After my grandfather died on March 1, 1994, the peaceful life I had known in Burbank began to change. My grandmother was selling the house, and as a child I had no control over what came next. I was sent to Saint Didacus in Sylmar, where I entered a completely different social and economic environment. Looking back, I believe that transition marked the beginning of a wild and difficult chapter in my life.

Marijuana became a gateway drug in my life, but before that chapter began, I spent much of my childhood in Burbank with my grandmother, Connie, and my step-grandfather, John D. Clement. He was a World War II veteran, Purple Heart recipient, and UCLA graduate who became a father figure in my life. Some of my strongest childhood memories are of our camping trips to Bishop and the afternoons we spent playing baseball together before cancer took his life in 1994.