LITERALLY GROWING UP August 2002

There comes a time in your life when everyone around you seems a little more happier or sadder. This time came to me around my mid-twenties. I suddenly realized that I had a better life than most people and I have a worse life than other people. I take for granted the many great things I do have and forget what others suffer from not having. Everyone has a plan in their life. We can always make the best of what is handed to us and hope for great results. Unfortunately, most of my younger adult life was a bunch of “I don’t knows” or asking and thinking so many questions about life in general. Our purpose just may be a life-long photographer, a beautiful model, a father of the church, a serial killer and so on. Whatever it may be, everyone can all grow from each other and prosper from another human being. For me, I learned I could get my toilet fixed from the plumber, my hair done nice from the barber, my soul enriched from the father, a nice picture from the photographer and so on. In my life, I share struggles, pains, hardships, sharing moments, gift of giving and magical moments.
I was born June 26, 1974 in a small town called Toppenish, WA. I grew up a half hour away from Toppenish in Yakima where I learned that life is what you put into it. Yes, I was born on a reservation. Not in the classical sense one would picture though. Yakamas are scattered throughout the reservation and not living just in clutters of fifty houses all together. Instead, we scatter. A house is typically three or four acres away. There was the fifty houses all built together by the HUD housing though. Since the Yakamas maintained control of pretty much most of the land in the county, there was of course a scattered variation. In my case, I lived in the country area where there was a big hill-like mountains surrounding the entire Yakima City.
A pear tree was right behind us, forty acres of dead land in front of us and to the right. On the right there was much more than forty acres of land. Our neighborhood farmers grew some type of brush good for the cows and horses to eat. My family lived at the very end of 62nd Ave. Towards the end of the Avenue the cement roads would turn into dirt roads. Yakima had it’s fair share of all four seasons. During spring, snow gradually melted, sun got a little warmer, animals returned from the deep woods, stressful seasons were over and 4x4’s became less popular. Summer as a kid was the best. Mom would let us run through the sprinklers, swim in the pool we had for ages, take us to the canal and even take us on some camping trips way in the mountains. In the fall, school started up again, leaves of every color would fall from the trees, mornings got colder, yard sales gradually ended for the year and walks got shorter. When it snowed, there were times of no school, sledding on the inter tube up the road, hours of watching snowflakes, making angels, snow fights, blackouts and warming up to snuggly heat.