I was walking the path this morning and writing this in my head, so here you go, if interested:

I was born seventy five years ago in Long Beach, CA to a pretty young lady named Janice and a Texas born WW2 Navy vet named Gene. I was their second, preceded by my brother Dana, and I was premature so they stuck me in an iron lung for a week.

My dad bailed to Texas shortly after, and my single mom of two hooked up with and married a guy named Paul Hamilton. My sister was born and then we traveled all over the West: Salt Lake City, Albuquerque, god knows where, and landed in a tiny town on the California side of the Sierras outside of Reno, named Floriston.

I spent the ages of five to nine in that fucked up little town, climbing giant pines to their top, swinging in the wind for hours, escaping everything. My sexuality was formed there. Then we moved to south central California: Ivanhoe, Visalia, where I excelled in track, raised pigeons, and was generally just a messed up little kid without a father figure.

Paul was a long haul trucker and construction worker by this time and he moved us up to Paradise, CA to work on the Oroville dam. I was a sophomore at Paradise High when JFK was shot, still doing track, flunking everything else. I hit the road that summer and hitchhiked all around, nobody cared. Got my diploma at a night school down in Chico.

I knocked up a girl named Jenny there and we had my daughter Becky. Things started going downhill when about a dozen teenage boys from the bowling alley came over and fucked the shit out her. We left there and moved to the Bay Area.

Madness, drugs and homelessness ensued, Jenny faded away, and I ultimately ended up going to Merritt College for three years and graduated with honors.

Life finally improved because I was making great money as a computer guy. Lived all over the Bay Area from Berkeley down to Carmel, mostly around Oakland, many relationships, married Marci for eight years. Shit finally hit the fan, lost Becky as her road to fourteen kids began, and moved up to the Seattle area to be with Colleen and the little guy I loved, Riley.

Lived in Kent for twenty years and was Riley's dad. Once again craziness ensued but I found a way to move beyond it and had a successful career as a transit supervisor. I met Steph, Riley went off to Wyotech in Laramie, WY to learn his career, and Steph and I were offered a life down in Teton Valley from my sister, which we accepted.

We lived a nice life for twelve years in Driggs, sweet log home ten miles from the ski resort, family, good jobs.

We left there to move here in Tennessee three years ago. I never see Steph anymore, I've had a few good adventures and now I just walk the path, workout, and eat pig and potato salad when I can...