Why we need parents

My Dad likes to tell these stories about when I was a little kid around 3 or 4 and I would make these elaborate things out of clay. It's evident that clay has always been my medium of choice. I remember making these things. My Mom used to give me clay because all children with ADHD should be given something they can totally focus on for hours on end so that Moms can get some rest. I did more than focus on the clay, I created entire worlds out of clay. I made up elaborate stories in clay. I made up elaborate stories when drawing stuff or building miniature houses too.

Dad's favorite piece was the cowboy and horse I made when I was four. I was rather detail oriented too, down to the spurs and lattago. If I could have figured out how to put bullets in my cowboy's gun I would have. When I was 13, I made him a bust of a Confederate Army officer. I didn't know how to cast it (I still have never learned how to cast) so it was made of oil based clay and somehow, it has survived all these years. Dad placed it in a case of it's own so that it would not be destroyed. I made that in 1967, so you do the math on how old it is now.

In my junior year in High School, Mr. Weiderman was going to teach me how to cast. So I sculpted this set of hands (I had and still have a thing for hands) and put them in my art room locker so that after Christmas vacation, he could teach me to cast. He said that first he would teach me to cast in plaster of paris and then he would teach me to cast in metal. I was stoked, I was so friggen excited, finally, something I created would be in a material that would make it last. I got to my locker that first day back from break and the hands were gone. I asked him what happened to them and he said "Oh, that was your locker? I thought it was the locker of a senior who graduated early, I threw everything in there away."  I was pretty shocked and devastated right about then. The sad part was, he didn't even feel bad about it. I told him my hands were in there and that he was going to teach me to cast. He just shrugged and that was the end of that. I was dejected at that point and went away feeling pretty bad.