I have thought long and hard as to why money was so important to me as a child. I think it comes down to three reasons. One, I simply wanted a lot of things and money was needed to buy those things. Two, as a self-employed inventor, my father w
For most kids, fishing with their dad was something they looked forward to—a fairly rare event that occurred when their mom began suspending Dad’s sexual privileges because of too much time at work and not enough quality time with the kids. Do
We lived on a cul-de-sac where each house was on a sizable three plus acre lot surrounded by trees. Our house was set back quite a bit from the road connected by a driveway that could easily fit over a dozen cars. We had a family room with a po
Halzack’s Country Store was the hangout for Easton kids and one of the two stores in town owned and run by Pete and George Halzack, two politically incorrect, completely inappropriate, yet lovable characters who were a part of my childhood. Goi
Many people use the expression that their childhood was a blur, but my childhood was literally a blur since I often found myself in a cloud of cigarette smoke. If there is anything worse than living with a chain smoker, it is being raised by tw
I was six years old when I involuntarily chased my first alien spaceship. Wait, perhaps you need a little context to this story before I jump right into it. So let me start with my mom.My mom was a wonderfully interesting person with a passion
My reputation for making things up wasn’t completely unwarranted. In the second grade, I wore a lime-green plastic ring that I got from a gumball machine and pretended that it gave me magical powers. In the third grade, I told my friends that m
At age six, I had quite an imagination. I had a passion for making up stories, but because I often attempted to pass these stories off as truth (i.e., I lied), I was labeled a “liar.” Damn labels. I credit this skill set to my father. Nature mi
My mother had a unique talent. She could make use of vulgarities in such a way that, if she were a character in the movie The Wolf of Wall Street, they would have had to change the rating from “R” to “X”. Her creative and vulgar insults often i
One of my father’s many talents included woodworking. In our basement, my father had a large workshop with machines and tools one might find in a high school industrial arts class. Shortly after I was born, my dad designed and built an oak crad
The day of my birth, February 16, 1972, is a day that was often “discussed” in our house. When my parents were engaged in their nightly ritual of drinking and mutual, verbal sparring, and I stepped in with my feeble attempt to make the peace, m
I responded to many terms of endearment lavishly dished out by my mother, whose vocabulary was otherwise generally limited to an array of profanities. I was called all the usual terms including “Sweetheart,” “Baby,” “Babe,” “My Dear,” “Honey”,
My dad smoked four packs of cigarettes per day since he was fourteen years old. Eventually, in 2008 at age 69, lung cancer got the best of him. My father, in his usual style, made it seem as if nothing was wrong until he was rushed to the hosp