complexion — and there it was, this deep, unspoken connection between us. She was maybe 15 at the time, and I was 20.

Norman, on the other hand, was more of a challenge. I knew he hated and resented me from the first moment we met. He really resembled Frank far more than I did, with his thick chestnut hair and piercing blue eyes. My hair was dark brown, same as Patti’s, and I had hazel eyes like hers. My mother and Collette had similar coloring, so I guess Norman took more of his genetic profile from Frank than his mother, and Patti took more of the Grummons side from her father, as I did. Either way, while Patti welcomed me warmly, Norman was coolly cordial at best.

By this time I was pretty much formed; and so, being my mother's youngest and raised in that environment, and being my father's oldest and being introduced to that environment for the first time, I was genuinely confused about my role in my father's family — or even if had one. Say what you will about genetics and nature, they’re really no substitute for the day-to-day contact of

parents and siblings. So it was natural that Norman would see me as a threat. I had no such illusions about my other half-brother.

I was almost out of my mother’s home and almost ready for the world. I had run away once and left home once. I would come back to finish high school and party with my friends and have a deliriously happy finale to my teen years. I visited with my Dad and his family twice before I left them for good. I would fail as a folk musician, join the navy, see Europe, and come back in 1978 to find Patti married and living in Utah with her husband and young son; reconciling with Norman, who turned out to be a pretty decent fellow, all things considered; and visiting my father for the last time.

I was married by then, and my father made this great impression on my new bride, wearing a patch over one eye (a medical condition) and wearing a bright, colorful naked lady tee-shirt over his stout frame. My first wife was a pretty good sport and grew quite fond of the old lecher; and being the pot-smoking ex-sailor that I was, I wasn’t all that embarrassed or surprised. He had his vodka, and I had my pot.