Eric

I thought for a long while on who to start out with. Should I use one of my parents? An ex-girlfriend? One of my closest friends who I love to death? I decided not to use any of them because they deserve a little more time for me to think about what I should say about them. This person doesn't deserve to be thought of. I could write pages about this man and what he did but I'm going to be as brief as possible.

Eric was the supervisor of the Jewish Youth Group I was in during my freshman and sophomore years of high school. He came off as a really nice guy to parents and when I first met I looked up to him like a father figure. My older cousin Adam was a member of the group and I tended to hang out with the older kids until they graduated at the end of that year. Without their "protection" I became a target for some reason. Now I was an awkward kid but I didn't deserve the treatment this man gave me. He made me feel bad for small stupid things; ripping pages out of a magazine at health club, staining a kid's shirt with a tomato...during a food fight that nobody else got yelled at for. He even made me feel bad for wanting it to be known that I had cleaned up after a massive bonfire while others were sleeping and I was awake. Instead of laying in a sleeping bag I had been productive and when I told people he sarcastically asked everyone to praise me.

Eric had an event at his house. My cousin Brett was also a member and his mother joked that it was strange he would have young boys over his house. Eric overheard me talking about this and flew into a rage.

I went away to a national conference for this youth group and while there I was informed he had closed registration for the chapter for my junior year and I would not be allowed back into the chapter. I was devastated. There were a myriad of other things that happened between me and Eric and he destroyed what little self-esteem I might have had at the time.

Freshman year of college I was driving with my friend Jamie. We had gotten lost coming back from the Palisades mall and ended up driving over the Tappan Zee Bridge and eventually into Manhattan. Jamie hated the city and was going nuts...we were missing Friends! This could not stand! I got a phone call from my aunt. She wanted to inform me that Eric had been arrested for child molestation. Two kids I had been active with had come forward about his abuse. For the first time I was glad Eric had hated me. Eric was in jail last I heard.

Eric taught me that the people we look up to can be just as flawed if not moreso than we are.