Born by accident (aren’t we all?) in Fremont, Ohio, while my parents were visiting my grandmother, while they, in turn, lived in an apartment on E. 36th Street with (according to my mother, who was not an entirely reliable narrator of stories) with a monkey of some kind (who ended up living in the car after I was born because it semi-feral and was prone to biting) next door to a family of poor Appalachian white folk. My mother recounts that the little boy from that family was fascinated by me as well as by the fact my folks added milk to breakfast cereal since he had only ever had it with tap water.
To be continued…