Situational code-switching

When I was about 24, I started using my middle name (the first name of my father who actually preferred to be called Rod) Rodger. The reason is immaterial for this conversation. What it allowed me to do w/o a struggle was to keep my lives separate to a far deeper extent than I or anyone else noticed. It went so deep that when I played with my friends' kids I would say "come to uncle Greg" (I really wish I had been able to be an uncle for Ky and Chantal, I will try with great nieces and nephews - that was one of my jokes when Ky and Chantal had kids - I am not just an uncle, I am a great uncle). I was a wonderful uncle to the local kids; we would roughhouse, I would use them like nun-chuks, fly them in circles, tumble down hills with them. So the original code-switch was - if I am uncle Greg, we have a different conversation than if I am Rodger. It was a way to allow them (and me) to know what language we would be speaking.

In the following vignettes you will see me as Rodger - Rodger and Uncle Greg are the same person and both will show up but Rodger is also not uncle Greg. Uncle Greg would not have survived a night of drinking and doing acid at a biker gang's prospect party - but to be honest, Uncle Greg did have a run-in with a biker gang over an ex-girlfriend (a story for another time) - my very first girlfriend with whom I had sex, sicced a biker gang on me. Her biker boyfriend was pissed because she was pregnant with my kid but he had to face her parents.

There is a website for people who want to reach out; they are often in pain, have no idea of where to turn or how to make a change. The conversations are limited; they are locked closed to further comment after 6 weeks. The following is a compilation of my confessions and my responses to the confessions of others - the first attempt at this was TL:DR so I am breaking it into more manageable bits.

Some backstory: in 1967 I was the first student at Eastern Montana College to have their dorm room raided for pot; I was just leaving my dorm room (with a lid in my pocket) when the police knocked on the door. "We have reports of you possessing marijuana" I stepped out of the room and said "there is no pot in my room". They sat me in a chair and proceeded to take my room apart looking for pot - they found a bottle of Everclear. I was sweating big-time since the pot was in my pocket but they never searched me (pot was still 5-10 year hard-time state felony.). I joined the Marine Corps the summer of '68 for reasons that are still not clear to me. Long story short, I was honorably discharged for medical reasons in December '69 but not before I had my first taste of acid.

The first 3 years after I got out of the USMC, are very confusing to me. I have a lot of difficulty getting the events organized in a time sequence. These were some of the most important years of my life and how I would develop - I may spend some time trying to put those years in perspective. But it is late and time for bed.

I keep wanting to go back and add more detail like taking karate classes from a Korean instructor from 1966 to 68 (though I was never really any good, it gave me a lot of confidence and a certain grace when I walked). At the time it was OkinawaTe but it is called Taekwondo now.

 I suppose I could go on and on and on as I keep triggering new, random memories.