I often thought, as a boy looking up into the heavens, what my life would be like. I had no dreams of schooling; my most significant thought of being in the military as my father, his brothers, and uncles, like in world war two. My grandfather went to enlist my Uncle Gene but joined the Navy at the same time, at 41 years old. He died in world war two, so I never met him. (I was born1949)

I fought often and was a loner, but I loved my time alone. This is not to say I didn’t have friends; it just means I didn’t need or want them around all the time. This became a lifetime of very few friends and no real close friends, but I was friendly to everyone. Later in life, my wife and kids became my obsession. I was working, coaching, and building a family life that raised three sets of kids, and many that came for the night and never left. I bought cars for my brothers, sisters, kids, grandkids, cousins I raised, and friends that came for the night and never left. Some that graduated high school were part of over 24 vehicles I purchased; in all these cars, not one lemon, not one car that went bad quickly.

My family growing up was very poor, my father a poor man inventor, that made many inventions that could have made him well off ,but by the time he had them marketable we had no food, no house , no money. He would work on his inventions for hours and days at time, but not work on a job to pay the rent or put food on the table. His violent temper with my mother caused awful thoughts to go through my mind when I was young, and I had to stand to protect her; at nine or so, it wasn’t a fun thing to do, and I paid a terrible cost at times.

I don’t know where I found the courage and ability to fight for the weak or different people. I believe it was because of my sister. Mary (sister), one year younger than myself, was very crosseyed and was made fun of from the first time going to school until my father and mother decided or had the money to get it fixed in the 9th or 10th grade. I remember those times not fondly, but some of the boys, I believe, remember me even today. Courage to fight fights that aren’t your fights, but the situation called for a stand. It isn’t easy without some courage to stand most of these bullys came with reputation. This didn’t make you accepted by the fantastic bunch, and it is hard to explain. My self-serenity and lack of money, protecting my mother from my father and sister from almost evry boy, gave me a sense of strength that many young boys didn’t have to endure. My mother has been dead for years, and my sister passed a few years ago, but I will never forget my mother telling other women that her oldest son Rick, had the courage of a lion. This is not to say I didn’t get the hell beat out of me by my father; it means in times of protection, I would stand.

My raising was different, my schooling was very sporadic, my father would when he worked used me as a helper over sending me to school, His four daughters from his marriage to my mother would try everything to please him with grades, he paid little to know attention, they all made stright A’s, I would barely have passing grades if they were passing at all and he would scream at me for hours. He had no respect for women and believe they were only needed for one thing.

Being poor and proud isn’t a good combination for the children of these parents… Grits and biscuits made up many meals, fried grits in the morning with some molasses, biscuit, and gravy many times at suppertime. I was lucky; I ate at friends’ houses most of the time. Mothers would even send their boys to tell me what they were going to eat if I wanted to come over. I hadn’t realized at the time these folks knew of my situation and wanted to help; I just thought they liked me.

My mother was tiny; she met my father when she and a girlfriend visited the Navy brig to see her brother in a padded cell. Two padded cells were next to each other, and my father was in the other cell. He started conversing through a little hole in the door of his cell with my mother, and she, for some ungodly reason, wrote her number and gave it to my father through the hole in the door. It seems not likely a place or a person that I would have wanted to start a romance with.

My father and his journey to the padded cell started in the Panama Canal zone in 1942. He and another man packed chutes for candles that made night into day. Some dropped out airplanes or shot out of artillery. These two decided late one night during packing to ignite one of the candles on the packing table. These men of 18 years old had no idea what would happen. The explosion burnt the one man on his face and shoulders and burnt my dad’s left arm severely. The burn was so bad that they had to graff skin from his butt and legs to make his helpful arm. He became addicted to morphine so bad that the doctors, after a while, when he screamed for more, would give him sugar pills that looked like the real thing. After a few days, they informed him he needed no more morphine. This took over a year to get his arm back to usable. He had become used to not being in the Navy. When he was sent back to duty, he didn’t go, so they came and got him. His mother took him on a train to San Diego, California, to the naval station, only to have him hitchhike back and beat her home. He finally went to jail and started acting stupid, so they placed him in a spot to meet my mother, a padded cell.

The marriage between these two produced seven kids that lived, two that died at birth: my four sisters and us three boys. My father had three more kids with another woman; he claimed he had one in Panama and one in California from a friend’s daughter he stayed with for a month while he was working; this man, if he had caught my father, would have indeed killed him.