I recently retired at sixty-seven and watched several people I knew die of drug-related causes in a short period. Combined with my own terminal heart diagnosis, I realized my time was short. I wanted to put my fifty years of stupidity to good use: if this book stops just one person from taking the wrong road, it was worth the pain of writing it.

Yes. Every fight, every dollar spent, every military incident, and every strange encounter happened exactly as written. I spent my whole life refusing to let anyone call me a liar because I always believed you cannot remember a lie. This book is the absolute truth.

Writing about my father was incredibly difficult. He was a monster who ruled our home with absolute fear, but he was also an eccentric genius who predicted inventions decades before they came out. Facing the reality of what he did to our family, and what I block out to this day, took a massive emotional toll.

I realized that until I sat down to write, I did not truly understand what regret meant. Looking at my life on paper forced me to feel the pain and guilt of wasted decades. However, it also helped me realize exactly why God kept me alive through so many accidents: to finally have a real goal.

People look at the drug use and the wild stories, but they sometimes miss the underlying message: I always had a deep compassion for people. Even when I was a broken, addicted maintenance man, I cared for others. That small spark of empathy is what allowed me to eventually turn toward God and start my foundation.