To start with

The Monsters I’ve Created
by
Ray Ruffo

So many times in life we influence people, and sometimes we have not idea how. This is a closer look than I might want to admit. Even from a small child, we share a bit of ourselves with everyone we meet. Sometimes it is a good thing, sometimes it is not. The way we want people to see us is a big deal, we don’t ever think how that affects them later in life. The people we have meet in our life have influenced us, and a lot of time we don’t see it. How we deal with other people or problems, was learned at an early age, we just modified it to suit our needs. And so goes the modification of our moral’s rise and /or fall. What we accept as good or bad, right or wrong, and what we can live with in our lives. Our work ethics, play patterns, and the choice of mates, have been Swede by what we have seen in others. So here is how I see some of the things that I have had a chance to, let’s say, donate to the rise and/or fall, of man kind.

My parents, I believe, always saw me as a loving child, at an early age. Later in my adolescent age things may have changed, but for a young child, say birth to five years old, I had the same problems every child with A.D.D. had, only they didn’t know what A.D.D. was at the time (1960’s).I was a handful, or so I was told. I lived through being dropped on my head, falling down a flight of stairs, and eating industrial strength epoxy, which my father use to fix my crib with after I tore it apart. Now they say you don’t remember much at that age, I do remember my 3rd birthday party, ask my mom, there are things that she would rather not remember, that may be one. You see at that time my father spent a lot of time at a place called Cosmos, and I do remember my mother telling my father to “take this kid with him” so she could have a break. I remember a lot of women and kids, but no fathers. I remember the garage apartment that we lived in above the gas station / repair shop, with a fenced in roof, my play area. You see things where different back then, dads worked and moms raised the children. After work dads needed to relax, one of those relaxing things where to go to the bar to have a drink. In some families that has not changed, in mine it did. Dad smartened up, and started spending more time with the family, I think that Mom put a leash on that monster. Dad still drinks on occasion, but not like before, you see not all monsters are bad, Dad made Mom strong enough to change the direction our family was going. Mom is the monster that my father created for himself, and that was a good thing. You see people change people, but not always for the better. My parents had some rough years, but they were strong enough to weather it for the better. Now it seems that they have been married forever and they work together well, they still do things on there own, but they also make time for each other. The monsters in their closet, are theirs, and that is up to them to tell that story.