Life of a Don: life's stages from a male perspective

By John Martin Ramsay

Life of a Don, life's stages from a male perspective.

We begin life dependent upon caretakers for nourishment, learning language, and instilling customs. We also inherit a perplexing array of genetically determined capabilities-and limits. The interactions between nurture and nature never stop changing through

• Language: English
• Publisher: ShareInPrint
• Release date: Jan 25, 2021
• ISBN: 9781735550114

John Martin Ramsay

Dr. Ramsay has six grandsons, five step granddaughters, and fifteen great grandchildren. He made up this impromptu tale while traveling with four of the grandsons.

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Life of a Don

byJOHN MARTIN RAMSAY

ShareInPrint.com

St Louis, Missouri

Table of Contents

Preface viii

Falling in Love at Age Nineteen 1

Courting’s a Pleasure When First it is New 6

Starting Work as Adults 11

A Second Honeymoon 17

Bumps in the Road 25

Starting a Family 29

The Don of Country Dancing 39

Surrogate Parents to Bill and Jill 45

In Vivo or in Vitro? 50

An Education on the Road 54

Squirrelly 59

Dirk McDonald 63

Love is Teasing and Love is Pleasing 67

Felix and Fiona 70

The Show’s on the Road 75

A Revised Program 83

Headed Home to Kentucky 90

The Royal Albert Hall without Tim and Jolanda 94

Meeting Princess Anne with Will and Tilly 104

Camel Award 109

Pearl and Earl 111

TUNA and More Doctors 114

Cancer Rears its Head 117

A Second Chance 126

Where from Here? 129

Calling All Dancers 133

Stages 137

Valley of the Moon 142

Anniversary Dances 149

Wax and Wane 152

Happy Ever After 158

Life of a Don, life’s stages from a male perspective

© 2020 John Martin Ramsay, St Louis, MO

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise without the prior permission of the publisher or in accordance with the provisions of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

Published by ShareInPrint.com

520 Mapleview Drive, Saint Louis, Missouri, U.S.A.

Disclaimer: Any resemblance to persons living or dead is not accidental. However, this is a novel and facts have been spun without regard to accurate events or actual people. Events and people provided the inspiration, but their appearance in the novel can in no way be relied upon as being truthful. Fantasy allows the author the freedom to pursue insights which lurk behind what you think is true.

Cover and Text Design by: John M. Ramsay

ISBN-978 735550107, paperback print

ISBN-978 735550114, ebook

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Acknowledgements

LIFE OF A DON, life’s stages from a male perspective,

is the result of...vertigo!

On April Fool’s Day, 2017, I woke up to find the world spinning. I was so dizzy that I could not get out of bed. Earth is gratuitously still spinning. Unfortunately, I am still too dizzy to resume what had been a lifetime of country dancing.

Dancing is not the only pleasure I have lost in my aging state. Prostate surgery has removed sex from my life (although the operation did enable me to urinate). A couple years ago, these dramatic shifts in life’s experiences must have begun to weigh on me while sleeping; I woke up with the idea that my dealings with country dancing and sex could make a worthwhile novel, and I could write it while sitting comfortably in front of my computer! Sitting down to write could take the place of dancing. Sex? Well, I’ll discuss that in the novel!

I would like to acknowledge and thank several people for their forebearance, and even assistance, as I started the novel. My wife—I met her at a dance—deserves foremost gratitude for sharing this last quarter century with me. My sons shared an interest in the novel and gave significant feedback. And a special dancing friend and English teacher kindly spent a year of her time pointing out grammatical improvements and missteps in my logic. They have all bravely allowed me to write about very personal issues and the freedom to embellish them.

John Martin Ramsay

December 13, 2020

Preface

We begin life dependent upon caretakers for nourishment, learning language, and instilling customs. We also inherit a perplexing array of genetically determined capabilities—and limits. The interactions between nurture with nature never stop throughout life’s stages. We each make our contributions to, or demands upon, human society; then, towards the end, we once again become dependent upon caretakers before our book is closed.

This is the story of Don Hunter and his wife Jan as they go through this life process. It is an exploration of some of the interactions which stand out in the author’s experience during what has been a relatively long life. He wonders: how much of life is driven by our makeup, including hormones; how much is happenstance; and how much of it is by choice? The story concludes with a guess at how Don’s life, and mine, may end!

Chapter 1: 1954, age 19

Falling in Love at Age Nineteen

Don Hunter, at age nineteen, was a good looking youth with a stature ideal for both dancer and lover. First impressions were his visual attraction; girls imagined themselves in his arms; guys wanted to look like him so they would have girls in their arms.

Beginning with puberty, his sexual hormones kicked in, as they are programmed to do; they color most aspects of teenage lives whether male or female. As we get to know Don, and he gets to know himself, we’ll see that he is disposed to do more with his life than mate! Follow Don as he falls in love and progresses through life’s stages, right to the end!

Also meet Jan Beck, the love of Don’s life. In their case, opposites attract, and the question becomes, can two people who are so different fall in love and stick together? In the biginning, Don looks forward to raising a family of eight, enough for a full squaredance set, while Jan dreams of becoming a publisher; marriage was not in her plans.

Don

Don Hunter was fifth in a family of twelve. All twelve, including Don, were homeschooled and quickly learned how to help each other with chores, lessons, and family projects. This training extended beyond their home. Their parents saw to it that the entire family, since they were lacking the contacts provided by public schooling, had other ways to become part of a wider community. Perhaps it was this training during childhood that turned Don into an extrovert, or perhaps he was just naturally friendly.

The Hunter family looked forward to weekly country dances which were held on Saturday nights in an old school building built in Carcassonne, Kentucky. The custom at the dances of pairing tall with small meant that as a teenager, Don, who was adept at dancing, often danced with younger children. Sometimes, he danced with parents. Only now and then was he able to dance with a girl of his own age and of his own choice. There were usually girls clamoring to get him for their partner, and so, even when he might have had an opportunity, he seldom had a chance to make his own choice. But, that was OK with him. He enjoyed the popularity, and really did like to share dancing with anybody—even those who were inept, always confused, and claimed to have two left feet. Don Hunter, you see, found pleasure in helping people and found a special joy in helping them dance.

His broad brow signified a serious nature, and his chin was as sturdy as if chiseled from stone. Brow and chin were, however, offset by a shock of unruly brown hair. His eyes matched this hair both in color and playfulness; they were seldom still. Don was a catch for most young ladies. Parents, wanting the best in mates for their daughters, took any opportunity to push them in his direction.

Don had his own hormonal urges. He had had a wet dream one night at age thirteen and with it the thrill of realizing that he was ready for sex and fatherhood. His parents obviously loved each other; they were openly affectionate and although he never saw them mating, he heard them sometimes—and not always at night. But watching his mother with pregnancy after pregnancy, he also knew the consequences of intercourse and knew that he, as a teenager, was not ready for fatherhood. At this early age, Don Hunter learned to master his sexual urges. He put sex on a shelf to wait to be taken down when he was twenty-one. However, as it happened, it jumped off the shelf when he was nineteen.

Jan

Jan Beck was a cultured, serious, well-dressed, well-groomed young lady, and an only child. She grew up in Rochester, New York where she was provided with everything needed to excel, including the motivation of her parent’s expectations. Their expectations encompassed using one’s intellect to succeed in life: eating healthy foods, cultivating socially prominent friendships, and dressing fashionably.

At age thirteen, Jan began to menstruate. Her body began to tell her things she was not fully prepared to handle. Her parents had explained the expectation of menstruation, but their preparation had been an intellectual exercise. Their own physical dealings with sex happened only at night behind the bedroom door, and there was never a public expression of affection during the day.

As a child, Jan had not faced the full implications of sexual feelings. Mind and body were kept at arm’s length from each other. She had learned to suppress feelings when they appeared. At puberty, she was forced to approach adulthood in a most personal way as it was physically exposed in her monthly cycle. She learned to keep her feelings private and had few friends—none could be called close although she was well-liked. Her closest friends were found in books. She read constantly.

After she graduated from prep school, her parents enrolled her in Fillet College, an exclusive girls’ school on the Ohio River in Maysville, Kentucky. Country dancing was being introduced at Fillet as an acceptable social activity. Spurred by the production of Pride and Prejudice starring Greer Garson and Lawrence Olivier, country dance became a fashionable vehicle for young ladies and young men to meet each other. A Country Dance Society of America had been organized in Boston by progressive New Englanders. The regulated structure of the dances and the literary stature of Jane Austen combined to raise country dancing, as a social activity, above any reproach.

In Jan’s sophomore year, young men from the nearby Bolding College were invited to a country dance party at Fillet. There, our handsome young man appeared at Jan’s side,

May I have the honor of dancing the next dance with you?

Jan had read Jane Austen—Elizabeth meeting Darcy flashed through her mind. She dropped her eyes in confusion. Her voice was suddenly weak. But she was able to nod yes. Then, getting control of herself, she looked him in the eyes, smiled, and said in her cultured manner with no hint of her butterflies,

It would be my pleasure.

Don had noticed Jan as soon as he had entered the ballroom. She had an aura about her and moved across the floor more gracefully on two feet than a feline does on four; Don was smitten. Here is a partner just for me, Don’s heart put into his head. Her head was held confidently high while her smile said, I’m ready to accept you as a friend.

Jan’s light green dress fit her shapely curves perfectly and her narrow waist accentuated the flaring skirt. Something about her carriage, form, and smile tugged at Don’s heart immediately. He made a point of being in a position to ask her for the dance before any other guys could claim her hand.

Don and Jan were partners for the old English Quadrille; it was one of Don’s favorite dances because of the blissful smiles he noticed on the faces of the onlookers as, at the climax of the dance, the men lifted their partners above their heads. When Don and Jan clapped their hands once, in preparation for taking the step toward each other to make the lift, Don was able to expertly assist Jan as she jumped with perfect timing. It seemed to take no effort on his part for this girl to sail heads above all the other ladies in the ballroom and to float down into his right arm for the swing and promenade. The dance had provided Dan and Jan their first embrace.

Chapter 2: 1954 to 1956—age 19 to 21

Courting’s a Pleasure When First it is New

When Don asked Jan to dance at the ball, both of their worlds were turned upside down. After that first dance, as he escorted her from the floor, he whispered,

I want to see you again. Can I have your address? Maybe we can go to Woolworths for an ice-cream soda on Sunday.

She blushed, confused by her own feelings and about what Don’s intentions were. She stammered,

I’m a student at Fillet. But then she added, I live in the college residence hall. We can receive visitors at 1:30 Sunday afternoon.

When Jan returned to the residence hall that night, she headed straight to her room rather than join in the girl-talk in the parlor. She knew the other girls had noticed that exciting Adonis at the dance and also the attention he had devoted to her. She had to sort out