I was born to John and Anne Taylor in San Jose, CA June 29, 1979 with my umbilical cord wrapped twice around my neck. Due to the simultaneous birth of a child with a cleft lip next door, I was nearly lynched before the doctors noticed. I did not hold this natal throttling against either my mother-- I am that kind of guy.

Papa wasn't a rollin' stone, but a mechanic who refurbished old Mustangs (which he now hates) and, in the late 80s, a handyman at National Semiconductors. Dad was raised in the Silicon Valley when orchards covered the valley like startups (and letdowns) do now. His folks hailed from the old county-- Oklahoma. Dad is a lover of airplanes, NASA and old radio shows and is one of the smartest people I know that never made it through high school.

Mom was born into an Irish/Italian Catholic family with 11 siblings. Grandpa Davis was a professional serviceman in the Air force and Grandma was a herder of children. Mom never made it through high school, but I suspect that navigating childhood in this brood without incidence of cannibalism was achievement enough. Mom was, sporadically, a homemaker, waitress, and cleaning woman. She was an avid consumer of pulp horror and a faithful watcher of PBS, with a risqué sense of humor and a soft heart.

John and Anne met, married and spawned my sister Christine when my mother was 16 back in 1978. It is not clear if the marriage was legal-something to do with controversy over the legality of quickie Reno weddings. Anyway, I came soon after ('79) and my brother Eric ('80). Soon after Eric was born my mother imperiled her immortal soul with a tubal ligation to avoid her mother's fate. And soon after that my mother ran off with us kids to be with my father's uncle Steve. Later, this made family tree assignments a confusing matter. We then moved to Columbia, California.

...TO BE CONTINUED? ...