A more serious look at pivotal points.

This is a tough subject. Only because the implication is that you have gone somewhere that you wouldn't have without these life shifts. The further implication is that where you've gone is somewhere better than you other wise would have been. It also seems like there should be direction and a hint of a path that emerges out of these pivotal points. I simply don't feel that way. With very few exceptions life has simply happened, and I've merely reacted. Usually wrongly. But mostly the choices I've made are choices to escape one situation or another. Were there some serendipitous outcomes? Sure, some great friends. No doubt, and for that I'm very lucky. It's hard to imagine having any hope without the example of the friends I'm lucky to have.

so without further ado, let's start the magical depressing journey.

I would say the first pivotal point would have been in first grade. I lived with my Mom and Step dad at the time. It was in 1969, my step dad had been two years back from Vietnam, and after having met my Mom at a local bar in Grand Rapids where she was a Go-Go dancer, they married. After a brief stop in Moorehead we ended up in my Step Dads hometown of Enderlin North Dakota. Pop 864 or something close to that.

Up until that point I wandered around in a fog, and even then I knew I was in a fog only being 6. I imagine the upheavals of divorce, and three moves and three schools in less than a year had kinda shut me down. But Enderlin was great, I had complete run of the town. It took several months but eventually I was engaged, had many friends and began to develop as a kid should. I've often thought that had I not come out of that fog, I would have ended up in jail, or institutionalized or worse, if there could be worse.

It was in Enderlin where I really became the public person I am today. Everything I think I offer positively to this world in terms of character started there. I often think, if I had a choice to remain there and give up everything else I'd ever receive or experience I'd do it. But as a kid you don't get to make those choices. They get made for you. And so, after the Step Dad ended up at the VA in St.Cloud for Alcohol addiction we made the move. Right after fourth grade we moved.

Pivotal point 2 at a later time.