Early Days
John was born 1992 in Dallas, Texas. Leslie stayed home with him until he was two years old, when he went into daycare. In 1996, I got a job at Austin Public Library. We moved to New Braunfels temporarily while we looked for a place to live in Austin. In 1997, my mother decided to sell the ancestral Prather house in Austin, built by my maternal Grandfather with help of an uncle for my parents in 1945. Leslie and I bought it. John was about 5 and his sister Anna was 9 when we moved into 4801 Woodview Avenue.
John's Uncle Mike lets John test the weight of his latest catch. Mike was one of my two brothers, He lived in Burnet Texas and was a dedicated hunter and fisherman.
Dallas/visiting Gordon and Gayle in College Station/John and a beloved snail
During the period when John was growing up we had four cats: Leeloo (sleeping with John), Max, Chang (drinking from toilet) and Callie (not shown).
Cub Scout
2003 (Middle School)
Somebody's Birthday
John and Brian
John and Patrick
At cabin in New Mexico
2004 (Middle School)
Christmas with Anna
Doing fireworks
All my fault. John is wearing an authentic recreation of a Wavy Gravy peace symbol.
Wall of John's room 2005
2005 (Middle School)
John with our new dog Spek
John became a Boy Scout around 2003. Here we see some of the ragtag members of Troop 49: Stuart, John, Matthew, Willie, James.
Little Creatures
Blanca the hamster, the first of many pets, most of whom his parents inherited at some point.
Hermit crabs
A guy down the street was catching lots of crayfish. John recieved a couple as pets. They were always escaping captivity and the entire household would go into Red Alert to find them. One finally disappeared completely and was found as a dried out exoskeleton many months later under the couch.
In 2007, John's sister Anna left for college, and John got the "big bedroom" and entered McCallum High School. McCallum was a Fine Arts magnet school and John joined the Classical Guitar Program.
We don't have a lot of pictures of John from his High School period. Most are photos of Classical Guitar Ensemble performances where he is just a head in the back row. Here's a couple where, though in the back, he's clearly pictured:
Left, guitar field trip to San Francisco (2008), below left photo ironically named Happy Family by John (2007), right: John goes to party as the King (2006, end of Middle School!)
The Emperor of All Maladies Comes to Call
Just after New Year's Day of 2009, John was diagnosed with testicular cancer. He underwent an orchidectomy for the testicle that had the tumor, followed by several months of chemotherapy in the late Spring and Summer. Because the cancer had spread to his lymph nodes and did not respond to the initial chemotherapy, it was intensified, so that it had to be carried out in the hospital. He underwent a total of 3 chemotherapies and was starting a fourth in July when it was discontinued because specialists at Indiana University Cancer Center recommended surgery to remove the lymph nodes.
In September 2009, we headed to Indianapolis for the surgery. John requested we visit the Creation Museum on the way to Indiana. Here are two pictures of our visit:
The surgery was completely successful although it involved a painful reccovery. The only good thing about this type of cancer is that it almost never re-occurs. But there is no doubt that the experience did some unhappy things to John's psyche. His mother wanted him to get some post-cancer therapy, but he refused. But it was clear he was suffering some almost PTSD-like symptoms. It was hard to know if it was because of the cancer experience, or because he was growing away from us. It was over and he just wanted to get on with his life.
In May of the "Cancer Year", John got a pet rabbit named Bunz.
I inherited Bunz when John went to Oregon. Bunz lived with us another 6 years, before a neighbor's dog got into our yard and killed him.
In December 2009
we made a trip into East Texas
to find the legendary farmhouse
where William S. Burroughs lived in the 1940s.
With friends after the cancer treatments were complete.