Crawling Through Purgatory: Memoirs
of William P. Meyers

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Page 4

Most children find going to Catholic school to be like starring as one of the victims in a horror movie. But for me school was a relief. We were sent to Trinity Academy. I started first grade, my brother second grade. I was happy, mostly, in first grade. My teacher was Mrs. Rich. She was probably pretty strict as teachers go, I now realize, but compared to the always-on-drill atmosphere of the Meyers household it was a funhouse. I had no problem learning the lessons. I made a bunch of new friends easily. I don't recall being bored. At some point during the year I could read, add, and subtract. Every day started with a Mass (but only after we pledged allegiance to the United States flag), but like a medieval peasant I just thought that was the way days started. We probably had some religious instruction, but would not start learning the Catechism until second grade. We wore uniforms, which for the boys were dark gray pants, a white dress shirt, and a bright green tie.

One event that shaped my later intellectual life took place the first day of school, when we first entered the classroom. It turned out there were three Williams or Bills, including myself, in the class. And one had the last name of Meyer or Myers, something extremely close to me own name. My identity could not be closely tied to my name. Until then I had thought of myself as Billy Meyers, aka William Peter Godfrey Meyers III. I began to digest the idea that my name was just a label. If names are just labels, then to know things you need to look beneath the labels. But of course I did not formulate the shock of non-individuality quite so clearly at first.

I don't remember anything in particular of the summer between first and second grade, the summer of 1962. We did not have air-conditioning at the Sandalwood house, but I don't remember being bothered by the heat. I had roller skates and a bicycle; I was allowed to skate or bike around the block. Doubtless I mostly played with Tom. We probably went to the beach, the Officers Beach, a few times, or to the Mayport swimming pool. I had mainly learned the rigid code of Meyers conduct, so that I don't remember any particular trouble I got into during that summer.

I don't remember how old I was, but it was probably in the 6 to 8 year old time frame, I was sick one night and threw up before I could even make it out of bed. I think I was delirious. My father came into the room and started hitting me, over and over until he got tired of it. Thowing up in bed was against the rules.

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