Arnold Van Wie
Fred was my Stepfather
My Mom married Fred Van Vorst when I was 9 in 1965. He was fun; he could juggle extremely well, and could fish and play games and party. Right after she married him she was away one afternoon when Fred decided to surprise her by removing the training wheels off my bike and getting me riding without them. Now we lived way out in the country and we had a longish steep drive way with a drop off on one side and all kinds of rocks, stones and pebbles. I was petrified to go down that driveway without my training wheels so I refused. Fred punched me in the head and knocked me out cold. The next thing I remember was that he had dragged me in the bathroom to run ice cold water on my head to bring me back to consciousness. When I came to he had me go right back out there and get on that bike. He forced me to go down the hill without my training wheels and I made it. Well, he was thrilled and so was I and I soon put the incident out of my mind and didnt tell my Mom. As I got older I thought about telling my Mom but whenever I complained about Fred she stood up for him so I didn't bother. Fred was fun for a while as he took me fishing frequently for a couple years and we had fun together. I did notice though that he appeared to be cheating on my Mom. He became verbally abusive to me eventually and became quite mean. He would punish me for putting salt on my food by making me go to bed really early and then when my Mom went bowling he would call his girlfriend and talk to her on the phone. He made ridiculous punishments when I actually did nothing wrong so he could force me to stay in my room so he could cheat talk to his girlfriend when my Mom wasn't there. He would force me to go down into our cave like basement crawl space and spend an hour chipping away rocks with a hammer and chisel instead of letting do my home work. He called me denigrating names and forced me to get all my hair cut off when I wouldn't part my hair just right for him. My Mom told me he confessed to her that he once murdered a man and dumped his body in a dumpster and was never caught and convicted. He carried weapons and used to jump out of his car and accost irritating people at red lights when we were all stopped.
I did learn discipline from him. I learned good grooming and to take pride in my appearance. He taught me to be very tough, and carry small innocuous weapons for self defense. There was some good that came out of my relationship with Fred. He did in many ways make me a better person until he just became plain abusive.
Finally he would disappear for weeks, living with his girlfriend and my Mom threw him out and divorced him. I was beside myself with joy.
They divorced in 1971 when i was 15.
I did learn discipline from him. I learned good grooming and to take pride in my appearance. He taught me to be very tough, and carry small innocuous weapons for self defense. There was some good that came out of my relationship with Fred. He did in many ways make me a better person until he just became plain abusive.
Finally he would disappear for weeks, living with his girlfriend and my Mom threw him out and divorced him. I was beside myself with joy.
They divorced in 1971 when i was 15.
