Back home to care for Mom

In the summer of 1996 I attended the dedication of a new industry, aviation, by opening a Cessna small engine aircraft assembly plant. I vowed right there, I would be hired in the first few hiring rounds. I was in the first 100 and hit the floor as a team leader responsible over ten others. My first priority was to become the best team on the entire manufacturing floor. In order to do that I used my 'boss' skills I had learned over the years of experience. Soon we were hitting on all 'six' cylinders,,, well it was a 'six' cylinder engine plane. Our team and I were receiving plant awards as well as Corporate. We all wanted the Million Dollar Education program we had trained under to be successful. The Team concept, collaborating on work skills, quality, inventory and overall performance. My whole self was in the progress I could make and believed it to be all our reward pursuits as healthy. I met my soon to be second wife Teresa, we were hired in the same week and trained together. She went to work on the fuselage mating jig while I ran the back shop, which was the cockpit assembly for her station. We became friends and regularly would see each other at our lines 'success' parties at a local bar on Fridays. I swapped a worker who's skills better matched the mating station for Teresa, who's wide varied skills would be better used in my shop. My shop had eight stations and she quickly became skilled in them all and would do anything I asked of her. I admit, even married, I was bitten by her charm, enthusiasm and desire to succeed.

My marriage had been in a spiral for many years we just didn't want to admit it to each other, so I worked long hard hours and played hard as well. Politely put, she and I had been heading in opposite directions since 1991 when I was away from home almost to the obscene. I had to be a social and professional representative of my company. This quickly moved me in the opposite direction she was going, raising the two children within the boundaries of a still religious belief system which I abandoned. My closet cross-dressing got me her view when she told some of the Elders within the church that I was possessed and they whisked me to the side and began laying on of hands, speaking in tongues demanding the demon be gone and all that stuff. I stood there in disbelief as my wife looked on weeping as if I was the devil himself. I was done with religion and her. I suddenly realized this was not wrong, it was just a part of me, I wasn't out 'hooking' on the streets. I plunged into my work, leaving her to do the primary child raising.

In August of 1996 I was awakened by a scream from my mother's house just a few feet away, our house was on her property. I raced to her side and asked what was wrong. She told me my nephew, who worked 35 minutes away from the bungalow between my house and hers, was in an head on collision with a semi on the way home at 2am and was killed. It was my sister's child James Michael, my name sake of my birth name 'Michael'. The F.U.C.K. club came through and my sister had no expenses whatsoever. The loss of this young man of 19 dealt me a terrible blow and I further distanced myself from almost everyone. Then in late September another accident on a country road claimed my sister's husband's daughter and almost my sister's other child. My mind nearly went crazy as I screamed "is this what I came home for?".

My relationship with Teresa was intensified at Thanksgiving 1996, which is her birthday. We were celebrating her birthday as line when she came up to me and said "I choose you as my birthday gift." Wow….. In the cold of the evening we did the wild thing and I was hooked. We became inseparable, sharing secret kisses on the floor and outside of work. March of 1997 my little sister gave me a 750 Yamaha so I could ride with her and her husband. I fell in love with the road and started going to weekend road trips to some biker shows with them. I drove to Teresa's house every morning at 3am to 'wake' her up for work at 5am. Weather never mattered to us we rode in 20 degree and degrees over 100, it was the freedom of the road that called me. By June the tires on my bike were looking bad and I was going to change them in a couple of weeks when my sister called and told me we were going on a poker run. She said she knew my tires were bad and that I could ride her Harley Softtail, I was thrilled. When I arrived at their house the Harley wouldn't start and not to waste the opportunity to party I took my bike, bad tires and all. We were playing poker from one bar destination to the next and we had just finished our 5th stop and were headed for the party to see who got the best hand. The excitement, the beers and the open road made several of us 'brave' as speeds kept going faster. My status was 'pledged by my sister and her husband' among the motorcycle club I rode with was called the "F.U.C.K." club "Fine Upstanding Citizens of Kansas"., and I was becoming rapidly accepted into full club membership wit my biker name "Einstein". A brother, who was hosting the party, pulled out on a long stretch of road ahead of the pack. While my bike was not near as fast I couldn't resist seeing what my bike would do. As I topped the hill at 105 mph my brother had stopped and was signaling the pack to the left onto a short gravel road to his house. Remember my tires? I hit the brakes and the bike went into an uncontrollable slide. I don't know what speed I was going when I put my foot out to hopefully deflect my brother from the main impact, it was a good decision he wasn't injured and his bike just fell over after the impact. I wasn't so lucky, my bikes right handle bar hit his bikes left handle bar and flipped me in the air landing nearly 180 feet down the road on the pavement. Everything went crazy as I flipped and hit the ground then things went black. I don't know how long I was unconscious before I opened my eyes. My sister was standing in my sight as she screamed "not my brother too" I looked at her and said "I'm fine Steve", a code between us during our phone conversations. I lapsed back into unconsciousness until I woke up signing release papers. I had been in the hospital over 24 hours and endured 2 surgeries to repair my left collar bone and sew my left ear back on, so many stitches and skin missing but I was alive. I had cheated death once more. I was back at work in two weeks with just my arm in a sling.

During the early spring of 1998 Teresa told me she was pregnant and I was overjoyed. The happiness and uncertainty of the future was stunned when on a typical morning in the spring, she suddenly began hemorrhaging profusely and I told her oldest son to get her to the hospital. I stopped at work and told my boss of the situation and I left to follow. We had to rush her to a hospital 45 miles away and it was hard to catch up to them, but I did. A note here that my motorcycle was now upgraded to a Yamaha 1100cc bike that could hold 120 - 130 mph easily and it was pegged for long lengths of road. I could only see her that one time as we admitted her to surgery, but her son said he would call me.

I'll stop here as my life would become far more complicated in the days, weeks and months to follow in 1998.