Mark Rodgers:  

Life Going back to the scene of the crime... I was born in 1958 at the Orange County Sanatorium in Orlando, Florida. I didn't live there long enough to build any lasting memories. The first place I remember was Dakota City, Nebraska, where we spent a lot of time at my grandma's house. Next we lived across the river in Sioux City, Iowa for several years. I remember living in several places around the city before moving to the Air Force Base in Sergeant Bluff where I finished my kindergarten year and stayed through first grade. By second grade I was living at Truax Field Air Force Base, near Madison, Wisconsin. Then it was back to Iowa in 1968 where I lived with my aunt and uncle while my mom remained in Wisconsin to give birth to my baby sister, Laura. I was there long enough to finish my fourth grade year before we moved to North Bend, Oregon. Although we lived there only one year I experienced the first major life experiences in a young man's life. I joined Boy Scouts and had my first and second girl friends. We returned to Iowa to be near family while my dad served a tour in Alaska. I finished my sixth grade year at Sergeant Bluff elementary school and started junior high at Woodrow Wilson in Sioux City. Before the first grading period had ended I had attended seventh grade in three schools and in two states. My parents were nearly divorced in that year, so tension and frustrations were extremely high for all of us. My brothers and I would often sit out at night and fantasize about running away to Neah Bay, Washington where our dad was recently stationed. Following months of adjusting to our new school and life, we suddenly picked up and moved to Neah Bay. Growing up as boys who often lived for a year at a time without our father in the house we were ill prepared to man up in this remote Air Force station hidden away on an Indian reservation at the tip of the Olympic Peninsula. We were picked on constantly by the tribal boys, who seemed to me to be inordinately large for adolescents. I had few friends outside the military community. My greatest memories of my youth take place in the wilderness and beaches that we had full privilege to roam. Miles of beaches, acres of tidal pools, forest streams, and forests that spread as far as we dared to venture. In the spring of 1973 I was nearing the end of my freshman year. My friend Danny and I went joy riding in his brother's car on the logging roads that criss-cross the reservation's outback, when he hit a slick spot in the road and we skidded off the road into a tree. Obviously ignorant of the consequences of riding without a seatbelt, I was slammed into the windshield, face-first. My memory is blank from moments before the crash and for several hours later. I managed to walk from the wreckage for several miles before being spotted by a friend of my dad's who took me to the military base. I recall the doctor looking at my face and commenting that sewing the pieces back together would not be easy and that surgery would be required. From Neah Bay the nearest real hospital is in Port Angeles, almost ninety miles by road. Dad rode in the ambulance with me on the trip. At the hospital people were waiting for me to arrive. My clothes were cut away and a needle was placed into my arm. I had no idea what I looked like until two days later when my mom came to visit me in the hospital she brought a mirror. I was more curious than scared about the face that looked back at me. Bruises, stitches, and lots of swelling. I was lucky to have survived my youthful ignorance. We moved away from Neah Bay with only one month of school remaining to return to North Bend, Oregon. I hated having to return to school for one month, but my parents insisted there was no other option. The next year I transitioned into the high school and continued there through the middle of my junior year. That year, 1974, my parents finally divorced. Following the Christmas break I found myself living in Portland, Oregon where I would finish my high school career at Franklin High School in 1976, the year of the bicentennial. Breaking with tradition, in celebration of that special year, our graduation gowns were not the maroon and grey worn by the years before and after ours. Instead, we were assigned to wear either red, white or blue gowns. I got blue and my brother got red. This really didn't make sense unless you were in the audience looking down on our class. Red numerals bordered in white and filled with a sea of blue formed...Expand for more