If Life's A Highway...

I was born on November 25, 1964 in Jacksonville, Florida. I was the oldest son of Robert Marvin Kirkwood and Rita Annette
Kirkwood. As far as childhood goes, I would say I had a good one. My family wasn’t rich and we didn’t live in a big house, but I can’t remember ever really going without something I needed. My mom and dad took me to church every Sunday and Wednesday and taught me early on the difference between right and wrong. I’ll admit sometimes I learned it the hard way, but
then what kid hasn’t? One of the most terrifying phrases a kid can hear is “Just wait until your father gets home.” Sometimes I would want to say to my mom, “Why don’t you just kill me now and save dad the trouble?” Anyway, they did their best to teach me right and for the most part I tried to follow it.

My neighborhood was quiet and most of the time uneventful. It was one of those neighborhoods where the kids play outside
until after dark, and the parents really don’t worry about them too much. I wish the neighborhoods were like that today! Usually if I
wasn’t playing football in someone’s front yard, I was racing bikes up and down the street or playing cops and robbers with my friends. Speaking of racing bikes, anyone who is familiar with Evel Knievel knows what an impact he had on little boys all around the world. I was one of those kids who thought jumping over things on my bike was the coolest thing in the world. After a few crashes and injuries, I decided the daredevil career wasn’t for me after all. If you asked my mom, she would have said I was going to be a preacher someday. When I was very young, I would sit all of my stuffed animals in the audience and preach to them just like Billy Graham did on television. But you won’t ever see Billy Graham going out into the audience and dragging people down the aisle to get saved. That is what I would do with my stuffed animals. When I gave the invitation and they didn’t come down front, I went and got them. So I guess that’s where my mom got the idea I was going to be a preacher. But I actually began to have my eye on a different career. I liked to play cops and robbers and I always wanted to be the cop. Taking the bad guys to jail was what I liked the most. As I got older, I would watch all the cop shows and dream of the day when I could wear that uniform and drive that police car. I think even back then, God was preparing me for what He had planned.

One of the other things I liked to do as a child was visit my next door neighbor, Mrs. Melgren. I would go over to her house
and sit with her for hours playing Parcheesi. She was like my adopted grandmother. She would buy my brother and me candy
and pretty much spoil us. Even after I left Jacksonville, anytime I came home to visit, I would always make a stop at Mrs. Melgren’s house. She was always so nice and the times I spent with her will always be one of my favorite childhood memories.

My grandpa and grandma Flurry were also a big part of my childhood. They lived in a small community in southern
Mississippi called Daisy Vestry. This is where my mom was born and raised. It’s also where I developed my love of the outdoors
and the country way of life. They had about 80 acres of land with a creek running through it, and it was my favorite place in the
whole world! I was always so jealous of my cousins who lived there, because they got to enjoy it every day. I would only get to
go visit Grandpa and Grandma about once a year. But when I was there, it was like heaven!

My grandpa had an old, red Massey Ferguson tractor I loved to play on. I would sit in the seat and pretend I was plowing the
field. Or I would sit in the driver’s seat of his green Ford pickup truck and pretend I was driving around town. My grandpa taught
me about fishing and enjoying the country, and he never seemed to be in a hurry to get anywhere or do anything. He liked to joke
a lot too. If we were out fishing on the creek and I wasn’t catching anything, he would say it was because I wasn’t holding
my mouth right. One night he told all of us kids a scary story about the cemetery out by the church. The next day he asked if I
wanted to help him mow the grass around the church and the cemetery, and I said no. When he asked me why not, I said I
remembered that story and I wasn’t going near that cemetery. He laughed like that was the funniest thing he’d ever heard. My
grandpa had a great sense of humor and I don’t think I remember him ever getting mad about anything. Not even the time we sank his boat in the middle of the creek. My mom, my brother, my girlfriend Joni (now my wife) and I took Grandpa’s aluminum boat out on the creek. Joni had never been to Mississippi and was not what you would call a country girl. My mom was running the motor and my brother was sitting in the front of the boat. Joni and I were sitting in the middle of the boat and everything was going great. But then water started coming over the front of the boat. The next thing we know, the boat stops and sinks to the bottom of the creek. The creek was not very deep at this spot and the water didn’t come up to our waists. My mom was trying to get the motor off of the boat, while my brother and I were trying to keep everything else in the boat from floating away. Joni, bless her heart, was standing in the middle of the boat, which was sitting on the bottom of the creek, screaming. We finally convinced her to get out of the boat and walk toward the sand bar. After we salvaged everything and got the boat back to the landing, we told Grandpa what happened. He just laughed about it and thought it was so funny. To this day, I haven’t been able to get Joni to go back on the creek in a boat.

My grandma Flurry was one of the best grandmas a kid could ever ask for. I loved visiting her and spending time with her. She
always took time for all of her grand kids and she made a visit to her house something you couldn’t wait for. She had a big garden
out behind her house and I would help her pick the peas and beans. Then we’d sit on the front porch and shell them so she
could fix them for supper. If we went fishing and came home with some fish, she would cook them and serve them with all of those black-eyed peas and butter beans from her garden. Then she would have sugar cookies for dessert. Let me tell you, no store ever made sugar cookies as good as Grandma’s! She gave me the recipe, but I have never been able to follow it and make those cookies like she did. But Grandma gave more than just good food. She gave love, wisdom and a helping hand to anyone who needed it. She and Grandpa proved how folks are supposed to treat one another and how God expects us to live. Don’t get me wrong. I’m not saying they were perfect. But they passed along to their kids the values and morals that this country was originally founded on. My mom passed them down to me and I’ve tried to pass them on to my kids and grand kids as well.

My grandpa and grandma Flurry are gone now. I miss them so much and not a day goes by that I don’t think about them or
wish I could have one more day with them. After I had gotten married and joined the Air Force, my grandpa got really sick and
was in the hospital. I was on leave before going to Korea and I went to see him. He didn’t look like the grandpa I remembered
from all those trips to his house. He was frail and on oxygen, and I knew he wouldn’t be around much longer. Just before I left the
hospital, I gave him a hug and told him I would see him when I got back from Korea. But as I walked out of that room, the tears
began running down my face because I knew I wouldn’t see him again until I saw him in heaven. My grandpa passed away in 1992 while I was in Korea. I still have the card my co-workers signed along with the newspaper clipping about Grandpa’s funeral and a picture of him and Grandma. I carry it in my Bible all the time.

My grandma passed away in April of 2011. I didn’t see her before she died, because she had gotten to the point of not
always knowing who people were. My brother and I and our cousins were the pall bearers at her funeral. It was held at Red
Creek Union Baptist Church in Daisy Vestry. That’s the church Grandma went to all of her life. I couldn’t sit through the funeral
without crying and even now, my eyes are watering up as I’m writing this. After the funeral, my brother and I cried together and
couldn’t believe she was really gone. It seemed Mississippi would never be the same without her. It’s been almost a year and I
haven’t been back to Grandma’s house yet. Even though she’s gone, I will always consider it as her house. Some of the pictures
and things she had in her house are now in my house. It’s kind of like having a small piece of Mississippi here. I think Grandma
would be proud to see the things that were special to her are special to me too.

I wasn’t as close to my grandpa and grandma Kirkwood even though they lived across town from us. I don’t have very many
memories of my grandma because she passed away in 1980 when I was 15 years old. The thing I remember most is my dad crying at her funeral. I had never really seen my dad cry and to see him like that was a shock to me. I didn’t have a very good relationship with my dad when I was growing up and I spent most of my childhood being afraid of him. To see him crying because he had just lost his mom made him seem more human to me. It was as if he was not just my dad, but someone who could feel hurt just like me.

I didn’t really develop a closer relationship with my grandpa Kirkwood until I was older. I visited him whenever I went back to
Jacksonville and got to sit and talk to him several times before he passed away. My mom and dad told me Grandpa got saved and had started going to church. When I was stationed in Homestead, Florida, my mom called me one day and said Grandpa was sick and in the hospital. She said I needed to come back to Jacksonville as soon as I could, because she didn’t know how much longer Grandpa would be alive. I called my commander and got authorization for leave and we left for Jacksonville. It’s a pretty long drive from one end of Florida to the other, and I was determined to make it in time to say good bye to Grandpa. I seem
to recall at one time driving well over the speed limit trying to get there. When I finally arrived at the hospital, my mom and dad told me Grandpa had died forty-five minutes before I got there. I was devastated and felt so guilty I can’t even describe it. It took me a long time to get over the guilt from that and realize there was nothing I could have done any differently. At least I have the
assurance that one day I will see Grandpa in heaven and we’ll never have to worry about saying goodbye.

I can’t finish this chapter without talking about something every guy can relate to: my first car. But before I describe it, just
let me say it wasn’t a Mustang, Camaro or any other type of hot rod that all teenagers dream about. My first car was a dark blue,
two-door, 1972 Toyota Corona. It might not have been the coolest car in the world, but it was mine! I drove that car around
town like it was a brand new Ferrari. But soon, its age started to show and things started to fall apart. For example, the
transmission went out and the car would not go into reverse. To back up, I had to put it in neutral, put my foot out the door and
push it with my foot. But that didn’t last long, because one day on the way home from work, I got into an accident. It wasn’t my
fault! I was sitting in traffic minding my own business when I became the middle car in a five-car pileup. When it was all over,
my beautiful, blue Toyota looked like an accordion. After that car, I went through a Subaru, a Chevrolet Malibu and finally a 1976
Ford Mustang. At last I got a cool car! I kept the Mustang until I got married and then I sold it before I left for the Air Force.
These days I’m more of a pick-up truck kind of guy. But I will never forget my first car.

I could go into a lot more detail about my childhood, but like I said before, there are some things I don’t mind sharing and
others …well, not so much. But I’m sure some of my family members would love to break out the pictures of me wearing my
shorts too short, or my hair cut, which, while it may not have been a mullet, was pretty close. Or some of my school pictures which show my cow lick and two front teeth which made me look like Bugs Bunny. Knowing that I looked and acted like the world’s biggest dork will make you wonder what my wife ever saw in me. Maybe she saw a diamond in the rough in there somewhere. If you ask me, she’s probably still looking for it, but that’s for another chapter.
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