| <<< Shy Boy I was pretty shy and introverted and prone to telling stories. It started when I was around seven years old. Those early stories were drawn - like the early cave drawings - consisting of stick figures with a dotted line connecting the action. Graduated from drawing on paper to creating "animated" stories in the margins of my mother's paperbacks. The kind where each page held a different movement so that when you flipped through the pages, it appeared to move forward. I entertained myself and my siblings quite effectively with them...until mother discovered that I was defacing her books. Whoo boy, did I get trouble for that. But it didn't stop me. Instead, with the allowance I made from my paper route, I evolved to defacing my own books. And schoolbooks. Anything was fair game, as long as I could writing on it with my pencil. |
| <<< Senior Prom 1979 For senior prom, I asked our class president and long-time dance partner Cindy Rice as my date. She was a truly kindhearted and generous young woman, and we had a great time. She'd been my dance partner all through high school, and we won several regional dance competitions together. Yes, disco was huge then, and I embraced it as a means of expression. Though my older brother had always been interested in music, playing electric guitar and introducing me to bands like Nazareth, Deep Purple, Harry Nilsson, Black Sabbath, and many other rebellious bands. My biological father was heavily into Henry Mancini, Crystal Gayle, Mantovani, Herb Alpert and the Tijuana Brass and music like that. So I grew into having quite the disparate musical tastes of my own, which led to a deep fascination with dance music that began with disco. That it was the antithesis to the heavier (and some say "satanic") rock music of the '70s was even better. Having always seen myself as an outsider, it was a perfect way to express myself. By this time, I had already left my mother's house in the spirit of my own survival, for I had a tumultuous relationship with my stepfather (and my mother) in that he was an uneducated man, and always accused me of speaking over his head. As an accelerated student, I didn't know one could be discriminated against for being "too smart" for the adults around me. It was very eye-opening in that I learned that adults - who I was taught to revere - were certainly more fallible than the children they were in charge of. |
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| <<< Childhood Home The modest home I grew up in still stands on a rural gravel road in Lake Orion, Michigan...or at least it did in 2001. More of a shanty, it had several architectural quirks that were quite endearing. The chimney rose up through the floor in the middle of the hallway. There was a secret trapdoor cut into the wood floor in that same hallway that led to the dirt crawlspace beneath the house and was the focus of many creepy fantasies I had. Yes, I made up stories even then. It was my way of escaping the psychological, emotional, and physical abuse doled out to us by our mother and stepfather. I still don't know how all us kids, adults, dogs, cats, ducks, and other assorted animals ever survived in such a small place. But we did, if only barely. |
| PHOTO ESSAY PT. 1 |
| <<< High School Graduation 1979 Because of the less-than-optimal relationship with my birth parents, they refused to attend my graduation, perhaps intelligence over them. Yes, I graduated at the top of my class, making my name in "Who's Who Among American High School Students." Here I am, pictured with my maternal grandparents, Ann and Paul, who supported me emotionally through the difficult times with my family. My grandfather passed on February 6, 2006, after a long bout with Alzheimer's. By that time, I had already distanced myself from the entire dysfunctional family, having learned that there was just no way to reconcile with their ways of thinking and behaving. A week after graduation, I fled for San Diego, a destination I wouldn't reach for several years. |
| <<< 1968 Buick Skylark I purchased a brand new Pontiac Sunbird Special Edition in 1979, but quickly learned that I dreamed way above my means. payments, giving me my stepmother's car in exchange. With everything I owned piled into the back seat and trunk, I set off on my own, scared of the unknown stretching out before me, but feeling truly FREE for the first time in my life. I had a lot of growing up to do, and a lot of soul-searching that would happen both willingly and unwillingly along the way. Just outside of Grand Island, Nebraska, the exhaust system fell out of the Buick. It was an intensive lesson in learning to watch for "signs" that something much bigger than myself was in charge, for because of that, I was forced to sleep on the side of tornado decimated Grand Island, killing 150 people. I might've been one of the victims had I made it there. The next morning, I walked through the wreckage, finding an auto shop that had been spared. They towed my decrepit car and took every last penny I had to replace the exhaust system, which had fallen out onto the side of the highway. <<< First Glimpse of Colorado Two days later, exhausted, starved, but thankful to be alive, I crossed the border into Colorado. I broke down and cried when I first glimpsed the astounding Rocky Mountains. As I crossed the Boulder city line, the Buick acquired two flat tires. Penniless, I was forced to locate friends of the family who lived there. They took me in and gave me a place to stay. There's a phenomena called "Chief Niwot's Curse" which states: "People seeing the beauty of this valley will want to stay, and their staying will be the undoing of the beauty." I fell in love with Boulder though I maintained a dream to relocate to San Diego. It would be years before I made it to the west coast. Circumstances in Boulder dictated that I stay at least long enough to make money. Little did I know what my future held. <<< Boulder, Colorado Through the people I stayed with, I obtained documents that stated I was several years older than I actually was, which allowed me to get a job as a barback at a local dance club. At the same time, I stumbled across a gym in town where I decided I could grow out of the awkward geek I was. I was tired of being seen and treated as a naive kid, and knew that changing my outward appearance would go a long way to changing the way people treated me. Was I naive? Absolutely, but it was a means by which many took advantage, and I didn't want to be "that person" any longer. And it was in this health club that I found something called "aerobics" that would again take me on a fascinating journey through life. So began what I call my "loss of innocence" phase. I began working out obsessively, while learning a lot about the world working nights at the dance club. One of the DJ's took me under his wing and began teaching me the skills that would benefit me for the next twenty years. It would also introduce me to a lifestyle of hedonism and vice that nearly became my undoing over the next two decades. Leaving the introverted kid behind, I embraced this new and exciting world. Right up until the point where I died. <<< Outside of Estes Park, Colorado |
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