I was born in Tempe, Arizona on November 14, 1961, at about 3:14 AM. Mom had a long and difficult delivery. Mom and dad were only passing through New Mexico and Arizona for two reasons.
One was it was the last part of the racing season for dad and he still had a few more races to do. The second reason was mom wanted to see her family on the Jiccuilla Apache Reservation, it was then that I decided it was time to make my grand entrance.
Mom had a long difficult time carrying me because I was so big inside her. For reasons unknown, the doctor had her carry me one month longer when she did not go into labor at 9 months. The doctor at the Tempe Hospital kept trying to deliver me the normal way until my head got stuck in her pelvis. The doctor tried to pull me out with forceps, fracturing both sides of my skull near my ears. It had unknowingly, at the time, caused partial deafness in both ears.
They finally delivered me by C-Section with my umbilical cord wrapped around my neck about 4 times, causing me to be blue-black from lack of oxygen. They placed my on oxygen as soon as possible and soon my color returned. Boy, was I a big one. No wonder I gave them a hard time. I came out measuring 29 inches long and weighed 9 pounds, 13 ounces.
The doctor told mom and dad that I would be very lucky to live past 3 years old. Mom looked at the doctor. She told him “wrong, he won’t be lucky. He will live past 3 years of age and longer!”
Soon the racing season was over for dad. Mom and I were out of the hospital, staying with grandma and grandpa on the reservation. Mom was recovering very well. The medicineman came and did some kind of ceremony over me; Dad says it was a blessing and mom said it was a special healing. So I never learned what it was.
After about a month later, before Christmas, we were soon headed home. Dad was driving an old pickup, towing a trailer that had his racing car on it. We had a long drive ahead of us, because we lived in Hell’s Kitchen in New York.
We lived up on the top floor of what was called “railroad apartments." Most of these apartments are small, but mom and dad rented several of them and the landlord connected up the apartments with some small remodeling work.
The normal apartment back the 1960’s were a 4-room apartment that was rented for about thirty-eight dollars a month, gas and utilities not included and payments were due in cash.
We had 24 rooms, from 6 connected apartments. Our rent was supposed to be $190.00 a month but mom and dad pays about $20.00 a month. It was because some of my brothers worked for the owner in exchange for the lower rent.
When we arrived home, my brothers and sisters were waiting with a little welcome home party. Half the neighborhood was there giving a block Bar-B-Que. Boy was mom and dad surprised. I was number 14 of 7 brothers and 6 sisters.
Different fathers, same mother. Yes, we were a large family. At this time, no one planned on one more child but that is later. I am getting a little ahead of myself here.
John F. Kennedy was our United States President when I was born. Vietnam was born earlier. Many, many things were going on in 1961. In 1962, mom became pregnant again, and when dad found out, dad left one night and never came back.
 On October 17, 1962, mom gave birth to another boy. She named him Dale. After a number of difficulties giving birth to Dale, that some almost killed her, mom had her tubes tied. Dale was not as big as I was, but he was 8 pounds 11 ounces and 25 inches long. He was number 15 and the last. I now have 8 brothers and 6 sisters, Wow!
President Kennedy was in office when I was born, and he was assassinated in November of 1962, a little over a month after Dale was born. My family and the nation grieve the loss of a great President when he died in Dallas, Texas.
Let me introduce you to my brothers and sisters, starting with the first one born all the way to Dale. Ruby is the first born in 1943. Ann was born in 1944. Dawnelle and Tammy, twins, were born in 1946. Thomas was born in 1947. Timothy, born in 1949. Larry was born in 1950. JoAnn was born in 1952. James and Charles, twins were born in 1953. Douglas was born in 1955. Betty was born in 1957. Michael was born in 1959.
I was born in 1961. Dale was born in 1962. Mom was born in 1926. She was 17 years old when she had her first child. Dad was born in 1922. He was 30 years old when I was born.
He was not the father of any of my older brothers and sisters, only Dale and me. In 1963, mom filed for divorce from dad for abandonment and it was granted later in 1964. I was 3 years old when the divorce was granted and also when it was discovered that I was born half-deaf in both ears.
Life in Hell’s Kitchen, a part of a Manhattan area of New York was never easy for anyone. Hell's Kitchen was located in a mid-Manhattan neighborhood.  It was bordered with West 35th street on one side, all the way to West 56th Street border. The Hudson River was on one side as a border, and the other by the Broadway Theater district.
Hell’s Kitchen is governed with a strict structured code of behavior and an unwritten set of rules that could be and would be physically enforced. There was a government that trickled down from the local members of both the Irish and Italian mobs.
As well to a loosely formed gathering of Puerto Rican number runners, loan sharks to small groups of organized gangs recruited to do a variety of jobs, ranging from collections to picking up stolen goods.
All the youngsters were at the bottom of the totem pole, free to roam the streets and play games. On occasions, young kids would be recruited for the simplest tasks. Most of them involving money drop offs and pick up.
So many things were happening in the 1960’s, wild and tragic for many in the United States, like the Vietnam War, all the Vietnam War Protests, the killing of a President. Students were being killed on the campus of Kent State University in Ohio. We also had the assassination of Senator Robert F. Kennedy, and Martin Luther King Jr. Attempted assassination of Governor George Wallace that left him paralyzed when he was shot in the spine. Actress Marilyn Monroe, who was a very beautiful woman, was found dead of a drug overdose.
Many cities were burning down to the ground. The summer of love was set to bloom big time. Drugs would go beyond the junkie. The country was on a fast-ticking bomb, ready to blow wide open.
The kids of Hell’s Kitchen, my brothers and sisters and friends did not really understand what was happening. We were not distracted about what was happening in the world. All we had to worry about was comic books, baseball cards, bubblegum, and finding a fire hydrant to turn on to play in on a hot summer day.
We all played sewer to sewer stick ball, with sawed off broom handles or mop handles for bats and parked cars as foul lines. We played eighteen-box bottlecap tournaments, where a cap is filled with melted wax, was hit by hand into a numbered square marked by chalk.
We also played Johnny on the Rope, Stoopball, Dodgeball, Knock Hockey, and corner pennies and marbles. We worried about how to sneak in to see a new movie or how to pinch a free meal.
It was in 1967 that Thomas and Michael decided that it was time to begin our training in Martial Arts. It was because of all the upheavals in the United States. We needed to learn self-defense, self-protection and discipline. We began our training in Karate and Tae Kwon Do.
One of the good things about us being such a large family is that we watched out for each other. Where we lived, the floor had two other small families living there and we were good friends with them.
We had only one bathroom to be shared by all of us. Mom really hated it but always thanked God for a roof over our head and food on the table.
It was far better then what was available elsewhere, and it was the only one she could rent for $20.00 a month. She worked 2 jobs for all our clothes, food, medical and education.
Our daily routine consisted of scheduled showers, if you snooze, you lose. In the morning, we let our mom and sisters get the bathroom first. We boys went out the bedroom window, up the fire escape, onto the roof where we peed over the edge of the roof. The people below would open their umbrellas and others running, thinking it is raining.
Mom really tried to raise us by the Bible, something she really believed in and did the best she could when she was home. She kept looking for better paying jobs so she could work one job instead of two jobs, and a better home.
Meanwhile she let Hell’s Kitchen be our baby-sitter. Despite the harshness of life in Hell’s Kitchen. It offered the children growing up on its streets a firm giant safety net, greatly enjoyed by few other neighborhoods.
Many of the things we did included an endless series of adventures, games, limited only by wild imagination and physical strength. There were no boundaries to what could be attempted. No barricade placed on the quest for fun and laughter.
While many were the horrors we witnessed, our lives were also filled with joy and love; enough joy and love to fend off the madness around us.
There never was any curfew to worry about. There was not any danger of being kidnapped off the sidewalk in the neighborhood we lived in by a stranger or be shot at randomly by drive-by shooters.
Parents knew that as long as we stayed within Hell’s Kitchen that we all would be very safe from any harm beyond those of normal street fights and sports injuries.
There were always eyes everywhere, people always watching everyone. If you were a stranger, then those eyes are all on you, watching your every move, until someone checks you out. That neighborhood was like a huge guard dog trained to attack a very mean guard dog with a temper.
Crimes against anyone in the neighborhood simply were not tolerated and so on rare occasions they did occur. The punishments that followed were severe and in some cases were final.
This did not apply to kids who shoplifted or stole food. The elderly living in our neighborhood was to be helped and greatly respected, not hurt.
Gangs were not allowed to recruit anyone who did not wish to join, but sometimes it does happen. Drug use was frowned upon, and the addicts were tolerated, pointed out as “on the nod," losers to be avoided at all cost.
During the beginning of our training, Dale and me started real well, we were fast learners, I was 6 years old and I was tall. I had the height of that of a 9 or 10 year old. Dale was tall for his age. At 5 years old, he had the height of a 7-year-old.
We also began target shooting with small pistols, like a.22 pistol. We kept going until we could hit bulls' eye with the .22, then we started over with a.38 Buntline Special.
It was found that I seemed a natural with the.38 pistol, hitting bulls-eye and moving targets. So that started me on rifles starting with the.22 rifle and working my way up.
Dale was doing very well with his weapons. He was staying right there behind me in the training. Before long we were both good with a 30.06 rifle and the.38 pistol. The other guns were too hard to use so those will have to wait.
There was no danger in Hell’s Kitchen, everyone knew everything about everybody and everybody could be counted on. Secrets lived and died on the streets.
The neighborhood was an area populated with a blend of the Irish, Italian, Puerto Ricans and East European laborers, like Germans, Polish and Russians, hard men living hard lives, often by their own design. Many worked as construction workers who built tall skyscrapers and other dangerous jobs.
My family was one of the few odd one’s of Hell’s Kitchen. We were half-breeds. Dale and I were half-German, half-Apache. Dad’s part of the family line is from the Dutch German side.
Mom was a full-blooded Apache. My other brothers and sisters had different fathers, some were half-Polish, half-Apache, some half Irish and some half Italian, Mom was a tall woman for an Apache, she stood 5 foot 10.
My brothers and I wore long hair, down past the middle of our backs. Mine was down to the bottom of my back, longer than my sisters were as well. We all were taller than our ages. Our Indian blood allowed us to be in the sun longer than most people, getting a real dark complexion.
My older brothers were working for the “Boss” of Hell’s Kitchen. He is the one who made the strict structured code of behavior and an unwritten set of rules that everyone lived by. My family was always favored by many in the neighborhood and respected.
Hell’s Kitchen always had a “Boss and the Boss” ran Hell’s Kitchen. He is the King of Hell’s Kitchen, what he says is “Law," no if, ands or buts. Nothing ever happens in the neighborhood without the “Boss” knowing of it or is part of it.
There was always work to be had in the neighborhood and the ages of the employees were never a serious consideration. All the better paying jobs were illegal.
Our neighborhood was where the fathers were late with the rent or behind a loan shark payment or simply walked away like our dad did.
The kids went for the easy money, dropping off paper bags of money at the local police precinct house or picking up the numbers at the end of the day. Usually the “Boss” is the one who hires the kids and he is the one who enforces the rules and laws of Hell’s Kitchen.
It was said that Thomas, Timothy and Larry worked for the “Boss” as enforcers, but truth be known, they only worked as bodyguards, Protecting the “Boss." Others in the neighborhood were the enforcers.
The “Boss” is Mr. Gordon. Those of us, who were younger, ages 8 to 12 did simple jobs such as pick ups and drops offs. It was Mr. Gordon who provided a hidden shooting range and the guns for us to train with.
We were also training with bow and arrows, later with crossbows and compound bows. I became a sharpshooter with the bow and arrow and soon Dale became as good as I was.
 Many of our neighbors felt that Mr. Gordon was training us for his own personal army but that was just not the truth.
Despite the often-violent wags of its inhabitants, Hell’s Kitchen was one of New York’s safest neighborhoods. Outsider’s walked its streets without fear.
Young couples would walk the Westside piers without fear. Old men could take their grandchildren for walks in the DeWitt Clinton Park, never once looking over their shoulders.
Dale and I felt Mr. Gordon had a crush on mom, she was a very beautiful woman, who turned heads everywhere she went. Mr. Gordon was always doing us all favors and provided legal and illegal jobs for all of us.
Mr. Gordon really liked us kids, every birthday any of us had; he provided the biggest birthday parties and got us whatever we wanted. Thanksgiving was always a big affair for Mr. Gordon. He went out of his way to cook us the biggest Thanksgiving dinner with everything you could imagine. It was so big we would share with our friends from all over the neighborhood.
Christmas time, he was the Santa Clause for all of us, with gifts of toys, games, clothes, shoes, food, furniture, whatever we needed each year.
He even paid for the latest hearing aids for me. I hated the hearing aids. It was a big box that you can place in a shirt pocket or in a special chest harness with wires going up to the earpieces in my ears. They were so cumbersome.
Mr. Gordon saw how good Dale and I were with the bow and arrow. He would send us to competitions in different towns and states to enter the contests with our bow and arrows.
After a few competitions we began to win and eventually won 2 championships, one apiece over a 2-year period, even beating an adult champion.
Our training continued and our skills grew each passing year. Thomas was making plans for us to go to out to our reservation in the New Mexico-Arizona area to train in fighting with knives, defending unarmed against knives, throwing knives and hatchets.
We were also to be taught how to survive anywhere, anyplace and anytime, as well as learning to hunt, fish, camping, tracking, and all the basic outdoor surviving skills.
We would also learn to ride horses, with saddles and bareback. This would be done when we were a little older.
All of my older brothers and sisters had gone through the same training that Dale and I were doing as they were growing up so now it was only Dale and myself left to train.
Hell’s Kitchen is a place of innocence, mixed with corruption. There were no drive-by shootings or senseless murders. The men who carried guns in the neighborhood knew of their power and did not abuse the power.
The drug of choice here was heroin, and the hard-core addicts numbered a handful, most of them were young and docile, feeding their habits with cash handouts when they begged and by petty stealing.
The addicts bought their drugs from outside the neighborhood since dealers were run out of the neighborhood because they are not welcomed in Hell’s Kitchen. Those who ignored the verbal warnings paid with their lives.    
One of the few most graphic images I have seen from my childhood in Hell’s Kitchen. It was of when Dale and I were standing on the corner with other kids and some adults, under a street light on a cold rainy night.
We were looking up at the face of a dead man, hanging from a rope around his neck. His face swollen, his hands were tied. He was a drug dealer who tried to move heroin in Hell’s Kitchen.
A packet of the heroin had killed the 12-year-old son of a Puerto Rican number runner. He had found it and stuck it in his mouth to eat, like the packs of sugar in the restaurants and cafes that we ate the same way. It was the last packet the dealer ever lost or sold to anyone. Justice in Hell’s Kitchen is swift and harsh with no Judge, Jury or Attorney.
It was in 1967, against Mom’s fears; Dale and me headed to New Mexico with Thomas and Timothy to continue our training on the reservation. Our Training started in January 1967 and went to the end of fall and while we were gone from Hell’s Kitchen, we kept up our education with home schooling.
During the summers of 1967 and 1968, the mood of America plunged straight into madness. Race riots had already rocked 127 cities across America, killing 77 people and putting more than 4,000 others into area hospitals and neither side seemed ready to give up the battle.
The moods among the Native Americans were that of confusion, fear, anger and restlessness. It would not take much to bring the Native Americans into the race riots. Tension was high all over America.
The nine months that we were there constituted to our training. Once we were done on the reservation, it was time to return home to Hell’s Kitchen. Once we were home, it was school and more training.
Our training went for years, not knowing that before I was 18 years old, many, many things will happen in my life that the training helped me survive and cost us so much.
It was now wintertime again, in which we spent our free time riding sleds that we made from cardboard boxes and wooden crates.
We would ride down the icy slopes of 11th and 12th Avenue. We would ice skate. We would also have snow ball wars with the neighborhood kids. We would build the biggest and strongest snow fort for the snow ball wars. We would make snowman, igloos, snow angels and all kinds of stuff.
In the spring and summer, we usually played stickball, eighteen-box bottlecap tournaments, johnny on the pony, Stoopball, Dodgeball, corner pennies, knock hockey, and play in the fire hydrants on hot days. In the fall, we usually played roller hockey, ashcan football.
In August, we would build homemade go-carts for the Labor Day Go-Cart racing. Boy did we build some pretty wild go-carts, including one out of wood and foam materials, help together with wire, tape and bubblegum, lots of bubblegum.
Each has a 4-man team, one driver and three pushers. It would start at 50th Street and 10th Avenue and covered four side streets and two avenues, coming to a finish at the 12th Avenue end of the Westside Highway. The winner wins fifteen dollars from the local loan shark who sponsors the races each year.