The Hard Road Taken: I'm Almost There

By Kenneth O'Hare

To all who may enjoy what is written in this book, Jesus and I wrote down some traumatic events in my life. It took several years to complete and three years of letting go. Each day I would ask Jesus to help me go through my life once more to finally purge myself of the pain, anger, and suffering I had to endure in the past, which you should let go.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Page Publishing, Inc.
• Release date: Jul 29, 2021
• ISBN: 9781635687323

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Hard Road Taken

The

I’m Almost There

The True Story of Kenneth O’Hare

Jesus and I wrote this book

Kenneth O’Hare

Copyright © 2017 Kenneth O’Hare

All rights reserved

First Edition

PAGE PUBLISHING, INC.

New York, NY

First originally published by Page Publishing, Inc. 2017

ISBN 978-1-63568-731-6 (Paperback)

ISBN 978-1-63568-732-3 (Digital)

Printed in the United States of America

In Memory Of Phil Irvin

In 1960, pregnant with twins and having a two-year-old daughter already, our mother had to make a difficult decision, one of the toughest decisions in her young and troubled life. The decision to divorce our father, Joe, and stay barefoot and pregnant and on her own outweighed any circumstances that might arise.

She was in her fifth month of pregnancy, struggling to move on and find some degree of happiness. With grace and dignity, she did move on and was the first woman in the Ayer court to obtain a divorce.

Yet things got worse. Her husband would make threatening calls, stalk her, and even try to kill her. But she had the will and the strength not to give in. She went on welfare, though she felt trapped in her home, as if it were her prison and private hell. Each day she endured the hardship of pregnancy and fear in the life that was dealt to her. Often she would get on her knees and pray for herself and her unborn children, whom Joe, our father, did not want to see born. He threatened to blow up the house, with all of us in it. However, life prevailed. We were born in 1961, twins, a minute apart. I was first and my brother Kevin followed.

Throughout my life I often pondered if should have been born. I was born deaf and unable to walk for three years. Then my hearing came back to adequate normalcy. So life began with some hard lessons.

Now our dad was finally out of our lives for good. Despite the trouble he gave us and the threats he made, he was never punished. His lawyer got him off without penalty. He had pleaded with the judge to give him probation if he vowed to stay off alcohol. He did so for forty years, remaining clear and sober.

Our mother, on the other hand, continued to experience the pains and hardships of life, struggling alone to raise us children, smoking and getting drunk daily. She was just miserable. She would weep constantly. Her father had died recently of a heart attack, so she had no one to turn to for help and advice. Her mother had thrown her out when she was just a little girl. She lived with her aunt and was molested at age nine by a relative. They told her they would kill her if she said anything. To add to her misery, her best friend, Betsy, a true friend and a ray of hope in her life, died in a horrible car accident.

There were many days when my brother, sister, and I would have to entertain ourselves while our mother was passed out on the couch, often with a cigarette in her mouth. Luckily, she didn’t set the house on fire.

Nap time was when I would get in trouble. We lived on the first floor. I would crawl out the window and walk through the neighborhood. I was five years old and would get the greatest thrill out of it. Yet I knew I would get a spanking, and I did, often. She would find me far from home and ask, over and over, why I did this. I guess I was an adventuresome kid wanting to have fun, trying everything I could.

I remember trying on her high heels and walking in them. I couldn’t resist it. Down the stairs I went and fell flat on my face. Blood everywhere, having smashed my face. I needed surgery to take care of the wounds. Plenty of bed rest after that!

DSS was all over my mother as things were getting out of control. She was put in an institution for a while—better term, nuthouse. She was getting crazy and worse each day. Then she was shuffled around with relatives and friends, not coming home for a long time. When she did, I was never so happy to see her.

She lived in fear of her husband for the rest of her life, until the day she died at seventy-four. God bless her. The long stay in that institution helped her in many ways. She got proper medication and quit smoking and drinking. Now she had a slim glimpse of hope, getting back to an active life.

She met Skip and got married, and we soon had another brother. We moved into a beautiful house in Nabnasset.

Joe, our father, did not approve of her second marriage, not the fact that she had another child. This only fueled his anger. He would often be seen driving past the house and threatening our Mother, still wanting to bomb our house, with us in it. I can’t to this day figure out if he really had a heart to do it. Maybe he just wanted to make her life miserable, and he did so for a long time. Then, he stopped altogether.

Skip had tried to stop him, but even he feared him. At times we would run into the backyard and hide in the woods, not knowing if he was bluffing or serious. It was certainly hard to do normal things as a child.

The best part at this house was being able to walk several blocks down the road to forty steps down to the lake. I didn’t know how to say Nabnasett, so I would ask our mother if we could go the forty steps. I knew there were forty steps to go down to the lake because I counted them every time we went there. We often would bring some food and would barbecue.

We had a great uncle, Jimmy, whom my Mother adored and always felt sorry for because he lived in a shack and was crippled because of his drinking moonshine. He had five good friends. Four died and one was blind, and my uncle was crippled. He could walk a short distance with the use of two canes.

Skip, our stepfather, invited him to live with us. Our mother was thrilled. I can remember his walking up and down the yard, lifting up his canes and saying Someday, I’ll throw away these sons of bitches, but he was never able to do that. But years down the road, he could walk longer distances and we would cheer him on. It was just a great accomplishment for him. He died at the ripe old age of ninety-five, a good, loveable man.

I was still a bed wetter at age nine. Skip had the doctors set up a device on the bed so that if I peed, an alarm would ring. It drove me crazy, but it finally worked.

Then, my mother hired a babysitter so she and Skip could go out for the night. When they returned, they found three kids, but not me. The babysitter said I was out of control, so she locked me in the closet. When they opened the door, they found me in a fetal position, white as a ghost. I was claustrophobic. They pressed charges against the babysitter. The whole thing left me with nightmares, which I had forever. I would wake up at night and sleepwalk.

Growing up later in life, there were more memorable times. We would sit around the TV, sipping hot cocoa, and our mother would prepare homemade popcorn. We had many laughs over those silly sitcoms. This all made life special. Then we would often go to Kimball Farms for ice cream. They made the best ice cream around. We tried to be a family, with special dinners on Sundays, eating together and enjoying ourselves with jokes and laughter.

Halloween was a special occasion. We got to dress up and be what we wanted to be. My brother was a fireman, my sister a nurse, and my other brother Spiderman. I wanted to dress up like a bum. My mother got me baggy clothes and put dirt on my face. I even had a stick with a pouch at the end. After watching The Wizard of Oz, I got the scarecrow’s walk down. People laughed and got a kick out of it, even after Halloween. People would ask me to walk like the bum I portrayed as a child. Who would have guessed I’d end up like a bum later in life? I’d still make people laugh with that walk, especially after getting drunk.

At home we had lots of woods, so we were able to make tree forts, which were common in our area, and Skip would help with the materials, nails, and wood. We would make the biggest and coolest fort around. But my friend Mark and I went to the other side of the woods and saw a colorful and more sophisticated fort belonging to Noel, whose dad was rich and could hire professionals to build it. We thought we were just going to admire it and go home, but Mark found a spray can near it and decided to spray swears on it. Nobody liked Noel, so we could say he had it coming to him. I didn’t want to get in trouble, so I started walking away when a loud voice yelled out, Hey, you kids, I’m calling the cops. Needless to say, we ran home. Later that day, a detective came to our house. Noel’s father recognized us, and Mark admitted to spraying the fort with every foul word you could imagine. The detective took my name and said I was just as guilty, an accessory to the act. He said, I’m putting you on record.

I can still remember my Mother yelling, Ken doesn’t even know how to spell or doesn’t know the real meaning of the words. You might think he’s a criminal. He’s only twelve years old and you’re being too harsh on him. They can paint over it. My Mother was infuriated when he said, He’s a troublemaker, and we don’t like that in our town.

That was the day I started hating cops. Things in general got worse after that. Our dad appeared on our street, screeching his tires, yelling profanities at my mother, and still making threats. Skip called the cops, but they said they couldn’t do anything unless he harmed her. I guess verbal abuse don’t count to you guys, Skip said angrily. The cops answered, You need to work this out for yourselves. Skip slammed the door and then went out to buy a gun. He also bought BB guns for me and my twin brother, Kevin. We all went out to practice shooting. I think Skip’s intention was to settle this once and for all.

Things went south after that. One day my brother was walking past a tree when I thought I would shoot him. It was a hell of a shot, right to the head. As he was being rushed to the hospital, my mother was swearing and hysterical. DSS showed up. A lot of trouble came with that incident. I was being charged as a minor in possession of a weapon. What turmoil came upon us!

My fourteen-year-old sister decided to sneak out and party with the older bad kids in the neighborhood. She began to be a handful for Skip trying to discipline her. There were many arguments on her being a whore at such a young age. But in her defense, she was only a party girl, willing to go to any lengths to keep a boyfriend around. I guess the worst of things was when the bikers moved in down the road. There goes the neighborhood, people were saying.

I wanted to get a closer look at them, with all the talk of their being bad and dangerous. They would often race up and down our dead-end street, partying, yelling and cheering. They were quite the spirited people. No one ever dared to get close to them. They were one of a kind of animal, but I took it upon myself to take the challenge, possibly a bit of craziness in me. With my heart racing and pounding in my chest, I began to walk in the middle of the road. With my eyes closed, I repeated to myself that I was going to walk to the end of the road and back.

Suddenly, a yell came out of nowhere: Hey, boy, you best beat it out of here. I ignored him and got his full attention. Maybe you didn’t hear me, boy. Then I heard a thunderous cheer: Let’s do this. That’s when I could honestly say that about fifty bikers were revving up louder and louder. I opened my eyes and saw that they were doing wheelies coming straight at me, one after another, just barely striking me. But I froze and couldn’t move. The fear outweighed my ability to move. Moving or leaning in any direction, I would have been bumped by the bikes.

Then, to my utter amazement, they stopped and completely surrounded me. One biker got off and grabbed my hand and yelled: What’s your name, kid?

Kenny, I said anxiously. He raised my arm while the others applauded. We have a new member, guys. This kid’s got balls!

For several hours they gave me liquor, food, and rides on their bikes until the cops came with my mother. My first reaction was Oh shit, more trouble with the cops, and I gave them the finger. The bikers tried to intimidate the cops, saying, He’s one of us, so beat it. My mother grabbed me. He’s only twelve and he’s not going to be a biker.

For the next several weeks, there were discussions about moving. Skip put the house up for sale. It was a beautiful house and it sold quickly. We moved to Forge Village in Westford, a good twenty miles from Nabnasset.

Forge Village had its diverse possibilities and was more aggressive than Nabnasset. People were experiencing drugs, which were as common as the one-cent candy was in the fifties. It was everywhere, and a good majority of people around was doing it.

I guess our family got caught up in the village kind of life. We had a lake called Forge Pond. It wasn’t much for swimming because the water was green with algae. It was more of a place for people to hang out and party.

For the next several years, our family would fight constantly over something. My sister, at seventeen, married a nineteen-year-old guy who was half-black. It made for common ground for racism. And amid all the chaos, to make things worse, Skip divorced our mother. He just could not take the pressure of being the family man to a family that had gotten out of control. Our mother was forced to go to work and leave us teenagers who were filled with piss and vinegar, wanting to experience life at its fullest. Forge Village had its own way of showing us how to have fun in a close-knit town.

But after her divorce, our mother had to sell the house, and we ended up moving into an apartment down the road next to a huge family, the Woodwards. Here’s where I found some of my best friends. They were loud and crazy. At fifteen, I was awaiting to hang tough with them.

I first met Pat who, on one of his more adventuresome days, liked to race his car—a step