William Albert Ketchum

Given up for adoption at birth and adopted at a week old, learning this about myself and the realization that my sister (senior by five years and thirteen days) and my closest first cousins were also adopted irrevocably shaped my life and attitudes. Very close to my mother and estranged from my father even to his death 1/1/89, I had to step up to the role of man of the family at age nine when father's alcoholism became too much for mom to bear and she packed up stuff for herself, sis, and myself and left only to return home because she had no plans/ideas as to what to do. Father was a functional Dr. Jekyll/Mr. Hyde alcoholic and no one outside the family truly knew the extent of his addiction. He is the reason why I have never had a drop in my life and never will. I will give him his due, though, in that he had 16-17 years of sobriety when he died and helped innumerable others through his dedication to AA.
Graduated Noblesville High School mid-term in January 1981, married my high school sweetheart, had three children with her by 3/9/87, and divorced in August 1995. Have another 'child' from my second marriage, my other son David with whom I am very close, and am currently married to my fourth and last wife, Elizabeth Ann.
Marriage two lasted 11 months, three lasted 13 months, and married Liz 3/20/2008.
And the reason I chose to list my DOB as 10/18/1989 along with going retro for my per name is that W.A.K. is my birth name and October 18 is when I survived a semi-truck wreck in Morgantown, WVa that should have killed me, led to the end of my first marriage, and changed/refocussed my life into what it has been since walking out of that wreckage and the wreck my life had become to that point.
Just like every new birth, though, this one was experienced with quite a bit of pain in regards to all the senses, but mostly to my common sense - being the least common of the senses. The hardest loss to bear from this rebirth was the closeness and love I always shared with