| I was born on a hot summer morning in | | | | seven we were surprised to find a pizza delivery |
| Minneapolis, MN. Six months later I was adopted. I | | | | man at our door. "Some woman ordered it," he |
| grew up in a working-class neighborhood in south | | | | said. It was Clint. Later he started to run afoul of |
| Minneapolis, just a few blocks away from the | | | | the law by stealing hubcaps and escalated to |
| Mississippi River and Lake Street. Evie was born | | | | frequent trips to the Anoka County Jail. He finally |
| 23 months later and grew up in the "poor section" | | | | was sentenced to a community corrections |
| of the Washburn High School district. Our fathers | | | | program, where they forced him to attend school |
| were middle-class workers, my Dad with the | | | | and finish his high school degree. Since then he has |
| Minneapolis Gas Company, and hers as an | | | | worked in any number of jobs, including owning |
| inspector with the City of Minneapolis. My Mom | | | | and running his own businesses, and has added |
| was a full-time homemaker, hers, a working mom | | | | numerous certificates for car and computer |
| doing part-time bookkeeping during the war. We | | | | repair, as well as a low-voltage electrician license. |
| each have an adoptive sibling, Evie a brother, Jim. | | | | Besides being unlike us in interests, he is also |
| I have a sister, Mary.At some time early in my | | | | unlike us politically. He is a hard-core Republican |
| life my parents told me I was adopted. I didn't | | | | and we are life-long Democrats.Our daughter |
| understand what that meant and didn't think much | | | | Katie is totally unlike him, and us. She is bright, |
| about it. I could never understand why some kids | | | | sweet and artistic. Like Clint, she hated school. An |
| laughed at me when they found out. One even | | | | undiagnosed ear infection caused hearing problems |
| called me a bastard. I just shrugged my shoulders | | | | during the crucial language development stage. Her |
| and walked away. For me, being adopted was | | | | speech is fine, but she has difficulty understanding |
| just a fact of life.Unfortunately for my sister, it | | | | figurative language. She also was diagnosed as |
| wasn't. She learned when she was seven and it | | | | learning disabled, but not at a severe enough |
| destroyed her. I asked my parents why they | | | | degree to require Special Education classes. (To |
| hadn't told her and they said that she wasn't | | | | me, this always sounded like having only one leg, |
| ready to find out. I never was able to understand | | | | but not being eligible for services because you |
| why I was ready to know at three and she | | | | didn't limp badly enough.) Her academic problems |
| wasn't at seven.Evie learned early on and | | | | were compensated by her artistic gifts. She is a |
| fantasized that she was the lost daughter of a | | | | very talented writer and keeps a diary. Once, |
| princess. Her parents regularly read her The | | | | when little, she described an extended trip to |
| Chosen Child, which dealt with adoption. We both | | | | northern Minnesota. "We drove and we drove and |
| led normal lives, but I had a strange experience | | | | we drove." She also won an award for a statue |
| when I was four-years-old. I was told from the | | | | she made in a school art's class. She also has high |
| beginning that no one knew who my other | | | | moral standards, and went through her teens |
| mother was. But one day I came in from playing | | | | drug and tobacco-free. We couldn't be more |
| and found her crying. "your other mother died," | | | | proud of her. After she finishes a course in |
| she said. How could she have known if nobody | | | | aesthesiology she intends to become a make-up |
| knew who she was I wondered. I still wonder to | | | | artist. We're sure she'll do a wonderful job. |
| this day, but I did find out that my birth-mother | | | | Like us, she's an animal lover. She graciously is |
| wasn't as anonymous as I was led to believe. | | | | leaving two dogs for us to care for.In short, being |
| More of that in Part II.Evie and I lived through the | | | | adopted doesn't seem to have been such a big |
| 'Forties and 'Fifties and graduated from High | | | | thing for our family. As we grew up, Evie and I |
| School. Evie went to Washburn and I attended | | | | would have liked to know more about family |
| Minnehaha Academy, then went on to college. | | | | health issues. That problem has been solved |
| Evie went to Hamline University and the | | | | because we both have found our birth-families. |
| University of Minnesota. I graduated from the | | | | Neither of us have had abandonment issues, or at |
| University with a three-year break with the Army | | | | least not conscious ones, and I don't think Katie or |
| after my Freshman year. We met in 1966 and | | | | Clint do either. Since we have met out |
| married in 1967. In 1973 our son Clint came | | | | birth-families, it has been nice to know people who |
| along.Clint was healthy and happy, but definitely | | | | look like us. Our children seem to be comfortable |
| like neither of us. He shares our facility with | | | | that they are adopted, and we can always think |
| language, speaking full sentences at 9 months and | | | | that the really good things about them are due to |
| able to carry on adult conversations from the age | | | | their upbringing, and the things we don't like, to |
| of seven. But while Evie and I have trouble | | | | heredity.The discovery of our birth families is told |
| changing a lightbulb, Clint is literally a mechanical | | | | in Part II.John Anderson is very anxious to learn |
| genius, scoring at the 9999th percentile in an | | | | of adoption experiences/issues and invites you to |
| mechanical aptitude test. From the beginning he | | | | contact him at He is the author of a |
| was fascinated with cars. I've always liked them, | | | | mystery-thriller, The Cellini Masterpiece, written |
| but I didn't have to have one next to me on my | | | | under the pen name of Raymond John. If you |
| pillow when I went to sleep. His intelligence has | | | | would like to read the first chapter of the book, it |
| worked against him. Bored in school, he began to | | | | is available at the above web-site. |
| get in trouble from an early age. When he was | | | | |