Five Ducks

By Rob Neverwright

I am a proud father of three, dismayed by the fact I have now endured my second divorce. It’s tough when there is someone in front of you reminding you of every flaw and failure, and not just yours, but the flaws and failures of your gender, and the ones you are bound to demonstrate in the future. Is that how everyone feels about me?

I wrote a book once. College anecdotes, good times, ending on a high note. How did it go so wrong? I knew she was damaged, a troubled past, walls of defense, maybe a personality disorder or three, and injured animals fight to the death if they feel threatened. But I could help that, right? Review everything. This might hurt a bit. Maybe I should have pursued further the dozen or so interests that came before her. Maybe I should ask a few. Maybe I should look back at the closest friends from those times, too, as well as ones lost. This may not hurt quite as bad, except it might be worse.

This book covers my introspective journey of self-analysis. I try to figure out for myself, how looking over the side of a bridge with a stroller at a couple of ducks links itself with a group of friends I have been lucky to have for most of my adult life as well as to a girl from a long time ago that I never even kissed. Eventually, there may be a small pearl of wisdom or two, along with some graphic sarcasm, and descriptions and stories that had me laughing as I typed, proving again that laughter is still the best medicine.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Newman Springs Publishing, Inc.
• Release date: Dec 2, 2020
• ISBN: 9781648010170

Book preview

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Five Ducks

Rob Neverwright

Copyright © 2020 Rob Neverwright

All rights reserved

First Edition

NEWMAN SPRINGS PUBLISHING

320 Broad Street

Red Bank, NJ 07701

First originally published by Newman Springs Publishing 2020

ISBN 978-1-64801-016-3 (Paperback)

ISBN 978-1-64801-017-0 (Digital)

Printed in the United States of America

Table of Contents

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

Chapter 22

Chapter 23

Chapter 24

To the three people that mean more to me than all the others.

Not sure if they’ll ever read it, though.

And my other favorite high school sweetheart.

Hiraeth is a Welsh word that is somewhat difficult to describe in English, for the reason that there is no single English word that expresses all that it does. Some words often used to try and explain it are homesickness, yearning, and longing.

However, there is more depth to hiraeth than in any of those words on their own. It seems to be a rather multi-layered word, which includes a different variety of homesickness than what is generally referred to. This kind of homesickness is like a combination of the homesickness, longing, nostalgia, and yearning, for a home that you cannot return to, no longer exists, or never was. It can also include grief or sadness for who or what you have lost, losses which make your home not the same as the one you remember.

One attempt to describe hiraeth in English says that it is a longing to be where your spirit lives. This description makes some sense out of the combination of words that describe this feeling. The place where your spirit feels most at home may be a physical location that you can return to at any time, or it may be a more nostalgic of a home, not attached to a place, but a time from the past that you can only return to by revisiting old memories. Maybe your spirits’ home could even be neither of the above, but instead a place that never was, where you can only go in your imagination.

—from a blog by Samantha Kielar

Being the most honest you’ve ever been with someone in your life will be one of the most uncomfortable things you can do, Ryan Brown says, but it could also be the most valuable.

To do this, he suggests writing a list of all the people to whom you have something—good or bad—to say; writing down the honest feelings you need to convey to them in a letter; handing the person the letter; and writing down what happened and how the experience affected you and the other person.

If you’re being really honest, each letter you write should make you quite emotional as you are writing it, Brown writes. That is how you know you have tapped into your actual emotions and feelings—that it actually means something to you.

Don’t forget what you have learned from the experience, he suggests. Let it be with you forever.

—from a blog by Rachel Gillett, Doing These 9 Uncomfortable Things Will Pay Off Forever.

Preface

It’s Spring 2006. Maddie and I are in what turns out to be a trial separation, although I had officially begun divorce proceedings. She says if she were to ever write a book about her life, she would title it Black Sheep. I told her my next book will be named Five Ducks.

This memoir is going to be something I write for my sanity as much as anything else. This serves as my account of many events that have occurred along with my marriage. It’s going to be darker. I thought details would be harder to draw out this time, but I’m surprised at what I’ve retained as I put it down into words. I knew when I wrote an account of my college days and roomies way back when, fatherhood, and marrying Maddie was the end of that book of my life, and now I’m reaching the end of another book. After further review, I realize that maybe this book really doesn’t end with a divorce and won’t end until my kids are all adults, so let’s say 2023.

I’ve started this before. I had over forty pages of stuff typed up while working at SUXT. But since I no longer work there, I no longer have access to it, so it’s lost. I only recently finished a revised edition of Book One, and there are many updates that will start Book Two. I found twelve pages of dribble that I started as a Wifey rant about Easter weekend, 2016. I started writing in late 2017, and the divorce finalized 08/2018. We’ll call this the 2019 version, as I still add a word or two. Five Ducks is much better than the other working title I considered, Life’s a Bitch, and So Is My Wife. That’s probably better suited for bumper stickers. I’ll get the marketing department started.

I hope at some point this does some good. I can’t vent for myself and be constructive for her at the same time; besides, it’s clear she can’t take criticism from me. It’s not for her to read, although I’m sure she will get wind. Oh well. I hope it at least helps me, then, as I’m acting as my own therapist. If it continues to decline between Maddie and I, as it has recently, this one day may also function as my side of the story. I’m hoping we don’t reach that.

On the surface, I was writing about the accounts of my second marriage. Beneath the surface, four questions were always rattling around in my head. They were as follows: what are my biggest regrets, what are my biggest failures, who shaped me the most, and who do I remember most fondly? A few of those made it back into Book One.

Above all else, know how much I love my family. I love my Dad more than I’ll ever tell him. I love my three children. There are friends I love like family. I try to love myself. And I will always try to forgive her for the pains created along the way and focus on the positive.

At the time I thought of Five Ducks, I knew the title before I knew the exact content of the book. I assumed I knew who the five ducks symbolized as well, meandering along their merry way, and the book would lead to the inevitable ending. Eventually, I realized the five ducks were not who or what I envisioned. The fifth duck parallels a reference to one of my favorite movies, Fandango, and their mysterious fifth Groover, who speaks only in the last minutes of the film; that was another link from Book One to Book Two.

Book One, Privileges of Youth, Personal Analysis

I have read, reread, edited, added, reflected, forgotten, recalled, and overanalyzed the shit out of the first book, plus now a second. Once you start, it is pretty hard to stop. I am still finding things to add to the first. But here are a few tidbits and things I think I’ve picked up:

I am a pain in the ass. I am hopelessly and venomously sarcastic. I tease. I have moods. I walk over feelings. I sometimes overhide my own feelings, only for them to blow up later. I am dysfunctional. I am ignorant. I am prone to burnout. I have control issues.

I have had long periods of depression. I will have bouts of depression in my future. I have learned that a certain balance of exercise and work (yes, I like work) and lowering stress is what works best for maintaining whatever balance I can muster. But the two must be in balance, not all one or the other. When things pull me away from my routine, see the previous paragraph. As an introverted left-handed only child, I have learned to do things my own way.

There have been many people that have felt comfortable opening up to me over the years. Unfortunately, I have trouble opening up to others. Again, Only Child Syndrome, I sometimes do without talking, either bottle it up, blast the racquetball, or write things out to myself, then delete or destroy it. Or make it into a book. When I do find someone I’m comfortable opening up to, they get a barrage. I overshare. If you’re reading this or read Book One, you may be one of the chosen; sorry.

I am a workaholic. I am also, at times, an academic overachiever. All work and no play is not the best recipe, but it is my quickest fix for depression. It is also my knee-jerk reaction to financial woe, as perpetual debt makes this inevitable. I worry about money; you, the reader, will understand why. Worrying over money will actually drive me claustrophobic; I will find myself heading to a room that is bigger, emptier, or quieter, or will step outside altogether for fresh air. Or an open road. Worrying over academics used to do the same thing.

I have been blessed with good health. Psoriasis is a stress reaction of an overactive immune system, and that seems to apply to the rest of my body, as I am filled with aches and pains, but mostly injury free. I almost never get sick. My stress and my gut are always subject to maintenance, but I have been given better than most in the health and wellness department.

I have made some very good friends. If I can judge by the company I keep, I’m doing okay. There is a large group of friends I went years without seeing; yet now, I can pick up a phone or send a message, and it’s like no time has passed, and we continue where we left off. But man, the years go by fast! The distances are so much farther now. There are five people that signed my high school yearbook that are friends on Facebook, plus another two I’ve recently reconnected with that are not on FB. Good friends are worth their weight in gold, unless of course you are trying to keep something embarrassing quiet; then all Hell breaks loose, and you wind up laughing about it, anyway.

I am not addicted to pornography. I have never had an extramarital affair—no hookups, no internet friends, and no prostitutes. I am not gay. I am not physically abusive. I am also not an alcoholic. There has been some information broadcasted that may state otherwise. I am guilty of multiple emotional affairs and will go even further and state there was a point or two where I would have rather been married to or involved with absolutely anyone besides the one I was and starved for sane conversation. We’ll discuss that more.

I have been called a nice guy. I have been called a great guy. I have been called an awesome guy. Many times. If I heard it from a guy, they had probably roomed with me; if I heard it from a girl, they had probably never lived with me, and in some of those cases, I wish I had been thought of as another asshole instead. I’ve only heard I hate you from two people that meant it, and not just from someone whose clothes I just stole from the shower. I wonder daily if I’m just better off as a friend.

Along this line, I suck at reading women. I knew I sucked, but after rereading Book One a few more times, I really, really suck at it. (Editor’s note: I was told this verbatim by a woman less than three months ago as I write. No, Rob, you STILL suck at it. We aren’t speaking at the moment.) I am convinced that I instinctively always zigged when I should have zagged, never focused on the right one, chose wrong, and walked away or blatantly missed many opportunities. The alternative explanation is I knew exactly what I was doing, then chickened out and ran full speed the opposite way; that might be more disturbing. I bit off more than I could chew when I married and have the paperwork to prove it. Any way you look at it, I can count the number of partners I’ve had on one hand, and that includes the hand; if I had to do it over it again, I would do things differently—not radically different, but different. I am absolutely convinced the person I was supposed to be with is someone I talked, touched, and laughed with probably between my junior year of high school and first year of graduate school. Now, which one…beats me. Remember: I’ve had time to think about this.

And along this line, if you were ever to reread the first book again, consider this: six of the women mentioned in there confided in me, one-on-one, their stories of sexual assault. SIX. Goes from funny to sad, just like that. It impacted me. It impacted the previous point. I also wound up compulsively looking up people years later to know if they turned out all right, and it also affected me by volunteering in children’s church and elementary school as a parent.

Parenthood has brought back more memories than I had imagined of the whole elementary and middle school experience. That old classroom smell and the sound of frenzied laughter—some of those memories became more vivid than those from my college years, and I hadn’t expected that. I added some of this back into Book One.

You can learn a lot about yourself by going back and rereading stuff when you were at a different place in your head. You may not like what you find. You learn at least as much by what you leave off as what you leave in; things grow and contract in importance over time. What didn’t seem like a big deal as it happened may loom much larger later on.

The biggest regrets of my life aren’t the ones I pondered over and over for weeks, but the ones I made in a short amount of time, maybe even in a split second, then tried to rationalize. For example, working at RGIS could be a regret in my life, but isn’t. I killed myself for four years as a manager, affecting my first marriage and my health, then killed myself some more part-time for a few more years, then looked back and wondered why I cared about it so much at the time. I don’t see that as a regret, as much as it is a life lesson. I took the chance. Ditto for my first marriage; I tried. No, the biggest regrets I look back at are the times I think I had the chance to go a step further with the girl and didn’t or the times in my life when I didn’t try or said something unkind, or worse and said nothing at all—times when the right thing to do seemed obvious later and should have been effortless, but for one reason or the other, I just didn’t. Those are the regrets that festered.

Some thoughts become all-encompassing. Dwelling on a thought grows by a magnitude of ten when captured in a place with dead alone time, typical of work on a graveyard shift. Sometimes, the same imagery returns night after night. At a certain point, the only way to make the thought go away is to push it as far as it can go.

Both my spelling and my grammar have declined considerably since college. I, you, I, you—too much time surrounded by truck drivers. The fragments are usually intentional.

Onto Book Two. Where do we begin…

Where Are They Now?

Gainesville Buds—the Core Four

Dave

I’ll start with Dave. Dave was the best roommate I’ve had, and one of the best friends I’m ever going to have. Best anybody could hope for! He was a groomsman in my first wedding, and I was best man in his. When we were roommates, I decided it would be a good idea that we exchange parents’ numbers and put them on a dry-erase board. Almost thirty years later, I can recite his parents’ phone number, and get this—his social security number.

I visited Dave and Jeannie when I was a parent of two, I think. We all went down, and Maddie made everyone very uncomfortable, particularly when letting Bristol bounce billiard balls on the pool table. About a week later, Dave called me and said it’s better for everyone if we don’t plan on her coming to their house again, that they were uncomfortable having her there in their home. I wound up not seeing my best friend for over a decade in exchange for trying to make the marriage work and watch my kids grow up. Nice choice to have to make. You will notice a trend here, as there has been a decade-long gap in seeing most of my friends. Many of them got to read their excerpts; some never will. Jeannie has the books, if she decides to read them.

We reconnected via email, Facebook, and the phone; and it looks like we will be seeing each other in 2018, first time in way too long. Dave and Jeannie now married over twenty years.

Bill

My second roommate, and one I did not always get along with. We had our differences, realized we were both pretty immature, and became way-better friends after living apart from each other. Tried being roommates again a year and a half later, were still pretty immature, and he became one of my best friends. Groomsman in his wedding. Now volunteering weekly in his church.

Saw him just before he moved to Las Vegas back around 2002, I think. He was back in FL once around 2004, but it didn’t work out. Moved to Knoxville, TN. Bill checked on me after Maddie posted something about me on FB—pornography addiction, I think—and I explained we were officially divorcing. They let me know they were always there for us, Bill and his wife, Jenny. Alex, Rachel, and Laura. He’s a grandparent now! Planning to see him in June. I told him Book One has ev-e-ry-thing in it, and he said, It’s probably better you not send it to me.

Neil

Neil, Neil, Neil. Neil has always been the one most not ready for prime time. Always marching to the beat of his own drum. Neil has let himself drop off the grid multiple times; I’ve been the one to round him up. One of those people that I could always unload on.

He disappeared around the time of Dave’s wedding in ’97, but I had rounded him up in time for him to see Bill off to Vegas in ’02. When I became a Daddy, he too got involved with someone in Orlando, his phone number magically disappeared, and it would be fourteen years before I was able to track him down again, only because his mother was a cosigner on his house (yes, I remembered his Mom’s name). He has a copy of Book One, but probably has never read it.

Neil believes the US is due for a giant economic crash, Trump is the only one telling the truth, and you had better learn how to live off the land and fight to protect your property because life as a third world country is coming. Time will tell if he’s right. If nothing else, he got his own master’s degree, and the thing I can’t believe is, he was MARRIED for seven years before divorcing and lives in a gated community surrounded by multiple school zones. If we have our phones and have a particularly unusual, bountiful, or significant bowel movement, we now sometimes send pictures to each other. Soooo adolescent—him, not me. What a guy.

John Baldwin

Bald Weenie has come a long way. From having to dig his teeth out of my trash, to getting his master’s before any of us, to working at a Kmart cafeteria and a NAPA auto parts store to get enough cash to make the haul to CO, he did all right.

John is now happily married (Kristin), two kids (Nicolas and Sofia), and working his dream job for the United States Geological Survey. If an earthquake happens worldwide, chances are you may hear his voice explaining it to the US news teams if he happens to be on call. But only the voice, as he still has a face for radio. Love you, John!

Jacksonville Buds

Jim

One of my favorite people. A first-year UNF roommate. An outgoing, friendly personality filled with generosity and eccentricity to burn. Focused, had his own routines, unique in every way. My best man, Wedding One.

Deals with Addison’s disease, which is a flaw in his hormonal releases, starting with the thyroid. Went back to law school and graduated. Works with family on his father’s side as part of a law firm in St. Augustine, albeit a reduced work schedule. When I separated from Maddie the first time, Jim gave me a place to stay while I tried to figure it out. Recently saw him for the first time in twelve years; there was some OCD going on, but now we meet up every few weeks.

John McAdoo

The man with the bicycles worth more than my car, the man who now says no to Captain Morgan. Best man at his first wedding before his first Wifey decided to bat for the other team. Then I was a groomsman at second wedding. Helped lay sod at his house as it was being finished. Still lives there.

Saw him this year for the first time in seven or eight years. He made me ride a trail bike up and over berms. My legs didn’t feel right for about five days. There may be a place named for him on a trail at Hanna Park where he broke a vertebra in his back, McAdoo’s Landing. Two daughters, Madison and Jillian. Both John and Carrie work in the Clay County school system, but no longer as teachers. Still close friends although I think I’ve become as close a friend with his sister over time. More on her later.

Rest of Buds, Roommate Buds, and Nonbuds

Zack

Zack was someone I just barely knew in high school, so I’ll put him in the college group. I don’t believe I ever saw him on campus until Summer ’88, at which point we shot some pool, played some racquetball, played some poker, and since he didn’t have a car, I was his ride home for the next few years.

I still passed through Gainesville on the way home to help him out after starting UNF in ’91. In late ’92, as I had delayed a visit to see my terminally ill Mom by a day and a half to accommodate him one weekend, I was standing there next to him on a Friday night in Gainesville; he got invited to a party and backed out of going home with me. It rubbed me raw, last time I ever offered, last time I saw him in person. I was bitter.

When I was back at UF for grad school in maybe Fall ’93, he visited from Boston College. Neil and John went to meet him, and I made an excuse not to go. Story goes he had dyed his hair black, was hiding from somebody, told them about some bisexual threesome experience he had recently partaken in, whatever.

Years, years later, maybe 2012, I get an FB friend request. I accept. He then lived in San Fran, had a massive afro and beard, then asked me for rent money. I say sorry, can’t help you, hope it all works out. Haven’t heard from him since. If nothing else, I don’t have the anger anymore.

Rick

Rick was a dormmate from ’87. He was the guy who lived and died by the band Genesis, and the one with the freakiest roommate who banged the twins in the dorm. He stuck his head out of his room while we were having tennis ball wars, and I hit him in the neck with one from about ten feet away, and he said he saw stars. And for the next few years, he coordinated our scrimmage and sometimes co-ed football games. Rick married Jenny, his high school friend, but not a couple until after they were together at UF. Friended him and Jenny via FB. Two kids, one just graduated UNF, I think. They live in Orlando.

Brent

Gentle, but wild. The one that kept a diary, a diary Neil found, read, then reported back to us, most notably, on copulations with a young lady who vehemently denied anything had happened up until then. The last time I saw him was when his brother’s fraternity was white-water rafting, sees us in a traffic jam in Atlanta, and invites us to be there in NC three hours away the next morning. I heard through the grapevine he had married a previous high school girlfriend, moved to TX, and unfortunately, divorced after she was found cheating. That’s it.

Sean

The most insecure of the insecure. The one who worried about everything. I think I replaced him as Bald Weenie’s roommate when he moved out. He is some researcher for a medical company in IN. I checked his profile. Older, has children, looks happy, that’s it. Nobody really, really liked him, but no one ever forgot him either.

High School

Thomas

Ah, Mr. Hall, my high school weekend moviegoing partner in crime. Best man at his first wedding, didn’t know about the second marriage until years after. Tom still lives in Columbus, OH, and visited me and helped me out in Huntington. Seminary school never panned out. He always had the sound of a salesman and did eventually find success in that field. Like he used to change majors, it seems he finds it hard to stay on one thing and needs breaks to focus on his many reading projects, playing guitar, culinary arts, advanced math, whatever amuses him.

Still married to his second wife Lea Ann, now about twenty years. I last saw him in Summer 2017, when he sounded like they were moving back to South Florida so she could be closer to her parents, who are now around ninety in the West Palm area. But last I heard, he is still in OH, no plans set to move. He has owned and read enough books to fill an abandoned Kmart, mostly about theology. Also introduced me to the word hiraeth!

Pete

Pete, the Cabbage Picker. Pete, the man who christened me Low Rider. The last time I saw Pete in person was also around 2001–2. We played racquetball indoors, maybe nine or ten games, and he beat me. I never learned ceiling shots, and by about game 5, he started capitalizing. I also had a dinner at his house, in the Hudson area north of Tampa Bay. He was married with two kids from her previous marriage. He is still married and now up to four girls and has since moved back to MI, where it snows six months of the year. Brrrrrr.

Way Back When

Joey Joe

I recently contacted Joe, my next-door neighbor as a child in Flushing and my first best friend. Joey flew down and visited once as a teen, and I saw him those first two college trips up to NYC. Then there was a solid fifteen years of noncontact before we found emails and touched base for a bit. Now, after another decade plus, we have updated again. Amazingly enough, after both parents passed, Joe bought out his two older brothers and younger sister and now owns the house outright, now married, with one child. He has lived in exactly one house his entire life. I mean, I can’t even imagine.

Roommates

Jack

Jack was the roommate with the golfing dreams and domineering Daddy. He acclimated me to his group of friends in Jax, though. His Uncle worked for the Philadelphia Phillies, related to videography, batting swings, pitching mechanics, etc. He could have been hired on by the Phillies and used his degree in public relations in 1993. Also in 1993, the Phillies went to the World Series. Jack could have been behind the scenes for Spring training in Clearwater the next year, and the Phillies were linked with the original Hooters sponsorship, and Lynne Austin was the wife of catcher Darren Daulton. Hooters and baseball. He could have been living the American Dream (okay, maybe mine). But he wanted to play golf.

The last time I saw Jack was Wedding One in 1995. I knew he wanted to see some UF friends again, especially Neil, but I think Neil was less than enthused. Soon after, Jack’s parents moved/retired to TX, and so Jack moved out in the San Antonio area. One day, as he explained over the phone, he looked at someone the wrong way in a gas station, and that person was apparently in a Mexican gang. Before he knew what had happened, he had been tagged in the back of the head with a set of brass knuckles. Unconscious before he hit the ground, he shattered one or both cheekbones, lost several teeth, and had to have reconstructive surgery.

We lost touch after that. I found him on LinkedIn not too long ago. He shows living and working in the Research Triangle area of NC, I think, for about the last fifteen years. FB shows married, two kids, two years since any posting. As I write, he has not responded to my request.

Randy

From UNF 1991. The pilot. I recently found out through Jim that Randy was at one point a commercial pilot for United or maybe Delta before that and still does some military flying. But he is now a lawyer in Jax, and the two of them refer clients to each other back and forth. This leads to an open question: how in the world did I make friends with so many lawyers?

Mark

Limpdick. For repeatedly backing out of plans at the last moment. The last time I saw Mark was at John’s first wedding. He had gotten married to Diana and moved to CO, then was AWOL by the time of John’s second wedding. Only recently, I again heard through John he is back in Jax and occasionally mountain bikes on the trails around town. I did it only once with John, but it would be great seeing Mark again. John and I compared notes, and I said I never ever saw Mark’s hair out of place; he said neither did he, and they shared a room. Hopefully, I will catch Mark one of these weekends. Maybe I will mess up the part in his hair.

Professor Horn

Kevin Horn was the most important influence I had on my professional career. I had dinner at his house, went to a junkyard to find parts for his car, helped him build a retention wall. Worked for him, and he listed me as an outside consultant. He asked me what I thought I was worth doing work for him, I said $10/hour; he said no, you’ll work for $12. He also told me there was no reason why I couldn’t be making $100,000 someday. Taught me to not sell myself short. Made me feel important. Life lessons.

About the time I switched from UNF back to UF, he was transferring to…George Washington University? Rosslyn, VA? He recommended a professor at UF, Rich Beilock, to try working with, a