Let's not start at the very beginning. Let's start smack dab in the middle with the girl who was the turning point. Her name was Debbie. She was big as in tall, big-boned, big breasted, big voiced, big eyed and big in personality. She spoke her mind and carried herself with a self-assured authority which belied her level of education. I took to her right away. She came into my life at the time when another relationship was ending, my marital relationship, and I was facing a lot of firsts. It is difficult to put into words how it feels, even now, as I recall the approach of those firsts - the first birthday, Fourth of July, Thanksgiving, Christmas, New Year's and Easter as not a family. The loss is more than the tragedy of the way things are, it is the trauma of losing what had come before. Things like the Thanksgivings when my Mom and Dad came to visit our family in our single story four bedroom rambler on a third acre in my favorite Sou...