3. Moving on

Chained

If you can’t break the chain, rip out the post and drag it with you.  

Stuff happens. I figure you have two choices; you can sit down and quit, or get up and move on. 

While working in the metal shop at school, I hear the teacher yelling out to me, I look up and see all the other students and the teacher in the doorway pointing at a flame above the acetylene tank I am using. Yep. Big tank of highly explosive gas with a little flame burning nicely on top of the shutoff valve, I’m in trouble again. So I calmly lean over, cup the flame and blow it out. Teacher said I could have blown the flame into the tank.

  

Well, I figure if I run for the door it could blow up before I got there and kill us all anyway, so better off to try and put it out. Moral: Keep calm, don’t get blown up, and you might even get a great reputation around school of being the bravest kid around.   

Taken Hostage: grade 11 technical Drawing class. Student sitting behind me is requested to the office. He doesn’t want to go so grabs a utility knife (the one with the very long and sharp extendable blade). Puts it to my throat and says he wants to leave and I am coming with him.

The poor student teacher is in shock. The knife leaves a little cut  on my throat and we are standing there for what seems like forever.  There was nothing I could do, so I stand there nice and calm and accept my fate.  Seconds later he puts the knife down and runs out of the room, we heard the police drag him out of the school moments later and then never heard from him or about the incident again. No big news story, no councillors, no "bring everyone together to talk and cry", just move on past it and survive. The poor student teacher did take a few days of to recover.

Sometimes bad things happen to get us ready to handle things that are much worse. Later that year I was attacked with a knife again, and if not for the two previous experiences I may not have kept calm and walked away alive. The pain of this experience is still chained to me but it will not stop me from moving forward. I ripped the pole out and dragged it with me.

That’s it, enough sad stuff right? Just finished making the sign for the teacher’s end of year party “We made it!”. Heading to my last art class in high school and … My Art teachers dies. Massive asthma attack. He died outside his brother’s house the night before.

That’s it, I am done with high school and headed off  to college! But of course “We don’t accept applications from your school”, so I had to go to a main stream school for at least one year to get in.

So OK, spent one more year at another high school, completed grade 11 and 12 accounting, computer programming and system analyst.  Bored out of my tree, seems main stream schools teach at their pace only, not the pace I can learn?

OK, I’m finally ready for college and certain that I am going to be a computer programmer; I have my hand on the door... but that's for another time.

2. Turned around

Window Pain

Ok, so I can walk again, and it’s off to school and like every first grade student, I want to do my best. But, sometimes things get in the way, like when my daughter wanted to ride her bike on a rainy day but instead sat bored at the window pane.

I failed grade one. Seems they didn’t pass students who couldn’t read back then just because they got older.   Half-way through my second year in grade one, they found out I could read perfectly in a mirror. Yep, that’s me again, backwards and right to left.  I have dyslexia real bad and once I was old enough ( 2 years later ) I was sent off  for special education  to work with very special teachers who turned my words ( and world ) around. Wasn’t easy, I hated it, and spent hours each day for 3 years in a room by myself with a projector flashing letters on the wall. Would I do it again? You bet! I can read.

So here we go, off to high school with kids my own age, yep they got me all caught up.  I was great at math, poor at reading, and able to spell in my own strange language. I hated school like everyone else and then, met some of the best teachers I ever knew. I finished high school with a 92% average grade and was named valedictorian.

My math teacher introduced me to programming on the IBM Pet computer, had to take two different math courses to get into that program but getting my CCNA instructors qualification many years later had started with this one great teacher.

My art teacher introduced me to commercial art and colour theory.  And I loved it so much that I created great cityscapes, paintings, and produced lots of calligraphy for 3 years.  I was going to be a great artist, then I saw a kid, who after finally being forced to draw a picture like it was the worst moment of their life, produce something so much better than my work I had quit doing art (Last and only time I ever quit something  ... well except when I quit smoking).

My English teacher gave be a different type of book every day and took it back the next day, all he asked of me was to read some of it.  He never asked me anything else about the book that I could remember.   After several weeks of this he gave me Z for Zachariah, I wouldn't let him take that one back. Then he got me more books like that. Soon I was skipping school to finish reading books (don’t tell my teachers, because I said I was sick).  This is the teacher that turned my life around, and because of him I eventually became a technology teacher with a full degree... but that's for another time.

1. Introduction

Hello and Welcome to Becoming the Artist DAB.

As I like the number 5,  I thought it would be good to start this with 5 questions to begin our journey.

1 Where to start ?

2. Who is DAB ?

4. What brought him here ?  

3. When does one change ?

5.Why does he paint?

Old Shed
Where does this story begin? Look in the window, no not the reflection in the window, look in closely at the broken window in the lower right corner,  back in that dark corner. See that couple? That's my mom and dad...Not really, but it is a great old shed.

This is kind of how I think of myself, a little broken around the edges but still trying to be useful and reflect on good thoughts.

So DAB,  David Allen Bigelow  Yep that's it, some guy born in the 60's.  No not partying in the 60's, born then. Just old enough to know I missed the party. 

The second son of Lynn and Fred Bigelow, who were too young to be recognized as married by the Canadian Army to get the married soldiers' bonuses, but extremely dedicated to their two sons and facing a spectacular challenge raising a son, crippled by club feet. They worked hard to find a solution and got some help for their second son’s needs.  

Yep, that was me, six months old and starting 10 years of procedures of repeated breaking, straightening, and bracing my legs; 27 times each I am told.  This kid learned to walk, run, ride, and eventually getting  those great straight legs to conquer the unicycle and ride it all around the city I was born in.  Yep it hurt, it hurt a lot; but would I do it again? You bet! I had a blast running on them legs and only broke one once after that... but that's for another time.