The Captain's Story

Greetings. People call me "Captain." But, "Cap" be fine for those in a hurry, tired, or casually-inclined.

Who (and Where)
I'm a passable digital media and Windows tech, half-assed hack multimedia artist, and bad ass cannabis geneticist/breeder originally from Texas. Most of my time is spent in other, more civilized, 420-friendly states as my 40-year dream of a red-hot legal market is finally reality.

Top-shelf seeds, not usable product, is my specialty. I'm free of the taxation, regulation, and testing burdens hammering those dealing with consumable product while standing 100% in compliance with the law. What a feeling!

We look forward to leaving Texas forever and possibly even expatriating. The 420 revolution is global.

But first, thar be bidness to tend to:

Why
My aims here are simple and valid:

- Ensure my father's wishes and legacy are honored.
- Fight for my birthright.
- Document a decidedly unusual life.
- Set the record straight after being hatchet jobbed and taken to the cleaners by The Flozberks.
- Warn people about The Flozberks, especially Neila and Ryan.

There is no way I'm going to let them shit on my Dad's ashes and take more than their fair share of my childhood house without them taking some serious lumps.

That nasty gang of kooks and doormats cannot be allowed to have the last word. They are far too daft and corrupt to be trusted with any narratives. Never, stretching back to my grandmother, have I seen people so dialed into getting things wrong, be it via wrath or just plain ol' lack of attention. This is my father's life we're talking about here.

The truth must be documented or it will die, Flozberk boots on its throat. Not cool. I can't allow that.

OK, Let's GO!
Life was idyllic early, with loving, hard-working parents and a pretty cool family, at least from my kiddie perspective. But, around the third grade, the wheels started to fall off and by the 5th grade I was a 10 year old misanthrope spiraling into a maelstrom of escalating family dysfunction that only now, over 40 years later, offers a light at the end of the greasy tunnel.

In about two years, I devolved from a delightful, intelligent, healthy, slim, popular, well-adjusted, exceptional child to a pitiable, hostile, fat, erratic, criminal, withdrawn, disrespectful, bedwetting, suicidal, fingernail-biting, stuttering, night terror-plagued budding arsonist with a nervous tic. The metamorphosis was stunning.

Yet, I was also a pretty cool kid who was a good student and got along fine with teachers and friends. There was very little conflict with anyone but my parents and idiot half-brother. My road to strife led through Mom, John, and their many sins of commission and omission that had a horrible effect on me I didn't understand until middle age.

Behaviors Likely Best Avoided
Several factors are worth considering, but I find two to stand out:

1) John was prone to holding me underwater in the pool or applying wrestling choke holds until consciousness faded, then backing off and repeating. Mom dismissed my pleas to make him stop after swallowing John's defense that I was a drama queen whining over normal play. She even caught him drowning me and he explained it away as I coughed and gagged next to him. Upon first hearing the term "Teflon Don", I thought of John.

2) Mom made me always fear the bottom was to fall out from under me. After near-fatal health problems, she kept dwelling on it and reminding us how close to the brink she remained. She would try to keep Dad and me in line by regularly reminding us that she had the will to up and "leave anyone, anytime," if rubbed the wrong way. When I frustrated her, she often threatened to summon something called the State School for Boys and have me taken away in a snap.

At a critical point in child development, I felt naked, alone, and afraid. To this day the smell of chlorinated pool water chills me to the bone.

The not-so-funny funny thing is that, then and now, I've seen children who truly are bad, malicious kids, and I was just not them. Not even close, and, again, I did very well with socialization outside home.

Dumbass Sez "Ouchie-Wowchie
In 1980, at age 12, I blew my leg alarmingly close to completely off in a deer hunting accident by idiotically disregarding basic gun safety and climbing a tree with a loaded rifle, causing poor Dad immense trouble and guilt in a misadventure that was 100% my fault. Knee joint demolished and most of the kneecap gone, amputation was on the menu, but a confident young surgeon decided to take a crack at saving it.

After 4 surgeries and a big skin graft, I've been hobbling on the salvage-title limb for 42 years and counting, disabled since the 7th grade. The profound arthritis is very painful, but I still have my leg, so I'm cool - Lisa's beautiful foot massages just wouldn't be the same if one of my hooves was store-bought.

Ultimately, the shooting was a blessing. It changed the context and trajectory of my life and I'm now content with the man that emerged. Suffering indeed builds character and I was in dire need of a reboot.

Idle Hands Are the Devil's Something-or-Other, Perhaps
The disability sure didn't stop me from working - I had a thriving lawn care biz starting at age 9, a job at Safeway before I was old enough to legally work, pizza jobs in high school and college, and tons of work in the family rental property biz.

Much to Mom's dismay, I dropped out of college quite late in the game. The rigors of university life, ongoing lack of desire to be there, constant pain in my leg, and absurd clashes with Mom and The Flozberk Way just took the wind out of my sails as I alternated between excellent grades and crash n' burns.

That turned out fine - I didn't want to immediately go to college to start with and a sweet opportunity in the recording studio biz with friends awaited. Mom, though, herded me into college under great duress even after I starkly showed my adult disaffinity for the classroom by cutting the last third of my final high school senior semester and partying with the bad boys and girls of the area, having a wonderful time I'll always treasure but creating quite the crisis.

Upon realizing I'd had enough after 7 years at 2 universities and a ton of May and summer additions, none of which I wanted, I limped away, exhausted. In Mom's world, if you're not a degreed professional, you're nothin', but I grew to realize that life was not a pursuit of the fulfillment of Mom's wants. It's a shame that obvious realization came so late.

Innyhoo, I slogged though adult life amid the typical ups and downs, but things never quite fell into place. I had one relationship of almost 4 years and another of almost 10, but they were dicey fits engaged for the wrong reasons. The chains of The Flozberk Way influenced my own behavior, making excellent household relationships impossible. The deep, quiet satisfaction that comes with a life well-lived remained elusive.

2001: An Ace Odyssey
In 2000 I shook things up, dissolving my subpar household, and in 2001 Lisa entered the fold and flat-out aced things. At long last, life started to feel right. As a mere GED holder with a tattoo on her hand, Mom largely disregarded her, sometimes rather callously, until her final months of life. Dad grew to love her like a daughter.

At my side for over 25 years, Lisa has the best overall character of any person I've known, with impressive sensibility, sensitivity, work ethic, intelligence, and, in glaring contrast to the women of TIB, a fierce drive to keep evolving as long as she draws breath. The quality of life I have compared to what I've watched other men in my family, downtrodden and marginalized, endure is exquisite and I thank my lucky stars every day for having her.

She, too, is disabled by CRPS/RSD after a senseless 2008 car crash with a terrible driver, woeful misdiagnosis and mismanagement by the Medical Mafia, and, sadly, a tragic final delay in treatment that was largely spawned by The Flozberk Way and cemented by my bitterness and stubbornness.

After being told she was hopeless by three medical networks and advised to get a morphine pump implanted, I refused to swallow that and found relief in 2016 after an eight year trip through the gates of hell. This extremely distinguished gentleman saved Lisa's life, and likely mine, too. She's still disabled, but much better than the catastrophe we faced before - never have I seen anyone suffer so badly.

So, between the two of us, there are just two properly functioning legs. We get by, though. One must.

We embarked on a journey to gradually shed the layers of dysfunction that choked our souls for so very long. Lisa, too, suffered much during her early life. Really, my story is largely a picnic compared to hers.

Low Impact
After the trouble I made with my gun safety failure, I sought to be minimal trouble. Despite being a young party animal with a list of wild experiences that would fill a book, I managed to avoid handcuffs, incurring liability, injuries or damage to others, and unwanted pregnancies while having lot of wild fun in my teens and 20s.

I had one relationship of almost four years, another of almost ten, and then Lisa. We get along and work extremely well together. Life would suck without her.

We've been quite independent during our run. We work hard, build things, fix things, do things, and try to make every scrap of resource count. For 12 years, I drove the hell out of a rusted-out 1989 4Runner, "Whitey." I got her for a whopping $120, got her running, drove home from Houston in an audacious, impossible death march, then put another $700 and a week of work into what turned out to be the most reliable ride I've ever had.

In those 12 years, not once did Whitey let me down. She had no AC in blistering Texas, but hey, the windows worked fine, I avoided the hottest part of the day, and I was able to sidestep a massive, long, typical expense burden. Now replaced by a newer 4Runner, I'll sell her soon for much more than I paid.

Open Wide and Say "WTF?!?!?"
I had no medical or dental care for almost 20 years as The Istanbul Bunch ran wild on my parents' coffers to the tune of many hundreds of thousands of dollars. My father would be standing in line monthly to pay the bloated mortgage of my idiot half-brother, another man's child, as I learned field medicine and holistic health to keep rolling. Medical insurance for my idiot half sister and her slacker family were paid by Mom as I futilely stood in line at a community clinic among crackheads and tuberculic illegal aliens.

Maybe it's just me, but I could swear I'm seeing bit of a disparity here.

The two times I needed Mom most, I got thrown to the dogs and hung out to dry. Never will I truly understand this and nothing has ever made me more sad. She really was in many ways a good mother. I just don't get it.

Meet the New Boss
After Mom died in 2015, Dad became the boss. Wary of and weary from decades of Flozberk turmoil, idiocy, and failure, he made me his point man and took measures to mitigate the reign of terror that rendered him and me second class (solid) citizens surrounded by overprivileged loons.

Capital idea, but boy howdy, did it ever cause a lot of trouble.

And, here we are.

Return to Prologue

So, Who in the Hell Are You?