Origins
Life started with a bang and continued down a gravel road winding through mudslide-strewn canyons and rickety old bridges.
No child gets to choose the life he's born into. I'll never claim to have had it worse than anyone else, and my exploration of the past was never intended to be weaponized into a plea for sympathy or pity.
That's me at nine months.
"Do you have a picture of what the bottom looks like? Because I think I'm there, and I don't see any ladders."
In the end, though, the ladder found me.
Grandma Agnes.
3,000 Souls Down is a story of truth. Not my truth. Just a truth. Change a few names, places, and faces; the story belongs to far too many lost souls.
Crimson, banished to the back porch again.
That may sound like another cliché, but so be it.
Don't let my smile fool you. I had no idea what would come tomorrow. It would take 45 years to find out.
The path of addiction is lined with sorrow, regret, shame, and self-loathing. A person has to believe there is still a reason to live before they can truly begin to thrive.
Dorothy and Harry Chambers, Grandma and Grandpa, basic training graduation, 1986.
Dad and Mom, 1967.
What I ultimately learned is that some clichés are rooted in lived experience. One of them says that once a man reaches rock bottom, the only way left to go is up. I used to hate hearing that. The question that always came to mind was:
Mom, 9 months pregnant, just before leaving for Germany.
I am one of the lucky ones.
It would be a lie to tell you that I didn't leave a trail of destruction in my wake, but that isn't what this story is about, or at least not its ending.
Mom and Bob on their wedding day in the den.
By the time I finished my postmortem examination of my own life, I knew only one thing for certain: I wanted whatever time I had left to matter.
Bob taught my brothers and me how to properly prepare a toasted marshmallow.
I hope someone finds my story worth hearing. More importantly, I hope it gives them the courage to write one of their own.
Be that reason.
The day the music died.
