bipolar Cold War memoir memoir essay rocket rocket scientist

A Kick on the Apogee – by a Rocket Kid

Thinking about being a rocket kid today, growing up in the mushroom shadow of the Cold War and with my father, the bipolar rocket scientist. He used to joke that he blew up rockets for a living. He blew up families, too. But he also created some fantastic art, taught me how to fish and how to be creative, and I still miss the pain-in-the-family factor of his explosive, active, restless, engaging, irritating, fascinating personality.…

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Tales of Weird Families & Other Quirky Groups of Humans

My interest in this kind of story could be defined as obsessive. What can be more obsessive than something you’ve lost or something you feel you never completely had? Novels about families and other groups fascinate me because my family never quite cohered and split apart pretty fast. So I read to replace it with a better family, though my secret wish is to see that all families or groups of closely connected people have…

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The Land of Totuaba

I’m excited that my memoir essay of camping in Baja California with my bipolar rocket scientist father and family is now published online at Halfway Down the Stairs. This issue of the journal has a rich selection of poetry and prose, and I’m honored to have had my story selected. “The Land of Totuaba” is an excerpt from my memoir of an unusual childhood with a father who blew up rockets for a living and…

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