Genesis part three

If you´re wondering why I am writing so frankly about my past it is probably because I learned last week that my youngest brother Rusty (well, adopted brother but definitely my brother) died in his sleep just 35 years old...It made me wake up and discover that you can´t keep running away from your past. I don´t regret many things in my life but I do regret not seeing rusty in 18 years. The last time I saw him he was 17 and rebellious. I became rebellious at a later date but you´ll read about that soon.

When I joined the U.S. Air Force back in 1986 I was ready to leave America and forget everyone really. When I left I didn´t really know I was gay. Well, I knew of course, but I wasn´t ready to confront it I guess. Anyway, when I boarded the airplane I waved everyone goodbye. I reached into my luggage to retrieve a book I was reading and I found a stuffed animal of Garfield. It was Rusty´s favourite stuffed animal. He must have snuck it in my luggage when I wasn´t looking. It was such a sweet gesture and it made me cry which is something unusual for me. Oh, I will cry during a sad movie or about animals but I rarely show that emotion around ´real´ people. He must have been around 11 at that time. Ironically, I kept that Garfield stuffed animal all these years. I plan to place it at his grave when I visit Florida this summer. Yes, after 18 years or so the prodigal son is returning. I must admit I have a lot of anxiety about that. Strangely, everybody seems to remember me. In one way or another I must have made an impression.

Anyway, back to the beginning. I had a difficult time growing up. Being adopted is a strange thing. Although my adoptive family was very loving and good to me somehow you don´t feel like you totally belong I guess.

My best friend growing up was my neighbor Albert about the same age as me. We used to do everything together like playing football. He was a good quarterback and I was a pretty good wide receiver. We used to sing a lot together and that was before karaoke. Hmm, maybe we created that. ha ha We used to immitate the Bee Gees (he could hit the high notes) and Kiss. I was Gene Simmons to his Paul Stanley. We were also into science fiction, especially Star Wars and Star Trek. We built our own Starship Enterprise in the woods complete with makeshift computers. The Enterprise was in the woods nearby a cemetary which is odd I admit but we were kids...what did we know about death and that kind of thing. One time we were playing Star Trek in our little Enterprise and there was a funeral procession taking place right outside our space craft. Luckily, nobody saw us.

While growing up I was really into music, especially country music and Elvis Presley. My Dad repaired computers and cash registers and that sort of thing but his real hobby was antique autos. He had a lot of old cars like a 58 Ford and a 49 ford pickup, which was pretty cool I guess but I wasn´t that much into cars. (The first red flag?) What I did like about the old cars was sitting in them as a little kid and pretending I was driving. I also liked singing along with Elvis while ´driving´ in the cars. Back then it was 8 Track cassettes. That was a lot of fun. I still know almost every word to the songs sung by Elvis. My dad also raced old cars. We used to go with the whole family to watch. I wasn´t really that interested in car racing but my brothers loved it. I am from Daytona Beach which is famous for the Daytona 500 autoracing event. When I was a young kid I was in the boy scouts for a time and we used to clean up after the races. I used to like watching Richard Petty racing. He is a legendary Nascar racer. He was like the Michael Jordan of autoracing. I believe he has won the Daytona 500 more than anyone. I recall that then president Ronald Reagan came to watch him win one year.