DISCLAIMER: This is creative nonfiction. These autobiographical essays are about real experiences as filtered through the
lens of my personality.  Two personalities, actually; the person I was when the events took place and the person I am now.  
As such, these essays contain ideas, values, beliefs, prejudices, opinions, and points of view that are entirely subjective and
which have bearing only on the events described.  It is not my intention to present a worldview that I expect anyone else to
embrace or accept.  The essays are a way for me to give narrative shape and coherence to chunks of my past that are wild and
unruly, with lots of thorns that still poke and prick at me, or fuzzy and vague, a soupy quicksand that threatens to suck me 
under, and so come to a place of acceptance with them.  Should you take offense with anything you might read in these 
essays (and I sincerely hope that you do not) please remember that it reveals nothing about anyone but myself.  It's all about me...