THE MAJOR INFLUENCES OUTSIDE OF ME

1. PARENTS and GRANDPARENTS:
-Parents from Southern Ohio. Both born in 1929 and grew up through the depression.
-Grandparents from Southern Ohio and West Virginia. Both grandpa's worked on railroads. Both Grandpa's and grandma's farmed. Both grandma's teachers. Only one grandparent alive when I was born. Mom's Dad could deadlift a barrel of tar and did so on a bet (he liked to fight I guess too).
-Father liked Classical, Truckstop country, some rock, and loved Bluegrass. Electrical engineer. Artist. Carpenter (built small house single handedly outside of Athens and Mom lives there now). Mechanic. Road rally driver. WW2 vet. Dad didn't go to church. Dad believed in the wee people and talking to trees. Dad never used the word love to anybody but sometimes in his limited way he showed it. His Dad died when my Dad was only 12. Nature freak. He died when I was 16. I didn’t really heal from this until my son was born. Even after that every now and then the wound still opens and I miss him with deep sadness.
-Mother likes gospel music and Big Band. Mom is Pentacostal. Mom is a story teller and a gossip. Animal freak (especially dogs). Mom forced Jesus down my throat from birth. Lots of fire and brimstone. Misguided but a huge heart. Crazy as a loon. I will miss her when she goes more than I ever missed my Dad and that scares me.


2. SIBLINGS:
-Oldest sibling is 54 (I think). Closest to my age is 7 years older. Hippie music-disco-80's pop-Christian rock. All 5 children artistically inclined. A formally trained artist/hippie/pseudo wiccan (and much more), a historian (and much more), a business woman and great thinker (and much more), a singer (and much more), and me. All of us draw. Some of us sculpt/carve. Some of us paint. All of us write. All nature freaks. All readers. Only one formal athlete (guess who).

3. ENVIRONMENT
-My neighborhood growing up was all white until I was 4-5yrs old. The neighborhood shifted to me being the only white boy in my sixth grade class. In middle school and highschool Columbus had “desegregation”. I was bussed from my poor black neighborhood, in middle school, to a poor white school. In high school I was bussed from my poor black neighborhood into a rich white neighborhood. Between weekends and Summers, until I was 16, I spent about 33% of my life in the country with 100 acres of woods and former farmland at my disposal.