Before 77

I haven’t said much about my life before 15.  There is a reason for that:

My parents died in 1977, when I was just 15.  Up until then, we had been your average upper middle class family.  We lived in 3 houses in those 15 years.  The first two had swimming pools in their backyards.  The second one was brand new – house and later pool both new.

My dad was a photographer, as a hobby.  He had movie cameras, still cameras, a Polaroid Land camera.  He had slide projectors and Super 8 movie projectors.  As kids, my brother and I had yearly school photos taken – life growing up in the 60’s in Southern California.

Nostalia material.

The reason I don’t say too much about the young Northwestern Cat is because that’s all gone.  All of my family’s belongings are gone.  Miles of Super 8 movies- gone.  Still photos, slides, polaroids- all gone.

When my parents died, the relatives went through their stuff, took what they wanted, and either junked the rest, or put it in a storage unit.  Where it sat for years as individuals would occaisionally claw through it and take things.  It has all vanished.

I tend to think of life beginning at 15 – one ended then and another began.

I have one, and only one picture of my parents.  It is a Zerox copy of a picture taken in their wedding day.  Dad in a tuxedo and Mom in her white wedding dress, veil pulled back, both looking at something in my dad’s hand, both standing by the cake table.  It is the only photograph of them I have.  It is tacked onto my cork board on the wall in front of this desk, and just below that Zerox is a print of a picture that I took in 2000, of my mother’s headstone in a California cemetary.

I have made a life to replace the one taken from me.  Several lives, as a matter of fact. This is one, here on Open Diary.

Some of those lives I’ve kept – a lifelong friendship with the woman I was once married to is one.  My Navy life ended with the end of 1984.  My Japan life ended 9 months after our divorce, in 1996, when I came back to Portland from Kobe.

Someone asked to hear more stories of the young NWC.  I would like to oblige, but have almost none to tell.  Life, this life, began at 15.

Strictly speaking, THIS life began at 36, when I was in a bad car wreck and nearly died but was reborn as the cat I am today.

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The next period I want to write about is the time between high school graduation in 1980, and joining the Navy in 1982.  Things happened.

Stay tuned.

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