I was born in Norfolk VA, to my father John King, a very good Man from the Gulf in FLA who died at sea in Iskenduren Bay, Turkey when He was 24, and i was only 1 1/2 years of age.

And to my mother, a beautiful, lilting-voiced, slip of a little Irish lass with a spitfire's temper and a voice like an angel...and long, shimmering chestnut hair which she let down at night past her chairseat, and brushed 100 strokes per night (sometimes she even let me brush it for her...*s*), then she would braid it to bind up on her head the next morning.

They had been in love from ages 13 and 15 until the day my Father died.

Mom didn't know what to do with herself, widowed at 22 with two toddlers, alone.

My Father had died while trying to salvage a jet fuel tanker that had been sabotaged (He was Damage Control)...I was very small, but, my mother tells me, i was already a terrible Daddy's girl...
*smiles softly*

Mom said everywhere He went i was His shadow, and that He loved it....

When He worked on the car, i was out there following Him around...when He sat down, i was in His lap....and when He went away...

...well...i can still feel what i must have felt then, watching for Him, day by day by day, waiting for Him to return, but He never came back...

After He died, my mother didnt re-marry until i was 5...and then it was to a wonderful Man, Navy Chief Petty Officer Grady Spear from asmall town in GA who married her just as much to take care of my older brother and I.

He told my Mother He was "taking over for a Buddy"....(as they were both Navy men)

True to His word, He loved and cared for us. And i loved Him very much.

They had 5 more kids over the years.

It is important to note also, that out of 7 kids, i was the only brunette, and the only one who was completely unlike all the other 6. I was a female carbon copy of my Dad.....and i even discovered, before i knew of Him, that i loved fishing and woodsy stuff. I started building things from wood, and making little traps and such...and i even discovered Rudyard Kiplingon my own, and read His work, and found later he was a favorite of my father's favorite author.

I had a tumultous and extremely trying childhood after age 12, for reasons that are no longer important.

(*HUGS! and kisses to YOU, Mama!

* ...*happy smile for her...*s*)

I'll skip ahead through Kellam High, my alma mater in my hometown where Mom and Dad moved us when I was 9.

And through TCC where i studied Media Advertising, and eventually married a wonderful Man whom i met through my volunteer stint up at a local bigtime rock radio station.

He was the top-rated Radio Personality there....and was such a sweet and kind Guy....we were married two years after meeting.

We had and lost our first son to Patau's Syndrome caused by using Roundup herbicide at my groundskeepers job, for two weeks, without having been given a mask to filter the air I was breathing.

When I asked for one, after beginning to "taste" the chemicals strongly in my own mouth, I was refused one on the grounds that "Roundup is 'safe'".

I didnt know i was newly pregnant at that time.

A year and a half later, we had Ryan...our big, strapping 12 lb., 3 1/2 oz. baby boy...

a soft aside: "(by Cesearean...there was no other way, believe me! *laughing*)"

We were truly blessed with this child on November 27th, 1982.

By this time, i had gotten into radio by my own path, and was getting quite a nice name in Hampton Roads. I was voted the 2nd best DJ there by the people...and would have been first, but our station, WOFM, Magic92 was only 3,000 watts.

The others were 100,000 watts and more.

Well, now, my stepfather died of scirrhosis of the liver when Ryan was 9 months old, and Jim and i separated a couple of years later...

I stayed in radio, had a farm, my animals...and then, skipping over a couple of years' incidents to this, the arson occured.

And here i am...*s*

Now, if you will bear with me, I will try to answer some of the questions I've received, and also relate some comments and kind words of support I have also been gifted with by many good people out here.