A Little Background

I was born in southern Arkansas. At least that is what I have always been told. But since I grew up with a lie, how am I supposed to believe even that. I have had the spot, up around Burton's Mill (gone, gone, gone) pointed out to me that was where I was born. It is possible that is the spot, especially if the person who I believe is my real mother really is. Yep. I was adopted. The town I grew up in, Taylor, Arkansas, was small, very small. I think in those days when I was going to school (in the fifties) the population was around six hundred. You cannot keep a secret in a small town. Impossible. I take that back, you can keep secrets, but not all of them. The secret that small town couldn't keep was the fact that I was adopted. I heard whispers early on in my life, like around six or seven. I was bluntly asked one day when I was a teenager about being adopted. The secret that small town did keep was the identity of my mother. To the day I do not know. My adopted mother should never have been able to have children. And she couldn't, or my father couldn't, that's why I was adopted I guess. There would be three more boys adopted after I turned sixteen. I'm not going to go off on my mother (the adopted one) here because I wrote a book about her and a lot of other things called Misdemeanors & Felonies: A Memoir. I'm not going to go off on her, but out of the four boys she raised all four found themselves in prison at one time or another.

A lot of things happened to me after I finally confronted my adopted parents with what I had heard. I was around sixteen at the time and on the rebel-with-a-cause-road that I would travel for many, many years. I was drunk. They told me that my mother was killed in a car wreck on her way to California. Convenient, huh? Well, like I said earlier, I won't go into details about any of this, except to say from that night on I seemed bound and determined to subject myself to every hardship there was out there in that wild wilderness of America's cities and highways to subject myself to. I searched for decades for what I already had, but my mind was much to warped because of a lot of things that I wasn't able to see it.

Somehow during those crazy years I found myself in prison. I also picked up a pretty good trade as a Linotype operator, which was great for someone like me. It meant I could travel the highways and byways of this once great country and almost be assured of finding a job which paid pretty damn good. I never stayed long in any place, job or town, however. The wanderlust was dominating my psyche and I followed it willingly. Also during these days of complete abandonment of sense and morals (a lot of my wandering took place during the sixties and seventies) I managed to marry twice. I fathered two children, Paula, by my first wife and Patricia and Nick by my second one. I was no better at being a father than my mother was being a mother. Actually, my mother was a better mother than I was a father, because I left all three of my children twisting in the wind, fatherless. I am not proud of it, but now I have at least come to terms with it and I do not beat myself up quite as much as I used to. One thing. All three children "found" me. I talk to my two daughters, but Nick doesn't want anything to do with me and I can absolutely understand that. The reason I wrote Misdemeanors & Felonies: A Memoir was to answer all the questions my children might have of me. Although the book is written from my point of view, I did not make myself look like anything except what I was, a no-account wanderer, who did not have the decency to stick around and take care of the children he sired.

If anyone wants to check out the book about a boy who was raised with 1950's morals, but lost himself in the upheaval of a nation in the sex-and-rock-and-roll sixties and seventies, you can go here to purchase it. Soon to be on Kindle.

Lulu:

http://www.lulu.com/content/paperback-book/misdemeanors-felonies-a-memoir/1760506

Amazon.com:

http://www.amazon.com/Misdemeanors-Felonies-Jerry-Pat-Bolton/dp/0615195016/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1251394371&sr=1-1