How it all happened; who, what, when, where and why:

In 1954 a baby was born 2 a.m., February 3rd, in a relatively obscure hospital called St, Johns. In the near middle of Texas it was cold. The boy swears he can remember going from glorious serenity in his mother June's  belly, to the sheer terror of the stainless steel antiseptic brightness of the rude new world. It was a feeling never quite forgotten. Yet he was born of loving caring folk in a most unusual upbringing. His father's old fashioned drugstore was to be a favorite playground for him and his brother, Paul. In the corner of an eight story hotel called the Angelus adjacent to the county courthouse they played to their heart's content; up and down the wooden staircase, a basement lift rising to the sidewalk, New York garment district style for the delivery boy,  the basement with the giant safe, the myriad bottles of this and that, many with skull and crossbones on the label, along with the store itself upstairs, booths for the "fountain" customers, rotating stools at the counter, blue mirrored glass everywhere it seemed; yes, this was a special place indeed. They had room to roam in the old hotel as well. In "the store," his family's term of endearment then and after the move across the street next to West Texas' Neiman Marcus, a department store called Hemphill Wells, a certain enchantment never diminished for the store over the years. His first birthday was there, and he can remember it. His first paying job was there, tending the fountain at age 11. Then he was delivery boy, driving the WWII jeep all over town, 2-way radio always on to connect to his father. But the biggest impact was the overarching philosophy that our drugstore, the store, could cure any and all ills. There was a pill for everything. (Much more about this to come.) Living on the lake was an adventure, an enchanted environ to grow up with brother Paul.  Regardless where though, I was insecure, self conscious, scared of imaginary threats and always wondering? Why am I really here? Never, until 1996, did I know there were meds to help with this profound depression. Till then, it was self medicating, beating a dead hose, as it were. Discovering pharmaceutical  panaceas such as cocaine hydrochloride in the store only exacerbated things, temporary relief at best, a decades long recurring problem unsolved until the late 90s. Thank God, solved it was, in the most dramatic means possible.