Gotta Start Somewhere

Every story has to start somewhere. Mine starts in Gilmer, Texas. I grew up in the very small town of Gilmer. Actually I grew up about 15 minutes outside of it. When you think of rural, this is the place. Growing up, I thought it was great. I remember getting lost in the woods around my home, swimming and fishing in the lake at my grandma's house, riding bikes all over the long defunct gated community we lived in. It's where I developed my sense of adventure, and also where I later realized I wanted more in life.

Some of my earliest memories are of me sitting in my grandfather's lap as he popped his dentures out at me. If I think hard enough I can remember his smell. My Papaw was the Sheriff of Upshur County. I don't recall a lot of him as he passed away shortly before my fifth birthday, but some things stand out. I wrote a story in the third or fourth grade about riding around in his patrol car with him. I remember eating Zero candy bars with the white fudge outside and nutty nugget center. Even to this day if I eat one I can see him breaking off a piece of his for me while sitting in his workshop.

The other memories I have of my grandfather aren't great. I can still recall him being in a bed in my grandparents' bedroom hooked up to an IV. For some reason I remember him pulling one of the bags down, and, what I'm assuming was saline, splashing all over the place. Lung cancer is a hell of a way to go. At only 50 years old, too. I'm just shy of 42 now, I can't imagine what being gone in 8 years would be like. I don't remember much of him after that. One day he was just gone, and I didn't understand. I knew everyone was sad, and I was sad too.

From all the stories I have been told, my Papaw was a great man. His biggest sin in my eyes was leaving this family so soon. Looking back, his death was the impetus of major change in our family. Shortly before, or maybe after, my parents got a divorce. My mom and great uncle, granddad's brother, had a falling out. That relationship would take years to repair. My cousins, whose dad was wheelchair bound (that's a story for later), lost an important figure in their life when he passed. They were a few years older than me and shared their stories of him with me. They've spent much of their adult years in and out of incarceration. Ultimately, I believe life would have been a lot different for all of us if he hadn't gone so soon.

My mom later remarried after a string of not great boyfriends. I'm not even sure how people met in the 90's with all of the things my mom had going on at the time. My step-father was okay. He was a stern disciplinarian, overly so at times, a workaholic for sure, and he expected the same from me, but he rewarded hard work fairly. I spent many a summer day cursing him under my breath for making me work so damn hard. Those hard, hot, humid summers shaped me though.

Stepdad brought with him two step-brothers. We didn't always see eye to eye growing up, but they are my brothers always. It was nice having someone to get into shenanigans with. I'm sure I'll have more stories with them in the future. Even long after our parents divorced and I left for the Navy, those two took care of my mom. I wouldn't be surprised if they talk to her more than I do.

Speaking of Mom. My mom did her very best to raise a good son. Multiple good sons actually. She had me young, 19, and the idiot that supplied the other half of my genetic code left, but mom never quit on me or any of the other children she ended up having a hand in raising. Mom wasn't perfect, no one is, but she was great to me. I was her one and only, and it showed. She worked to the bone to provide a life of comfort for me. We may not have been rich by any definition of the word, but I never went without.

Looking back at my childhood, I can now appreciate the things I could not then. I don't think I had name-brand shoes until maybe the 6th or 7th grade when I got a pair of handed down Reebok Above the Rim Pumps. At the same time, though, in high school I was never told to get a job, I was allowed to drive, and take part in school and church events. Mom, Dad, and Stepdad always found a way to make it work. Mom has always been a tough person and amazing care taker, almost to a fault. She often bent over backwards to make sure everyone else was doing well, going out of her way to make sure someone else was taken care of. Maybe it's her, maybe it's that rural East Texas idea of community, it's probably both. Mom had a stroke in December of 2024, and her having to depend on others for care and assistance has been a massive change for her.

Now onto Dad. My dad is one of the most selfless people I know. I know this because he is the father that didn't have to be. Like I said before, my sperm donor left either before or shortly after I was born. My dad legally adopted me when I was three, I think. I have few memories of when my parents were still together—just little bits and pieces here and there. The small apartment we lived in where my room was actually the dining room with a partition between it and the kitchen. We were later in the "House on Randy Road," and I can recall being scared of what my mom was watching on TV. If memory serves me correctly it was the behind the scenes making of the Thriller music video.

I've never asked my dad for his version of events that lead to the divorce, but it doesn't really matter. He remained my father. His family is my family, and I know no different. My aunts (his sisters), my uncles (their husbands), and cousins are just as strong as any blood bond there is. Even more so really. I'd say I had better relationships with my family on that side than my mom's. My dad's house was starkly different from my mom's. On my weekends with dad we were all about fun, but that's easy when you don't have to deal with the daily struggles of dealing with a wild ass kid like me. Dad taught me the idea of 'soft discipline.' This idea that you don't have to scream and yell to get your point across. You can simply explain why something was bad and maybe take away a game boy or even just express displeasure in a way that cuts to the bone.

Dad lived in Quitman, which was half the size of Gilmer, but he was at least in town and I could ride my bike to the Dairy Queen or Brookshires. He later remarried and stepmom came with two stepsisters that were quite a bit older than me and spent most of their time at their dad's. Our weekend cross overs were few and honestly I didn't build a relationship with them until later in life. My stepmom was fun, but if I'm honest, she had a problem with alcohol. She would always encourage my cousins and me to get off the Nintendo and go outside. She sadly passed away in 2017 from liver failure. As fun as she was, I think she carried an unspoken trauma that led to her abuse of alcohol. Who am I to say though.

Many people played a huge role in my early development. I can't begin to talk about them all in one single writing, but hey, that's why I built this thing. One last person I must talk about though is my uncle, mom's brother. He was a huge influence on my life. He was paralyzed from the middle of the chest down due to an accident. In 1982 he had either recently gotten out of active duty service in the Navy, or was on terminal leave. On a summer day he dove headfirst into a lake and broke his C6 vertebrae and never walked again.

When I was younger, he lived in Arlington. Around my 8th grade year he moved back to East Texas. We really developed our relationship then. He lived across/down the street from my mom and I would see him every day. I'd help him with his care when he needed it. I helped him with his side hustle buying and selling coins and currency on eBay. He relearned to drive and had his van outfitted with hand controls, it was terrifying. His will and determination to take care of himself as much as possible had a huge impact on my life. He was also worldly, having served in the Navy and being stationed in the Philippines. I learned a lot about life from him. His stories of being abroad really opened my eyes up that there was more to the world than East Texas.

Gilmer was great, with its top notch football (even if I didn't go to school there), yearly Yamboree (not a misspelling), and laid back ways, but if I wanted more out of life, I was going to have to leave. In my junior year of high school we all took the ASVAB. Though I was a poor student (I actually had to take summer classes to graduate on time), I scored pretty well on the test with an 83. That next summer I started thinking about what I wanted for my future. I didn't have the grades for university, didn't really like school at all and didn't like the idea of going to NTCC where I had done summer school. TJC seemed a little better to me, but I still wasn't into it.

Three weeks into my senior year 9/11 happened. I remember vividly walking into my third period Food Sciences class after having done Band and Choir first and second and seeing everyone watching it on tv. I had heard whispers in choir that something had happened, but Mrs. Rob was militant in her choral dictatorship. When I walked into my cooking class I remember asking what movie they were watching as it didn't look real. People were jumping out of a skyscraper. The other students in the class looked at me as if I was Satan himself.

9/11 happened on a Tuesday. I'll always remember that because album releases used to be on Tuesdays and I was waiting for the new P.O.D. album to be released that day. That afternoon I went into Longview to pick up the album. The store I went to just so happened to be in the same shopping center as the recruiting offices for the four branches. I grabbed a flyer from the Air Force and Navy and went home.

I talked it over with Mom and Dad and they weren't excited at the idea. I initially wanted to go into the Air Force hoping to work on F-22's. I tried to reassure them that I would be nowhere near the front lines. I reached out to the Air Force recruiter and after a couple of weeks of no calls back, my uncle convinced me to reach out to the Navy. He told me of all of the great adventures I could go on in the Navy, and how the Air Force would suck and I'd be stuck in some shitty base in Oklahoma or something. So I called them up.

The next February I was in Shreveport, LA signing paperwork, duck walking in my underwear, and performing the swearing oath like a Catholic litany. I would go on to graduate near the bottom of my class academically that May. I then spent one last summer with my friends, helping some of them move off to start their college lives. That fall I would try to spend every moment I could with family. I left for boot camp in October of 2002, making what would turn out to be the best decision I've ever made in my life.

I would return to East Texas. Even live there for a short time again, but my heart was never in it the same way. I'm grateful I got to grow up in a small rural town like Gilmer. Where things move a little slower and people seem a little nicer. Maybe later in life I'll find a place like that again.