It is possible to be thankful every moment, every
day. It is possible to be thankful every moment,
every day. It is possible to be thankful every
moment, every day. It is possible to be thankful
every moment, every day. It is possible to be
thankful every moment, every day. It is possible
to be thankful every moment, every day. It is
possible to be thankful every moment, every day.
It is possible to be thankful every moment, every
day. And I love listening to stories from people's
childhood, which also helped me understand who
those people are. Tell Me What Happened is sponsored
by Sideline Ink Publishing, publishers of quality
books, including Susan Salador's children's book,
I've Got Peace in My Fingers, available worldwide
wherever quality books are sold. Tell Me What
Happened is also sponsored by laughsaver .com.
Visit LaughSaver .com and record your laughter.
LaughSaver .com will keep it for you, now and
forever. Your family will appreciate it. It's
free and it's easy to use. That's LaughSaver
.com. Today I'm fortunate to have as my guest
Roy Huff, an award -winning, best -selling science
fiction author. Roy is Hawaii -based. He's also
a research scientist and a teacher. He has worked
on projects for NASA's Gozar Proving Ground and
has written numerous science fiction bestsellers,
including his latest, Seven Rules of Time Travel.
Roy is also the author of the Everhill science
fiction series. Thanks, Roy, for coming on to
Tell Me What Happened. I look forward to hearing
your story, although I know it deals with a great
deal of family pain. Thank you. It's a pleasure
to be here. Well, I'm thrilled to have you. I
love the idea of listening to an author tell
us a story about their childhood. I teach high
school English classes and they love to hear
stories from real writers. So I'm looking forward
to hearing your story. Are you ready to tell
it, Roy? Yes, I am. All right, I'm going to stay
out of it. I'm going to mute myself. I'll try
not to interrupt. The microphone is all yours,
Roy. Thank you. Well, I have quite a long story
and I could probably talk about a lot of different
aspects of my life. And I think they kind of
go together, a lot of them. One of the biggest
events that happened in my life was when I found
out that my father was HIV positive. I was in
the eighth grade. And like a lot of things that
happened to me in my life, just because of the
traumatic events and the challenges that I've
had at the time, it didn't seem that big of a
deal. I mean, it's kind of like, is this really
happening? or kind of like denial. And a lot
of things that happened in my life just seemed
so matter of fact because I was used to those
kinds of crazy things happening. I was born in
Virginia, but my family moved to Kentucky. So
for the first six years of my life, I lived in
rural Kentucky in the Hills in a trailer park
and it was rundown trailer park. I remember times
in the winter, we had a big hole in the bathroom
and air would come in and we'd get really cold
in the winter time. And one time the trailer
park, the trailer, itself caught on fire had
some kind of electrical fire and then we went
out and we waited for it to stop and then when
it stopped we went back inside and like oh okay
I guess we're fine so that was the kind of thing
that I was used to growing up and at the time
my father had been in the military but he suffered
from bipolar disorder as did many of the people
in my family my grandfather also some other close
family members that I don't want to talk about
because they're alive today but mental illness
has plagued and continues to plague my family
so it's something that's very close to my heart
and it's on my mind frequently but my father
suffered from both polar disorder and he was
also a gay man and he was in the military at
the time and he eventually was let go because
they couldn't find him a position and I'm assuming
that's code for they didn't want him because
he was gay. and or because they recognized that
he had some type of mental deficit. I don't know
which one it is, so I can't really say, but it
was clear to me that that's most likely what
happened. He actually switched from one branch
to another. I think, if my memory serves correct,
he was in the Navy and the Army. But that's why
we had moved from Norfolk, Virginia, was born
in Portsmouth, to Kentucky, because I believe
he was stationed around Fort Knox. So we had
that going on and my parents eventually My mother
found out that he was gay. And I remember the
last memory that I had of him before graduation
was when I was four and he stopped by and I was
kind of half asleep. And I said, was dad here?
And then my mother said, yeah, he was here. I
said, why didn't you wake me up? I just, I have
that memory. And then I remember eating a bowl
of split pea soup. So like split pea soup is
just something that comes with me. Like whenever
I see split pea soup in the grocery store, kind
of want to get it and it's just a memory that
I have that I associate with my dad and I always
kind of idolized him and had this positive emotion
about him which is very different than a lot
of the people near where I grew up. After we
moved, eventually we moved to Charlotte, North
Carolina when I was six years old and a lot of
people had resentment for their fathers not being
there but I had other challenges. growing up,
other physical abuse with other people. And so
I just wanted to get out of the situation I was
in. And so it was easy to kind of have an idealized
version of my father. And I didn't know that
he had a mental illness until later on. I don't
know exactly. I don't remember exactly when I
found out that he had a mental illness, but it
was I think was sometime in middle school or
early high school that I found out. And so as
I was growing up, I didn't have as much resentment.
for him being gone because I understood that
he had a disorder and so that contributed to
the reason and then I found really early on that
he was gay. I got in an argument with my mother
and I think I was like seven or eight years old
and I said I'm gonna go live with my dad and
then she said you don't want to do that because
he's gay and I just I just like I didn't know
know what what to think I was just dumbfounded
I just I knew knew what it meant kind of, but
it was just such a kind of a shocking and just
unbelievable thing. And I didn't understand it
completely. I wasn't angry with him. I didn't
understand why that would be that much of an
issue, but I was just, wow, okay. And it didn't
really come up later until when I was in eighth
grade and we started getting social security
checks. And I said, why are we getting social
security checks? and I guess because at the time
it was a fatal illness and so we were we were
getting Social Security checks and so that I
found out he was HIV positive and so I was surprised
and we didn't know where he was for a lot of
the time my mother said that he had moved to
San Francisco and there were the rumors that
he had been using heroin or IV drug so he was
in at least to my knowledge a couple of high
-risk groups and this was early mid 80s And so
I thought I was in eighth grade. So this was,
this was around 1989. And so for my entire high
school, I had this knowledge that my father was
dying of AIDS because back then, you know, there,
it was a death sentence, you know, there was
medicine you could take, but it, you know, was
it, it wasn't as good as it is today. And so
I knew at some point he would pass away, but
there were times, you know, growing up. And at
first, people weren't aware of my father's situation.
And I think eventually I did start telling people,
and nobody really talked about it. But I remember
one time I was in my history and English teacher's
class, and she taught both classes. And she was
having a discussion about HIV AIDS. And she said
that she didn't understand why they didn't just
put all of them on an island. And I was just,
I was just so upset because didn't feel like
it was fair. And I, you know, I also knew at
the time that it's not spread by that kind of
casual contact. And even at the time, I mean,
it was pretty common knowledge. It was difficult
to catch. And so I was a little frustrated and
upset. And so, you know, this, this kind of bothered
me, but I, you know, I grew up in a very religious
home. I grew up in a mixed race home. I grew
up a lot of things that caused a lot of conflict,
you know, in different areas and based on different
things. And the church that I went to was very
strict and imagining what kind of challenges,
you know, my father had to face growing up because
he didn't graduate high school despite the fact
that he performed very well. And I'm imagining,
I asked my mother why he didn't graduate and
he was a senior. He made it all the way to senior
year. He was doing very well. And I didn't get
the exact reason why he didn't graduate. But
seeing how the illness has affected other people
in my family, I'm pretty sure that it was related
to some type of manic episode. But I can just
imagine what he was going through, combined with
the fact that he was a gay man, you know, the
challenges that he had to go through. And his
mental illness made it difficult because I've
seen how this illness can ravage someone's life
and how you have a job and you can't hold down
a job. You lose a job and it gets harder to get
another job and then you burn through your connections
and your social network and people start to distance
themselves from you and you end up in a cycle
where you're either in jail or in the hospital
or on the street and it's really heartbreaking.
It's like you have to go through the five stages
of grief. over and over and over again and getting
people to accept that they have that kind of
illness is challenging and so you get victimized
twice once by the illness and then once by the
people in your network who don't either believe
or don't understand what you have to do because
sometimes when you're with someone who has a
mental illness it's kind of like living in an
abusive relationship somebody can actually become
physically abusive and as much as you want to
help them you have to physically distance yourself
from them not just for yourself but for them
also and you want to reach out to them but you
have to do it in a responsible way and in a way
that they're receptive to so you have to be aware
of these social cues that they're giving off
so that you can kind of read where they're at
to see what kind of response you can give them
but normal people people that are a little bit
distant from the situation, they don't understand
this. And the people with the mental illness,
depending upon the severity of it, and I've seen
it across the spectrum, they can lash out at
people that are closest to them, the people that
are trying to help them the most. And that's
just the way that the illness can manifest at
times. So the people that are there trying to
help them the most, they get hurt the most. And
a lot of times for their own sanity, they have
to withdraw and they have to distance themselves.
And that can be heartbreak. I've just been in
situations where I have to do that but I have
to bring myself back in. So I've mentioned it
as like a parallel to almost like losing a loved
one but like not even losing a loved one but
having someone in your life who's gone missing
because you can't actually achieve that final
stage of acceptance because you don't know. So
I can only imagine what he was going through.
He had to go through that. And he had to go through
the fact that he was a gay man. And this wasn't
the 60s, but it still was not as accepting as
it is today. I just, I can't imagine what he
was going through. And so I never faulted him
for not being there. I understood that he was
gay. I understood that he had a mental illness.
And so I couldn't hold it against him. I didn't
hold it against him. And in fact, it probably
allowed me to think of him, you know, through
kind of a rose. colored haze to kind of have
a positive view on on him and so I always wanted
to talk with him and to develop a relationship
if I could at some point in the future. I saw
him again at my graduation, so we were able to
get in contact a little bit, and I was able to
develop a little bit of a relationship with him,
but between the time I graduated and when I was
21 when he passed away, his illness started to
eat away at him. And eventually he died, the
cause of death was malnutrition. So did he commit
suicide or was it wasting from AIDS, HIV, or
a combination of both? He was in multiple high
-risk groups for suicide, and it's quite possible
that that's what happened, that he did kill himself.
And so I'm dealing with this now. Growing up,
I didn't even have a full handle on the devastation
that this can have, because I was not suffering
from that type of illness. I... was a very optimistic
and positive person, and I still am today. So
I was able to set aside a lot of the problems,
the poverty that I had, because I did believe
in a positive future. You know, I was a trackie,
you know. I, you know, it was Star Trek, the
next generation. That was my thing. And, you
know, I was looking a couple hundred years into
the future and seeing all of the great advances
that we had technologically. And I had no doubt
I was going to do great things, you know, when
I grew up. Yeah, you know, I wanted to be a meteorologist.
I remember when I was four years old I saw a
TV weatherman give the weather and then I went
outside and I started knocking on all the trailer
park doors telling them what the weather was
going to be. And from that point on, that's what
I wanted to be. I wanted to be a meteorologist.
And for that, I think my mother told me I wanted
to be a clown. I don't remember the clown part,
but I remember the weather part. And so that
gave me a lot of focus that I think a lot of
people didn't have. And so I was really excited.
And science fiction and Star Trek and all of
that kind of gave me an outlet and an opportunity
to kind of... get outside of my own head and
my own circumstance and my own situation and
uh so yeah that's my story basically all right
well thank you Roy for that very powerful story
so sorry that your father suffered from the HIV
and all that you went through as a young man
in terms of your poverty and the struggles and
yet here you are a very successful science fiction
writer and also a man who seems to be incredibly
optimistic despite everything. So my question
to you is, how exactly has that childhood experience
losing your father to HIV, how has that impacted
you as a writer and a teacher and an overall
human being? How has all that affected you? Yeah,
you know, I mentioned that I... grew up with
a very positive and optimistic vision and I still
have very much a positive and optimistic vision
and I know it may not look like that right now
with all the challenges that we're facing you
know I know a lot of people maybe have a dystopian
view of the future but I do not I do not have
a dystopian view of the future I'm very optimistic
I think we will solve a lot of the challenges
that we have and I'm not saying it's going to
be easy or it's going to happen overnight but
I do believe that things will improve and they'll
continue to improve. And I think science fiction
is a great outlet to explore those possibilities.
Science can be a reflection of society. So with
the challenges that we're facing, you know, we're
seeing a lot of dystopian fiction out there just
because people are expressing what they're seeing
or their concerns. I tend to have more optimistic
endings and an optimistic future. So that's what
people read in my writing. And that's because
that's what I like. I deal with enough pain and
challenges and I like to show a path to reaching
that light at the end of the tunnel. We can achieve
that. And even people that have severe mental
challenges or learning challenges, I believe
that everybody can achieve growth. And it doesn't
mean that they're gonna be able to achieve, you're
never gonna achieve 100 % of your goals. And
a lot of that comes from having a growth mindset.
And I love that book, Mindset by Carol Dweck.
And as an educator, I think it's very germane
to our industry. But I also think it ties in
with having an optimistic vision. If you don't
believe that you can improve, if you don't believe
that you can grow, if you don't believe that
things can get better, you're not going to try.
You're not going to try. It doesn't mean you're
always going to succeed. You're probably going
to fail more times and you're going to succeed.
And that's just part of the process. But I can
explore that through the fiction, but I can also
communicate that with students and hopefully
educate people that they can have a life that
they engineer. It may not be exactly what they
hope, but they can have some say in what happens
in their life. So I think as an educator, that's
important. And so I think the fiction is a great
way to communicate that. It's also a great way
to help teach me communication because... I think
to reach people through fiction, you have to
be simple and precise and communicate a story
in a way that they understand. And so it forces
you to look at what you're saying and how you're
saying and what it is that you really want to
say. So I think they're all connected. Of course,
having a science background is great for writing
science fiction. So, you know, I love time travel.
I love physics. I love meteorology. I mean, I
love all of that stuff. So especially the theoretical
side. So it's really fun. You know my latest
book on time travel, it's really fun to kind
of theorize about different ways that we could
travel through time and to explore that and it's
a great way to actually address all of the things
that you want and still achieve some escapism
at the same time as a means of therapy. So that's
my view on it. Wow. That was a very powerful
and moving story Roy. I'm astounded, impressed,
amazed. that after all you've been through, you're
still an optimist. And I want to thank you for
coming on to tell me what happened. And I do
look forward to reading your latest science fiction
novel, Seven Rules of Time Travel. So that's
our show. Thanks again to Roy Huff and to our
sponsors. Specifically, I'd like to thank Sidelining
Publishing and LaughSaver .com for their support.
We're gonna end this show as we usually do with
Susan Salvador's classic song Every Moment Every
Day which is available on Spotify BTW So until
next time this is Jay Rehak Asking you all to
stay safe out there and try not to hurt anybody
It is possible to be thankful every moment, every
day. It takes practice and humility. It takes
vision and civility. It takes beauty and the
wisdom to see it everywhere. It takes practice
and humility. It takes vision and civility. It
takes beauty and the wisdom to see it everywhere.
It is possible to be thankful every moment, every
day.