My Dad, the Unsung Astronaut

I was born in the city of Fullerton in the sunny Southern California in the summer of 1960. My parents and I first lived in a small two-bedroom home when my father, Earl, started working for NASA. My parents separated many times and my mother, Marie, had a small apartment in Brea, California, for about a year and a half. After they were in therapy for their marital issues, about when I was five years old, we moved to a model three-bedroom home in Monterey Park, California. In Monterey Park I went to the best schools where I was put in the gifted classes for art, science, math, English, and social studies. After high school I went right into the workforce until a serious back injury in 1984, then again in 1989 and 2001. I also went to junior college in 1985 to 1991, having more than four majors, then graduating to Cal State Long Beach where I attended part-time while majoring in psychology. I would attend University of Phoenix, where I would attain my bachelor’s degree in psychology in December 2008. I would nearly complete a master’s degree in counseling psychology, when I would find myself in legal trouble and would leave California in the spring of 2011 to move to Arizona. This is where the story begins.