the times came and went at the little church and i was aware that there was something very wrong there. i remember that i was about 14 yrs of age at the time and as i descended the stairs leading to the basement of the church to use the restroom there was the pastor of the church and he had a young women right up against the wall. he quickly moved away from her when i saw him. and i knew that trouble was coming to the church. soon and it wasn't too long afterward he set himself down in the audience and just stopped preaching altogether. i was troubled and suffering with anxiety. and the news finally came down that he was caught by his wife fooling around with another women. and he was gone completely and his wife had control of the church. this story goes deep and it just about wrecked us kids. my sister was very hurt because because the women in question was the mother of her SUNDAY SCHOOL teacher. and i remember my sister setting there crying for a long time. all of us were devastated completely. i did not realize the full extent of this because some years went by and i was 26 years old and working at DEXTER SHOE COMPANY when a fella i knew there began to say nasty things against the pastor's wife who was in full dictatorial control of the church. he and i got into a fight because he said that if she had of taken him to bed and gave him an old fashioned fucking he would have never had fooled around on her. i got mad and told him that i was going to go and ask her and if she denied this that i was going to return and punch him in the head! i was an angry young man and was headed down a bad road already. i had gotten myself in over my head with two women. one came to live with me in the state of TENNESSEE and was suppose to marry me. in about 2 weeks later she told that her father had a heart attack and i sold the only thing of value which was a snub nose .38 cal. 5 shot revolver and bought her a one way bus ticket back to MAINE. she said she was coming back in a couple of weeks but i never heard from her again for some years. meanwhile i met and got married to a TENNESSEE girl who was already pregnant with another man's child. and i consented to him having my last name. this did not last because she ran away with a man who was suppose to be my friend. it turned out he was only there because he was interested in stealing my young wife. who took off with him and he lost his job so she returned to me and like a dummy i took her back in. i found out that the other women had my baby a girl. and much later i learned from the state of MAINE human services that she refused to name me as the father on the birth certificate. but they came after me in spite of it. this was not only for money she had collected from them for the daughter. but also for the money TENNESSEE gave to the one i married on her son. of course to add to this volatile mix were biological offspring i had with her. this amounted to the large part of my wages were taken by force from the state and this put me on the streets homeless! i remember setting there at the hearing and hearing from them what they were going to do, i said what can i do, what you are doing is going to put me out into the streets homeless. the women at the hearing got very harsh with me and told me to go and live in a cardboard box. i got mad and told her that if they were going to do tis i would quit my job and not work and that they would not get a dime! so i did just that and they also revoked my driver's licence. so not only was i homeless but i was forced to walk. it was a 7 mile hike to work and there was big holes in my boots. with snow on the ground i put old bread bags on my feet to keep them dry. finally i sold my car to afford to buy new boots. i was in a pickle.  .......i do not know if i can get into this story every detail but let me back up a few years to when i was about 18 yrs old. i was not doing well in those days and was headed for suicide. already one of my friends had blown his own head off. he had quit his job at the shoe shop and was going to spend as he put it the whole winter living in this camp trapping. i never saw him alive again. he was discovered dead in the spring. i did not know what to do with myself and i was failing fast. then one day i found MARIJUANA. i smoked the stuff day and night. and it had caused me to do something i had never really done. it had caused me to laugh and laugh and laugh. this mellowed me enough so that suicide no longer seemed an option to me. i can safely say to you the reader and i am not ashamed to say it it was the blessed herb given to me by my creator which lead me away from killing myself. of course my family did not see things this way and criticized me severely for using pot. i could not get a break from them before this and when i had finally something which helped me they said i was no good and was nothing but a pothead......