The Story This is a factual accounting of the life of a son on a fifty two year long journey to find his father and himself. It is the story of a Midwestern middle class family hiding an unwanted interruption of their Shangri La lifestyle. It tells a story of a mother"s love for her son and an attempt to keep the emotional roller coaster she was on from ever influencing her son. The book details how a man who stepped up to the plate, took on the duties of fatherhood for a woman he loved as best he knew how, and how a small town family"s constant search for a better life unravels. Revealing are the attempts to stabilize a family fighting economic conditions, sickness, job insecurities, and family turmoil involving their worst nightmares. It is the story of a son finding out he is without a main player in his life and his emotional struggles and life long search for the truth, where is his father and why did he leave? This all sounds like it happens too often in today"s world, but there is a twist to this story, the truth is found, the main player is found and they give their account of their search for the same. The father who lost his son was shut out of his life and always hoped for the day they would be reunited. This true story, as written by the son, is a journey through dozens of states and cities, through years of misleading information, unwanted questions and untold emotional ups and downs. It is the son´s accounting of how abuse and hiding the truth led to an at best unstable life held together by a career minded drive and the hope of someday understanding the minds that were so uncomfortable in facing the reality of what was created, a son. The story of small town family taboos and how families coped with and ignored cries for help by hiding within themselves. How rather than seek a solution to their struggle, a family tried to do without help and handle it within their own environment. This history of a family was written in a way to protect any and all members and the people they came in contact with; by not using last names. The privacy has always been a way of life and is respected by this member. It is a story that needed to be told for many reasons, though, and I hope it will in some way put others at peace. The peace of trying to understand the way of life in the last half of the twentieth century and how similar situations can have a positive outcome. There have always been the family secrets, the struggles to hold a family together when times get bad, the sons or daughters trying to find who they really are, and what the story of their past has to do with the present. Life changes as do attitudes and ways of dealing with uncomfortable situations. Privacy can only be held in so long before inquisitive minds ask the questions and search for the answers of their life, and this is one such story. It is a haunting and "open book" true life story; the best recollection of a life so tormented and altered, yet driven to find the whole story behind the baby book found in the attic. A story based on wonder and love, questions and brutal facts, lies and the protection of a child from what the uncomfortable facts really were.