I was born, It's true...

I was not hatched nor beamed to this planet from another world.  Though the later I think would have been really cool if so.  On March the 15th, in the year of 1965, I took my first breath and made my way into the world.  The son of James Douglas Tadlock and Myrtle Fay Brock, I Stephan Douglas Tadlock had arrived.  My mom has told me since that I am probably mix of more races and personality traits that I could possibly want, but none the less I have them.  My father a Texan and mother a Kentucky hillbilly and both of them members of the United States Air Force.. so go figure.. I am a military brat times two.  I was born at Eglin Air Force Base in Fort Walton Beach a small area of Okaloosa County in Florida.  During this time the mentality was mothers could not serve their country and raise a child so my mom was discharged honorably of course but discharged none the less.

To be honest I don't know very much about this period of my life only what I have been told.  My dad was relocated to Langley AFB in Virginia and the tidewater area is where I grew up.   During my toddler years.. my mother was struggling with her own sexual identity and she and my father divorced.  My mother was gay and struggling with what to do.  I of course just the kid played and did what most kids do, without a clue to the events taking place.  At about age 5 my mother remarried to a man name Harold.  She thought perhaps she could change who she was and Harold was more than willing to try.  Harold was a good man, loved his corvettes and me.  So much that he adopted me as his own and James, my biological father disappeared from my life.  But like a fading memory, a part of him always lingered and as I grew older the desire to know him grew as well.

The relationship between my mom and Harold only lasted a couple of years and they divorced.  This was a devastating blow to Harold.  My mom had left him for a woman and to this day I don't think he has gotten over it.  I think he felt very humiliated,  I know that his co-workers at the time gave him a very hard time about it and I imagine it has always stuck with.. something that ate at his ego bit by bit and made him feel like he was not man enough to keep her.  But with all things life moves on and we grow.  The woman my mom had been seeing eventually became a part of the family and so there it was.  For the remainder of my childhood years I would be raised by two women and a weekend father.

There are a lot of positive aspects to being raised by a gay couple.  The biggest was being raised with an open mind.  My mom was non-prejudiced and an active participant in women's lib.   So it was natural that she would teach me these values as well.  But there were their share of negatives..   bringing friends home wasn't easy... it was hard to explain where my dad was and who this other woman in the house was.  These thoughts only came to me after being an adult and looking back.. I lived a secluded life.. I didn't have very many friends in school and I was not very active in school groups.  Though I did play in the band and sang in the choir.. music served more as a release and escape.    My mothers lover did not care for me much,  mostly because she was jealous of me, so I am told years later.  So it was a very difficult childhood.  And a lot of things took place.. many bad.. some good..  But I survived them and am stronger today because them.  If I were to some up growing up.. It was a violent struggle for personal identity and individuality.  And I found both.. but not without a lot of hard work and a desire to really get in touch with my inner self.  I continued through school and in 1982 joined the US Navy for a two year hitch. Anchors away.