Sarah Bryan

Please sign the Petition at change.org to rename the Sarah B. Bryan Memorial Scholarship, University of Maryland,

Department of Fire Protection Engineering

Thank You

https://www.change.org/NoChildAbuse

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Sarah grew up in Oklahoma in the 1930s and was violent, abusive and bigoted, which she apparently got from her own mother who could barely go five minutes without spewing out one racial epithet or another. Her sisters seem to have been similar, but we never really saw them much so who knows.

Sarah had a complex about her brother Jack who had gone to Yale for grad school, married someone from NY named Dorothy who seemed bright and had gone to Barnard, and ended up with considerably more financial resources than Sarah ever got near. Regardless of anything else, Jack and Dorothy were smarter, wealthier and considerably more “successful” (a classic, wannabe, multi-edged Sarah and Joan totem word) than Sarah ever was. Fine, sure, whatever.

But Sarah was so petty and insecure that she couldn't handle much of anything (“THEY’RE FAKE!! THEY’RE FAKE!!!! YOU KNOW THEY’RE FAKE!! I KNOW YOU KNOW THEY’RE FAKE!!!!!!” in some psycho Sarah outburst at me in the middle of the night when she came storming into my room while we were staying at their house). They seemed perfectly nice and interesting and far more social than Sarah. Jack seemed quite friendly and mellow. Dorothy had copies of The New Yorker (uh, hello? She was from NY) which set Sarah off. She was also reading Gravity’s Rainbow which didn’t of course register with Sarah but props for that one. At least someone had a sense of humor.

This all was compounded by a decade and a half of Sarah miscarriages, still births and dead babies (while Jack & Dorothy quickly popped out three healthy ones).

It deserves mention, given Sarah’s insanely stupid Jack & Dorothy complex, that they took care of granny until she died while Sarah did zip. Considering that Jack died at 66 from cancer and granny lived beyond 100 this also meant that Dorothy was caring for granny for the better part of a decade after Jack died. Sarah visited. Twice. And then fumed about how “fake” (the ultimate insecure wannabe copout word) they were. A standard Sarah trait. Do nothing, try nothing, don’t even bother to learn anything, but then make snotty insecure asides about anyone who does as she sulks and fumes and poses and pretends she’s moral and normal and has some shred of value while forever looking over her shoulder and consumed in aggressive insecurity.

It also didn't help that Sarah was stupid as a rock and could never really deal with anyone not as screechingly ignorant as she and Joan were. Her intense, seething fear and paranoia was a problem as well. What she didn’t know she didn’t trust and she didn’t know pretty much anything.

So we had the whole anti-learning bit (cue the Yale and borderline illiteracy complex). "THE EDUCATION AT OXFORD AND HARVARD IS AWFUL!!! THEY JUST READ BOOKS AND GO DISCUSS THEM WITH THE PROFESSOR!!! I'VE NEVER HEARD OF SUCH A THING!!!". This we got in early elementary school with variations thereafter turbocharged by Joan’s laziness and stupidity. If Joan couldn’t read or do basic math then, obviously, they were unimportant and not for “normal” people. One of Sarah’s favorite tricks was to screech "YOU'RE NOT GOING TO GET AN 'A' AND YOU MAY NOT EVEN PASS!!!" (which both she and Joan would have preferred) if I wanted to take any semi-useful course (mainly languages) outside the crap local secondary schools. As if she had a clue about anything or even remotely cared about substance and content (“the best part of college was going to the coffee shop, drinking my coffee and smoking my cigarettes!”). I ultimately just got books on my own and did it myself.

Then we had the slapping, grabbing and hitting. She would hit, slap, threaten, bully, mimic and make homophobic remarks (as well as the racial bits, but that was beyond me). She and John both did the spanking bit but that was more of a paint-by-numbers exercise by people who didn't have much of a clue and couldn’t be much bothered to get one and it was really only early on and quite infrequent. Sarah's outbursts were different: nasty, personal, frustrated, bitter and emotional.

Sarah refused to listen to teachers (not that she really listened to anyone) and tried to stop me from even applying to certain colleges. She refused to take me to the doctor for a broken hand until the school nurse intervened (the pediatrician yelled at her for that, but then let it slide), refused to get help for my ulcerative colitis (“just use Vaseline, that’s what I do”), refused to talk to me when I got into Yale like her brother, screamed at me for going to a similar school (with scholarships, as if she paid for anything - "So, you have to have THE school, huh?!!"; "You may be going to a FANCY SCHOOL now, but...(whatever her current fixation happened to be)!!"). When I did a hypnosis session for study skills Sarah freaked out – started grabbing and screaming that it was going to damage her “credit rating” and that she was going to “institutionalize” me – a typical sort of out-of-control, borderline psychopathic threat she liked to fling around.

The credit cards were an odd sort of wannabe obsession. Sarah would obsess over and brag about her credit cards like they were some sort of accomplishment. She would not shut up about her stupid Bloomingdales credit card (or “Bloomies” as she called it). She refused to associate with one family because their clothes were too “dirty”; refused to associate with another because they were “too smart” and “not normal”. Not that anyone wanted to be around her or ever invited her anywhere.

It seemed to be an expression of multiple insecurities - her own weaknesses, comparing herself to her brother (and his wife) - as well as a general level of laziness, incuriosity, and bigotry that made her terrified of in any way disturbing her extraordinarily narrow and limited view of the world. Same for Joan, though they both compulsively tried (in Joan's case, still tries) to pretend they knew more than they did - though it was mainly a collection of their own idiocies, emotional immaturity and narrow-mindedness.

She didn’t really seem to want children (IT'S ALWAYS THE MOTHER'S FAULT, HUH?!!!!!"). She seemed to do it simply because she thought it was expected and she had nothing else to do. There was really no positive point to any of it and she was ludicrously incompetent and counterproductive with what she did do.

There were also Sarah's pronounced bigotries. We had the always charming “I’M A LOUDMOUTH WHITE WOMAN!!!!!”, which Joan has adopted as well apparently without noticing that it was part and parcel of Sarah’s notable racism. "The blacks" were always lingering (as with her mother though with different terminology). The two male teachers in the local elementary school were the targets of the homophobic asides.

For some reason Europe set her off – not that she had ever been outside the US except for a couple of days in Canada or bothered to learn anything. Her failing first year uni German didn’t help either. But, in general, it was simply another insecure, lazy cliché for her to spout off between her cigarettes and TV programs. Originality was not her strong suit. It also didn’t help that her brother worked at one point for a company with business in London and that his son Jay lived in Canada and South Africa – and went to Yale like her brother thus reviving that whole idiotic complex.  

So we got “I DON’T KNOW IF JAY CAN EVEN COME BAAAAACK TO THE US!!!!!!!” in a vague passive aggressive wink wink claim that he was a Vietnam draft dodger – which he wasn’t and which glossed over John’s own somewhat clouded wartime record, not that there was technically anything wrong with any of it (let alone getting into any other issues which with Sarah was never going to happen) but if Jay was suspect John certainly was as well. And, of course, he quite obviously could “come back” to the US since he lived in Massachusetts after Canada and visited us of all people as well as his parents all the time. He certainly seemed considerably nicer than Sarah or Joan. He explained parts of rocks that I saw in the backyard when I was six (he was a geologist) and his wife Erika – Swedish? Norwegian? Lithuanian? I forget – seemed super nice as well. Sarah of course couldn’t deal and would perpetually go into her “THEY’RE FAKE!! THEY’RE FAKE!!!” bits, usually directed straight at me since it was pretty clear Sarah was full of shit about it all and trying to excuse her own laziness and resentments. But details, details. Sarah and Joan have no time for such pesky technicalities.

Lord knows who the audience was supposed to be beyond Sarah herself. It seemed also to reflect whom she happened to randomly meet, particularly if they were smarter than Sarah (not difficult) or not inclined to play along with her usual wannabe and nonsensical remarks. So, she would fume about the French woman in her office once she went back to work, and the Danish woman down the street who was the mother of a friend in my class (petty as always, she would refuse to let me go with them to the movies when they invited me). The Danish folks were also smart and interesting so that really set Sarah off (“They’re too smart!! They’re not normal!!!!”). My friend’s older brother was in Joan’s class which still inspires her pathetic adolescent mean girl/popular girl wannabe asides (“He was a braaaaiiiiiinnnnnnn” said with her attempt at a pseudo superior teenage sneer). And then Sarah didn’t want me rooming with anyone not “from” the US in college, which was quickly disposed of with Ajay and Tue and Dongwoo and Ingo et. al.

In the second grade when we were doing mock presidential elections, I was supposed to make a little speech for Nixon (since that's who Sarah decided she would vote for). She started in on one of her monologues that basically came down to McGovern not being "tough enough" on "the blacks". Her conclusion was that it would be pointless to vote for McGovern in any event since "he'll just be shot anyway". I, of course, repeated this in my little classroom spiel. Nice.

Big surprise, people complained to Sarah. In a classic Sarah move, she was of course not concerned that she had made the comments. What bothered her - and made her absolutely furious - was that I was supposed to know not to mention what she said to anyone else. We can say x but not y, and must pretend a but not b and heaven forbid anyone should actually be honest or straightforward. Another habit Joan has copied.

She tried to spoil Joan, which was a pathetically bad idea. So we ended up with Joan screaming and performing, kicking, grabbing, throwing food, tennis rackets, tennis balls whatever she had around. Then there were the mutual screeching hysterics of illiterate Sarah pretending to teach illiterate Joanie how to read. Sarah would hate it if another parent or teacher complimented me and would start talking about the non-existent wonders of Joan (Joan is in the chorus of the school play! Joan got a 500 on her SAT!). Joan has perpetually copied the Sarah-isms including the hysterics, temper tantrums and passive aggressive (and aggressive aggressive) badmouthing of people behind their backs. Joan, of course, copied all of Sarah's "look at me" stage direction line readings ("I'M VERY ANGRY!!!!!") and continues to use them. Like mother, like daughter.

Then we had the recurring theatrics of Sarah performing in one room and Joan in another. Sarah slamming things around with much noise and production or stomping off in a huff to her basement “sewing room” to lock herself up and stew. I cracked my head open when I was two after I ran into a wall shuttling between Joan's temper tantrum in the kitchen and Sarah's competing temper tantrum in the living room. Sarah was so incompetent she couldn't even handle the doctor but had to call John to come back from work - which simply wasted an hour while I lay there with Sarah doing nothing beyond shoving me into the bathroom so I didn't bleed on her indoor-outdoor carpet squares.

“THAT’S A GOOD ONE!” in a snotty, derogatory tone followed by sarcastic snort was another favorite construction: in high school when I said I was thinking about careers (“So you want to have a career, huh?! THAT’S A GOOD ONE!); when I wanted to do ballet (“So you want to be Baryshnikov or something, huh?! THAT’S A GOOD ONE!”); when I asked if we could talk at dinner rather than watching TV (“So you want to have an intellectual discussion, huh?! THAT’S A GOOD ONE!”); the snotty remarks when I would be reading ("What?! You want to be 'well-read' or something?!! THAT'S A GOOD ONE!"). 

Other favorites (predictably mimicked by Joan) were the always lovely "I'M NOT HERE TO BE POPULAR!!!", "I'LL JUST KNOCK SOME HEADS TOGETHER!!!", “MAYBE THAT’S JUST WHAT YOU NEED!!!!!” (it never was and, as with Joan, inevitably concerned some grossly out of line behavior on her part) and "YOU'RE NOT GONNA LIKE IT!!!" - all interspersed with much hitting, slapping, grabbing and shoving. Then we had the ridiculous "THAT'LL PUT THE FEAR OF GOD INTO YOU!!!!!!!" though Sarah was not even remotely religious, couldn't be bothered with church and could barely get off her ass even for Christmas. Except for weekly Joan trips to overpriced shopping malls she was fairly lazy and did little – excluding Joan’s homework – but watch TV and stitch pre-packaged patterns on her sewing machine (which Joan, in typically cynical and bullshitting self-promotional mode, turned into Sarah being a skilled fashion designer).

Ever the charmer and ever predictable, she was a piece of trash when I came out though she had largely stopped mattering by that point. "SO YOU WANT A GAY LIFESTYLE, HUH?!!!". Joan predictably joined in as well. "HOW DARE YOU!! YOU SHOULD BE ASHAMED OF YOURSELF!!!!!". To add typical Sarah idiocy and incompetence to the mix she was also screeching, "HE'S NOT GOING TO GET A JOB!!!!!!!!!". This, of course, was the companion piece to her high school era "WHAT ARE YOU GOING TO DO FOR A JOOOOOOOBBBBBB???!!!!!" while simultaneously pissing on the technicalities of how that all worked – Sarah having barely worked in her life and relying perpetually on John. "SO YOU WANT A CAREER, HUH?!! THAT'S A GOOD ONE!!!!!!!"; SO YOU HAVE VISIONS OF GRANDEUR, HUH?!! YOU HAVE TO HAVE THE SCHOOL AND THE JOB, HUH?!!!". Little different from her brilliantly screeched medical non-expertise where she decided there was no need to take me to a doctor for a broken hand or extreme ulcerative colitis complete with systematic vomiting and through the roof white blood counts (“Just use Vaseline; that’s what I do”; What? You want me to drink it?). Forever ignorant, forever incompetent, forever a careless screeching mess.

So we had the constant tiptoeing around where Sarah (like Joan) would come up with some utterly ridiculous ignorant “idea”, which would be a complete disaster if anyone was ever foolish enough to follow it, and then flap her mouth endlessly at ever increasing volume. And then throw a temper tantrum if anyone – quite rightly – told her it was stupid. Which, in general, meant that very few people could stand being around her, no one would ever invite her anywhere (who would?) and then when early on she tried to make productions of joining the PTA or chaperoning school trips or mimeographing the school newsletter (I’m a journalist!) she would inevitably come back fuming because not many other folks would humor her productions. “I’LL JUST GIVE ‘EM A PIECE OF MY MIND!!!!!!” in her standard huffing and puffing storming around after the fact imagining of the stunning comebacks she would never give in response to being ignored or told to cut the crap. (“I’M A LOUDMOUTH WHITE WOMAN!!!! I’M NOT HERE TO BE POPULAR!!!”).

Which also, of course, served as an excuse and self-delusional trick. If no one wanted to be around Sarah; if she had no real friends; and if no one ever invited her anywhere it had nothing at all to do with Sarah being unpleasant or selfish or inconsiderate or unconcerned with anyone else. No. It was because Sarah had just too much gosh darn “character” and “conviction”. She was “gonna tell it like it is”, “give ‘em a piece of her mind”, display her full “loudmouth white woman”. Sarah, you see, was a “strong”, “independent” woman of “conviction” (pick the boilerplate cliché of choice; none of them were even remotely accurate for a deeply insecure, cowardly individual of limited to no capability or ability who shamelessly relied on others for what little she could cobble together in life). It was everyone else who was at fault. Sarah was “normal”; others were not.

Like Joan, Sarah of course was incapable of “telling” anything “like it is” because she was grossly ignorant, grossly unobservant, grossly unconcerned with whether anything was true or not and forever and always devolved to regurgitating boilerplate and bigotries and pulling shit out her ass.

She showed up at uni graduation and couldn't conceive that people weren't doing her idea of "normal jobs" but were doing perfectly standard bits at far better salaries etc. than she had the slightest idea about in her willfully ignorant, grossly lazy conception. She considered it perfectly normal and justified to be fired for being gay while being too stupid to realize it was 1992, San Francisco of all places and it would never be the slightest issue for anyone but someone like her who would, virtually by definition, never ever matter. She screeched about “NOT GOING TO GET A JOOOOOB!!!!” for grossly misplaced, bigoted and idiotic pseudo reasons while willfully ignoring all technicals – and her own previous efforts to sabotage those technicals in terms of schools and training and acquaintances and all-around home environment – because she was too lazy and alternately too arrogant and too insecure to be bothered to get a clue. Like Joan, Sarah could never be much bothered with details, specifics, logic or sense. Scream, hyperventilate, make a mess and call it a day.

When my colon almost ruptured after 10 plus years of ulcerative colitis (and Sarah's neglect of that when I was a teenager) and I had to have an emergency hospitalization Sarah told me not to “bother” her. A few months later when, as a result, I was in the hospital for two weeks having my colon removed she came out for the first week with John. She couldn't even bother to talk to me; didn’t even say hi. The only thing she would do was randomly mention some vaguely gay-themed movie she claimed to have seen and then say she didn’t like it (“I saw The Crying Game. I didn’t like it”; “I saw Midnight Cowboy. I didn’t like it”). She might as well have announced she had seen Vertigo or Klute or Streetcar Named Desire and “didn’t like” the “straight lifestyle”. By this point, of course, it was all beyond irrelevant but, really, grow up, learn some basic manners and get at least the shred of a clue.

In short, not someone I would consider a friend, supporter or role model as Joan and UMD have falsely tried to pretend though I did play along with the ridiculous UMD scholarship until I found out years after it being set up that they were promoting some ludicrously dishonest, fantasy biography of Sarah with me falsely stuck in as an example of her supposed parenting skills and praising her through the roof.

Anyway…

Such is life, time moves on, good riddance, adios.

If one wants to try to squint and fudge and make excuses folks can pretend Sarah "didn't know any better" (Joan's excuse, while shamelessly copying Sarah) or fall back on the copout of her apparently copying her own unpleasant mother, which she seems to have done. But ultimately Sarah was what she was and made zero effort to be anything else. Nor did she want to be anything else. So be it. If folks are into that, go for it. All sorts of noxious people have their reasons for extending the brand (to borrow Joan-speak). But don’t lie about it and don’t make up some boilerplate fiction for cynical self-promotion (Joan) or guilt restitution (John) purposes. And certainly don’t pretend to use me as a character reference or expect the story to remain uncorrected.

Sarah Bryan

Joan Bryan

John L. Bryan