  My Daddy always used to say I should write a book about my life when I became hugely successful, but since it seems that might take awhile (like eternity) and I'm already starting to forget some of the finer details, (plus who has time to write a book when they're busy being hugely successful? ) I figure I'll get a jump start on it here. Probably, I'm just gonna end up with a bunch of silly stories about when I was a kid, but heck, ya'll aren't paying for this, and it's not like you have to read it if you don't want to.
(although I should warn you, I may test you later) My biological parents: Ruby and Richie grew up in Roanoke VA, a college town, not too different from the one I live in now. Ruby's Mother was a little on the crazy side, and she got worse the older she got, once she hit 50 the doctors started calling it alzheimer's. Ruby's Father died when she was young, she and her sister Phentrice were primarily raised by her Aunt, and namesake, "Auntie Ruby.
" She grew up poor, and proud of it. (a peculiar trait that the south seems to foster) Richie's Mother was an elementary school teacher, his father was an Insurance adjuster, just your typical middle-class family, right down to the alcoholic Father. He was one of those kids who kept his nose in a book, and wouldn't play sports if his life depended on it.
(So that's where I get it from) They met in high-school, during a production of Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are dead. (Richie played Rosencrantz, Ruby had a bit part and helped out with the sets) When my Mama talks about it, she makes it sound as if he were larger than life, as if she knew the moment she saw him that it was love, but truth be told, they didn't actually end up dating until she ran into his car. (my Mama gets into more fender benders) How romantic is that, she hit his car, (she was stoned at the time, you know, maybe if she didn't drive stoned she wouldn't hit so many things, maybe I'll suggest it to her) and that fostered their romance. They dated through the rest of high school, broke up for awhile while he started in college and she went on a cross-country motorcycle ride with her high school English teacher, eventually landing her in the town she now calls home.
Ruby was so impressed by the pacific northwest that even after her affair with Mr. Should-have-known-better-to-run-off-with-one-of-his-students was over, she knew she wanted to live here. Practicality, however, got the better of her (temporarily, practicality never gets the better of my Mama for long) and she moved back home to attend college.
Within a couple of terms Richie had quit going to school, in favor of living in Ruby's dorm room (at a different school, about 50 miles away) before long she had planted the idea of this magical hippie land, where it was "green" as far as the eye could see in his head, and they packed up, and headed out in search of greener pastures. (sorry about that last pun, but sometimes a girl just can't help herself) They both enrolled in community college, and found a nice little commune to live in, in the traditional hippie style, and before you could shake a fertility goddess, Ruby was pregnant. To Richie's mind, abortion was the only option, as they were certainly not in any position to have a child, Ruby, fearing what her family would say, should she have a child born out of wedlock, agreed.
Afterwards she was devastated, and just as she was beginning to move on she became pregnant again. She was adamantly opposed to aborting this child, but Richie swore he would leave her if she chose to keep it. They sought help from Scott, a psychology teacher they had both taken a number of classes from, who offered free counseling to his students.
He had just gone through a divorce, losing custody of his 3 year old daughter in the process, and, at the age of 54 offered to adopt their baby. Of course there were conditions, on both sides, neither Ruby or Richie wanted their parents to find out about the baby, and Ruby wanted to be sure she'd be able to see the baby, should she want to. Scott told them after the baby was born they'd have 2 months to change their minds, (he loved to tell this story) after that, he said he'd "fight them to the death" to keep it.
I was born in a birthing center (a compromise between a home birth and a hospital birth) about 2 weeks late (I still have a hard time getting up in the morning) My Daddy (Scott)delivered me, and took me home 2 hours later. Richie saw me once, when I was about 2 weeks old, he died of a heat stroke (caused by copious quantities of amphetamines) in Arizona at the age of 21, I was a year old. 
