Ric Cross:  

Life May 1, 2025 - Hard to believe 20 years have passed and this bit of verbiage below is still hanging around... So for a quick update, Marie and I could not "keep it together", divorce became final 2-2009, life sucked for a few years as I crawled my way out of the divorce induced smoking crater. Eventually got back in the "dating pool", lucky to have met Dorothy in 2012. We "clicked" or "bonded" over shared interests. Have had great memorable experiences together. Will probably detail some of those later or elsewhere... April 6, 2005 - Life's been good so far ... If you are reading this then you either think you know me or are just curious. Lets just see what we can do with 4000 characters to provide a little background. The second child born to two young parents (by today's standards) in North Carolina. I remember a lot about the little moments of my life. Guess it came with practice, kind of a game I would play ... where was I last year at this time, what happened then? We lived in a number of places in Carolina - New Bern, Corinth, Apex, Greensboro. My Dad sold heavy equipment, forestry stuff, around the state. I went along for the ride in whatever hot rod muscle car he had, or the truck when delivering or demonstrating. At one logging site we visited I climbed up the cull pile to get a better look around, slipped, fell and the logs rolled over me. Maybe that was my first concussion ... I remember getting home and being set on the counter for my Mom to examine me. The welt on the side my head would not allow my jaw to close properly, I convinced them I could still chew. My sister and I played together always. Some of those games, I play with my kids now, and they laugh. We moved to SW Michigan so Dad could do the career thing, selling equipment internationally. We met many interesting people from around the globe. Michigan was a great place to be a kid. Summers on the lake and damn the snow. When your a kid it's a joy. 1971 a little brother arrived. We moved around town a bit, I met kids in several school districts. In HS I probably worked too much to earn money for a car or to pay for my last screw-up. Unfortunately, I seemed to have a knack for screwing things up. I hot wired Dad's Honda 550 and tossed it away on some gravel. I chewed up a pound of flesh on that one. I managed to conceal the injuries, months later he noticed the slight scrape on the fairing. I managed to total a nice 1974 Chevy truck while the parents were in San Francisco. While they were away in Europe in April-May of 1978 I went on school skipping marathon this led to all kinds mischief. Dad's career move in the summer of 1978 brought us to ATL. It wasn't until years later that I came to understand that my moving was optional. It was a bit stressful to be thrown into a new school but I stumbled through it. Graduated HS early 1979 and went to work building houses to save money for college. First day on the job I fell from the second story to the basement ... starting to notice a pattern here? I'm pretty good at clobbering myself. I attended GSC that fall and pretty much hosed it up. Summer of 1980 worked three jobs to buy go-fast goodies for a car and save for college that fall. 1981 pretty much sucked. My perceptions about the beginnings of an ideal life clashed with a harsh reality, soon after a good friend died in a wreck, so much promise taken away too soon. 1982 was looking up, I had enrolled in a new school (GSU), a new motorcycle ... you know where this is going don't you? 6-1982 I laid in the ditch for a few hours before waking up "To go to work", in the hospital for another 11 days. A beautiful redhead called the day I got out of the hospital, she wanted to go for a ride, the ride ended sometime in 1987. The...Expand for more