Semper Fi: Without Compromise

Families are like snowflakes, in that no two are exactly alike. Each individual has a part to play on the stage of family drama, and those characters can be so different and yet so much alike as they share that clan identity. An individual can change the name or wear a mask, and move away to seek obscurity or fashion some other identity on near or distant frontiers or foreign shores, to dwell among strangers. Fame and fortune are calling, and for some a hermit's life is more attractive. The American traditions of love and romance, marriage and creation of another family institution have conventional conservative designs, but occasionally there is the unorthodox merger of opposites or the union of similar spirits in a compatible but unconventional connubial design. Children are born and grow up in these milieus to inaugurate their own family dramas, taking with them into those relationships all the features that genetics, nature and nurture have provided to equip them for assuming their place to play their part in the drama of human life in the American family tradition. This story is about one of those resulting families of unconventional design.