Setting the stage

Have you ever watched the movie Blow? Johnny Depp plays drug trafficker George Yung, the movie starts out with George Yung as a young boy. His life is perfect and normal. A lucky well off little boy, without a care in the world. My own start in life was similar. My Father was employed by our very own Cecil County Government; permits department. He was a building inspector starting in 1989 and terminated in 1996. My Mother worked for the Town of North East; municipal department. My brother and I were raised and lived with our grandmother; Gommy. Breakfast every morning was shared among the entire family Gom, Dad, Mom, Big brother, and myself. In my childhood, my brother and I attended private school, Tome School in North East. My brother started out at Good Shepard in Perryville and finished at Tome. I started kindergarten in Tome school and would attend until 3rd grade. My brother would be in 9th.

The fairytale would not have a happy ending, My Mother would lose her job due to drinking at work and showing up to work drunk. My mother would drive my brother and myself to school every morning. Arriving at school prior to 7:30 and then continue across town to the maintenance building, reporting at work by 8 a.m. Looking back it still astonishes me that my mom was driving her children to school drunk. Her drinking would rapidly snowball and become a major problem, both in my life and her own. Starting in 1995 this behavior greatly shapes my future.

Dad would follow mom, my father was a building inspector for Cecil County. He reported to the director and I’ve been told many stories as to their conduct. It was the late 80s early 90s, things were booming and everyone wanted to be a Rockstar or a gangster. My father was no different and gravitated towards the gentleman gangster mentality. He played the role very well and it fit him. The role as building inspector only furthered this, he was placed into the public to socialize and politic. Making friends and connections along the way, some of those connections would become fuel to the fire. Propelling my father and our family down a path that would lead to the destruction. My father would lose his county job in the spring of 1996 and the fuse would be ignited on my own time bomb.

The stage has been set, that wonderful life is stripped away in 2 quick hits. Mom loses her job, Dad loses his job, roughly 6 months apart. My father would return to the concrete construction trade that he left for the inspector job. My brother and myself would be cast into a world of rough characters, derelicts, and vagabonds. Men and women that only lived to party and party they did. It was wide open and it would only get faster.