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How Did I Arrive at This?

At the very beginning, there was the usual drama, although some of it came a bit premature. Shortly afterwards, each day was like an extension of living happily ever after. The many witches, demons, and ghosts were distant from my territory. Eventually, the grim brothers and company would pay me a visit.

When I reminisced on my early childhood, I would often feel that those years were the climax of my happiness. It appeared that I had everything back then. My parents were younger and more energetic. We use to go on a lot of trips during those days. I have always and will forever love my parents. The funny thing is now that time has slowed some of us down, my parents and I actually do more together than just with each other. The love given to me by my parents taught me to love my Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ, at a very young age.

Getting back to the good old days, my brother and I were surrounded by a swarm of friends in our age groups almost anywhere. At church, many of our friends were there. In the old Richmond neighborhood, there was always a bit of action going on somewhere. At school, several friends were hanging around there. Even when we visited our grandmother on some weekends, we had an abundance of peer friends in the middle of nowhere.

My other grandmother who lived with us was in good cheers and doing well. In the eighties, prime time television was more entertaining than sickening. In my downtime, I was covered with a spread of what I considered to be the Golden Age of American cartoons. My brother and I had many fun toys to play with. We played, played, and played. Little did we know, our exposition was in the midst of being revised. The good memories still remained concrete, but a new era was about to begin. It was time to close the simple storybooks, which were now being replaced with intricate biographies.

With the current regime losing the war on crime on the Southside, my family and I had to flee Richmond. The revolution had begun. My parents were both blessed with new career opportunities in a rural county in Virginia and my brother and I came along as optimistic refugees eagerly seeking the expected additional opportunities awaiting us in the New World.

Many of the natives were restless, but managed to keep to themselves. As a result of the traditional thoughts proposed in many of the neighbors’ minds and later passed as laws in their hearts, my brother and I w