Did you ever have a hero growing up?
I just finished reading Carol Burnett’s 1986 autobiography, One More Time.
I am beginning to learn more about choice, or the reason why people do what they do.
Carol (if you don’t already know) came from a pretty shitty background. It’s not that she didn’t experience love, but there was definitely a lot of pain, caused by people who were in tremendous pain. And yet, just like her movie heroes, she comes out on top of it (in more ways than one).
And yet, when you read Walter Issacson’s biography of Steve Jobs, you get a completely different story, one where his adoptive parents were nothing but supportive; he had the most amazing sounding childhood and parents, but he would grow up to be such an asshole.
In all due fairness, he wasn’t like that in all of his encounters or business relationships. And being a man who most definitely was seeking something higher than himself all of his life, he might have some regrets, but I highly doubt he would apologize for them, nor do I think he should (there would be no “Pixar” Pixar, and there definitely would be no personal computing as we know it today, without him).
My Grandmother was my hero, my best friend, my sensei, my Obi-Wan.
Was she perfect? Absolutely fuckin’ not.
But she knew the meaning of family.
As early as I can recall, she has always been protecting me. Legend has it that when my biological father tried to kidnap me (after my mother divorced him), she put a shotgun to his face and dared him to do it. This occurred when I was still an infant, but I have witnessed her leap up from behind a bar table, ready to lay hands on a drag queen who threatened me, so I am inclined to believe the legend is true.
The first memory I can recall was of her van’s sliding door always opening and closing, taking in glimpses of the glowing streetlamps (the Arizona sun had not yet risen), all while bundled up in the back . . . my Grandmother had a paper route.
While I definitely come from poor people, the more important point here is my Grandmother moved our family (myself, my mother, and my Aunt Jo Ann) from Kansas, with our only possessions in the trunk of her 1960’s silver convertible Mustang, and my mother’s yellow (also convertible) MG, and worked her way out of debt . . . permanently.
My first job working with my Grandmother (and there were many) was in her Sir Speedy print shop, around the age of 6 (technically, I was “sleeping on the job” on the first one). I was there because this was pre-Salvation Army after-school daycare, and because I was there, she put me to work. On the days I wasn’t with her, I would be with my mother, who worked the paste ‘n’ mechanicals at Sun Publishing, one of the state’s newspaper printing warehouses.
BTW: the look of my blog is intentional . . . it references the full-size ‘negative’ print of each page made for the process of etching the printing plates; a direct reference to happy memories of the past.
In the summer of ’81, I wanted The Go-Go’s “Beauty and the Beat” album. My Grandmother could have easily paid for it, but she taught me the lesson, “You want something, make it happen; earn it.”
To do that, she started paying me for the work I was doing on the weekends in her bar-cleaning business, so I could save up the money to buy the album. I was previously paid in free soda and a few quarters to play the table-top Ms. Pac-Man machines when all of my work was done, which was usually cleaning up the vomit in the toilets (another lesson inadvertently learned).
When I was 7 (and just before my mother married my step-father), I witnessed my Grandmother throwing out my Malibu Barbie and Sunshine Family dolls; my favorite toys that my Great-Grandparents had given me.
This caused a lot of confusion and shame; I would buy my own Barbies and hide them (and play with them) in my bedroom closet. I never hated her for it, but much later in life, I asked her why she did it. She told me she honestly didn’t remember doing it and that she was sorry that it caused me pain. And because I had witnessed a lifetime of her actions (and not just her words), I believed her.
Besides, I can’t be mad about it. I met some amazing people because of it, including Carol Spencer, one of the early ‘fashion designers’ for Barbie in the ‘60s. I have had multiple conversations with this sweet woman, where she shared with me her memories about working with Charlotte Johnson, Barbie’s first fashion designer, and the woman who built Barbie’s garment manufacturing from scratch (she literally moved to Japan and spent years there training their contracted factories during the prototype days) . . . so no, no regrets.
She didn’t have “successful” relationships. They were never ‘quickies,’ but in hindsight, they weren’t built for long-term either. And this has nothing to do with her desire to have one, rather, the result of the family pattern of answering the “wrong mating call."
We have her to thank for my freedom from this pattern, because in the midst of it all, she was passing down the wisdom she never did achieve, “Fool me once, shame you on, fool me twice, shame on me.” Or as I like to put it, “I have a head for business and bod’ for sin, but fool me once . . . (insert mic drop)!”
When I woke up in the hospital bed, after being confronted that my mother truly found more profit in my extinction then in my existence . . . think Luke Skywalker discovering that Darth Vader is his father, blended with, Bruce Wayne discovering the true identity of Ra’s al Ghul, and you will get a sense of what I went through . . . I realized I would have to face this horror alone (my Grandmother passed the previous year—my defender, my cheerleader was gone).
All I could do was ask myself, “What would she tell me to do in this moment?” The reply was, “Get out of this bed, make it, and do some yoga.” So I did. Just like Obi-Wan, she was still there, in spirit, in memory; in the lessons learned.
My Grandmother is the reason I am so strong, why I never give up, even when someone tries to bring me down to their darkest depths; because of her, my drive is off-the-charts; I get shit done!
Heroes aren’t perfect. They are the people who show up when it matters; the ones who teach us how to be, even when they are still learning themselves. Heroes are the ones who protect us before we can protect ourselves.
Despite her shortcomings, she never did anything to me in malice. In fact, quite the opposite; she was always in my corner—from day one.
I miss her.
So here’s the invitation . . .
Think about the people who raised you—the ones who showed up, the ones who protected you, the ones who taught you how to stand even when they were still figuring it out themselves. Let yourself remember what they passed down, not in words, but in actions. The work ethic. The grit. The loyalty. The resilience. The way they kept going when life gave them every reason not to.
And then ask yourself what you’re passing forward.
Because strength is an inheritance, but it’s also a responsibility. Someone younger — someone watching, someone learning, someone trying to find their own footing — will take their cues from you. Not from what you say, but from how you move through the world. How you work. How you rise. How you refuse to fall.
You don’t have to be perfect. You don’t have to be famous. You don’t have to be heroic in the cinematic sense.
You just have to show up the way someone once showed up for you.
That’s the real legacy; the real inheritance. That’s the real strength.
Until next time, be well and peaceful,
The Billy J
Your Perpetually Friendly, Neighborhood, Cosmic, Jedi-Surfer