Self-employed (website maintenance and design for my sister’s business) PT
Due to pervasive health problems, I stopped working in 2005. While I would love to have a job, I can’t drive and my accommodation requirements are such, that I am unemployable. I did try my hand at answering calls for Amazon. I failed miserably.
Bruce Gerencser, 66, lives in rural Northwest Ohio with his wife of 45 years. He and his wife have six grown children and thirteen grandchildren. Bruce pastored Evangelical churches for twenty-five years in Ohio, Texas, and Michigan. Bruce left the ministry in 2005, and in 2008 he left Christianity. Bruce is now a humanist and an atheist.
In January 1980, tired of working mindless, boring factory jobs, I turned to the help wanted ads in the Newark Advocate, looking for a new job. The local Arthur Treacher’s Fish and Chips was looking for an assistant manager trainee. The job paid $155 a week, with full benefits. I applied for the job, and Ann Vanderslice, the general manager, hired me. Thus would begin my restaurant management career. I would continue working for Arthur Treacher’s until September 1981.
I quickly learned that the restaurant business was for me — a perfect job for a Type A workaholic. After five months as an assistant manager, I was offered the general manager position at the Brice Road store in Reynoldsburg. The store was in disarray, with a staff that was, to put it mildly, lazy and poorly trained. Most employees either voluntarily left or were fired. My district manager, Bill Wickert, called me “The Hammer.” Bill told me, “okay, Bruce, they are all yours now,” meaning my hires, my responsibility.
I have worked a number of jobs over the years; I mean lots of jobs. If I had to choose one secular job I loved the most, it would be restaurant management. Quite frankly, I was good at my job. Committed. Passionate. Hardworking. Never missed work. I would later work for Long John Silver’s (Westerville, Zanesville, Heath) and Charley’s Steakery (Zanesville). If it weren’t for Jesus and the ministry, I likely would have started my own restaurant.
Periodically, the cash register had to be reprogrammed. I easily took to doing this, unlike some general managers who were technology challenged. One night after closing, I headed over to the High Street store to help program their register. One of my assistants, a redheaded man named Steve, went along with me. Off we went without a care in the world.
Nearing the High Street store, I stopped at a stop light. All of a sudden, a car plowed into the back of my 1971, three-speed on the floor, Plymouth Duster. I had bought the baby blue-colored car from Polly’s sister, Kathy, for $400. The crash crunched the rear of the car, spilling the trunk’s contents onto the roadway: spare tire, 8-track player, and a gallon of paint. Only the spare tire survived.
The driver who hit me tried to flee the scene of the accident. My car was barely drivable. I chased her for two city blocks until she stopped. The woman was drunk. A Columbus police officer came to the scene and took a report. He ignored the fact that the woman was inebriated.
The woman gave me her phone number so I could contact her about filing an insurance claim. When I called her, she informed me that she didn’t have insurance. Through my own insurance company, I learned that she did, so I called her again — at work. She worked for the Ohio Bureau of Motor Vehicles. I told her that I knew she had insurance. When she tried to con me again, I told her I planned to call her boss if she didn’t file an insurance claim. She quickly complied. Sadly, her insurance company only paid me $200 for my car. They, too, conned me out of what was rightfully mine. Lesson learned. I never let an insurance company pull one over on me again.
Bruce Gerencser, 66, lives in rural Northwest Ohio with his wife of 45 years. He and his wife have six grown children and thirteen grandchildren. Bruce pastored Evangelical churches for twenty-five years in Ohio, Texas, and Michigan. Bruce left the ministry in 2005, and in 2008 he left Christianity. Bruce is now a humanist and an atheist.
I am a restless soul. Let me tell you why. I’ve moved thirty-six times in my sixty-five years of life. I’ve lived in 45+houses, apartments, and mobile homes.
Bryan, Ohio — born 1957 Ney, Ohio — toddler San Diego, California — kindergarten to second grade Bryan, Ohio — third grade Harrod, Ohio — fourth, fifth grade Farmer, Ohio — fifth, sixth grade Deshler, Ohio — seventh grade Findlay, Ohio — eighth grade to tenth grade Tucson, Arizona — tenth grade Mt. Blanchard, Ohio — eleventh grade Findlay, Ohio — eleventh grade Bryan, Ohio — dropped out of high school Sierra Vista, Arizona — age 18 Bryan, Ohio — age 18 Pontiac, Michigan age 19-21, college, married Polly Bryan, Ohio —1979 Montpelier, Ohio — 1979 Newark, Ohio — 1979-1981 Buckeye Lake, Ohio — 1981-1983 New Lexington, Ohio — 1983 Glenford, Ohio — 1983-1984 New Lexington, Ohio — 1984-1987 Junction City, Ohio — 1988-1989 Mt. Perry, Ohio — 1989-1994 San Antonio, Texas — 1994 Frazeysburg, Ohio — 1994-1995 Fayette, Ohio — 1995 Alvordton, Ohio 1996-2003 Clare, Michigan — 2003 Stryker, Ohio — 2003 Yuma, Arizona — 2004 Newark, Ohio — 2004-2005 Bryan, Ohio — 2005-2006 Alvordton, Ohio — 2007 Ney, Ohio — 2007 to present (my final resting place)
I still want to move. My wanderlust never goes away. However, I know I’m where I need to be, close to my doctors, children, and grandchildren. It is here I will die, though my ashes will be spread by Polly and my family on the eastern shore of Lake Michigan. Why? That’s a story for another day. ❤️❤️
I grew up in a poor home, one that, at times, vacillated between dirt-poor and existence-threatening poverty. Up until I was fifteen, Dad always worked, be it as a salesman or a local truck driver. Mom, on occasion, would work, but her severe mental health problems precluded her from maintaining steady employment. Mom and Dad divorced in the spring of my ninth-grade year. Mom tried to go back to work, but eventually gave up and signed up for ADC — aid for dependent children. From that point forward, we were a welfare family.
While my siblings and I were in school, the State of Ohio provided Medicaid coverage for us. Medicaid covered medical, dental, and eye care. I have many stories I could share (and shall over time) about being on welfare, complete with the embarrassment of being refused medical/dental care and being shamed for using food stamps, but today I want to share a story about getting my first pair of glasses.
In the spring/summer of 1971, I played baseball for Jacques Sporting Goods in Findlay, Ohio. I was never a great player. Now that I was playing with and against kids who played for local high school teams, my lack of hitting skill was quickly exposed. I was, however, lefthanded and a fast runner. I suspect it was for these reasons that I made the team — barely. I was the kid at the far end of the bench, a player or two ahead of the water boy. Good enough to play, but not the kid you wanted at the plate when the game was on the line.
Typically, practices were held at Rawson Park, located on Broad Ave. One day, I was fielding flies in right field. I was having an awful time seeing and catching the ball. After more than a bit of grief over my horrible fielding, my coach suggested that I get my eyes checked. Sure enough, I needed glasses.
Mom made me an appointment to see an optician that took Medicaid insurance. After checking my eyes and determining I was nearsighted, the welfare box was brought out for me to choose a pair of frames. No wireframes. No stylish frames. Just frames that screamed to everyone you went to school with that you were poor and on welfare.
As you can see from my ninth-grade school photo, my black cheap plastic framed old-man’s glasses didn’t go with my complexion and bright red hair. I was so embarrassed, but what could I do? My vision was such that I needed glasses to do my school work, and more importantly, play baseball.
After being endlessly ridiculed over my welfare glasses for several weeks, I decided to hustle up enough money for me to buy an age-appropriate pair of fashionable wirerimmed glasses. This put an end to me being a poster child for “welfare.”
The picture of me above, taken in Arizona, shows me with my wirerimmed glasses (and my white belt, burgundy polyester pants, and white shoes — which you cannot see). In the first picture, I stood out, for all the wrong reasons. High school was brutal enough without painting a metaphorical target on my body. Thanks to me playing baseball and basketball, I wasn’t treated as harshly as other welfare kids, but I did receive enough ill treatment to remind me that I wasn’t part of the in-crowd (my Fundamentalist religious beliefs and practices didn’t help either). As I write this post, my mind goes back to the experiences of several of my fellow poor classmates. They didn’t have sports to give them a bit of respectability. They were daily bullied and marginalized, routinely preyed on by entitled “rich” kids.
Fast forward to 2022. Families on welfare have a hard time finding medical/dental/eye care. Currently, families need to drive 30-60 miles for dental care. There is a local “welfare” clinic in Bryan, but clients often must wait weeks and months to see a dentist. Try telling Johnny with a throbbing tooth that he has to wait a month to see a dentist. Such lack of access, in my opinion, is immoral.
Several days ago, Polly told me a story about one of her fellow employee’s recent experience getting glasses for her young son. The children have Medicaid insurance coverage. After the eye doctor determined the boy needed glasses, it was time to choose a pair of frames. Out came the dusty “welfare” box with its spartan selection of cheap, plastic glasses. Fifty years after my eyeglass experience, nothing has changed. Opticians could provide better, more stylish frames, but they don’t. Why should they, right? If the state of Ohio wants poor children to have stylish frames, it should pay providers more. Fair enough, but opticians could provide nicer frames for patients on Medicaid. Sure, it might cost them a few bucks, but thanks to frames now being sold (cheaply) online, we now know that eyeglass providers have been making a killing for years. (We buy our glasses and prescription sunglasses from Zenni Optical, saving hundreds of dollars, all without sacrificing quality.)
The young boy in question dutifully chose his welfare glasses. Fortunately, his mother also had eyecare insurance from work. This allowed her to choose a stylish pair of glasses for her son. Of course, she had to pay money for the nicer glasses. Can I scream now? Mom did the right thing for her son. Not that many years removed from high school, she knows how students can treat those who look different or are wearing the scarlet W on their faces.
Bruce Gerencser, 66, lives in rural Northwest Ohio with his wife of 45 years. He and his wife have six grown children and thirteen grandchildren. Bruce pastored Evangelical churches for twenty-five years in Ohio, Texas, and Michigan. Bruce left the ministry in 2005, and in 2008 he left Christianity. Bruce is now a humanist and an atheist.
My wife, Polly, and I will celebrate forty-four years of blissful, happy, serene, uneventful — wait for a minute while I get a hysterically laughing Polly off the floor — marriage. 🙂 Life has blessed us with six children, ages twenty-nine to forty-three — damn they are getting old — and thirteen grandchildren, ages two to twenty-one. And I must not forget our son-in-law and daughters-in-law. Without them there would be no grandchildren, and, though we don’t say it enough, we love and appreciate them. On balance we have lived a good life, blessed in every way.
Yet, as a slowly dying, frail sixty-five-year-old man with fibromyalgia, gastroparesis, osteoarthritis, and chronic, unrelenting pain, I can’t help but reflect on my life. My new counselor has told me that I have a good sense of self-awareness. This, of course, can lead to me thinking too much about the past and my culpability in things that did or didn’t happen in the lives of my wife and children. I’ve been faulted for dwelling too much on the past, but this is who I am. Besides, I wouldn’t have much to write about if I let the past be the past. The important thing for me is that I don’t live in the past. I use the past as a teaching tool, as a way to measure progress in my life; as a reminder of what not to do. Being a committed, devoted Fundamentalist follower of Jesus Christ, a man with a slavish devotion to the literal teachings of the Bible resulted in me making choices and decisions I now regret.
While not everything on the list below is religion-related, many of them are. For the nominal, cultural Christian, their faith doesn’t make much difference in their lives. However, for those of us who were saved, sanctified, filled-with-the-Holy-Ghost believers; people who immersed themselves in the Bible, a book they believed was the inspired, inerrant, infallible Word of God; people who governed their thoughts, words, and deeds by the Bible and the leading of the Holy Spirit; people who devoted themselves to the work of the church and the ministry; people who gave thousands and thousands of dollars to their churches and other ministries; people who witnessed to and evangelized unbelievers; people who separated themselves from the world; people who homeschooled their children or sent them to private Christian schools; people who put God/Jesus/church/ministry above their families, friends, and job — their faith and its attendant beliefs and practices made an incalculable mark on their lives. And now that we are no longer believers or have moved on to less demanding expressions of faith, it’s hard not to look back on our lives without regret. In my case, I spent fifty years of my life in the Christian church, and half of those years pastoring churches full-time. It’s hard not to conclude, then, that I spent much of my life devoted to a lie, sacrificing my wife and children for an imaginary deity.
Ten Things I Regret
I regret not teaching my children to swim. We spent very little time at places where our children could swim and I had no time due to my commitment to Jesus and the church to take them to swimming lessons.
I regret not letting my children play organized sports. There was one hard, fast rule in the Gerencser household: the church always, and I mean ALWAYS, came first. Since practice and game schedules conflicted with the church calendar, there was no discussion to be had: no sports for the Gerencser children. Why play baseball when you can go soulwinning and street preaching with your preacher father, right? While I played baseball and basketball in school, I didn’t afford my children that same opportunity.
I regret not taking my family on vacations. The only “vacations” the Gerencsers took were trips to events or churches where I was preaching.
I regret not taking off time from toiling in God’s vineyard to enjoy nature with my children. We lived in a lot of beautiful, wildlife-filled places, yet I was too busy to take the time to enjoy what was right in front of me. Hell was hot, death was certain, and Jesus was coming soon! Who had time for trees, flowers, hills, rivers, mule deer, and bobcats? Souls needed saving and Jesus was fixing to split the Eastern Sky as he returned to earth to judge the living and dead.
I regret using disciplinary methods with my three older children that I now think are child abuse. While I moved away from such disciplinary practices later in life, there’s no other way to view the whippings and beatings my older sons received as anything other than ritual, Bible-inspired, Jesus-approved child abuse. I would not blame my oldest sons if they hated me and wanted nothing to do with me. That they still come around and we have good relationships is a testimony of love and forgiveness.
I regret using my children as unpaid laborers for the churches I pastored. My children spent countless hours working with their father on church projects. While they learned many skills that they still use today, I can’t help but regret viewing my children as construction workers janitors, and groundskeepers. They were never given a choice. Preacher Dad said ______________. End of discussion.
I regret not letting my kids be kids. Certainly, my sons and daughters did plenty of kid stuff — especially when I wasn’t around — but they lived in a glass house where appearance and perception were everything. God, church members, and the “lost” were always watching, I told my children, so we must always be kind and polite — even to assholes — and on our best behavior.
I regret not exposing my children to a secular worldview. Instead, I built a bubble around them, protecting my children from the big, bad, evil world. While they have recovered nicely from the Fundamentalist indoctrination and conditioning of their youth, I can’t help but think these things harmed them as young adults.
I regret not telling my children I loved them. I blame this directly on growing up in a dysfunctional home where my mom or dad rarely, if ever, expressed love for me. While I am a lot better with this now, I still could do even better. When I first embraced my youngest daughter and told her that I loved her, she had a shocked look on her face that said, “are you dying”? I can’t emphasize this enough: emotional distance between parents and children is often generational. I know it was for me. I look at my grandparents and parents and I clearly see this distance. They passed this on to their children. The only thing I know to do is to recognize this and do better.
I regret being a hypocrite. As a pastor, to church members and the world, I was a pillar of morality and virtue, a man who always had his life under control; a man who rarely expressed anger. Behind closed doors, I could be a different man, far more temperamental, more easily provoked to anger. Oh, the stories that could be told to illustrate this point. I hope to get some of my children (and Polly) to come on my podcast and talk about these things someday.) Today, I want to focus on why I was this way. I was a loving, kind, generous man, especially towards church members and unbelievers. Yet, when it came to my family, I could, at times, be unloving, unkind, and lacking in generosity. Granted, I’ve come to this opinion thanks to hindsight. At the time, I thought I was just being a good Christian husband and father. Why was I this way? My version of Christianity demanded that I deny self, take up my cross, and follow Jesus. In doing so, I lost all sense of self. Thus, when I was behind closed doors, pent-up frustrations would come out, often in anger. If I had had a healthy view of self, I suspect things would have been different. I know that TV (which I deemed sinful) wouldn’t have gone flying out the front door. 🙂
The past is the past. There are no do-overs. At best, we get second chances to right the wrongs of the past or at least model and show that we have learned from the bad things we did previously. I know that’s the case for me. I see my grandchildren as an opportunity to do things differently, and I hope in the latter years of my life to forge better relationships with Polly and my children.
Does this mean that I was a bad man, unfit to pastor churches? I am sure some will come to that conclusion — thus finding yet another reason to dismiss my story out of hand — but I see myself as a broken, flawed man, someone deeply affected and scarred by his upbringing and immersion in Independent Fundamentalist Baptist Christianity. It would take me five decades before I realized how much harm IFB (and later Calvinistic) beliefs and practices had caused me, harm I passed on to Polly and our children (and Polly had her own dysfunction to deal with). I see that growing up with a mentally ill mother who tried to kill herself numerous times, constantly living in new houses and attending new schools, being sexually abused as a boy, and being left to fend for myself during the most formative years of my life, extracted a horrific price from me. Sure, I survived, but not without lasting scars. All I know to do is make an uneasy peace with the past and try to do better. I will leave it to those I love to decide if I have successfully done so. If not, I will keep trying. What else can any of us do?
Bruce Gerencser, 66, lives in rural Northwest Ohio with his wife of 45 years. He and his wife have six grown children and thirteen grandchildren. Bruce pastored Evangelical churches for twenty-five years in Ohio, Texas, and Michigan. Bruce left the ministry in 2005, and in 2008 he left Christianity. Bruce is now a humanist and an atheist.
In the summer of 1970, my dad packed us up and moved us from Deshler, Ohio — a village of 1,800 people nicknamed “The Corn City” — to Findlay — a growing city of almost 40,000 residents. I had spent most of my school years going to small country schools. Findlay was, in my mind, the big city. I would live in Findlay from 1970 to 1974, with a brief four-month exit in the spring of 1973 because Dad suddenly moved us to Tucson, Arizona.
Findlay had three junior high schools: Glenwood, Donnell, and Central. These schools housed seventh through ninth-grade students. I attended Central.
In my ninth-grade year, many of the boys at Central began playing a game we called Grog. The game’s goal was to silently come up behind an unsuspecting boy and hit him in the nuts with your fist as hard as possible. As the men reading this story will imagine, a well-placed hit would level a boy, leaving him writhing on the hallway floor. Seeing a boy on the floor groaning in anguish was a sure sign that he had been grogged.
I quickly became wary of anyone coming close to me in the hallway. I took ball-protecting measures to shield myself from being grogged. Other boys did the same. Over time, this violent game lost its luster, and we moved on to other skilled games: wedgies, snapping bras, and seeing who could hit the urinal from the farthest away.
What can I say, I was an immature, stupid junior-high boy. Boys will be boys. Doing dumb stuff is just what young teen boys do . . .You just hope they don’t seriously hurt someone else or kill themselves.
Bruce Gerencser, 66, lives in rural Northwest Ohio with his wife of 45 years. He and his wife have six grown children and thirteen grandchildren. Bruce pastored Evangelical churches for twenty-five years in Ohio, Texas, and Michigan. Bruce left the ministry in 2005, and in 2008 he left Christianity. Bruce is now a humanist and an atheist.
Somerset Baptist Church Auditorium after Remodel, 1992
In July of 1983, I started the Somerset Baptist Church in Somerset, Ohio. In 1985, we bought a Methodist church building near Mt Perry, Ohio for $5,000.00. The church building, built in 1831 and one of the oldest Methodist buildings in Ohio, would be the church’s home until Polly and I moved away in March 1994.
During the eleven years I was pastor, hundreds of church members came and went and we hauled thousands of kids to church on one of our four buses. For five years, we operated a private Christian school, open only to the children of the church. It was tuition-free.
Bruce Gerencser, Somerset Baptist Church, 1983
This was the church where I came of age as a pastor. In 1983, I was a hardcore, Independent Fundamentalist Baptist (IFB) pastor. When I moved away in 1994 to co-pastor Community Baptist Church in Elmendorf, Texas, I was a committed Calvinistic, Reformed Baptist pastor. I went through tremendous intellectual and social transformation during these eleven years.
Several years ago, as I scanned the pictures from this era, my mind was flooded with memories of the shared experiences I had with the church family. Yes, there were bad times, stupid times, dumb ass times. Yes, I was a Fundamentalist and that brought all kinds of baggage with it. But, as I looked at the pictures, I didn’t think about beliefs. My thoughts were about people and the wonderful times we had. Yes, Fundamentalism psychologically and emotionally harmed and scarred me (and the people I pastored), but that does not mean there are no good memories. There are lots of them. In fact, the vast majority of the memories I have are good ones. Sometimes, when people deconvert they often become so fixated on the negative which happened that they forget the good times. I know I did.
Bruce Gerencser, 1991, Somerset Baptist Academy
As I looked at these photos, I also shed some tears. There were a handful of people in the pictures who are now dead. Cancer, heart attacks, and car accidents claimed their lives and all I have left of them are the pictures and our shared memories. After I posted the pictures to Facebook, I heard from a number of people who were once part of the church. Most of the people I heard from were children when I was at Somerset Baptist Church. They are now middle-aged with families of their own. Their parents, like me, are old and gray. It was nice to hear from them.
The photos aren’t very good – the best a $20.00 camera could offer. Nothing like the photos I took with my professional $4,000 camera years later. In fact, they are down-right terrible. But, infused into the photos are memories, and it is those memories that matter.
Bruce and Polly Gerencser, Sweetheart Banquet, 1985
I feel old today — a dying man who has lived a long life. But I also feel blessed to have lived a good life, a life marked by contradiction, conflict, grief, and change, along with happiness, joy, and goodness. It is the sum of my life.
Bruce Gerencser, Somerset Baptist Church, Early 1990sBruce Gerencser, Somerset Baptist Church, 1987
Bruce Gerencser, 66, lives in rural Northwest Ohio with his wife of 45 years. He and his wife have six grown children and thirteen grandchildren. Bruce pastored Evangelical churches for twenty-five years in Ohio, Texas, and Michigan. Bruce left the ministry in 2005, and in 2008 he left Christianity. Bruce is now a humanist and an atheist.
As a child in the 1960s, I was taught several ditties by my father, including one about Popeye and his garbage can:
Popeye the sailor man, lived in the garbage can,
Ate all the worms, and spit out the germs,
Popeye, the sailor man!
As a father, I taught my children this song too. Classical music at its best. 🙂
Several of our children came over on Mother’s Day to worship at Polly’s feet. We had a wonderful day.
As I came into our living room, I overheard son #2 tell one of his younger children:
Popeye the sailor man, lived in the garbage can,
Ate all the worms, and spit out the germs,
Popeye, the sailor man!
🙂
Bruce Gerencser, 66, lives in rural Northwest Ohio with his wife of 45 years. He and his wife have six grown children and thirteen grandchildren. Bruce pastored Evangelical churches for twenty-five years in Ohio, Texas, and Michigan. Bruce left the ministry in 2005, and in 2008 he left Christianity. Bruce is now a humanist and an atheist.
My wife and I have thirteen grandchildren, aged two to twenty-one. Three of our grandchildren are ages 16, 15, and 14. All three are intelligent kids, straight-A students. I have found it interesting and enjoyable to watch them grow up. They are now at that age where they are not adults, but neither are they children; conversant in the things of the world, yet without much real-world experience. All three of them read my blog. They peruse my bookshelves, trying to size up the man they call Grandpa. My grandchildren don’t know much about Bruce Gerencser, the preacher. I had left the ministry by the time they were born. The Grandpa they know is disabled, unable to drive, a man who is a curmudgeon who loves to talk about politics, religion, sports, and make snarky, sarcastic jokes. My oldest grandson, the fourteen-year-old, and I were in the garage looking for my Hitachi corded power drill the other day. I need it for a project we were working on in the house. The drill was nowhere to be found. In the space of a few seconds, I said, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck. 🙂 Evidently, one of my children “borrowed” the drill and hadn’t returned it (I’ve threatened to put RFID tags on my tools so I will know where they are.) That meant I had to use “the beast,” a 1/2 inch drive Black and Decker drill I have owned for twenty-five years. As we came into the house, my grandson said with a smile on his face to his father, “Grandpa said the “F” word five times in two seconds!” We all laughed . . . and then I said fuck again. 🙂
Yesterday, my oldest son was over with his family for dinner. Polly and I made: fried catfish, fried shrimp, hushpuppies, asparagus (from our garden), and coleslaw, complete with beer, pop, or unsweet iced tea. After dinner, I noticed my son was trying to straighten up the sign I recently put up over our liquor cabinet. I said, “what are you doing?” I then told him that I meant for it to be crooked on purpose.
My sixteen-year-old granddaughter and fourteen-year-old grandson were perplexed. The grandfather they knew NEVER hung up ANYTHING crooked. EVER! Their father grew up in a home where a tape measure, shims, plumb-bob, and a level were never far away. He and his siblings have “fond” memories of helping me perfectly align the pulpit in the church’s front and center. I mean, perfectly align. Welcome to Obsessive-Compulsive Personality Disorder.
By the way, this is the first time I have ever deliberately hung something crooked. I doubt I will continue down this decadent path. 🙂
Why the crooked sign? I love its take on the Bible verse: as for me and my house, we will serve the Lord. 🙂 The crooked sign also reminds me of how Polly walks when she has drunk too much wine. 🙂
Bruce Gerencser, 66, lives in rural Northwest Ohio with his wife of 45 years. He and his wife have six grown children and thirteen grandchildren. Bruce pastored Evangelical churches for twenty-five years in Ohio, Texas, and Michigan. Bruce left the ministry in 2005, and in 2008 he left Christianity. Bruce is now a humanist and an atheist.
Men have been sexually preying on women for as long as anyone can remember. Millions of women have been sexually harassed, assaulted, or raped. Worse yet, many of these crimes are never reported, let alone prosecuted. Some women feel shame after being assaulted and don’t want anyone to know what happened. Others fear retribution, job loss, or family ostracization. Still others fear they will not be believed. One such woman was my mother.
Mom was sexually molested as a child by her father. (Please read Barbara.) I know this because she told me. As an adult, Mom tried one day to confront her father over his “sins.” His response? Without ever acknowledging what he had done, he told Mom that his past sins had been forgiven by God, and if God had forgiven him, so should she. Mom’s lack of forgiveness became an issue when Grandpa’s wife, using Bill Gothard’s Basic Life Principles, decided to “confront” Mom’s bitterness. She let it be known that Mom’s bitterness was due to her unwillingness to forgive. Needless to say, the discussion turned into an angry shouting match. (Please read Dear Ann.)
In the late 1960s, we lived west of Farmer, Ohio in a rented farmhouse owned by my Dad’s sister, Mary. I attended fifth and sixth grade at Farmer Elementary School. One day, I was home sick from school. Unbeknownst to me, my uncle, whom I will call Bob out of respect for his wife and son, unexpectedly came to our home. Bob only stayed for a short while, but what he did during that time left a lasting impression on a mother and her twelve-year-old son.
I learned as an adult that Bob was known for sexually harassing and assaulting women, including teen girls. Many of the women in my family have stories to tell about Bob inappropriately touching them or coming on to them. Everyone knew about Bob. Oh, that’s just how Bob was, one close family member told me. As far as I know, no one has ever publicly accused Bob of sexually assaulting them; except for my mom, that is.
Whether Bob stopped at our house on a whim or knew that Mom would be home alone and wanted to use that opportunity to take sexual advantage of her, I’ll never know, but one thing is for certain: Bob raped my mother. I know, because she told me he did. After Bob left, Mom had me run down to the neighbor’s house to use their phone to call someone. For the life of me, I can’t remember whom she had me call. I do know that no one believed her. She was Crazy Barb, the woman with mental problems.
Is it any wonder Mom had mental health problems? Born into a family where both parents were violent alcoholics, she suffered significant trauma, including being sexually molested by her father. At age seventeen, she had an unplanned pregnancy, and by age eighteen she was married and had a redheaded baby boy — yours truly. Mom married a young Hungarian man, but he was not my father. Two years ago, I learned that my father was a married truck driver from Chicago. He met my teen mom at the truck stop where she worked in Bryan. (Please see What an Ancestry DNA Test Revealed About Me.)
A few years ago, Bob died. His funeral was held at First Baptist Church in Bryan, Ohio — the family church. Bob’s parents, Mom and Pop Daugherty, were instrumental in starting First Baptist, and they were lifelong members, as were several of their children. Bob didn’t attend First Baptist. As far as I know, he didn’t attend any church and hadn’t been to First Baptist in decades. The church is an Independent Fundamentalist Baptist (IFB) church, pastored by John MacFarlane, a man who was a boy in the church when I was a teenager. This boy, now a college-educated man of God, conducted Bob’s funeral.
Barbara Gerencser, 1957, age 18. Holding her newborn son Bruce (Butch)
Having attended numerous IFB funerals, I knew what to expect: preaching and an invitation to accept Jesus as my Savior. I endured this nonsense for the sake of my family. During the service, the pastor spoke glowingly of Bob’s life. I began to feel anger rise up in me, knowing that the pastor was painting faux gold on a piece of shit. Even worse, the pastor shared a story about Bob coming to the church altar as a teenager and asking Jesus to save him. And glory to God in the highest, God saved Bob and he is, thanks to Jesus, in Heaven today, said the pastor, or something to that effect. I’m sure hearing that Bob was in Heaven brought great joy and peace to his elderly mother. But what about my mother — who at age fifty-four, turned a Ruger .357 magnum towards her heart and pulled the trigger, killing herself instantly? What about all the girls, who are now grownups, and their mothers, who endured the indignity of Bob groping and sexually harassing them (and who knows what else he might have done, secrets never spoken of)? How is it that everyone who took sexual advantage of my mother died and went to Heaven — all praise be to the one who overlooks the sexually predatory ways of his followers — yet my mother is burning in Hell because she committed the one “sin” that can never be forgiven — self-murder?
Barbara Gerencser, 1956, age 17
Mom is buried at Fountain Grove Cemetery in Bryan, Ohio. From time to time, I will stop by the cemetery and ponder what life might have been like for my mom had it not been for the men in her life. She certainly had her faults, but I wonder how much of the carnage that became her life can be traced back to her being sexually molested as a child and being raped as a young woman. Mom would divorce my father three years after Bob raped her. She would go on to marry three more times, always thinking that she needed a man in her life to survive. Such were the times, I suppose, but I know this for sure: I miss my mother and curse those who harmed her and caused her so much anguish and suffering.
As for Bob, he is where all people — good and bad — end up when they die: the grave. There is no Heaven or Hell, except for that which we experience in this life. While Mom had moments where she experienced the joys of Heaven, sadly much of her life was Hell. I so wish for her that she could have a second run at this thing we call life, but alas there are no re-dos. All I can do now is tell her story and work to make sure that the Bobs of the world don’t have a chance to harm others. And when they do sexually harm others, I want to be a voice calling for their arrest, prosecution, and imprisonment. Perhaps then, those who sexually assault and rape young girls, teens, and adult women will experience a bit of the hell they so richly deserve — Jesus and his forgiveness be damned.
And for the preacher who preached Bob into Heaven? Fuck you, John. Your theology has turned you into a bad person.
Bruce Gerencser, 66, lives in rural Northwest Ohio with his wife of 45 years. He and his wife have six grown children and thirteen grandchildren. Bruce pastored Evangelical churches for twenty-five years in Ohio, Texas, and Michigan. Bruce left the ministry in 2005, and in 2008 he left Christianity. Bruce is now a humanist and an atheist.
