I am sorry for my extended "absence" from Little League and from you all. I
have let a personal devastation interfere with my duties and it has
extended to making it difficult for me to think straight. I probably would
have stepped down as D.A., except that the person who I have been training
to take over - Steve Bove - died last month after being diagnosed with
lymphoma in early January. I hope you will bear with me. I know for many of
you this will be TMI - Just skip to the blue part. I am not sending this
for sympathy. I don't need a lot of messages supporting me - especially on
the WADAS thread which will go to everyone. If you want to send me a
message, please do it on my personal email separate from this and WADAS.
PLEASE NOTE MY NEW DISTRICT EMAIL ADDRESS -* wdist3ll(a)gmail.com
<wdist3ll(a)gmail.com>*. THIS IS DUE TO A COMPUTER CRASH, NEED TO HAVE A
FLUID WAY TO PASS POWER TO MY SUCCESSOR AND FOR PRIVACY SINCE MY WIFE AND I
HAVE SHARED THE gpdickason EMAIL I HAVE BEEN USING. I have set up a
gdickason34(a)gmail.com to replace the gpdickason email for personal email. I
probably would have done this, anyway, since I can no longer trust Outlook
as a reliable email vehicle.
I apologize for the length of this and for the rambling and
disorganization. I would make a student write this over, but I'm not sure a
second attempt would be any better. The action part is in color and
highlighted. Feel free to skip ahead.
It is with great difficulty that I write this. I have only told a few
trusted people about this, so making it "public" is difficult and making it
more real. I have given the full narrative at the bottom of this email, but
that is just my need to pour out my feelings, and probably isn't of
interest to most of you. The short story is that after 48 years, my wife
has found a well-to-do farmer who has promised her a great life apart from
me (and also apart from her children, grandchildren, sister, who want
nothing to do with her and her boyfriend; and without the Christian values
and morals that I thought had been mutual and was a reason that we have had
such a happy and successful marriage). Until very recently I had been
praying multiple times daily that she will see through this guy and decide
to stay with me permanently. In the last few days I have gained peace and
acceptance that she needs to be out of my life and to face the consequences
of her decisions.She continues to say I didn't do anything wrong - this guy
just has more to offer - and by still living in the same house with me
until Saturday and retaining my last name, she is proving it. I trust God
enough to believe that this is what is going to happen, I will come out the
other side landing on my feet - wiser, sadder and untrusting of other
people - but on my feet.
*I need to set a spring meeting. Kim is working on a date and place (unless
the majority wants a Zoom meeting). I'm not sure what would be on the
agenda. Not enough people are going to California for the March 15 meeting,
and I doubt I could hook up a reliable Zoom link from there - especially
since we couldn't use a meeting room. Please let me know your
thoughts about date in late April and also agenda items, please. *
*The Mariners Little League day on the 27th, means we could have a Zoom
meeting on the 26th, but an in-person meeting would have to be the week
before or after. *
Patty's betrayal, and the death of my two cats, one from cancer, and one a
few months later of old age drove me further into despair and I really
couldn't think of anything other than saving my marriage or being alone for
the rest of my life. I probably should have stepped back from Little
League, because it became pretty unimportant to me. Complicating issues is
a problem with my email account that lost years of historical emails that
helped keep me informed when things came up. I have used Outlook for 20
years, but it crashed Jan. 1 and none of it was recoverable. I talked to
Microsoft who couldn't help. I have a pile of emails with no sender and no
subject, but a date and time. I can't open them. I was able to get on the
server and download everything for 9 months prior to the crash. Sorting
through more than 10,000 emails, figuring out which I had taken action on
and which I still needed to take action on. Luckily, senility hasn't
completely crept in, so other than the sheer volume, I didn't have too much
trouble with the sorting.
I am starting to wake up, accept this horrible hand that has been dealt me
and see the need to either quit Little League and everything else
immediately *or* get in gear and face reality. For now I want to get in
gear, and continue on.
Due to having plenty of money for two to live together, but not enough for
one to live on half that amount (actually way less than half liquidity,
since I am buying my wife out of the house), I will need to go back to work
part time through the school year and probably full time during the summer
months, which will affect my availability. This isn't how I expected to
spend my retirement years after sacrificing "fun" through my life to be
sure my wife and I would be able to travel and enjoy retirement.
*Following is the long version (as a teacher, I would say that this is not
required reading) because I have known some of you (and you have known
Patty) for a long time and might be interested in more information:*
We went to my wife's 50th class reunion. Ironically, I had to talk her into
going. We have been married for 48 years. As will happen with such things,
my wife and classmates from her elementary school in Centralia (1 of 6
schools at the time, I believe) decided to get together in two weeks to
talk about old times. They went to the eventual marriage crasher's farm.
Around a campfire everyone told their stories and eventually all but my
wife and the guy who would disrespect our marriage vows - a
neighborhood kid who had left the Centralia district at the age of 14 were
left. In their time together, he (now a well-to-do farmer in the Napavine
area) apparently used a lot that he knew - such as she had grown up in a
rural community and might miss animals, etc. - to persuade her that she
was unhappy and needed a new adventure before she died. Farm animals, pets,
a larger garden plot than we have on our 1-acre home, animals she can
consider hers and get to name, and introduced her to his son - a
developmentally delayed 28-year-old male who "needed a nurturing mother
figure" in his life. He promised her he would put her in his will so she
would inherit the farm if he died (as long as she continued caring for his
son).
She fell for it all and was in bed with him two weeks later. She moved in
with him a week after that, but moved back out after 2 weeks when our kids
told her she was unwelcome in their homes. She apologized and said
she wanted to be back with me. This was apparently a ruse so she could have
a last Thanksgiving and Christmas with our children before leaving us all
permanently. She and the farmer apparently continued seeing each other when
she could sneak off, but since she was with me most, she started leaning
toward staying in her marriage. He apparently started feeling this, so he
eventually just before Christmas gave her an ultimatum - him or me - and
reminded her about how her heart raced when she was with him (most would
recognize this as the adrenaline rush you get when sneaking around and
doing the wrong thing) and no longer raced with me. She filed for divorce
two weeks later. She continued living at home with me, because it "would be
wrong" to move in with him before marriage (but okay to continue a sexual
relationship with him). She freely admits that I (Glen) have done nothing
wrong, and have been nothing but good to her. In fact she told her sister
that me spoiling her for all our married life is one reason for leaving me.
She needs a bigger challenge, apparently.
She moved out March 1. The divorce is final April 14 (that is the first
time I have written that and it still seems completely unreal to me). She
plans to marry him on April 19. My personal thought is that he needed
liquidity (farmers tend to be land rich and cash poor), and she will bring
a lot of cash into the marriage which he will use to fix up buildings. He
has already promised to make improvements to the barn and an outbuilding
and to build an addition to the home so she can keep all her stuff safe and
live in a home that includes her furniture and decorations. If you got
through to the end of this rambling, I appreciate that you care that much
for me. The mere writing of this detail helps me to clear my head and
accept the new reality. For those who know my wife, you know how completely
out of character this is for her. I would just as soon no one contact her
until after April 14, because she is ashamed and/or guilty and wants no one
to know, so if she is contacted before April 14 it could screw up the
divorce. After that date, feel free to talk to her if you want.
