I come from a background of divorce and grit. My young mother, with dreams bigger than her reality, married a much older man. He was an airline pilot in Cuba, his third marriage, and I’d be the last of his many kids. He was 64 when I was born, my mother in her early thirties. The man was tired, worn out. They divorced when I was three, in New Jersey. Immigrants, scraping by with hard work and blue-collar jobs. My father took whatever work he could find, mostly driving trucks. The communists in Cuba had torpedoed any real chances for future success in the United States. My two brothers and I ended up on public assistance. Then my mother started dating another man, and that’s when the real chaos began. Drugs and alcohol stormed into our lives, ushering in years of domestic violence, drama, and constant moving. New schools, new roach-infested apartments every six months. One day, a neighbor had a garage sale. We couldn’t afford much, but my eyes lit up when I saw a trunk full of draw...
On a road trip back home. I stopped in at a Northern Florida Orange stand/convenience store. Walking around this store where I could have bought a gator back scratcher or a huge pecan log (yummy) tasting wonderful grapefruit meandering through the aisles. I was stopped by this crazy display; hundred of alligator heads!! My first thought was of the slaughter house for this. The image continues to be visceral in my mind and yet there they were with beautiful sunlight coming through this window. They seemed ha ha almost happy to be there!!! I tried to convey that with my choice of colors.
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