I am so impressed by my daughter Jessica's new project, ElectricViolinLabs.com, and by her spirit and resilience that I'm compelled to write this.
Master electric violin through expert-led workshops. From beginner foundations to advanced sound design, looping, and performance presence.
Her free lessons, in particular, are great. I find all content best viewed full-screen directly on Vimeo, as ElectricViolinLabs.com is technically complex and may affect video performance on some machines.
Most men die without their side of their life story ever being heard, even by their own children, who spend most of their lives persuaded by their mother and Her Family and Friends.
When you live in a petty trades-based working class community of capitalists that prefer shortcuts to hard work, becoming among the best in your increasingly complex STEM oriented field invites unwarranted condemnation from the mediocre, even among your own family members and former friends, including wealthy automotive dealership and parts store owners - especially if you are nationally recognized professionally for your achievements - giving you a competitive edge that they can't hope to compete with through honest effort.
Instead, Christians competing in the business world will choose the easier way. Devalue the professional achievement, attack the character of the individual, and hinder his ability to succeed through any means available. All is fair to the Christian capitalist.
I cannot let this behavior go unanswered.
Following is the short version of the mindset that led to their creation when Laurie and I were young…
Our children all seem to blame me and their mother for being too poor to have them, to varying degrees. I love them all, and try not to miss them, but think about them everyday.
None have attempted to engage with me regarding their childhoods, or relationship with their mother and I.
The 60s and 70s were different times, not easy for many.
I had been working since childhood to help support my family, beginning at home, doing various chores, running to the local grocery to pick up staples that ran out at after school mealtime, pulling a wagon to the Grand Union with Chris to get a heavy (canned goods were popular) four bag grocery order, which my dad would pay for, when I was eight or nine years old.
I helped Dad with some home improvements, and at the shop developed a skill-set that customers were knowingly paying for — by the time I was fourteen.
Laurie was introduced to me In High School by my brother's girlfriend, Terry, who told me that Laurie told her that she was interested in me at lunch, shortly before my senior banquet in 1978. Terry asked what I thought. I told her that Laurie was quite attractive, and that my current relationship wasn't going anywhere anyway.
At an assembly in the gym soon after, hearing someone coming down the bleachers, I looked to see it was Laurie, who squeezed herself in right by my side.
After about a week I learned that she was very athletic and owned a motorcycle that she enjoyed working on with her Dad. She also wasn't religious. She seemed perfect to me — a little short, but you can't have everything.
We were only a year apart in age. She had been held back a year.
After a few days I asked her to my senior banquet. We had a good time.
Laurie was my last girlfriend. I had had a few, a lot of sex before dating her, and with her while we were dating. The fact that we operated a business that I was a key part of on the most trafficked corner in the city may have had something to do with that. I can't say.
Laurie Became pregnant on Dec 23rd, 1979, a year and a half later at a holiday party at my house.
Jessica Anne Parrotte was born on September 24, 1980.
I had already quit college after my first semester to run the business with my father, who promised me first right to purchase it at appraised value, and that I would always be the highest paid and senior employee, as Chris had left town to work with a government airbase runway repair contractor who paid far more than Dad.
Chris stayed away for seven to eight years, while I learned to use automotive test equipment and earned my first certifications from the National Institute for Automotive Service Excellence (NIASE), later renamed ASE, probably because of legal challenges from industry organizations seeking to profit and/or fearing the formation of a national professional automotive technicians union.
UAW and Teamster union members were relatively unskilled - easily replaceable, and still are, compared to ASE certified technicians.
The auto industry then was courting new technicians with promises of greatly increased incomes.
I had marketable skills and expected to be able to provide.
I did not foresee New York State making our business property a liability.
I did not foresee Dad breaking our agreement.
I did not foresee my extended family, competitors, parts stores, machine shops and dealerships using underhanded marketing techniques and sabotaging work.
I did not foresee the industry restricting repair information and equipment access.
I did not foresee Chris returning and purposefully detracting from my ability to work, and trying to change the business direction towards work that he preferred.
I trusted my father when he advised me to purchase a quality mobile home and place it on his out-of-town land, knowing my worth and thinking that I would be paid enough to purchase the land someday.
I did not think of the consequences of my young family being isolated, the land being beautiful, and only a 20 minute drive away. I intended to always provide my wife our best vehicle, which a certified mechanic should always be able to afford.
I did not foresee Dad taking the bulk of the money that I created, spending it on computers for his other children, giving them use of vehicles that he denied me, taking them to and from distant colleges, since he had forced me to walk to classes, etcetera.
I did not foresee my physical pain (I weight lifted a bit) becoming chronic, or my body totally giving up on me.
I had always been told my physical condition was just a minor issue by experts.
I married in the church to placate Laurie's family, a mistake.
I was left with no out, divorce their mom, who almost certainly would have gotten custody, and watch my children being raised remotely by a family that I'd become almost certain addicted her to opiates and alcohol at a young age.
They helped us prepare the land and moved nearby soon after.
From what I could tell, my parents preferred that we didn't marry at all.
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