Chapter 1 - Family History and Childhood Memories

I am back in my hometown of Marathon, Florida. I escaped the dreaded Key West. I thought and still think it would be a nice change of scenery. Luckily, I was able to connect with a childhood friend who owns her own business in Marathon now and who has helped me out immensely. I'm surprised that I still know somebody in my little small town that has since become a city. Most people move away after high school to start their adult life with more opportunity. There's not much opportunity in the Keys. When I was in my senior year at Marathon High school, I almost became a Sheriff's deputy having been in the Sheriff cadet explorer program and promoted to sergeant. But I decided to try and become a rock star drummer instead not to mention the fact that I was arrested for falsifying a police report when I tried to cover up my friend from being in trouble with his parents, let alone the law, when he crashed my car into a telephone pole and I reported it as stolen. I was arrested but never jailed and my friend was arrested, when I told the officers the "real" story, at his work minutes later. The authorities tried to pin me with the 1500 dollar telephone pole bill so I had to say something in my defense.... Anyway, it's nice to be back. I am still currently unemployed. There is less competition here in Marathon but on the other hand, again, a lot less opportunity. But a lot more laid back and a lot less bums. And a HUGE factor, the deputies don't enforce the open container b.s. ordinance like (nothing better to do) Key West P.D.does. I just have to worry about trespassing....I am currently in writing mode for my book about my life experiences. Writing it apropos at the Marathon library across the street where I went to elementary school and next door to the hospital where I spent a few months and where my mother used to work and the Sheriff's department on the other side of the library door where I almost became a deputy. The current working title of the book I have come up with is: Where Did My Life Go? Hopeful to Homeless. Of course, that could change, but at this moment I like the ring....Below is a unfinished rough draft of the first chapter. Stuff I find somewhat boring but nonetheless important (sounds like school) especially if I am going to write about my life. You have to know the history to see how the story unfolds. The dichotomy of certain situations that unfold is a little eerie, if I do say so myself. Explaining it so that it makes sense is going to be difficult but, guess what?, I have nothing better to do. Maybe good for you. Only you can be the judge. All I can say is I find it to be a fun challenge to say the least if my memory serves me correctly. Since music is my life, I have tried to find songs that relate to a certain time that I am explaining in the book. Songs are in between these things {  } called brackets?

I don't want to sound pompous or whatever. I believe everybody has their own book/story. My story is not better than anybody else' I'm just trying to write down my experiences. Take em or leave em. I am trying to take the time to explain in book form because, again, I have nothing better to do! I already wrote the shittiest country song of all time! It's time to move on. Difference with writing a book though, I have FULL control. I can only blame myself if I write the shittiest memoir of all time. Even though God is the only one who can judge me, I will allow you the opportunity to judge my book and come up with your own thoughts and criticism.

CHAPTER 1 - FAMILY HISTORY and CHILDHOOD MEMORIES

{Music - Ramblin' Man - Allman Brothers}

 

 

          My life began on October 31st, 1969, Halloween evening in Miami, Florida at Cedars Of Lebanon hospital. I was a breech baby given birth by my 40 year old mother, Nancy Jane Jordan Sanders, who was a registered nurse who went to nursing school in Chicago, Ill. My biological father, William Fred Sanders, life ended on October 10th, 1970, almost a year after I was born, shot and killed by a shotgun by one of my cousins when my drunken father tried to enter their house. The courts later deemed the murder as a justified homicide. They warned him to leave and he didn't heed the warning, therefore leaving me fatherless.

 

       My mother decided to move down to the Florida Keys, landing in Marathon. Leaving my 18 year older half brother, John Michael Berry, in Miami so he could attend the University of Miami medical school. My mother found a job at Fisherman's hospital and tried to find various babysitters to watch over me while she worked. I have heard stories of me as an infant/toddler such as me pulling the crap I just shit in my diaper and finger painting the walls of the apartment or spreading toothpaste all over the clean laundry to taking off out of the house and running up the street towards the busy main highway, U.S.1 just before my mom ran after and caught me. My favorite in the crib story was when my brother was having a party at the house and he was baby sitting me in another room. They had loud music playing and my brother Michael thought he heard me crying in the other room and ran in to see if I was o.k only to find me swaying back and forth to the music in my crib with a smile on my face.

 

       When I was 5 years old my mother remarried a very prominent man in Marathon named Donald "Doc" MacDonald. He was one of the first doctors as well as the constable in Marathon and a member of just about every club in town including the American Legion, Elks, Moose and the Masonic Lodge, among others. They were married at St. Columba Episcopal church and had the wedding reception at the Elks lodge where I first met Shamila and her mom, Yvonne and grandparents, Don and Nadine Stone. Shamila, I would later find out, was the daughter of Steve Perry, the lead singer of the band Journey. More on that later in the book. My parents went to Georgia on their honeymoon with me in tow. My step father had a friend up there named Ed Lumpkin. We spent about a week up in Georgia. Ed had a son named, King, who was about 17 years old who turned me on to the band, KISS. That would change my life.

{Music - Good Times - Chic}

 

       My mom would take me to the roller rink to skate. I apparently became good enough to become the roller hockey team mascot. The team was called the Rolling Devils and went on to become national champions. I didn't wear a costume. The hockey team gave me a shirt that read, what else?, Hockey Team Mascot. They also bought me a pair of custom made Riedell hockey boots. I was treated like a rock star before I even knew what a rock star was. It seemed I could do no wrong and the girls adored me. I had snow white hair that everybody loved and would comment on.People would call me cotton top, Q-Tip and toe head. My mom used to ask me, "Do you know how much money girls pay to get their hair your color?" and I would just look at her puzzled not knowing what that even mattered. I just wanted to have fun skating. Too young and shy to get girls at the time. The roller rink had Saturday matinees that included games like the limbo, hokey pokey and relay races. I was the champion in relay racing winning every race I was challenged except for one Saturday afternoon when a African-Amercian kid came to the roller rink which was unheard of. Marathon was a very segregated town having most, if not all, of the "black" people living on one street, 41st Street better known as the "rock". I skated a race against the black kid and he beat me as the whole hockey team and roller rink was cheering me on. I was still loved by everyone at the rink.

 

       At the age of 6, I was living at the end of 22nd Street in Marathon in a duplex. One Sunday afternoon I was playing at a construction site across the street with a girl my age and we were making sand castles. She told me to run and get more sand. As I took off running, I tripped on a board and landed the wrong way, I assume the wrong way because I broke my right femur and started screaming bloody murder. I had never broken any bone in my body up until that point but I knew that it was broken. I tried to stand up and fell right back down. The girl ran to my house to get my step father. He came out and thought my leg was just sprained and told me to get up and I screamed I couldn't. My step father carried me into the duplex, put me on the bed and took off my shoes with me still screaming and crying that my leg was broken. He called my mother who was working at Fisherman's hospital and she told my step father to bring me to the hospital. He drove me in the car to the emergency room. After X-rays, the doctors determined that my leg was indeed broken. The doctors admitted me into the hospital and put me in traction for 3 weeks to align my femur before putting a body cast on all the way down my right leg up to my waist and halfway down to my left knee with a broomstick in the middle for support. I would stay in the hospital for a total of 3 months. While in the hospital my second grade teacher brought my whole class over to the hospital to come visit me, which I thought was very cool. Being a small town, it was convenient too as the hospital was across from the school. During that time my parents sought out legal counsel to see about a lawsuit against our landlord, the owner of the construction site. They filed a lawsuit against the landlord for medical expenses and pain and suffering on my behalf. The court would rule in my parents favor stating that there was no "Keep Out" or "No Trespassing" signs posted on the construction site.(It seems being homeless today, I can't go ANYWHERE in Key West without seeing a "No Trespassing" sign and running the risk of being arrested.) 

 

            My medical expenses were paid and my parents were awarded 25,000 dollars after the settlement. They used the 25,000 dollars as a down payment on a brand new 14 X 60 mobile home trailer. Of course, after you sue your landlord, chances are you have to move somewhere else. My parents found another duplex on 107th Street in Marathon to rent before I was released from the hospital and buying the new trailer. I went to the new duplex on a 107th and had my own bedroom. I was still on crutches, still fragile and basically, learning to walk again. I finally could ditch the crutches and started walking around my new neighborhood, meeting other kids in the area. There was a magazine distribution center across the street from where my duplex was. I discovered one day in their dumpster that they would throw out out of date magazines. They would cut them in half but other than that you could get some good pictures. My friend and I found Playboy and Hustler magazines. My friend lived next door and had built a fort in his backyard, a place where we would smoke cigarettes and just get away from everybody, especially our parents and post dirty pictures of women inside the fort. I also found magazines with pictures of my favorite band, KISS. I plastered the pictures all over my bedroom walls and windows. I was obsessed with KISS. My parents didn't seem to mind, at least my mom didn't care, my step father wasn't too thrilled about the whole thing but let it go. My mother would take me to a local gift shop called Rainbow Unlimited which carried 8-track tapes of bands. She would buy me whatever KISS tape I wanted. I didn't really know the song titles so I would pick a tape I didn't have by the album cover. If I didn't get a tape, I would raise a fit and start crying and then she would get pissed off at me after she had bought me a tape and I would tell her I loved her and she would scream, "You only love me because I bought you a tape!!" I still feel guilty because of that to this day. I really did and still do love my mother even though she is no longer around. One of the neighborhood kids used to get off the bus and go to his house and give me a Dixie cup of water with red food coloring in it and I would do my Gene Simmons impression and spit blood and the other kids loved it. I never saw KISS live in concert during the 70's. I just had those magazines and 8 track tapes.

          My parents found a mobile home they liked and put a down payment on the trailer. My step father financed the rest of the balance through his boss, Hank Kokenzie who was the director of the Veterans Affairs in Key West. The trailer was delivered to a vacant lot next to the American Legion until my parents could find a lot to rent and put the trailer on. Easier said than done. My parents looked everywhere in Marathon. There were no vacant lots or the trailer was too big to fit. After weeks of searching, we found a lot at the top of 82nd Street. Conveniently located across the street from one of the clubs my step father belong to, the Elks club.Perfect!!! We set up the trailer. The inside was so brand new, I remember the smell and what seem to be toxic fumes from the glue or something. We stayed there without electricity for a couple of weeks waiting to get the electricity hooked up. At this point, my mother started working for a private practice doctor, E.J. Eisenbarth, another pioneering doctor in Marathon. Dr. Eisenbarth and 3 other doctors decided to build a brand new medical office building in Marathon. They found the perfect spot on 82nd Street where our mobile home was. My parents had to find another lot for the trailer, again!! There was a lot open that would fit our trailer on 41st Street which was prominently, if not all, black people which scared my mother to death. She was crying, worrying about the black kids picking on me or what not and she wasn't going to move the trailer there regardless of whatever. Although it would of been so convenient being that 41st was right across the street to the American Legion, in which my parents went to everyday. Instead, my parents kept looking and looking, moving slowly north until they found Jolly Roger trailer park on Grassy Key at mile marker 59. The space, lot 106 at Jolly Roger was 9 miles away from "downtown" Marathon, it was the best spot in the park. Right on a canal overlooking the Gulf of Mexico that you could see the sunset every evening looking outside of our kitchen window. Without any other options, my parents decided to move to Grassy Key.

Chapter 2 -  To be continued......