youngest. Karen, followed by me, followed by my youngest sister, Laura. It was time to begin, and I was about to pee my pants with excitement. Present 1, Christmas stocking cap and scarf. Present 2, a pair of polka dot mittens (that’s correct, mittens, not gloves). Present 3, a robe. Present 4, underwear. This went on and on throughout the morning. We were getting down to the last few presents. I was still holding out hope I’d get something, anything, off my list. Next present, a hard cover copy of the Children’s Bible. Last present, some obscure board game. It appeared another Christmas had come and gone, and Santa (or my parents) had stiffed me once again! My face went flush. I began to cry uncontrollably. My parents had just taken the happiest day in a kid’s life and made it the worst day. I was told not to cry, that Santa brought me everything that I “needed.” It was not about needed! This was the kind of shit you should be buying for your children all along, not saving it up to disguise as Christmas gift. I was devastated. Insult to injury was when you return to school after the break just to hear about all the cool things my fellow classmates received. Brutal. Unfortunately, this would be how Christmas would go every year, far into my teenage years.
*****
It was now the summer of 1971. I had managed to make a few more friends at school. Our interests had now turned to sports. Summer, baseball. Fall, football. Winter, hockey. Spring, basketball. There was no such thing as organized sports back then. You just pulled together the kids in the neighborhood, split up the sides, and played. It was baseball season, and everyone was ready to go. Seeing Santa was good to my friends over the years, they all had the required gear—gloves, bats, hats, etc. Me? I had several pairs of beautiful mittens, forty pairs of underwear, etc. No sports gear of any kind. Seeing I had zero dollars to my name (all birthday and Christmas money I may have gotten is in the bank, there was no such thing as an allowance), I had to ask my mom to please buy me what I needed.
“That’s a boy thing. Go ask your dad.”
“Not Dad! Please, not Dad!”
Let me remind you of two things. My father was a momma’s boy who never played a sport in his life. My father spent zero time with me because he was always too “busy” with work and other activities (from early childhood on, my dad’s favorite pastime was lying on the couch). I asked anyways, and for the next several weeks, I got the standard runaround. My mother picked up on this and decided to take matters into her own hands. Back to Goldblatt’s we go. I didn’t know jack shit about sporting gear. My mom knew even less. As a result, we let price determine our decision.
“What’s the difference? They all do the same thing.”
We picked out a shiny plastic baseball glove, barely larger than my Christmas mittens, and a Cubs hat, most certainly not the official MLB gear. The brim came to a point like a bird’s beak. The C was grossly oversized and the wrong color (purple). We headed home. I put on a pair of flannel pants, a button-down mini-me polo shirt, and my play shoes (Buster Brown loafers). I grabbed my mitt and hat and bolted out the front door to the park. I was so excited I could bust. Upon my arrival, I could see I was most definitely over dressed for the occasion. Of course, everyone was in T-shirts, blue jeans, and gym shoes. After getting my ass handed to me for the next fifteen to twenty minutes (verbally), we finally got around to picking teams. Mind you, I’ve never played a second of baseball in my life. The only exposure I’ve had was watching the Cubs play on WGN-TV. I was told to play third base. I assumed my position. Play ball. The first kid up hit a soft line drive my way. I put my glove up in front of my face in an attempt to catch the ball. The good news was, I was able to catch the ball in my mitt. The bad news was, the ball proceeded to rip through my plastic glove and nail me straight in the eye. The first play of my baseball career and I was not only injured but also my mitt was destroyed. Of course, I was crying like a little schoolgirl. The other kids were laughing their asses off while I sprinted back to my house.
My mother greeted me at the door. “What’s wrong?” I relayed my story as she put ice on my eye. She told me to be a big boy and stop crying. I just got hit straight in my eye with a baseball because of the piece of shit glove she bought me and she wanted me to be a big boy? So much for sympathy from your mother. As I held the ice pack on my eye, my mother went in the other room to track down a shoelace. She took my mangled glove, put it back together with the lace, handed it back to me, and said, “See, good as new. Now get back out there and have some fun.”
Man, I just couldn’t win. I did as I was told. I headed back over. I took my lumps. Midway through the summer, one of my friends gave me a spare glove that he had. I don’t remember who that was. Whoever you were, I love you, man! Fall came, and it was the same story. Back to Goldblatt’s for a Kansas City Chiefs helmet with no padding. Of course, it was on sale. I wore it once, got my ass kicked, and threw it into my closet, never to be seen again. From this point on, I would play full-contact football with no helmet or pads.
Winter brought hockey season, along with a pair of figure skates and an off-brand hockey stick. I refused to ever wear the skates. I chose to play ice hockey in my boots. The stick broke within thirty minutes of use (of course), and I had to rely on the generosity of others once again. I chose to skip basketball entirely because my parents bought me an undersized rubber ball, and I had yet to get a pair of gym shoes. My sports career was off and running.
*****
This is a perfect time to talk about music. Music was a very important thing in the Sorensen house, as long as you were listening to the “appropriate” type of music. My mom was absolutely nuts about jazz—any and all types of jazz. My father was into the big band sound. There was not a day that would go by without either playing on the family turntable. Karen was starting to branch out into the pop music of the day—Helen Reddy, the Carpenters, Herb Alpert. All the above were deemed appropriate and acceptable. Not knowing any better, I accepted this as the norm. At the time, we did not have a radio, so there was no exposure to other types of music that was out there. My parents loved jazz and big band music. My sister liked pop music. I, by default, loved it all. As you can imagine, when this subject came up amongst my friends, I once again fell victim to more physical and verbal abuse. To summarize, I was heading into fourth grade, and I was this skinny, dorky, effeminate, brainwashed little boy. No true father figure. Raised by a mother who knew nothing about raising a boy, choosing to raise (and dress) me like another daughter. To be blunt, I was fucked at this point. I was trapped, and there was