From The Ground Up
I figure there's scarecely a soul to see this now, which is how i hope it'll be, cause that's what i need really. I'm glad that my family won't see this since most of it'll be about them.
A lot of this first stuff is going to be background on my parents, cause i guess, to "know thy-self" one has to get to the epicenter of everything. Hell i will probably include a little about my grandparents too because it seems that history is cyclical. Maybe some kind of patterns will stand out at me or something or for future generations if they still have a chance to spawn.
Fuck it, i'm just going to start with my grandparents.
My mother was born to Virgil Otten and Eloise Smith, and bore the last name "Otten" by maiden. Virgil, from what i know, was the son of farmers, who was a soldier in the European theatre in WWII. He made it to the rank of Staff Seargent with a company known as the 'Hay Bailers.' Apparently they got their name because they were a company of men from rural farming communities here in the Kentucky area. From the stories i've been told, my grandfather was one of the older boys from the neighborhood and was placed in a company with the younger brothers of his friends. Well, he was also a really noble and god fairing man, which i feel a lost kinship too him for, and would hardly curse another man. Mom told me a story of when he was fighting on the battlefield and his squadron had been pinned down for days and was running short on food and supplies. Everyone was starving and the Germans were firing down on them. My grandfather was in a bunker with another soldier who was taking sips of water from a canteen. My grandfather asked him for just one sip of water and was refused. Then he pleaded and was still refused. He then cursed the man up and down over it only to see that same man be shot to death seconds later. And i can't remember the exact quote, but he said something to the effect of "remembering that to the day" and "i tried to never curse another man after." I can relate to my grandfathers sense of conscious there. Things that i've said and done to others many a long year ago still hold upon my conscious to this day and i wish i could have changed them. I have vague flashes of imagery in my mind into which a vision of my grandfathers face slip, but i do not remember much about him. After he returned home from the war his mind eventually began to slip. He had what they call now "post traumatic stress disorder" from watching the younger brothers of his friends die in his charge, but then they called it "shell shock." This lead to his having an incident where he attempted to strangle my grandmother in the middle of the night thinking she was a German spy trying to kill him. My grandmother, being rightly scared, sought psychiatric help and at the time shock therapy was still employed. Well, needless to say, i'm certain my grandfather was a mere shell of himself shortly thereafter. I try to keep this in mind when dealing with Mom. My grandfather died when i was very young, and of the few memories about it i have, one was of my mother bawling and crying for "my daaaaad."
My grandmother Eloise was the daughter of an abusive drunkard who was apparently a pretty good architech. He built and designed many of the houses in the Dayton, Newport and Southgate areas of Northern Kentucky. Being an alcoholic, he was very unwise with his money and "pissed it all away" gambling, drinking and having a "good time." But enough of it filtered down to give my grandmother a somewhat refined upbringing and she was fairly well educated. She, herself, was a rather simple woman though, whom having survived the depression and her fathers squandering, was quite frugal and a bit of a pack-rat. She was fairly good with math and money.
My grandparents had two children, Saundra Otten and Gary Otten. My mother being Saundra, was quite a bit older than her sibling.
My fathers side consists of Geneva Perkins and William Thomas Harris. I only put his middle name as well, because it seems to be some kind of tradition to pass down the middle and last names in my family, for some reason?
William Thomas Harris is a bit of an enigma to me. My dad doesn't like talking about him much and not until i was about 21 did i ever know that he had a previous marriage and possibly a son with that woman. He, sometime after, met my grandmother with vagaries about how it came to be that he was single enough to do so, and began to settle down. He was abusive and had a temper and wouldn't think twice of raising his hands to his sons, at least to my father. He was also a Free Mason and restraunteer. He managed several different restraunt chains and eventually opened his own restraunt he dubbed the "Big Top" restraunt in Mason, Ohio. He ran the restraunt with an iron fist toward my dad, while his older brother got to "do whatever he wanted like play baseball or go out with his friends while i was forced to work in the restraunt." To me it looked as though my grandfather was simply trying to pass the family trade on, but to my dad it seemed differently. He died when my father was still a young man and i never had the chance to meet him, so i have no basis.
Geneva Perkins was the daughter of a farmer born in rural Kentucky. She was one of a handfull of children and had many stories of walking to school in the cold and how she had seen and survived hard times. She was a factory worker where she lost her thumbnail one day and still had the dent in her nail to prove it. She loved to sing and read and write at any turn. She also had a firey "take no crap from anyone" attitude that only the strongest of women have. Most of my knowledge of her is of a personal nature and not of a biographical one, so i do not know most of her life prior to marriage. I do know that she helped with everything regarding her family and seemed to have the ultimate "family first" attitude.
My grandparents here, also, had 2 children, Edward Thomas Harris and William Thomas Harris Jr. or II if you prefer.
Mom & Dad
Dad grew up in Blue Ash, Ohio in house 9471. Apparently the family use to live in Avondale or something of the sort, but moved shortly after he was born. He was a skinny rail of a kid, whom at the time, was apparently constantly getting sick. My grandmother, concerned for his health (and probably the bills) consulted a doctor who's advice was to "fatten him up" basicly. To which my grandmother followed his advice to a fault. My dad became a chunk of a young boy and a husky of a young man. He played football for Sycamore in his HS years when he was allowed to break away from his duties at the restraunt. He had earned a passion for fishing and gamboling too in the time. He was a decent artist in his own right and a genius in IQ at mathmatics. After becoming a hash-head and binge drunk and failing out of the Ohio State University as an accounting major, he moved back home and began working at a store called "Chillitoes" as an accounting manager. At this job he met my mother, who's only saving grace of story about him is about a bank shipment error that my father caught. For some reason, it seems to be a noble moment for him, so i think it worthy to note. When he was working one day, the bank was suppose to send a shipment of ones to the store to use in the tills. Well, they did, but along with it they also sent close to 120,000 dollars in large bills that were accounted for in NO ONES books! That's right, the bank threw 120,000 in cash in front of my father with no traceable records in the year of 1970 something and he did the right thing and called them and immediately told them. The irony in all of this was that his own disorder of compulsive gambling cost him nearly all that he owned.
My mother grew up in Fort Thomas, Kentucky spending a small portion of her life in Dayton Kentucky similarlly to my fathers time in Avondale. She was inverse of my fathers situation in that instead of being the younger sibling in a large age gap, she was the elder. She grew up an only childing wanting nothing more than a sibling for most of her life only to recieve one in her HS age. She was a theatrics fan and to this day tells of how she wanted to become an actress. At a young age, she displayed signs of manic-depression or bi-polar disorder. In Highschool she became a speed freak popping diet pills and had a strong affinity for alcohol. After graduating, she became one of the founding sisters of a sorority at Northern Kentucky University and was there for the groundbreaking on the school. Her IQ scored genius in language comprehension and she was a somewhat accomplished writer in her own right. Her creativity fueled by her manic depression, was also hampered by it. And her nature as a human being was faulted by accompanying "generalized social disorders" that accompanied it. An angry and excited drunk along with her illness made for a toxic combination. Mom had been placed in institutions throughout her life as my grandmother still had old fashioned ideas about being a single mom, and perhaps because of her nature. See, mom had previously been married and divorced before meeting dad while working as a cashier at Chillitoes.
Mom and dad had 4 children. Michelle ("Shelly") Harris, Jennifer Harris, Myself and Beau Harris.
I suppose this is a good prologue for now, but nobody usually reads these anyway, so my next post will be about my first memories.
A lot of this first stuff is going to be background on my parents, cause i guess, to "know thy-self" one has to get to the epicenter of everything. Hell i will probably include a little about my grandparents too because it seems that history is cyclical. Maybe some kind of patterns will stand out at me or something or for future generations if they still have a chance to spawn.
Fuck it, i'm just going to start with my grandparents.
My mother was born to Virgil Otten and Eloise Smith, and bore the last name "Otten" by maiden. Virgil, from what i know, was the son of farmers, who was a soldier in the European theatre in WWII. He made it to the rank of Staff Seargent with a company known as the 'Hay Bailers.' Apparently they got their name because they were a company of men from rural farming communities here in the Kentucky area. From the stories i've been told, my grandfather was one of the older boys from the neighborhood and was placed in a company with the younger brothers of his friends. Well, he was also a really noble and god fairing man, which i feel a lost kinship too him for, and would hardly curse another man. Mom told me a story of when he was fighting on the battlefield and his squadron had been pinned down for days and was running short on food and supplies. Everyone was starving and the Germans were firing down on them. My grandfather was in a bunker with another soldier who was taking sips of water from a canteen. My grandfather asked him for just one sip of water and was refused. Then he pleaded and was still refused. He then cursed the man up and down over it only to see that same man be shot to death seconds later. And i can't remember the exact quote, but he said something to the effect of "remembering that to the day" and "i tried to never curse another man after." I can relate to my grandfathers sense of conscious there. Things that i've said and done to others many a long year ago still hold upon my conscious to this day and i wish i could have changed them. I have vague flashes of imagery in my mind into which a vision of my grandfathers face slip, but i do not remember much about him. After he returned home from the war his mind eventually began to slip. He had what they call now "post traumatic stress disorder" from watching the younger brothers of his friends die in his charge, but then they called it "shell shock." This lead to his having an incident where he attempted to strangle my grandmother in the middle of the night thinking she was a German spy trying to kill him. My grandmother, being rightly scared, sought psychiatric help and at the time shock therapy was still employed. Well, needless to say, i'm certain my grandfather was a mere shell of himself shortly thereafter. I try to keep this in mind when dealing with Mom. My grandfather died when i was very young, and of the few memories about it i have, one was of my mother bawling and crying for "my daaaaad."
My grandmother Eloise was the daughter of an abusive drunkard who was apparently a pretty good architech. He built and designed many of the houses in the Dayton, Newport and Southgate areas of Northern Kentucky. Being an alcoholic, he was very unwise with his money and "pissed it all away" gambling, drinking and having a "good time." But enough of it filtered down to give my grandmother a somewhat refined upbringing and she was fairly well educated. She, herself, was a rather simple woman though, whom having survived the depression and her fathers squandering, was quite frugal and a bit of a pack-rat. She was fairly good with math and money.
My grandparents had two children, Saundra Otten and Gary Otten. My mother being Saundra, was quite a bit older than her sibling.
My fathers side consists of Geneva Perkins and William Thomas Harris. I only put his middle name as well, because it seems to be some kind of tradition to pass down the middle and last names in my family, for some reason?
William Thomas Harris is a bit of an enigma to me. My dad doesn't like talking about him much and not until i was about 21 did i ever know that he had a previous marriage and possibly a son with that woman. He, sometime after, met my grandmother with vagaries about how it came to be that he was single enough to do so, and began to settle down. He was abusive and had a temper and wouldn't think twice of raising his hands to his sons, at least to my father. He was also a Free Mason and restraunteer. He managed several different restraunt chains and eventually opened his own restraunt he dubbed the "Big Top" restraunt in Mason, Ohio. He ran the restraunt with an iron fist toward my dad, while his older brother got to "do whatever he wanted like play baseball or go out with his friends while i was forced to work in the restraunt." To me it looked as though my grandfather was simply trying to pass the family trade on, but to my dad it seemed differently. He died when my father was still a young man and i never had the chance to meet him, so i have no basis.
Geneva Perkins was the daughter of a farmer born in rural Kentucky. She was one of a handfull of children and had many stories of walking to school in the cold and how she had seen and survived hard times. She was a factory worker where she lost her thumbnail one day and still had the dent in her nail to prove it. She loved to sing and read and write at any turn. She also had a firey "take no crap from anyone" attitude that only the strongest of women have. Most of my knowledge of her is of a personal nature and not of a biographical one, so i do not know most of her life prior to marriage. I do know that she helped with everything regarding her family and seemed to have the ultimate "family first" attitude.
My grandparents here, also, had 2 children, Edward Thomas Harris and William Thomas Harris Jr. or II if you prefer.
Mom & Dad
Dad grew up in Blue Ash, Ohio in house 9471. Apparently the family use to live in Avondale or something of the sort, but moved shortly after he was born. He was a skinny rail of a kid, whom at the time, was apparently constantly getting sick. My grandmother, concerned for his health (and probably the bills) consulted a doctor who's advice was to "fatten him up" basicly. To which my grandmother followed his advice to a fault. My dad became a chunk of a young boy and a husky of a young man. He played football for Sycamore in his HS years when he was allowed to break away from his duties at the restraunt. He had earned a passion for fishing and gamboling too in the time. He was a decent artist in his own right and a genius in IQ at mathmatics. After becoming a hash-head and binge drunk and failing out of the Ohio State University as an accounting major, he moved back home and began working at a store called "Chillitoes" as an accounting manager. At this job he met my mother, who's only saving grace of story about him is about a bank shipment error that my father caught. For some reason, it seems to be a noble moment for him, so i think it worthy to note. When he was working one day, the bank was suppose to send a shipment of ones to the store to use in the tills. Well, they did, but along with it they also sent close to 120,000 dollars in large bills that were accounted for in NO ONES books! That's right, the bank threw 120,000 in cash in front of my father with no traceable records in the year of 1970 something and he did the right thing and called them and immediately told them. The irony in all of this was that his own disorder of compulsive gambling cost him nearly all that he owned.
My mother grew up in Fort Thomas, Kentucky spending a small portion of her life in Dayton Kentucky similarlly to my fathers time in Avondale. She was inverse of my fathers situation in that instead of being the younger sibling in a large age gap, she was the elder. She grew up an only childing wanting nothing more than a sibling for most of her life only to recieve one in her HS age. She was a theatrics fan and to this day tells of how she wanted to become an actress. At a young age, she displayed signs of manic-depression or bi-polar disorder. In Highschool she became a speed freak popping diet pills and had a strong affinity for alcohol. After graduating, she became one of the founding sisters of a sorority at Northern Kentucky University and was there for the groundbreaking on the school. Her IQ scored genius in language comprehension and she was a somewhat accomplished writer in her own right. Her creativity fueled by her manic depression, was also hampered by it. And her nature as a human being was faulted by accompanying "generalized social disorders" that accompanied it. An angry and excited drunk along with her illness made for a toxic combination. Mom had been placed in institutions throughout her life as my grandmother still had old fashioned ideas about being a single mom, and perhaps because of her nature. See, mom had previously been married and divorced before meeting dad while working as a cashier at Chillitoes.
Mom and dad had 4 children. Michelle ("Shelly") Harris, Jennifer Harris, Myself and Beau Harris.
I suppose this is a good prologue for now, but nobody usually reads these anyway, so my next post will be about my first memories.