This is not a memoir, it’s more like a condensed version of my ‘history’.  The broad strokes if you will, to give you an idea of who I am, and how some of the stories in and around ‘Beckett’ are pieces of me, while some are not at all.  First, I never served in the military, nor do I claim to have.  ‘Beckett’ is not a biography, its fiction, based on true stories throughout the book.

 

If you would like to know about work and my construction merits, you can learn about that on the other half of this site.  This is to share a simple story, to help you better understand Beckett’s story.  Now that we are clear, let us commence…..

 

I came about as an unplanned shock to a young girl right out of high school.  Who months later found herself getting married to her boyfriend and overnight they are becoming adults and parents.  A few years later, adding another to their small family, my brother.

 

We were raised like most kids, virtually by kids.  A few bumps and bangs along the road of life, as some say, “it’s nothing that time doesn’t fix” & “it’s just words.”  You learn what is good and what is bad and if you’re lucky you learn what’s best to take from each side of the coin.

 

We grew up not to be totally poor, but we were very much a blue collar family.  My brother and I didn’t know we were basically poor, it was a simple life, but mostly we were happy.  Our mother made sure we were fed, felt treated with love and when she could, a treat here n there.

 

Mac n cheese wasn’t a ‘poor meal’, hand me downs were still ‘new’, dinning out was a big deal on your birthday and getting new sneakers was cool.  Please and thank you, sir and ma’am, do your chores, no cussing, even when you don’t know what it means.  An Ivory bar is better than dish soap.  And unless it’s obviously wrong, you do what the adult says, even if it’s just your neighbor yelling “Get off my lawn!!” 

 

Our mom dearly loved us, but not the circumstances we were in.  I do not recall her taking her challenges being taken out on us.  She made sure we did our schoolwork, did chores and helped, and after we could play hard like two young boys did.  Mostly she didn’t want us to be like a lot of our friends, coming from a single divorced parent household.

 

My father was not the anchor in the family, sure he had his good moments.  I have no idea what he did for work my younger years, then suddenly he was a long haul trucker and around less.  Later in life my brother and I couldn’t place him when we were growing up. He wasn’t bowling or in a dart club or gun club every night, Pats & Sox game at the pub or stadium, or rebuilding the tunnel to Logan Airport, we just didn’t have an answer.

 

Again not painting him as ‘evil’, we never had nor do have the usual ‘father – son’ relationship or lots of meaningful memories.  No teaching moments, him coaching games, life ‘how to’ or ‘what a man is’.  “This is a man’s hand’s” type speech or how to weld, engine parts, carpentry, girls what is ok and what not to do…… 

 

No, for me it was harsh one-sided, near shouting reprimands with hours of reliving every mistake I made; and I hadn’t lived to much when his lectures started.  It was his version of ‘scolding’, and a good job done was not done as good as it could be.  His way was always telling how it could be done better, especially if it was done the way he would have done it.

 

To me, it seemed as if his life did not go the way he wanted, he never came across as a happy person.  Yes, he had moments of joy, like people do, but not happiness.  In turn this made learning the good and bad in life from him, directly and indirectly, harsh and a crash course front and center.  Eventually his lectures on my mistakes came to seem as if I was his major hurdle in life, and if that hurdle was never there, his life would be a lot simpler, and better.

 

In life almost everyone hits some kind of trouble, I was never in juvenile hall, no record, didn’t fail out of school.  I did get suspended for two days in the 7th grade, for ‘mooning’ some girls.  I saw it in some comedy with my buddies, we had no idea it was bad, just that it so funny we laughed so much I could barely flash my butt.

 

Somehow his questioning and yelling made it seem as if I did an unholy event.  As if I vaporized my school, forgot it, and he would knock the sense back into me so I could comprehend what I did.  In his verbal beatdowns left me pondering “what did I do in the past?”

 

I did find some peace in that if I ‘screwed up’ my brother did not get to participate in these one sided ‘debates’, and so I tried to make sure I caught my dad’s anger, so my brother got to live life with a different point of view.

 

He grew up believing he would have a wonderful wife, the perfect house, the two cars, the average 2.5 outstanding kids, a picket fence, 3 weeks’ vacation, cat and dog, all with the fixings.  He didn’t have it all ironed out, but he was dang sure it was going to be his ‘field of dreams’.

 

For me I just wanted to get old enough to get up and go far, far away, not looking back.

 

Both sets of my grandparents were wonderful parts of my life.  My grandfather Tom was a strong quiet man, a Marine who served in WWII.  He was one of those men that didn’t speak much, but when he did, you listened, his waiting bride worked like Rosy the Riveter, with engineers for the Defense Department.  At the end of the war, she would go on to be a renowned artist until she passed at 101 years old.

 

My other grandfather Harvey was kind and very jovial, a lifelong member of the NRA, and proud to have been in the Army, until he retired.  His wife, my mom’s mom was wonderful, spoiled you if she could and had the grandmother look that made you pause even if she wasn’t in the room and your mind thought of her while about to start mayhem.  I learned pieces of life’s lessons from each of them in their own way, and those pieces helped me to learn my ways.

 

My mom fed my thirst for books, there I learned a lot of what to be and not to be, good and evil, wisdom and why not to be a fool.  I escaped from my ‘world’ with a lot of Greek Mythology & history, classical & opera, movie scores, the bible and a healthy dose of Sunday school.  School for the most part was regular, some teachers stood out, some didn’t, and some fed my reading and history quest.

 

Weather my father worked for someone or was an independent truck driver, in my eyes he seemed to be his own boss and always knew more than most, his behavior and arrogance showed me a lot of how not to behave as a gown man.

 

When he was around from his months away as a truck driver, his frustration in life and anger constantly was a weight towards me.  My family knew it, and tried explaining it was due to his hardships of ‘being on the road’ and it came out on those he loved, who could take it.  I was a child, and I knew it was wrong, so I took it to shield my brother, even when it was physical.

 

The most stunning thing was when my brother went to feed our untrained dog, it was excited, it jumped all over him and scratched him up.  I followed him into the house to find out what was going on.  My father was furious, trying to console him, wiping the blood away. 

 

He bolted upright, in his rage turned “If a dog scratches you, you hit it like this!”  He shouted then with a wide sweep, hit me across the face and sent me flying across the room.  I don’t remember the rest, because my mother appeared, and both my brother and I were told to leave the room.

 

Other times I would have to be silent as I listened to him rant and go on about everything I had done wrong in my life for a couple of hours.  Then it was off to bed, the whole time, even at a young age I knew it was foolish to argue he would never try to see my side, so I just took it.

 

Occasionally I did try to give my response back, but it was a foolish choice, it went on longer or it cost me the sting of a backhand. 

 

I started jobs young, the moment I could, hawking newspapers on busy Route 28, and collecting cans on the way, and the occasional trinket I would find.  Foolishly I would buy kits for model trucks and build them to try and get in the good light of my father.  I thought that he would see something in me if I built them, I had no interest in them at all.

 

When it came to baseball, if he did come, it was like a train wreck by the end of the game.  Everything that I did was relieved, and shown to me how it was a pathetic attempt or embarrassing.  The coach and other parents did their best not to make it seem that bad.  I was told by parents and the coach I could go far, probably get into the Cape Cod Base Ball League, and make a name for myself and a future.  But eventually I decided I had enough, and just went up and quit. 

 

Two decades later over a fire pit and a long night with my brother and some friends, he told of how I could have made it as a college pitcher and into the minor leagues, maybe the majors, but I quit because of our dad.  I had no idea it was stuck with him.  How he told the story made it sound as if I quitting broke his heart.  Until I wrote this, I had never really spoken of it to anyone but my Wife and maybe two friends.

 

My grandfather Tom being the strong silent type, didn’t talk much, even about being a Marine, my recollection of one, is late one night while Fantasy Island.  One of the guests said how “it’s like Paradise Island” quietly my grandfather murmured “that’s what we called Paris Island” he said with a bit of a chuckle, paused and didn’t say anything else.

 

I had no idea what he was talking about, and he ever said that again, later I learned he was talking about where some Marines train.  Years later I met R. Lee Ermey, The Gunny’, of all places a construction trade show.  He was there with other members of different branches to help promote the Military and the USO.  Seeing him reminded me of my grandfather and so I just wrote a large check and handed it to another Soldier and walked away. 

 

As I and my Leadman Frankie were walking away, an Officer came running up to us to say thanks and shake my hand.  He asked if I wanted to meet the Gunny himself.  I was shocked the Officer took me and Frankie over to meet him.  The Officer introduced us to the Gunny, we all shook hands and chatted.  I told him of how my grandfather Served as a Marine, and what he had said about calling Paris Island, Paradise Island sarcastically.  The Gunny laughed and said how the young ones did do that.  We laughed and chatted, and he signed photos for us.

 

Though he wasn’t showy of it, my grandmother always said grampa Tom was proud he was a Marine, he just came home after the war and put it away.  My father didn’t like the Military, it seemed like cared for soldiers, but was glad we “won”, and had no problem stating how he successfully dodged the draft, everyone in the family knows he did, and he bares it proudly

 

After our parents’ divorce, one night my brother and I were visiting him having pizza as we watched the news update on our Troops in the Middle East defending Kuwait and stopping Saddam.  Suddenly our dad turned told firmly said to us, “If they reenacted the draft, I want you two to swear to me you will run to the Canadian border immediately and don’t come back until I tell you it’s safe.”  We just froze.

 

It didn’t even seem real when he said it, I can’t remember what else we even said.  In my memory it just hung in the air and the topic changed.  When we left his house, I didn’t know if we even talked about it.  It was like a line from some bad late-night movie

 

I remember when I discovered who I wanted to be, I got the action figure by GI Joe, a US Navy SEAL named Torpedo.  At some point the GI Joe comic book with him as well.  He looked like he could save the world in his black and grey wetsuit, and he could do it with what little was written about him on the back of the package.  He went behind enemy lines to save lives, even to save other heroes.  He was an answer to what I needed.

 

The internet wasn’t invented then, and the library didn’t have much on Navy SEALS, but I remember finding a postage size piece in a Brittanica about them.  I learned that President John F. Kennedy, from Massachusetts, where I was born, established them in 1962.  I don’t recall there being much more I could learn, but that helped spur me on.

 

One day my dad was pissed at me, because I ‘cared so much more for a cheap toy that I could not share it with my own brother’.  I said something along the lines that he would probably break it or lose it and it was mine, and I was ‘going to be one’.  I had even kept the package hidden away so my brother couldn’t ruin it.  This did not win any points over with my father, it got me a good screaming, and threats me and I’d get a beating if I didn’t ‘grow up’ and want to be something real.

 

My brother and I were ‘latch key kids’, one day I ran and got to the house before my brother, got in with the hidden key and locked the door behind me, which to almost any kid was funny at the one outside. 

 

My brother screamed and pounded on the door, it wasn’t long before he got a hand full of rocks from the driveway and threw them at the house.  One hit a pane of glass in the door, it shattered.  Later that night when our father had gotten home, he stood at the door at the end of the wide hallway while I stood at the other end.  He on and on, bringing up anything I had done in my 12 or so years, I took it in silence.  It didn’t matter that my brother was in bed, or he had thrown the rocks, because I was “the fucking asshole” that locked him out.  Josh was a child who needed protection. 

 

I don’t know how many Jacks and Coke’s, he fueled himself with, nor all the words exactly, but the general cursing I do remember, and how he said it took everything in him to not turn around and beat me for my behavior towards my brother. 

 

I was supposed to protect him, and it had to be my stupidity that led to this.  Somehow it related to me wanting to be a Soldier, to be mean, and be told what to do.  How that is pathetic.

 

Usually as asinine his lectures were, I could still comprehend his thought.  But made any sense and somewhere in his rant he did state that since I couldn’t make my own decisions of what to do, and how to do it “when to eat where to shit”, I was shit, like a dog on a leash.

 

He told me to get the fuck out of his sight, and “because if you don’t, I’ll really beat you and then I’ll have to leave and never come back.  And I don’t want that.  Do you?”  I don’t recall shedding a tear, I no longer cared about his rants.  I do know what I thought, how bad a beating could it be?  If I cursed at him, and he did…. then it all would be over.  I felt I had learned all I could and ever would from him, so what could I lose?  I so wanted to do it, because then nothing could stand in my way from me from becoming a hero, like Torpedo.

 

As I pondered in silence, he suddenly said “Go to fucking bed.”  So, I went to my room.  I lay there in bed, the dim light stared at the ceiling and decided, I would leave and become what he despised and more, more than just a soldier, I would become a SEAL. 

 

I found my Golden Ticket, and I was going to keep it.  I knew my mother probably heard him, I didn’t care and never spoke about it.  I never told anyone what I was planning until it was time, so that no one could tell me no.

 

As normal life I found friendships, a few girl friends here and there and some adventures.  Eventually in high school I found a teacher and mentor who became like a father figure to me more than my own, Mr. Grimaldi who I learned a lot from. 

 

I prepared the best I could physically and mentally as I prepared for this path to unfold.  While talking to a senior friend on the track team, about college plans.  He talked about all the places he applied to and where he was accepted and scholarships and so forth.  I didn’t tell him my ‘master plan’ but where I was thinking of applying, how I didn’t know really what I wanted.  I was a junior at the time.  He said how I need to figure out what I wanted to be, and then where to go to get to that.  He had been accepted to a lot of exceptional schools, but there was only one place he was going to.  Almost only his school counselor knew it, I can’t remember if his family did or not.  He wanted to leave the Cape and go see the world.  After graduation he left for West Point and was gone.  I have no idea of the rest of his story.

 

When I was old enough to drive, I went to the Navy recruitment office and told the recruiter my story, how I wanted to do like what my friend had done.  Graduate, barely say goodbye and just leave.  To live through ‘Hell Week’, train and be a SEAL. 

 

Return one day and say “Thank you for being such an asshole.  It helped drive me to become who I am so I can tell you to fuck off.  There is nothing more to say.”  I probably didn’t sound like I wanted.  The recruiter thought that was a much, but understood, and I might change my mind in time.

 

I applied at a couple of colleges to show I tried to get off to college.  I found a JR. college I could afford and could get a business degree and criminal justice as well.  I even found one that had film studies, but none of that mattered, I was going to be a SEAL.  After graduation I was going to sign up and exit my life for a new one.

 

I worked for the local Park Department after school and when not in school.  One day while on the back road from one of the lakes we had to check on, as we turned on to the service road, a group of kids in a Honda Accord came barreling down the hill, right at our truck.  There was nothing Dennis, our boss who was driving, could do to make us clear of them.

 

We all watched as they tried to turn away, and slammed into the broad side of the truck that me, Dennis and Hilary were in.  The impact destroyed both vehicles, sent both my boss and coworker to the hospital.  I thought I was the lucky one who didn’t have a seatbelt to keep me in place and somehow wound up horizontally across them and the dash of the ancient F350.

 

Within a couple of days, the pain of just walking came and increased, a visit to urgent care with x-rays, and a doctor told a bleak story.  My left femur bone had been jammed into its socket so badly it scrapped the inside and would continue as it build up a calcium deposit, making running increasingly painful, so much that it would eliminate me and the track team, and more.

 

A few days later I went to see the Navy Recruiter, a man who I thought was the key to my future.  I told him about the accident and what the doctors told me, that my injury could not simply be ‘fixed’, it would take surgery and even that could not guarantee I would run and move and be as before.

 

I can’t remember exactly what he said, partially because of the 30 plus years since, partially from my traumatic brain injury.  I do recall he looked like he had to hand out bad news and no ‘nice’ way to say it.

 

Basically, he said: “I’m not going to give you great words of wisdom and tell you everything will be fine, join, you can still do it.  This is a pre-conditional injury, and will be disclosed, it will be noted.  Once a SEAL always a SEAL.  If one is wounded, we do all we can to find a way to keep him.  You are already broken, that maybe fine the Navy.  If you try out for the SEALs, they will be informed, they will seek you out and will go beyond what you think Hell Week is.  They will not make an exception because you were in an accident, and still want to become a SEAL.  You can try.  Try.”

 

He made it clear; it would not happen.  I left knowing I had no one to talk to, no one knew of my “master plan.”

 

I prayed long and hard.  I thumbed through the Bible and several notes of passages and things my grandmother had told me.  Hoping to find an answer of what to do.

 

I had a messed-up hip and I wasn’t a track star, I quit baseball when I was starting to stand out, so that would be an uphill battle against kids who had been playing since I quit.

 

The closest thing in the Bible I could find was Matthew 3:12, ‘cutting the chaff from the wheat’.  As I was cut from the main thing I wanted in life, even before I was given a chance to try it.  I am a big Eric Clapton fan, and I thought of his song Holy Mother.  To me it was about him turning to the Holy Mother asking for her help.  And it stuck in my mind as I prayed.

 

“Holy Mother, where are you?
Tonight, I feel broken in two
I've seen the stars fall from the sky
Holy Mother, can't keep from crying.”

 

I knew my dream of being a SEAL was gone and God would show me to find my way.  I just hoped I would see it clearly.

 

I graduated high school; my parents got a divorce.  I went to college and had ups and downs like most people.  Some heart break, some loss, a few more near tragic accidents.  Some ins and outs with God, I knew he was there, sometimes I was just too blind to see Him.  I found a career and worked in the film industry, and almost had some of my ideas bought and made.  Eventually I left that industry, and I found a new path, and built a career and company with it. 

 

As I said, I never walked away from God, I just didn’t always listen to Him.  When the time was right it became very clear and His intended path was right before me.  Eventually the woman God knew would be an integral part of what was needed to complete me, found me.  Together we built the foundation of our relationship with Him, and our life blossomed.

 

But that isn’t important right now.  I told you a bit of my back story, to help you understand some of what made me, me, and some of the inside of Beckett.  Just a few spots.

 

I will save the story of my Bride Gladys and I, until another day.

 

First, I will tell you the details of how Beckett came to be.  The story of a little boy who lost more than his family and the memories of them, he lost who he was.

 

So, let’s begin.