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A Memoir
by Kurt Eichenwald
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Mine was a fortunate childhood. My family wasn't wealthy, but I knew we were well off. With property cheap in Texas, we lived in a sprawling ranch-style house, separated from the street by a five-hundred-foot gravel driveway. We spent no money on swimming pools or fancy cars or vacations; if we couldn't drive to our destination, we didn't go. Instead, my parents invested in our education. My brother and I attended St. Mark's School of Texas, a private school I adored. My mom told me that each morning in first grade when we drove onto campus, I leaned out the window yelling, "Hello! I'm here!" as if everyone were waiting for me. Eventually, our family's connection to St. Mark's grew closer when the school hired my mom as the nurse. She became a beloved fixture there - other students often told me they considered her a second mother.
Nothing occurred in my childhood to prepare me for struggles in life. Probably my most harrowing childhood experience took place when I was five and attending a summer day camp. After weeks of waiting, my turn arrived to ride everybody's favorite horse, Ginger. A counselor boosted me onto the saddle, and I rode the pinto out of the stables. We arrived at the edge of the trail when Ginger collapsed under me, dead. At day's end, the counselors assured an angry mob of my fellow kindergartners that I had not personally killed her.
My siblings struggled with my father's high expectations and dictates on their life choices, but I largely escaped scrutiny, since he considered me a happy-go-lucky intellectual lightweight. If my brother came close to falling off the high honor roll, my father would sound off, but my B and C grades barely got a glance. Strangely, I didn't care.
Life was mostly calm with a dash of adventure. My best friend often joined me on hikes along a nearby creek, where we kept our eyes open for the ever-present water moccasins. After short treks, we'd scamper onto a bridge and throw off our G.I. Joe action figures with parachutes attached. On longer journeys, we'd stop at a run-down deserted sugar shack we called "the haunted cabin" until the structure disappeared. Meanwhile, another friend and I spent weeks along a portion of the creek, cutting down tiny trees and roping them together into a clubhouse. We returned to the spot one day to build the roof, only to discover that our ersatz cabin had also vanished. I even enjoyed time alone, lying on the grass while staring at the sky or climbing through a drainage tunnel that ran beneath our driveway.
I always found hobbies, from making yarn pictures on wooden slabs to building glue-soaked model cars. When my neighborhood friend pursued magic, I joined him. The two of us started performing around Dallas; the pay was good, but we invested most of it back into the show.
I recognized my good fortune and appreciated it, largely because I was exposed to others who faced hard times. My parents volunteered at free clinics for the indigent, and we would assist some of their patients in need. We also sponsored two orphans who visited on weekends, with the younger boy sleeping in my room, where we stayed up talking or jumping on the beds. On Sunday evenings, when we drove them back to Buckner Children's Home, I always felt guilty that my life was so much easier than theirs.
My first taste of journalism came at fifteen, and I hated it. I joined the school newspaper, the Remarker, but my assigned stories - budget plans, a play, a speaker, blah blah blah - were beyond boring. I had no doubt that unless they were looking for their own names, my fellow students never read a word.
A turning point came in my junior year when I was working on a piece about parent-teacher night. Once again, I plunged into the pointless routine: Report on an event nobody cared about, write a story no one would read. I went through the motions by interviewing the head of the high school, Mike Shepperd. After wrapping up, I started loading my backpack.
Excerpted from A Mind Unraveled by Kurt Eichenwald. Copyright © 2018 by Kurt Eichenwald. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
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