Everyone has to start somewhere. And I started in the Arizona desert. My father was stationed at the Yuma Proving grounds and ran an electronics lab for the army out there. While my father and I do not talk anymore, he is every bit of the genius I am. Just more damaged, I think. Or at least I was able to figure out how to be happy and get along with those around me. Where he has not. So, I had to leave him behind. I am a single parent and do not have the luxury of my narcissistic father putting me in a twist and compromising my peace. Anyway, I am getting ahead of myself.
So my father was running an electronics lab in the desert, and my mother was a stay-at-home as was common in 1975. 15 months prior to my birth, my sister had been born. And the prodigal son was born. I was the only male born in my direct family line to be able to carry on my family name. It was a time of joy, and all celebrated in it. Family came from all over the globe that first year, to visit. Almost everyone was in the army or air force. By all rights, we were living the American dream. My father was in the army on the GI Bill, and once he finished his term working on the GPS project (This is my supposition. My father has never told me what he was working on. I remember when I was 18 or so he had said it had ben reclassified as top secret. And so he couldn’t talk about it. But it is general knowledge now, that our Global Positioning System was created calibrated and tested in Yuma Proving ground in the 1970s.
Fast-forward to when I was 18 months, and one of my mother’s cousins came visiting us. And that is where my family made a hard left. Some say it was a drunken mistake, filled with remorse. Others say that my cousin was taken advantage of. raped.. Knowing my father better than any other person on this earth. I can’t say he isn’t capable of it. Regardless, at 18 months my life transitioned past it’s story book beginnings. My parents split-up with my mother getting custody. We moved back to my parents’ hometown in Central Indiana where she started hanging out with a Biker named Michael. My first memories of life are during this time that we lived with Michael. Really, there are only two days I remember, back to when I was 3 years old or so. The first memory I have, is the day my sister (And possibly me) let our rabbits out of their cages while our Dobermans were loose. The dogs killed the rabbits immediately. I am fairly certain that happened while we were still in Indiana, before moving to Florida. And shortly after that while still in Indiana, Michael was going to run some errands, and took me with him. And those errands turned out to be running several pounds of marijuana over the Ohio border. Unfortunately for Michael, they pulled over our station wagon shortly after crossing the state line. Michael was charged with federal felonies, and I had my first interaction with the police. The first of many, really. It kind of set the tone for the next 30 years of my life.
After that run in with the police, we took off to Florida, and fleeing federal prosecution. Jacksonville, FL to be specific. And living in a trailer park that the police didn’t go into unless they were in-force. The Hells Angel Bikers in the 70s, were no joke, and we were in the thick of it. Michael and my mother had started shooting up methamphetamines. sometime while we were in Florda, we had went to Daytona Beach. We had taken the station wagon and it was a beautiful day. I remember almost all of that day. We drove the big station wagon right on the beach (As was the custom at the time.), parked and started to enjoy the beach. By this time in my life (A little over 3yrs old), I could swim to the bottom of a 9ft pool and grab golf balls off of the bottom. So I was allowed a bit more platitude than a 3yr old at the beach probably should. It turned out, that there was a strong riptide that day, and I was taken away quickly. My mother froze and screamed, and Michael took off running after me. By the time he got to me, I had been underwater in the riptide for a couple of minutes and was pulled out with lungs full of sea water and turning blue. I don’t recall there being a need to resuscitate me. And the only people that could tell me for sure are no longer with us. I have no feelings towards Michael one way or the other as far as the time we spent with him. But I am thankful that he was there that day and saw me get taken by a wave. Not many people can say that a person that was on the run from the FBI for federal charges saved their life. I’m not sure I would be here if he hadn’t.
Not long after that, when I was 3.5yrs old, things had gotten to a point where we lived that my mother snuck away and called my father in the middle of the night asking him to fly down and pick us up. And that’s exactly what he did. He sold everything he had of value and bought plane tickets to fly down in the middle of the night and picked us up and flew us back to what became my hometown in southern Indiana. We’ll pick up there with the next one.
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