It appeared that it wasn't very long before the marriage settled down in terms of expectations of normalcy. Not quite the way it was before with simple friendship being the expected norm, but more the feeling of being two separate and distinct units of husband and wife. To the children, it still was the same kind of relationships with both as we continued to do things together

Not long after the marriage, we all decided to try our hands at a family hiking trip along the Gun Powder River which was easily accessed by Belair Road, a bit further north then Saint Josephs church.

Originally we went through a passage in the Belair Road Bridge and headed northwest, but we were hampered by the muddy trail, so we crossed the bridge and headed southeast. This land was in the sun and a lot dryer, but it wasn't long before Rita yelled, "There's a snake!"

In the process of looking at the one that she was pointing too just off the trail; I found another one, on the trail between us. They were all garter snakes with their infinite varieties of yellow, green and black.

"Wait a minute." I lightly kicked the one between us, "That's weird; he should have either coiled up to fight or shot off." I then looked around and discovered we were in the middle of hundreds of garter snakes. I knew that both Rita and Katie wouldn't be happy about this.

"Rita, (I had to laugh) I don't know why this is happening here, but one's thing's for sure; the snakes really don't seem to care that we are here. I wonder why? Just step over them."

All of a sudden, two entwined snakes shot up out of the grass and started their mating dance. "I got it, Rita, it's mating season!" She let it be known that she wasn't happy about this trip.

While it did cross my mind that this may be a bad marriage omen, it did so in a humorous sense, yet it reminded me of the movie, "The Trail of Billy Jack," where in order to right the wrongs going on between the town and the Indian reservation, he had to vision quest in a cave until he met himself. That cave was filled with poisonous snakes he had to walk through before he met himself.

For the most part, it was fun to be in a family and all seemed to enjoy themselves and our outings every weekend. We enjoyed going out to dine, the movies and even went down to Dunedin Florida to rent a house and enjoyed a vacation and catching up with Rita's parents. Tarpon Springs being my favorite area; a combination of tourist trap, shrimp boat/sponge diving community, with a Greek bakery and coffee shop.

Most of my domestic life was geared towards Jimmy's school and with my night shift; it suited me to walk with him back and forth to Villa Cresta Elementary School which was right down the street, across Old Harford Road. I got so much out of these walks and Jimmy did as well. He was now in the second grade and doing extremely well with the talk of him being gifted and talented.

Katie on the other hand, had life a bit tougher. Long before she met me and they lived in Baltimore City, she was simply declared learning disabled and put in a room with the wheelchair kids and the one's with severe behavioral problems who couldn't really learn. To Rita's credit, she devoted herself to helping Katie and worked hard to provide a better school life. I didn't buy the learning problems for a minute as she could easily take care of infants and adapt to their needs ... A lot better than I could.

Katie's hearing problems were a matter of ear infections and the surgical application of tubes to drain them. When Rita moved into the county, the educational system was both more caring and thorough. It was determined that she had dyslexia and was transferred to Riderwood Elementary who had an excellent special education teacher.

What was a royal pain in the ass was Katie's attitude towards me, since a simple suggestion that she could do better, would send her to the floor rolling around, yelling, "I can't. You're giving me a nervous breakdown." While I found this funny, I didn't just do it for kicks as needless to say, this always lead to another fight when she told Rita.

Her teacher advised me to stay out of Katie's education picture since she didn't want me in it and I, "was destroying her self-esteem." It really bothered me that Katie couldn't comprehend even the first grade level, year after year. Though I couldn't put a finger on her problem, I began to get increasingly suspicious about the nature of dyslexia.

There came a point I thought it was absolutely ridiculous that they continue to give her first grade books filled with one syllable words which are easily confused by dyslexia, and be afraid to try anything else. I had enough and wanted to see what my girl was actually made of, while confirming my suspicions about the nature of dyslexia.

I grabbed the Wall Street Journal and asked her to read it. That landed a half-hour protest and argument, but she started and it landed another argument filled with tears, "I hate you making me read this. I don't understand what the words mean!"

It took another ten minutes for her to be calm enough to say, "Katie, I know you don't understand most of the words, but think about it, you're reading them!" It took a minute for this shock of realization to where off. "See, all of the three and four letters, one syllable words you screwed up reading also fell into place because you knew the context of the right word to use."

The next day, I called her teacher up and said, "You know how you told me to stay out of helping Katie with her education; I made her read The Wall Street Journal yesterday."

The man said, "Oh God, that's not good, Mike."

"Well she had no problem reading it."

"What?"

"Yea, she can read The Wall Street Journal and all of those, one syllable words she can't read also fell into place. Get her reading the higher grade material, with multiple syllable words and see for yourself."

By the end of the year, she was reading at the six grade reading level in fifth grade and there was an attempt to help her catch up on the math that she had missed out on.



The biggest battle with Rita was trying to get her to moderate her expectations, as a Christmas trip was planned for Florida with her parents again. This not only blew my mind, but because of the problems that she experienced with the flight, she wanted us to use a rental car and drive down. She would drive as long as she possibly could, then put me at the helm at the worst times for an occasional driver. On this holiday trip, once we hit Route 75 traveling the length of Florida, it was sheer hell as it seemed that most drivers went insane.

The accidents along the way were a very good reminder not to be a nut driving one's self. It was no pleasure after a couple of close calls to see a completely crumpled car with a state trooper waving everyone past; you knew someone's Christmas was going to be ruined with a family of fatalities.

We wanted to rent the house again in Dunedin, but they told us it was no longer available. Rita called, posing as someone else and they said that they rented it to a family from Baltimore and they didn't adhere to the rules by turning on their deceased father's organ, so they are no longer renting. There were literally three pages of rules, but I suspect it was all of the arguing that went on. We rented a motel room that had full kitchen in it, which was located in Clearwater, Florida.

Well the European lady was nice enough in opening the door to our room and my first impression was, "Oh, boy."

Rita's was more an exclamation of, "Oh my God!" Visually it wasn't bad, but it had its quirks and odors. While it had a swimming pool, it wasn't mentioned that it was filled with leaves and crane poop. However, I didn't feel it would be a problem because it was in the fifties, going down to freezing at night, known as the rare time Clearwater experienced this cold weather.

Rita's mom, dad and sister met us there; we made our plans, and decorated for Christmas with our, "in-the-box," Charlie Brown Christmas tree. Rita's dad took me to the grocery store to buy the Christmas dinner fixings. However he also arrived early when I was cooking it and was greeted with the cockroaches making an emergency exit out of the stove's vents.

To his horror, my attempt at hiding the exodus was futile. He no longer wanted to eat with us, but I convinced him that by the time we put the; "Well wrapped ham," in the oven, and explained the cockroaches won't be a problem, because they are exiting to cooler climbs, but I left out the cracks and crevices of the room were staying in.

Then it was on to the discussion about the dishes, so I talked camping and mentioned that all dishes are washed before they are used. I told her dad, "I did a lot of outdoor camp cookery and insects were never the problem, it was keeping careless people from kicking dirt or sand into your food. " I got him to leave the kitchen with my talk about the recipes found in, "The Green Beret Cookbook."

Personally I wanted to rest, but Rita and her family made plans. Rita's was to drive from Clearwater to the Florida Keys. I spoke up and point blank stated that I wasn't happy with doing a trip like that because it was 8 hours one way, not to mention the effect of holiday traffic. We would basically go down and have to drive right back, a bit much given the toll the trip down to Florida took.

Going through Tampa was adventure enough because Rita had to hit her breaks on the freeway as a woman who was supposed to merge, but instead, cut across all three lanes of traffic. After two more such close calls, Rita had enough and it was my turn to drive. I got us going again and Rita barely got her feet up on the dash, when a dump truck came right into our lane.

Rita was screaming her head off and I told her to shut up as we couldn't do what she demanded. I had inches to the ignorantly merging truck to the left, and inches from a bridge abutment on the right. Just past the bridge, I was able to pull off and hit the brakes. No more than two miles up the road, a car carrier did the same thing to three unlucky cars; two had tire impressions in the side of their cars.

We went from Clearwater to Orlando in what turned out to be a three hour trek. With Rita's dad, it was straight to the Shrine of Mary, Queen of the Universe. Because of the holidays, much of it appeared closed. Then Katie and Jimmy were happy because they were going to Disney, and surprised it was only the free portion, Downtown Disney.

I wanted to treat everyone to a Cirque de Soliel show, but Rita's dad got mad and headed the family back to Clearwater. At least along the way back home, we were able to stop and enjoy Dinosaur World and it was great to see both Katie and Jimmy get a kick out of it all.

The rest of the trip involved smaller trips that were close to Clearwater. We returned back to Tarpon Springs, and the rustic scenery of a rustic working port with fishing , shrimp and sponge boats. I fell in love with the Greek pastry shop and their demitasse, that super strong version of coffee.

We also went to a fancy restaurant that Rita's dad loved. Who was beside himself, because he saw a fly in there as we were being seated. I assured him that most likely; there wouldn't be a restaurant in Florida without an inquiring fly. With restaurants and Rita, I sort of always ended up with a, Oh come on! attitude.

Yet, while I often felt the problems with the food were in Rita's head, her favorite drink, "The Margarita," was frequently butchered by inattentive bartenders. Usually they rimmed the glass with salt, but didn't remove it from the inside.

She would then take a sip of her Margarita and start gagging, it wasn't sinking salt this time, but she found a worm in it. The waiter tried to tell her that it was to show that Mescal was used and I offered to eat the worm, but wasn't permitted. Seemingly with every course, there was a problem whether a hair, or something us undercooked, or off tasting.

In the end, she had a cup of coffee with her desert and stated, "I can't drink this; there is lipstick still on the cup." I made that, Oh come on! look on my face and she spun the cup around; it had a much darker shade of red and the tell tale marks of the elderly woman who drank from it.

The poor waiter knew I was her husband and in the trip to the bathroom, privately and profusely apologized to me for Rita's service there and explained that this has never happened here before. He wanted to know how to make it up to me.

I started laughing and told him, "Don't worry about it, everyone else's meal was perfect. As far as I am concerned, I consider it dinning karma, because usually everything is perfectly fine and she still finds problems with everything. Between you and me, I am glad that she actually has them so I am not the one embarrassed in the restaurant. "

"You have an attractive wife and fine children; she's a handful?"

I quietly laughed and added, "She can be, occasionally ... Most of the time."

The cold weather kept us from enjoying Clearwater most of the time, but a pleasant warm break allowed us a cruise on a pirate boat. While it was geared for the children, they were sharp and also had provisions for the adults as well, and they insisted that I have a good drink was we shoved off. They said a couple of drinks will get the adults into the action that will be ensuing soon.

It was a blast to see both Katie and Jimmy eating it up as the crew put on a great pirate show, which even included a mutiny involving water guns; then a planed attack on the other vessel that they owned which was their large capacity speed boat. Despite that the kids really couldn't shoot far enough to get that crowd much, they sure tried.

There was also a wonderful dinner, which was more of a formal dining cruise that went out to sea for a bit. It was a truly enjoyable experience and Jimmy got the biggest kick out of seeing the captain, who enjoyed the company. My highlight was actually being able to swim in the gulf, which was keeping most people out. It wasn't any colder then Ocean City's beach in the heat of summer.

The drive back home was completely nerve racking as Rita decided that she will drive the entire sixteen hours herself. I saw opportunities where it would be best for me to drive so Rita could rest, but she refused. She actually did well; up to the point we hit Virginia and then she completely fell apart.

I took over, but all she was doing was yelling at me about everything. I pulled off at the next rest stop and things boiled over into a fully fledged argument for all to see, as she threatened to take off and leave me there. Once again I drove, but she refused to help navigate as we were now stuck in the crazy traffic jam on Washington's 495.

Because of the lack of help and the distraction of the arguing, I missed the exit for Interstate 95 that would have gotten us home; which became the next argument. I took a break and turned back around and it almost happened again as we were so close to missing it, that I had to basically cut people off. Luckily, this time, they must have been courteous drivers experienced to the route, as they let me pass with a wave.



Relationships at this time for me were something to be in a constant state of flux. Approaching Vic's wedding, I knew it was on his mind to invite me and I enjoyed seeing that there was a little consideration for me, but with things at work being the way they were with him he never did, which really disappointed me.

After his wedding, I made it to work before him and found out that it was the worst case scenario; his side of the family had their problems of poor choices and decisions. These spilled out not only into a fully fledged argument at his reception, but a physically violent one as well. I felt so bad for Vic, as that should have been the best day in his life; that held full civility. I admired both him and his wife Trina, and the planning of their wedding, being very practical decisions. Both sides of the family pooled their resources together and helped both of them out with their new house as well.

When I saw Vic come to work, he was giving me these strange looks, and I knew it had to do something about the wedding, but couldn't figure it out. But finally after months, he spoke up, "Mike, I didn't know what the hell to do; whether to invite you to my wedding or not, but I glad that I didn't. Do you know what happened?"

"I heard that the reception was spirited."

"Yea, everyone was drunk, and all the family crap started and it was World War III." It was nice to get the story from the horse's mouth and I was at least able to offer up a bit of sympathy and understanding.

"Mike, I don't know why I acted the way I did with you."

"I do."

"You do?"

"Yea, it seemed to me with your broken wing, you felt less than a man with me having to help you. Now I figured when you got your wing back, that I would be going back to my traditional role of helping you out, but you had to go crazy and reestablish your territory."

"You're right."

"I quite enjoyed you having to be your own press assistant as well as my vacation from it. You know, you're not the easiest person to deal with. How did you like it?"

We both laughed, and it was back to classic Mike and Vic. No apologies, no bullshit, just straight talk and pretty soon we were once again work partners. That night, he offered to give me rides home again.


It was also the time period that one relationship was fixed and another one was strained. I loved doing favors for my father, but it once again ended up too many with not enough time to complete them, not to mention the few that I forgot. Those favors were also competing with both the family and work.

Dad let it be known that he wasn't happy about this, "God damn it Mike, I am not happy over the way you've become..."

"What, not doing you favors at a drop of the hat? Look, I have a family and have to work hard."

"Yea, then I have to ask, what is Rita doing to help."

"She's helping out."

"Bullshit! All I hear is her talking about her, and what she plans... Nothing about you except, what you can do for her. I see you do the shopping, the cooking ... I don't call your house clean, and on top of it, you're working you ass off for the Quinn's as well."

"Look Dad, you also ask a lot for me to do. What's the difference? These days everyone seems to have requests for me, I put them in a holding pattern and assign them a priority. I am doing the best that I can, but I don't see many people offering me help. I could quote the Bible as it says a man once married, should strictly devote himself to establishing that family."

"You quote the bible on me? Perhaps I should tell her that she too should read it and figure out how to be a good supportive wife to you. That's where her devotion should end; not to herself. Lately, I've been finding myself biting my tongue with her." Luckily, he did keep his mouth shut and still had the family over. If he didn't keep his mouth closed, he only would have perpetuated many more problems for me than it could have solved.

There were changes in Rita as well. I was shocked when she told me she found a way to spice things up and pulled out the book, "365 Days and Ways to Keep Your Romance Alive." I was totally shocked by this and unprepared, "Rita, I thought we were doing quite well and we have our romantic moments."

"Well, we do, but being married, they should be much better." To try to please her and keep the peace, I agreed to do the book, which gave each partner their romantic doing for the other every day. I actually tried this, but with every page, on every day, I was not only critiqued, but criticized as well and told to get it right the next time.

About the forth day, I asked, "Rita, despite the fact you didn't like what I did, I did them; how about your pages?"

"I bought this book for you to do for me."

Though I was prepared to carry out my daily doing, I also had that page at hand and ripped it up in front of her. "Rita, you buy a book of hokey things for each of us to do for the other, and you don't want to do them for me? I'm not doing these anymore."

The bedroom life became just a bad, which was something that I couldn't figure out as making love during dating was so nice. All of a sudden, it had to be that much better and I found my feelings being mired in some sort of production I could seemingly get right. "That's not right, this feel wrong, do it this way, it feels like your raping me ... Why can't you get off?"

"Rita you know; let me concentrate." The occasional time that wasn't present and all worked out well, I was accused of thinking of someone else. It drove me nuts that now, somehow had to be different than simply two people loving and giving to the other.

To me, the marriage was still going well, up to the point she started the argument, "I hate this marriage, it's like we're best friends or something. I want more, because I am your wife." If that wasn't a battle cry, nothing is. That statement broke my fundamental belief of what marriage is actually supposed to be. If I told her I didn't like the arguing, she pointed to her parents.

She insisted in going through our church to a marriage counselor, and to an extent I believed it was for the best. Yet, while it prompted much conversation, it seemed to create even a bigger divide in her mind, as she listened to what was being talked about, but didn't seem to want to learn or at least try the advice; much like those dance lessons; the extra $65.00 or so a week was simply draining the bank account, and I decided to stop the sessions, to me I was paying for something that didn't seem to be helping us, but creating a further divide in my mind.



The one thing that was stable in my life was my mother. Being severely brain damaged from a cardiac arrest and cared for by a nursing facility, there were always crazy things popping up that didn't make sense; I called it the reverse Midis touch. Not gold, just shit.

Considering her care was being paid by Medical Assistance, she had a supervising case worker. With every change, I received five notices and merely pointed out to the case worker's supervisor that simple fact. Now the social worker was making me chase after every idiosyncrasy of her case which cost me many hours of sleep. Finally I was told that she no longer qualified for Medical Assistance and had to apply to get her Social Security, so she could go on Medicare.

For four straight hours, I sat in the Social Security office watching every person go before me and the only entertainment was the sign, It is against federal law to threaten, maim or kill federal employees... that was clearly posted. I finally walked up to the person in charge behind the desk seated beside the security person and suggested, "Hey look, I have been here since you opened and watched this room refreshed four times. Is there any way to get to talk to someone that can help me?"

"Well, Mr. Kohlman, the problem is that both social security and SSI (Supplemental Security Income) don't know how to help you and your mom."

"Can we get both to make a presence to figure this out?"

I was talking to both and neither seemed to know how to help me so I simply suggested, "I'm not waging any complaints against you two, but could you bring your supervisors in." That worked and it really took all four heads to figure out that I shouldn't have been there in the first place, because my mother is clearly not at an age to qualify for social security and they didn't know why social services would demand that she does.

I walked straight to social services and demanded to see the social worker for an explanation and her supervisor called down to the lobby and said this wouldn't be possible. I simply stated, "Fine, I will leave and approach all the media that I can with this problem. When I come back, there will be plenty of cameras being set up in the lobby for both you and the social worker to talk to."

She changed her mind and sent the social worker down, who explained that she knew my mother didn't qualify, but had to request that I check it out anyway. I asked why and she said, "Mr. Kohlman, before I talk, I want to say this. When my husband left me, I would come down here and stand in line to get what benefits that I could. After a while, I was so ashamed that I just had to stand in another line to see if I could get a job working for social services. I have been working here for twenty-five years and know my job, but ..."

She flipped my mother's file over and it was covered with Post-it notes, "But when my supervisor puts a sticky note on the person's file, I have to do what she says."

"That's why I didn't blame you and get upset. You tell your supervisor, if I continue to be bothered by these sticky notes, I will run for County Executive and will win with God's help and on the platform of stopping this type of bullshit. You tell your supervisor, I will win and she will either have to quit, or follow all the sticky notes that I put on her files." The social worker smiled and judging I was never bothered by a post-it note again; got the message.


A big change was forced on the family when I did my tax returns and was handed vouchers and told by the accountant, she didn't know what I was planning to do and I had to pay $4,5000 in back taxes and penalties. With nothing in the accounts, I would have to make another IRA deduction, so I told the accountant what I would need to take out to pay the taxes and make ends meet, and to let me know how much above this I need to take out to pay all of the taxes. I did exactly what she said and gave her the new information.

She told me that I made another error and needed much more money for the taxes. Needless to say, I hit the ceiling. Part of the first time I took out money to purchase a wood shop to build a replica of the hand carved dining set. I only needed two more pieces of electric equipment and hand carving tools; I figured that I could use an allowance to purchase all the wood that I would need.

But life kept creeping in, especially her car which seemed to always want to be repaired. New tires, and another set of calipers. The auto mechanics were obviously missing the problem, and going through six mechanics hands, I felt there was no excuse. Finally, by accident a Ford mechanic had her wheels off, but with the old calipers removed and then new ones to come in tomorrow, he decided to bleed the breaks and nothing came out. The inner wall of the flexible brake line had been sloughing off and entering the calipers.

But with one permanent fix found, another needy fix entered in. At certain speeds, her car would wildly shake and shimmy, giving one an impression of a serious incident in the making. The Ford mechanic rebalanced the tire with more weights then I ever saw, but apparently one shed itself on the highway and it was worse than before.

It took another mechanic from another company to figure out it was a defective tire. It was replaced for free, but I had to pay for the difference because of the tire wear. I definitely felt ripped off, because the defectiveness added to the wear. Then electrical components, vacuum leaks, in dash quirks and radiator.

Then I received a call from my sister, who just bought her house and wanted that dining room set and some of the living room furniture, but was willing to sell me the sofas and chairs. I mentioned the agreement, but she said that she had to go back on it to furnish her new house.

Cindy used a friends trailer to help me out, but the money that would be needed for a new dining room set, entertainment center, coffee and end tables was astounding, even with sales and lower budgeted items.

I felt I had no choice; I took out the remainder of my IRA and with the taxes being final, with no room to miscalculate I paid them and used the rest to buy living room furniture and a dining room set. It frosted me beyond belief when the accountant laughed and said, "I wished you would have talked with me first, because you could have used you IRA for the house and avoided the penalties and you wouldn't have needed a mortgage.

Damn it! That was the first question that I asked her, "Would I be better off, if I close out the IRA and apply it to my house?" What had blown up in my face was a financial time bomb, with people being coached on what they should do and complicated by stupid tax laws, which temporarily made people wealthy, for the sake of paying higher taxes while their yearly income didn't really bear that wealth out.



Still there were a lot of things that we could do fairly cheaply, such as Katie and Jimmy's soccer, and participating in Jimmy's class activities. School wise, everything was pretty much the same, but Katie made it to middle school and had a whole different type of problem.

With the problems of reading behind her, it was now catch up time, especially with math. For a good part of the year, Katie would be learning 1+1, 1+2, etc. After a sort while, it would digress back to 1+1 and 1+2. After several times, and Katie's frustration over this, I talked with the teacher and she stated that she had to do this because she suddenly found herself with a new class member to teach and there was no way around this.

I told her she should teach individualized lessons, but she stated that because they are special education, she couldn't do that because of attitude problems. I became angry and told her, "You know what, in the old days there were the one room school houses that had fifty people from grades 1 - 12. The teachers did such a good job of handling things that the seniors of that one room were able to immediately head into college."

"If you can't handle your small class of people that you have, I will start looking into things and complaining until they have no choice but to replace you with someone that can handle them." Boy, I know I neither made brownie points with her or that school, they took me seriously and started gearing Katie to pass the functional reading and math tests.

Katie did a fine job despite the pressure, but there was another reason which motivated Katie. They put the special education class inside a small room that was off of the main cafeteria room, and she was taunted mercilessly. In fact one of the teacher's punishments was sitting a badly behaving kid outside of the room while people were there eating.

Katie worked so hard, by the next year she made it into the regular classes, which to me was excellent in my eyes, but I didn't like the attitude of the teachers in the school. With the specialized education over, it was obvious to me that Katie needed to make up for what the other students had already learned.

Katie suffered tremendous frustration, because she had to be on the level they were teaching, and the teachers point black told her, "Katie, you're in big girl classes ... If you want to stay in them, you have to be a big girl." Katie was passing, but by the skin of her teeth which I wondered if that wasn't fabricated. In my last family meeting at the school, for Katie's future, I recommended that she be held at that year so she could catch up. Intended or not, those kids were mercilessly taunted and made fun of.

To me, she worked hard and put in the effort to pass, but she really needed to catch up. I have heard of many people being held back for similar reasons; while they didn't like it one damn bit, they contributed that move to their eventual success in life. Katie hated me for recommending it, the school scoffed and dismissed it, and Rita was mad at me. That was the last family/school meeting I was invited to.

There was another side of Katie that I liked to see, while she always distanced herself from me, she still participated in family outings like walking the Bay Bridge or our now rare going to the movies or dining out. She wanted to participate in a beauty contest, though it had its own expense, and neither Katie nor I had any expectations of her winning, she won several awards.

Jimmy started to slack in school a bit and had other problems to deal with, such as being bullied. Rita would find an odd job here and there and I relished, despite my increasing fatigue being, able to walk him back and forth to school. Often we shared how we felt about the fighting, or he expressed a problem such as a girl is bullying him.

Not wanting him to share my fate and having to punch a girl bully, I walked up to the girl and simply said, "Hey, that's my son Jimmy. I would hate to see him being pushed around because I would have to knock on their father's door and beat the living hell out of him to prove why their kid shouldn't be bullying anyone."

Next thing you know, her father walked up to me and said, "I hear you're going to beat the hell out of me."

I was looking at an over six foot body builder who also me as a fighter. I laughed and said, "Not really, but your girl is beating up on my Jimmy and I just wanted to supply an argument that such behavior has consequences. You know what though, you look like you can really fight and we'd both have a blast figuring which one of us is better. "

He got it and somewhat humorously said, "No, no. I only like fighting when I have to." I was glad to meet a man that shared my same attitude about fighting. He also had an idea on how to fix things. He grabbed his daughter's hand, and then yelled out, "Look, don't threaten me! If you have a problem with my daughter bullying your son, you beat the hell out of her instead of coming to me!"

You should have seen the looks of the hundred or so students and parents around us. Later the girl told me that she didn't mean to be mean to Jimmy, she just liked him. Believe it or not, it all made sense to me, "With being mean, you get the attention, but it not good attention. Look, Jimmy is a good kid, and maybe he can't be a friend like you would like, but I do know, if you're nice to him he will be a friend to you."

When I got Jimmy I told him, "Jimmy you have a bigger problem with the girl then the bullying."

"What dad?"

"She likes you. Just do me a favor and be nice to her."

But Jim's bullying problems were many and more serious than that, one time when I got there, he was holding his throat and having problems breathing, saying a kid punched him in his throat. I asked why he didn't punch back, "Because that would get me in trouble with you."

"Jimmy, I only told you not to bully people or start a fight, I never said that you couldn't defend yourself. Look, if you fight back, you'll get suspended, but I would understand. Just remember there is a price to pay for fighting."

Shortly after that, something similar happened and he cleaned the kid's clock, and just as with me, it stopped the bullying. The principle did inform me that she heard of this happening through the grape vine, but given both kids nature, she didn't want to do anything with Jimmy.



I promised only to put essentials on my credit card and asked Rita to find any job, which was another argument because she wanted to wait until she found a career. All I said was, "Look Rita, even if you get a part time job at the Farm store, you would still have much of your freedom, make about $100.00 a week to contribute to the family which is all that we need, and you will still have more money that you can spend."

"Well, you're my husband and should be doing better to take care of me. As your wife, I tell you right now, I deserve a lot more than you seem willing to supply."

"Willing to supply! Rita, marriage is not an entitlement! There is a reason two people have to get together and raise a family; it takes the total effort of both!' Another point she had was, I wasn't able to spend much time with her. I pointed out that I did, and often forgo sleep to be with her at doctor's appointments for every ailment under the sun in addition of all the times I had to stop and listen to her. I point blank told her that she couldn't have it both ways, require gobs of money for her to spend or to be with her.

"That means you're lousy in every respect."

I had to pay bills, which just about wiped out much of my salary; we still need food, occasional clothing and her car, I had to put a lot on the credit card. I got the needed credit limit raises, which with their preferred members interest, was very doable.

Then suddenly, I was informed by the credit card company that I am no longer considered a preferred member and must pay the interest at the current rate of 22 ½ percent. Now I was barely paying the interest, so it wasn't very long that things maxed themselves out.

Through this period, I found myself the boy with his fingers in the holes of the dike. Cathy and her children spent time living with us, as she separated with Steve. They eventually reconciled and all of a sudden, Monica was spending time at our house with her three children. While she was here, instead of the usual four hours of sleep to survive on, I got two or less, as Rita and Monica would go out, leaving me with all of the children. After a while, she too got back together with her husband John.

Then, I would occasionally help out one of Rita's friends, as one developed marital problems and needed a bit of money to help with their mortgage. It seemed that life combined to be a total hardship for me, and with the credit card no longer an option, resorted to my first profit sharing loan. I found it bothersome that her friends would give up marriage, tackle taking care of the children themselves, and live a night life of partying and dating on the side.



The arguing between Rita and me was ever increasing. Of course much of it was over money, but I never knew when, or where, or what the argument would be about; often several times a day. There is no need to provide you with a sample, because you are sure to figure the most stupid of arguments and apply it to us. Katie seemed still to be able to start a good share herself between me and her mom.

I did despise them occurring at work over the phone and it wasn't long before I yelled back though the mouth piece, "God damn it Rita, I don't want to argue with you at work, because my mind won't be on it and I'll get hurt." Damn if I didn't walk over to the two-color Heidelberg M press, went to load the feeder with paper and split my head wide open on the headstock.

There were two more arguments the next day, and I headed off to work feeling that things were finally reconciled; again I got a phone call just like the day before. I screamed the exact same thing into the telephone before I hung up and walked over to the press. This time the 4-color Speedmaster and in throwing that load, totally split open the web of my hand between the thumb and fore finger. Vic was about six feet off of the ground hanging a plate on the forth unit, when I walked over and said, "Do you remember what I am trying to say to her?"

"Yea."

"Look, fat cells!" At the site of the gash. he instantly became woozy and I was totally afraid of the prospects of having to catch his hulking six foot three frame. The next night, I simply hung up the phone, took a step, than remained motionless.

A minute later, Vic came over and asked, "Mike, are you OK? Mike ... Are you OK?" I let out a yell and in a great baseball pitch, vaporized my personal radio against the back wall. Pressmen were finding the electronic parts in their presses for days.

Vic was about the best support one could find, he really didn't judge, but to occasionally coyly say that he is grateful that he doesn't have those problems. It only took a couple of days for him to insist, "I don't want you to talk to me Mike. I'm not mad at you, but don't want you to talk to me about anything." It didn't escape the others attention that while one was on one line arguing with his spouse, the other was arguing with theirs. It was something we both could laugh about.

According to other people, I wasn't being a good man about things. One sect of this population of belief, thought so because I wasn't strict enough to get a handle on things and shut the arguing down, and the other didn't consider me a man, because real men are able to solve problems without resorting to arguing. That sort of told me that both factions were wrong, but I was screwed.

Truthfully, I hated myself for several reasons. Not to be able to please Rita, not to be able to put a stop to all of this crazy arguing, and I also getting good at it. Not only could I respond to an argument, but if I thought you looked at me the wrong way, you were going to get yours. Yet I was ashamed of myself, what I had become, and also for not setting the example for the kids.

Then one day, Katie and Jimmy were playing in the living room and I heard Jimmy say, "Dad's staying here today."

"Goodie, there's going to be another argument." That statement would have prompted my angry wrath, but the cynical tone, told me that I was now reduced to the symbol of an argument. Sure enough, there was an argument, but this time, I refused to argue and walked out. Once back, I refused to argue and said if I get caught in an argument, I would walk away if I could.



That became a frequent occurrence and I while it didn't make for a happy personal life, it made for a more peaceful one. But there weren't many places where I could go. If arguing at night, I would take a walk late at night in the community and come across a few other houses where they were arguing. It wasn't good for the heart to hear people screaming at each other and throwing things.

On weekends, I would go to the bars, but the problem with this was, while I enjoyed drinking, I liked having my fill and moving on. I couldn't get into sports, or find a quite bar that didn't have TVs on, not to mention the disposition of being in a group of people who were there for similar reasons.

I got the most out of walking to Double Rock Park, which had a somber, but peaceful tone where in a full day, could walk an area that has us busy for summers exploring. I sneakily saved up a few stray duckets and had them stashed, so I could eat a meal and watch a movie in either Towson or White Marsh, both areas were about five miles away. It became a nice way to enjoy myself, then I would go home and tell everyone I was miserable; which seemed to make Rita and Katie a bit happier..

There were also those times, I fled the car as with a doctor's appointment with Rita and I would be late for work because I walked several miles to get there. Rita gave up trying to track me down in the car as I applied my survival, evasion and escape skills at avoiding her.

Seemingly reserved for the worst fights, there was something involving Mom. "Mr. Kohlman, your mother assaulted another patient and we have to notify their family so they can decide if they want to criminally charge her."

To me, it was much needed comic relief, "Sure, go head, I understand and besides, that may be just what the doctor ordered. You know, while I haven't complained about you, I am not really satisfied with the level of care that she receives; so when she is charged, it will be all the proof that I need that you aren't properly caring for her. I will then sue you for not only settlement, but damages as well. That will allow my mother the quality of care she deserves from a better facility." Funny, they didn't notify the family.

Other times, my dealings with the nursing home weren't that cordial. The courts gave me a guardianship paper stamped, "True Test Copy," which always worked. Suddenly they required a document stamped with the courts legal seal. That required several trips as that part of the file was in document storage, and it also bore a cost.

Then their lawyers decided that my Do Not Resuscitate (DNR) order was invalid because it needed to be a court issued order. Unfortunately the judge agreed, but allowed me with the chamber's help to secure one myself. I had to get all of the initial letters together, plus my reasoning behind the request and two letters of recommendations from two individual doctors that agreed.

That part only took a month, but what took six more was getting those two doctors and me together for a hearing to be held over the phone. The judge gave me a list of dates and times, and then the two doctors had to put it in their schedules. But every time I got this together, the judge's chambers were closed for an extended period of time.

After several such go 'rounds and misses, the judge issued a strongly worded letter that he didn't consider me serious and remanded the case file back to the trust clerk. That brought me to the working end of the judge's chambers with some words of my own to get the problem solved and the hearing to be held, via telephone.

That went well, as all of us answered the questions that were directed to us. The last one was directed to her doctor. "You answered all of my questions well, but I also have to assess the moral side to all of this as I determine what is in Mrs. Kohlman's best interest. You have to give me a good argument why resuscitation would severely lessen the quality of her life."

We all started choking in extreme shock. The doctor was pissed, "Quality of life? She has none now ... She is a product of a prior resuscitation and is severely brain damaged with severe cognitive impairment. She has absolutely no understanding of what's going on now, is extremely combative and angry, which we can barely manage now. You resuscitate her again it's only going increase the torture she goes through now, increase the pain that her family goes though now, not to mention continue to cost the taxpayers, that much more."

The judge wasn't prepared for such a response, and granted the Do Not Resuscitate Order. To me, the family wishes should have been carried out in the first place. We all would have grieved horribly at her loss, but we would have been spared the absolute torture of seeing such a fine person, reduced to a person that had no ability to enjoy another decent or happy day on earth.

The other judge in my life, Rita, was more fitting of a ruler in that the arguing seemed to revolve around her mood and the fact that she needed to feel she was the dominate one. I racked my brains to improve relations, but it seemed that there were as many directions she wanted to lead as the thoughts within her head. To me her desires and demands were no longer important, but in trying to remain a mate, I didn't attempt at least an effort at pleasing her.

Yet there were things and people entering into our family lives, that still held out the hope that this relationship will turn itself around and our lives will improve.