Author Micheal Black

 "Happy Endings and a New Beginning."

  I was born in Southern

California and grew up with a lot of family around me.  At

eight years of age, my family moved to Northern California

to a small town a couple of hours from the Oregon border. 

I lived there with my mother, brother and new step-dad in a

small town with small town values. 

Unfortunately, those

small-town values did not attach themselves to every person

I encountered. Having kept secrets a vast majority of my

life, I now speak openly of the many years I endured sexual

abuse by several different pedophiles, along with my sexual

orientation and the struggles that illuminated because of my

poor choices.  I struggled living two separate lives as I

grew up in a home and church where homosexuality was looked

down upon, and yet I still tried to live my truth.  In an

attempt to cope with the mass confusion festering in my

younger mind, I casually began using street drugs, which led

me to a fourteen -year love affair with those same drugs and

more.