Chapter 8: How To Become A Patriarch

Family Reunion. This was the Overholt family in June 1973. My father and mother are at the top left, second couple in. My grandparents, Jerome and Rebecca Overholt, are squarely in the middle. I am in the front row, the kid in the reddish shirt with black glasses, eyes squeezed shut, top collar buttoned, hands together, and fourth from the right. Photo sourced from family archive

I was a bad middle school student.

By the end of eighth grade, I was failing three classes—math, history, and English—because I chose to read books instead of doing my homework. Then came the Stanford Achievement Test. To the surprise of my teacher, I got one of the top scores in the class. But that didn’t negate the grades I had gotten across the year—they were real. 

I was convinced I would return to school as an eighth grader. I would be called retarded by my peers. I would drop into social hell.

But then something happened that changed my life.

Or, perhaps I should say, someone.

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Mr. Byler had entered my life …