Any good story, I think… should start at the beginning. What though, is my beginning? Which parts are most important to share? Which ones show who I am? This is a difficult question to answer. So I will start from the beginning:
I was born in Caribou Maine, at a hospital my parents both worked at, Cary Medical Center. To really get an idea of what and where Caribou is, picture a small town or tiny city. It is technically a city, though the population is small, perhaps eight to ten thousand people. At the time of my birth, in 1984 (ironic) it was nearing the end of its former economic strength. Caribou, and the surrounding towns, the County around it. Mills and factories shutting down, even the old Loring Airforce base that so many relied on, shut down in the 90s, because we were living… back then, in what many called a great era of peace.
I don’t recall the day I was born. My first cries, or anything else about that. My earliest memory is of being in a large tent with my parents, my Father carrying me on his shoulders.. I was perhaps two years old. This was a tent full of life. People singing and clapping, a man playing a banjo. Bowls of chicken noodle soup all around a large table. Perhaps it is fitting that this is my first memory, one of happiness, of generosity, of shared warmth and cheer. I think back on it often, even as the memory grows more fuzzy over time.
In any case, this isn’t intended as a full autobiography. I was born, I lived, this is where. I had a relatively normal early childhood, for the time and place. The traditional nuclear family. Two older sisters, April and Katie, Elizabeth, our youngest sister, was born in 1990. I was happy as a small child, I think. I loved playing, I loved fun, it was what I lived for. What, perhaps, even at forty-one, I still live for. There are some things that came shortly after that I won’t get into here. That’s not what this story is for. It is to give you, the reader, a view of who I am.
Some time in the second grade, I began to struggle with things that it would take me decades to come to understand, even modestly. Anxiety, depression, conditions of the mind that were poorly understood, that lived in a place of deep social taboo. While I had friends who I had played with, my sisters and parents at home, I became an introvert in public. Someone who would spend recess watching cars in the street, or reading a book, often something by Mark Twain or J.R.R Tolkien.
I was, I suppose, weird to other children. Though I loved to play, I did not play much in the open, out among the public, at school or elsewhere. My mind was lost in daydreams, in imagination, in books I had read. In thinking about things that few people probably thought about at that age. As a result, I became very familiar with bullying, and not all of it was from other students and children. Some times, it was from teachers, who may have had good intentions, but didn’t understand my inner music.
At home, I was very different. I was more of a regular kid. Playing video games, fighting with my sisters, riding bikes, getting into trouble. The public me was distant, aloof, deeply introverted. The private me had a lot more fun.
This was my beginning. There is so much more I could share, but I think this paints the early picture. This was my life until I became a teenager. Then things got… hmm, more interesting. That’s what I’ll write about next.
Showing you my how and my why, who I became, who I am.. is important for the parts of the story that come next. I want to tell it all.
Thank you for reading.
David Flagg — 2/16/2026