Confused Beliefs At a Tender Age Part 1

It's safe to assume I had a pretty unorthodox childhood. The blunt of the trauma and confusion being from an innocently named building known as the Stonehouse. Though after the assembly broke up, I believe they changed it to Foundations. Doesn't really matter. My beliefs were muddied back then, when I was a tyke just making it through the day with as much happiness that I could muster. My siblings, however, had it much worse than I. My sister Michelle, thirteen years my senior, grew up without a television set. It's not because we were poor or anything. I wish I could say we were, however; I would even like to say it was because mom and dad were strict and didn't want TV rotting our brains, but unfortunately that's not the case. Watching TV is the work of the devil... didn't you know that? Well I used to believe that anyway. I remember sitting in the living room watching it in secret while dad was away. I remember him saying, in a stern voice "So it seems we're watching TV now, is that it?" It wasn't a question though. He stormed out of the room and we didn't watch anymore TV. He was an Elder of the Stonehouse Christian Church. And that meant business. The great sins according to that house of God were as follows: no guys shall wear sleeveless shirts, nor shall they take off their shirts while swimming (it was always so fun getting that soppy mess of fabric off my chest, after a day at the pool), no one is permitted to listen to any other music besides gospel (the funny thing is that we weren't supposed to be discriminating towards anyone, you know Love Thy Neighbor and all that jazz. No one told me why we couldn't listen to Southern Gospel, though), no fighting back, Turn the Other Cheek, gals should wear dresses, not jeans, their hair must be long and luxurious, and so on and so forth. Even sports were frowned upon if seen from Satan's Telly. To be continued on in Part 2...