Four decades ago I was birthday present to my grandfather, Hon. Judge Harold Brown Singleton. From 1971 on I spent every birthday with him during his lifetime. It’s getting hard to remember most of my first ten years. During the 70’s I remember jumping on my bed listening to Snoopy and the Red Baron when I was around 4-5 years old. I remember putting on KISS makeup with Donnie Sasser and performing concerts for our parents in Bluefield, WV. Our only instruments were buckets and cardboard keyboards. I still remember the day we moved to Raleigh and many days in the creek and woods at the end of Beardsley Ct. I still remember the first phone number I memorized at eight years old…847-8504, the number of my best friend who lived near the that creek.
One of my most vivid memories at eleven or twelve is when a sixth grade English teacher unknowingly stood beside a poster depicting the evolution of man while asking if I “believed in the creation”? The whole class waited for my answer. She insisted for one when I did not speak. I nodded my head yes. Even then my response was to avoid argument, debate or ridicule on the subject. Later on I remember getting in-school suspension and after school detention for the first time for being among a group who were spitting out a second story window of Carrol middle school as a teacher walked by below. She literally pointed me out. Yet I was never near the window. I was in my seat for near the front door of the classroom the entire time. The irony is that I’ve been guilty of almost everything I was ever accused of from that day on.
At twenty I thought I was going to pick up a camera and conquer the world abroad by capturing still moments in time. I recall my Photo Chemistry 101 and 102 instructor, Bob Heist, telling me how digital photography would never come close to the resolution of emulsion grain in my lifetime. Bob is retired from photography instruction now. I work exclusively with digital technology.
Then along came the bands, bar tending, and a stint outside of my element that lead me into the same closed office as Vice President Dan Quayle, Jerry Falwell and a few US Marshall’s in the Vines Center at Liberty University. A time in my life that would affect my religious, political and social views in unexpected ways. Irony knows no limits. This was the time in my life when I learned who I was. It was a decade of discovery and the start of a career path.
Thirty is when the best decade of my life began and it started when a 21 year old young woman literally just showed up at the front door of my apartment at Five Points, just above Lilly’s Pizza. Not a bad start to my 30’s. My very first words to her were “oh wow, you’re pretty”. Amy just laughed. Within a couple of weeks she never left. Which is good because I’ll need her for at least the next 40 years. I’m a happier person because she lets me draw upon her youth and beauty. My only regret in the last ten years is that our sons won’t get to meet my grandfather or Amy’s father.
Life leading up to my twenties was far more of a crisis than I could ever imagine today. I’ve reached “mid life” but I feel no remorse for the past or apprehension for the future. My wife is younger than me, my sons are growing bigger and stronger than me (and probably smarter but don’t tell them yet), I have a career and a boat waiting at the beach. I am about as far from crisis as anyone can get. Thinking back at this weekend I spent with my beautiful, young wife at the coast I can honestly say I’m happier than ever. I have no reason or excuse not to be.