My Life in Forks!

Before I can tell you about my life in Forks, I should probably start with why I moved to Forks to begin with...The year was 1990 somewhere in that time frame, I was 14 years old and at the peak of my pubescent manhood, Mike Tyson had just lost for the first time, and the U.S. was getting ready to go to war with Iraq....I was finishing up the eighth grade of middle school and at that point in my life, I should not have felt like I had lived a full life of disappointment and heartache...I should not have felt like I had no one in my life that really supported me and loved me, or gave a shit whether or not I succeeded or failed in my life....I was tired of the let downs and tears, I was tired of being angry all the time with my step-dad and wondering whether or not he was going to do something stupid to me that day or get into a fist fight with him, and I decided at the young age of 14 years old to end my life by swallowing over a half of bottle of aspirin....Well we both know the attempt was in vain, when I recovered from the physical aftermath of the ordeal, I was very embarrassed of what I had done and I tried telling the doctors and my family that I had overdosed on drugs, I mean that sounded better then trying to "kill yourself" right? My integrity was of course in question and the more they asked me about what happened the angrier I became, it was like that whole ordeal had hardened me to the point where I didn't care about "anything" if I could take that many aspirin and still not kill myself, I was sure that some higher power wanted me to live a life of misery, but I was determined to live it on my own terms, not anyone else's.....

My mom had finally had enough of the fighting and my behaviour and basically told me that she was done with me, and that I was going to live with my dad because she couldn't handle me anymore...I had mixed emotions about this, on one hand I felt abandoned by the one person who I thought was somewhat of an ally in my life, and on the other hand I was excited and curious to possibly live another life somewhere else and finally get to know my dad after so many years away from him....I packed my bags wait "bag" and off I went.....

First stop was at my grandma and grandpa's house in Twin Falls Idaho, it was the summer of 90-91 and I remember laying on the floor of my grandparents house and the video to Bryan Adams "everything I do/ I do it for you" premiered on television, My dad and cousin drove to Idaho to pick me up, we put my bag in the bed of my cousins low rider S-10 and away we went, the three of us packed into the little truck, but I didn't care I was with my dad whom I barely knew and this was a chance at a fresh start and a new life..That thought was short lived as about four hours into the trip my dad starts laying the "Renteria Law's and Guidelines" and lets just say I wasn't happy with them, but I chalked them up to being "just talk" as I didn't want to spoil the moment...

I had been to Aberdeen before and remember thinking that it was out in the middle on no where, but we kept driving West then North up Highway 101 the farther and longer we drove, I remember thinking it possibly cant be any further out here...Damn was I wrong time and time again, when we stopped at Kalaloch ranger station to meet the Butler family I was tired of being on the road but welcomed the sight of Nietra Butler one of the daughters, full of life and smiles with her teeth in braces, her and I hit it off from the start and ended up being great friends through the years...Finally we had made it to Forks my dad tells me don't blink or you'll miss it, I started laughing but quickly saw that he wasn't lying we were going over the bridge on the North end of town in no time, taking the turn onto Whitcomdimmel road for the first time......We pull up to a single wide trailer with a unfinished car port on the front of it, and my dad tells me home sweet home, you need to get some sleep you have a lot of work ahead of you.....

My first week in Forks consisted of a shovel, bucket, wheel barrow, pick, and a 10 foot section of a metal culvert pipe buried in a creek bed under sand and rocks, he told me that my task was to remove enough dirt and rocks from the culvert pipe so that he could get it out of there as it was blocking the creek from flowing normally, now I was no stranger to hard work, but with one kick of my shovel into the sand and rocks, I knew this was an almost impossible task, I tried for about 10 minutes or so, and gave up thinking that my dad would understand when he got back from work that this was an almost impossible task by hand, NOPE I was definitely wrong on that one, let me give you the short and sweet version of what my dad told me....You don't have a choice but to accomplish this task, you will do whatever you have to do to get it done...Okay wait a minute here......This was supposed to be a good change for me, this was supposed to be father and son bonding time, not dad work son like a Hebrew slave till he dies....The rules were killing me "yes sir, no sir" no chewing gum....WTF was I thinking to come here to such a slave driver.......So bright and early the next day after my first encounter with chorizo for breakfast, I was back at it, but I was determined to make a dent in this project today, I was gonna show my dad that I wasn't the "sissy la la" that he had called me, well I chopped, picked, and shoveled my way to alot of progress, so much in fact that my dad was very surprised when he got home from work, so he treated me to dinner at the "Old Gas Station Deli" in Beaver WA...I met the deli crew Margaret, Janie, Fauna, Renae, and Nora.....They welcomed me in with open arms, and I sat down and ate the best food I had ever ate in a restaurant in my life... I wanna say my first meal was the Barbecue beef sandwich, whatever it was, it was enough to practically beg my dad to take me there every chance we got, and as much as him and I knew how to cook, we ate there a lot......

I worked my tail off on that pipe and never quite got all of it, but when it was all said and done, my dad left it there in the ground....I didn't get upset though because I started catching onto his tactics and I knew that "playing the game" would get me a lot farther then rebelling against it, because either way I looked at it, he was going to win....When it came time for school to start, I decided to play football, I figured new start, new school, what could it hurt....You see in Oklahoma football is life there, from the time you can pick up a football, they breed it into the kids, when I was in 7th grade I played football for the first time, and although I started at the beginning of the season at running back I couldn't keep my grades up to be able and play, but I remember how hard I had to work to beat out those other kids who had played since little league, only to ride the bench......So now this was my chance to play again and hopefully keep my grades up this time around....I was an instant star on the field, I can remember practices where I would run the ball and they couldn't tackle me the whole practice, I knew early on that it was going to be a fun season..

Now it was time to start school, man was I nervous I mean this was my first year of high school, I was in a new school, and I was a complete outsider here...I remember looking around the first day and thinking where the hell am I? The twilight zone....People are wearing levi's 501's and starter jackets, and stihl chainsaw hats with their pants cut off at the ankles with dirt and grease all over em....I by no means was raised with a silver spoon in my ass, but these people made me feel like a city slicker, and here I was moving from "Oklahoma" just found it to be a bit ironic..... I think it was my first week at school and a couple of us had walked down the street for lunch and it had just rained, this kid from school "I think Guy Ruble" drove by us in his pickup and swerves into the mud puddle beside us and drenches us in water and mud...I suppose that was our "Freshman welcome to High School gift".....The football season started off great for us, I was going out with a hot cheer leader and basically thought I was king of the hill, that was until the football season ended, and she broke up with me for a senior that was playing in the state playoffs....I was crushed, how could this happen to me, I was "so in love" yeah well that lasted a couple weeks and then it was onto my next of many heart breaks.....

A lot happened while I went to school and lived in forks, a lot of it good, some of it bad, but I make no excuses for any of it....I understand now why a lot of things happened to me the way they did, but I couldn't see it then, I suppose I wasn't meant to...Part of life's trials and tribulations I suppose...Part of life's grand master plan...I have made a lot of mistakes in my life, some of which had haunted me for a long time until about five or six years ago. I realized that regardless of what had happened in my past, that it was exactly that "my past" and I couldn't keep dwelling on it, and holding grudges against other people and myself. As long as I dwelled on it, I wouldn't allow myself to progress in my future, and progress is what life is all about isn't it?

I could tell you countless stories of my experiences in Forks, some good, some bad, none about blood sucking vampires, unless you count that one time????? Nah I wont go there..... but regardless all part of my life....All part of a life that I am so thankful I experienced you see if it wasn't for the move to Forks and everything I encountered to get there, there's no telling where I would be right now...If it wasn't for people like Rachael Bennett who was a huge impact on my life in High school, a woman that encouraged me to excel in school and in life, or Chris and Bryan Fairbanks who always welcomed my dad and I into their house with hugs and smiles, I remember thinking man I want to be the kind of person that these people are, so warm and welcoming, and head over heals in love with each other..Or Ron Smith one of my dads best friends who was always there for me and dad no matter what... Chris and Ron aren't with us anymore, both tragically murdered in the line of duty in seperate events, I hope and pray that they are resting with the angel's....If it wasn't for these people and that part of my life I wouldn't be the person that I have become today...There are too many people really to list that I met back then that had some sord of an impact on me, but I will never forget as long as I live my time that I spent in Forks Washington....

The American War Machine!

I have debated on whether or not to do this blog, simply because of what I do for a living, and the controversy that surrounds this topic. This subject draws alot of anger and questions for me and I just want to say for the record this is my opinion on this matter and in no way reflects the views or opinions of any other group or organization. If you are offended by what I write I'm sorry for that, but I wouldn't write it or talk about it, if I didn't truly believe it in my heart and soul...

9/11 was the start of a lot of events that will forever be remembered in American History. Do you remember what you were doing when you heard about 9/11? I do very vividly, I was working at the Army's joint rotational training center, I was in the field training when the call came over the radio about what was going on, at first I thought it was just part of the training scenario, until the Non Commissioned Officer holding the radio told me that it was in fact a real world situation, we both moved over to a building within the simulated village where they had a television and as soon as I walked through the door, is when the second plane hit the tower. It was a surreal moment for me, I knew instantly that it would be a defining moment for us as a country and for me as a soldier, this couldn't have been a more accurate assessment.

Events spawned from that day

1. War on Terrorism

2. Office of Home Land Security

3. Patriot Act

4. Operation Iraqi Freedom/ enduring freedom "Afghanistan"

5. Invasion of Iraq/ over throwing of Saddam Hussein

It turned out to be a very challenging three years trying to convince young men and women, and the parents of such to join the army and possibly go off to serve in a combat zone to give their life. I had a somewhat successful recruiting tour but only because I was resourceful enough in my recruiting efforts to focus on the right people. One of whom was Roger Garza a young man who had a wife and child and one on the way, They were living on the floor of his aunts apartment when I found him, it was a challenge to get him enlisted but he finally got in and I was there to see him off to basic training with his whole family there crying like he was going off to war, and I was also there to see him off to his duty station in New York where once again his whole family was there to see him off, they were all hugging him and crying, I remember thinking to myself, "what are they crying about he's only going to his duty station"...Shortly after I left recruiting and the army I received a phone call from a friend of mine that Roger had been killed in Afghanistan and had just been buried in Corpus Christi.

George Bush and crew would not be stopped, "America would prevail" but prevail how? how were we going to prevail, what against the weapons of Mass Destruction? or the ramped terrorists networks still planning everyday to attack American interests? I remember hearing of how they recovered the passports of the hijackers from the rubble of the trade towers, the same rubble that burned so hot for 7-9 days after the attack it looked like molten lava from thermal imaging from above. But yet they managed to pull these passports out still in one piece..Oh and these came from the same planes that exploded into a building with majority of the blast visibly seen outside the towers, but yet it was hot enough to melt a steel frame designed to withstand a temperature far more hotter than anything the planes could have produced...

Everyone knows about the two towers that collapsed, does anyone remember the third tower that collapsed? Tower 7 collapsed hours after the first two, It was not damaged from the first two in any way shape or form. In video you can see flames inside the building, and shortly after the building collapsed in demolition fashion with the center of the tower imploding from the center down, now keep in mind that "NO HIGH RISE BUILDING IN THE HISTORY OF THE WORLD HAS EVER BEEN BROUGHT DOWN DUE TO FIRE"...So where am I going with this?, to be honest I know where I am going and I know what I believe, you are free to do with this information all of which has been researched and proven however you choose to do so...

Other peculiar FACTS

1. KBR received the main defense contracts in Iraq and Afghanistan, of which the Vice President Dick Cheney used to be CEO.. They control most of the chow halls here in Iraq and abroad, I know for a fact that every time I go into the chow hall regardless of what I eat or get, KBR receives 20 dollars, with that math alone, 20 dollars per soldier, per meal, per everyday that we have been deployed since 2003. That's alot of money considering what they provide us to eat in some of those chow halls.

2. The white plume of smoke seen below and right of the first world trade center that was struck, where did it come from?, that was the first supposed explosion coming from the plane, where did the plume come from obviously hundreds of meters away, also there were many people that testified to hearing explosions in the parking garage area of the towers minutes before the actual planes struck the towers. However the testimonies were thrown out and considered "irrelevant" considering the events that had just happened.

Now I could write so many other hints or clues towards this issue but I am going to try and keep this as simple as I possibly can.

Now lets talk about the suspects.

1. Asama Bin Laden

2. Saddam Hussein

3. Various other groups that spawn new leaders and members everyday, hence the "war on terror" technically this war could never end for us, under the pretenses that America has set.

If you believe that we cant find Bin Laden with the intelligence resources that we have in America, I feel very sorry for you. I make it a point to have as many conversations with the Iraqi people as I can about the status of this country and whether they think its better now or before when Saddam Hussein was in power. And time and time again I get the same answer, that this country was better off with Saddam Hussein in power, why? Because when he was in power everyone knew who was in charge, there was no question, where they were going to work or get money for food, because he supplied all those things for the people, was he a good man? no probably not, he did alot of horrible things to the Kurdish people, and he ruled with an iron fist, but this was his country, it was being ran the same way that it has been ran for thousands of years and who are we to say it should be ran any differently? Now this country is left with many problems all of which will not be solved any time soon, why? because no one is willing to decide on anything, everyone wants to be in charge and not a follower, they want their religious sects to be the dominant one and they will kill rape and pillage to make that happen, and they will do this long after we have left this country. Iraqi People don't want the U.S, out of Iraq, the U.S. provides money to them, and we provide it with little to no guidelines for receiving it, I have personally been a part of handing out thousands of dollars to people that had no intention of using it for what they said they were going to use it for, and who regulates that? NO ONE.....Why because we don't care what they do with it, its all a show to look like we are helping....

The same people that Saddam Hussein tortured, raped, and murdered, have become the front leaders in the race to rebuild this country, they have a Kurdish man who is the president of this whole country. And the Kurdish people have actually used the money that we have given them to build roads, schools, community projects, airports....The village or city of Habeel just north of where I am looks like a mini San Diego, they have a international airport and it is sprawling with business and growth. Why? because they have never had anything given to them, and now they are being treated as citizens of Iraq and they appreciate everything that they are being afforded and want to make the very most of it, unlike the rest of their fellow Iraqi countrymen and women..

You might say to yourself "Who Cares" about Iraq, lets worry about our own country, well this is very true to an extent, but I can tell you from my own personal point of view, "I Care"...I care that what we have done over here is making a difference, I care that what we have done, will set the stage for future improvements and renovations to be made, why?

Because I want to know that all the blood, sweat, and tears that I have personally been a part of were for something.....I want to know that my friends and fellow comrades died for something beyond personal gain and wealth....I sleep at night, and have gone to sleep many nights knowing that what I do here is for my soldiers, for the soldiers beside me everyday, if I said "forget this" I'm not doing it, then who's going to do it? yes they will fill my shoes or boots, but will the next one in line bring as much to the table as what I can bring? Maybe or Maybe Not.....But I know my reasons, I don't agree with everything we do as a country, but this is the country I was born and raised in, for better or worse, there is a reason that we are the number one country in the world, and it may have nothing to do with equality and Justice, but it never will either, if people don't stand up and fight for what they believe in......

Before I get knee's deep up in here, I want to go on record to say that according to my last psych evaluation I am perfectly sane. This blog is my Halloween blog installment and everything I write in this is the truth to the best of my memory and knowledge....Okay lets do this damn thing...........

Lets go back to the beginning, the year was 1980 "ish" and my mom had just met Rob "a blog for another day" we were living in a trailer park in Centralia Washington at the time, and I remember sitting in the living room of some one's house and watching television, when all of a sudden all of the adults started freaking out in the kitchen, then they went outside and really went crazy when they claimed to see a cross in the sky....Not very sure what happened that night, but I know that was the event that sparked a long chain of events in my life...It scared them enough to pack everything they could get in the truck and leave that night on a journey that would lead us through hells gate "seriously the name" in the middle of one of the worst storms I have ever seen or been a part of, across numerous states before staking claim in Odessa Texas.

We were there briefly while Rob worked in the oil fields and then to Broken Arrow Oklahoma where he claimed "God" had told him we would live and he would go to bible college, now this was a far cry for the burly biker looking of a man who could barely read his own name on a piece of paper. Now I have said all of that to say this, while growing up my mom and step-dad used to go to "prayer meetings" and take me and my sister with them, in these meetings they would cast demons out of people by laying on of hands and speaking in tongues. Now as this all might sound weird and foreign to you imagine being 5 or 6 years old and seeing a grown woman spit and hiss while people are praying for the demon inside of her to come out and shes talking in a weird voice to them saying that she don't want to come out......

I was very young but still vividly remember alot of things that happened back then and lets just say that I am thankful that they happened in my life because they have made me the person that I am today, but I would not wish that type of lifestyle on my children or anyone else's.

Now lets fast forward through the years to my next run in with the weird and unexplainable, this next story takes place in Albany New York, back in 99, I was stationed close to there and a friend of mine invited me along on a ghost hunting trek, he knew that I owned a pair of night vision goggles and he said that I was welcome to come along and help him try to capture a ghost on film, as I was very curious about this subject I jumped at the chance. Now the guy that invited me was named Potts "last name its an army thing" he was getting ready to get out of the army and he was scheduled to attend a paranormal research school so that he could start hunting them full time, now most people thought Potts was a whack job, and for all intensive purposes that was probably true but he was a friend of mine, a great guy, and I wanted to see if there was any truth to any of this...So we packed up my cherokee with the essentials, video camera...check...disposable camera.....check..night vision goggles...check...booze.....check....women.....check.....you see where this is going...So we arrive in Albany and we pull up to this older house in a typical looking middle class neighborhood, when we go to the door two younger women answer the door and stand behind it very guarding like, even though they know Potts.....first weird moment.....Then they invite us in and we sit down and start talking to them, well they preceded to tell us the history on the house and the "beings that dwell there" I'm video taping the conversation and thinking to myself what a couple of whack jobs a few baskets short of a picnic here, they told us that they try and keep the "beings" in the basement but they aren't always successful, but their number one rule was that we could under no circumstances leave the basement door open......Well half way through the interview the girl says oh looky there, there goes the little girl and she points up at the ceiling, Potts points the disposable camera at the part of the ceiling she was pointing at and snaps a picture...We finished the interview, and a few hours later we finished a couple bottles of booze...Well I went out to my cherokee to conduct a free breast exam and when me and the young lady returned later that evening, we went into the house laid down on the living room floor and passed out, early that morning I remember waking in the middle of the night to one of the home owners coming out of her room and yelling " I told you never to come up here, and slammed the basement door, as I was in la la land about that time, I remember thinking "shut the hell up lady" and I rolled over and went back to sleep. The next morning still half drunk and very tired we packed our things and made the long journey back to Watertown N.Y......................The final results......

1. The picture that Potts snapped at the moment she pointed at the ceiling revealed a unexplained light anomaly what is commonly referred to as a "orb" in the paranormal world, and when I asked the man at the photo store what could have caused that he had no explanation other than possibly dust on the lens....

2. I didn't mention that we had set the video camera up in the basement facing a brick wall, and when the woman started yelling in the middle of the night and shouting at the "being/s" you can hear her yelling on the video and then you hear the door slam and foot steps walking down the wooden stairs and shuffle across the dirt floor in front of the camera, now as there was no one in the basement at that time, this was a little "unexplainable"....

Didn't seem like a very productive trip to me, but then again, there is a fine line between what was, and what could have been, and I personally dwell in the latter...

Now here is a list of explainable events that have personally happened to me over the years and a list of the unexplainable...

Explainable

1. Shadows moving across the wall in front of me with no one in the room.

2. Seeing a woman standing in the doorway of a house in a family picture, when everyone was outside in the picture.

3. Having a strange woman tell me on Halloween "welcome Thomas Ive been expecting you" and having my step-dad scoop me up and throw me in the car.

4. Seeing people in a dark room here in Iraq last tour while on guard duty and no one was there right after.

5. Seeing a cougar through my night vision here in Iraq in the middle of Baghdad, saw it jump onto a wall 10 feet in the air and disappear right in front of a guard bunker that no one else saw, now I know the difference between tired disillusions and what I actually saw...

Unexplainable

1. Myself and four other guys hearing a little girl come on a radio here in Iraq and start singing for about 15-20 seconds, on a radio that was turned off, and with no possibility of a little girl being present and the interpreter being one of the guys that heard it, said it wasn't even in the Arabic language..

2. Same night myself and quite a few other guys saw a very large ball of light hover in the air for more than an hour in the same exact spot, with jets and planes circling it, and the ball of light was split off in prisms, and the planes were not even a 1/4 of the size of the light..

Now for my conclusion/theory/hypothesis....

Keep in mind that I am clinically sane....I have saw enough in my life time to know that there are forces out there beyond our explanation, there are numerous theories and explanations on everything, but I can only speak from my personal experiences and what I have learned myself...Now the average person or human being is very interested in these things but doesn't look past what they can watch on Television, hear around a camp fire, or watch on the latest installment of Saw IVVVVVV........So I am going to educate you to a few things here in closing...

1. Most paranormal are seen or witnessed with some type of electronic device ie; cameras, night vision, electronic voice recorders, electro magnetic current indicators, now as much as people don't like the Balloon Boy family, I believe the father is actually onto something with his theory of storm surges carrying a energy field that needs to be researched very heavily....

2. Why is it that we have more paranormal activity or sightings in this day and age than ever before? well lets look at how much we rely on electricity and energy fields these days....Lets look at how storms are growing ever stronger by the year, is it the green house effect or global warming as most believe, or is it the fact that its merely coincidental....You be the judge..

3. Why is it that most people claim to see paranormal in the middle of the night or the early hours of the morning, which past 3 a.m. is commonly referred to as "dead time"? Could it be that there is a correlation between so many people sleeping, and there is some relation to dreaming?

4. The human body is comprised of millions of electrons and atoms...Atoms and electrons have been proven to be constantly moving and infinitely spaced until they are viewed or touched at which point they remain constant and still? The single Atom has also been proven to be in more than one place at the same time, and with the body being comprised of millions of atoms and electrons "negatively" and "positively" charged, why is it impossible to imagine that the human body can do the same thing?

5. Why is it impossible to believe that a parallel universe exists if the very matter we are comprised of can alter itself and be in more than one place at once depending on its consistency and electro magnetic charge?

As I have probably lost you very far back in this blog, if you are still with me here, I personally challenge you to look beyond the normal scope of things on this, and think outside the box so to speak, use what scientific certainties we have and have been tested against what we dont know and understand....I have witnessed enough in my life, to have a passion and desire to educate myself to this, and try in my lifetime to understand not only why we exist as human beings but how....