Formative Years and Nature, Ages 0 to 6 (1959-1965)

I was born on September 21, 1959, in Little Rock, Arkansas, the third (and last) child in the Prado family. My parents had planned to have two children, and I was an accident. The universe got lucky.

The name they gave me to live with all my life is Mark Evan. "Mark" is a Roman derivative of Mars, the god of war. Evan comes from evangelist, or preacher. I'm definitely not a warrior, and have always avoided conflict (an instinct my first daughter clearly inherited), relying on diplomacy and patience. I'm also wary of egotistical preachers who portray themselves as second in status to God, though I do honor humble leaders trying to help others.

My father, William Manuel Prado, PhD., was a psychologist working for federal government. He was part of an immigrant family who came from Spain to New York City. He didn't learn to speak English until he went to school around age 6. His father separated from his mother when he was a toddler, and he was raised as an only child by his mother and extended family who also immigrated. Born in 1927, he grew up in the worst years of the depression, something he told me about when I was young and which had a clear impact on his outlook. My father did well in school, and the schools he attended skipped him up grades 3 times, so be graduated high school and headed for the university at age 15. He had done well in science and he got a university scholarship to Johns Hopkins University at age 15.

He met my mother, the former Elizabeth Ann Avery, when pursuing his Masters Degree at the University of Alabama. He was teaching a class as a graduate assistant and my mother was a student in his class. My mother grew up in rural Alabama, also from a modest background, old colonial landed gentry going back hundreds of years with Scottish and British roots in Alabama on the mother's side, with a French ancestry businessman father. Her father died at age 41 when she was young (apparent heart defect, but he was a businessman who worked hard), and she was one of 8 siblings.

My sister Cheryl Ann is 4 years older than me, and my brother Stuart Lee is 1 1/2 years older.

For my first 7 years, our family lived in a middle class neighborhood in North Little Rock, while my father worked for the federal government as a psychologist and had an office in a place called Ft. Roots, which was at the top of a tall hill or small mountain that we could see from our house many miles away. To get there, we had to drive up an incredibly steep hill.

Physically, I had black curly hair like my father's side and a deep voice for a kid, whereas my brother was blonde until around age 8 like my mother's side, but as we got older I started looking more like my mother. My sister's like my father, my brother like my mother, and me more of a mix, in my analysis.

In terms of personality, I was different from my siblings in that I was a child known for being independent and minding my own business, even when others were arguing around me. My brother and sister were very social and outgoing, and had lots of friends who they liked to go play with, but I preferred things instead of people, though I had a few friends who I liked to hang out with from time to time. I didn't watch cartoon or other TV much, despite my siblings and parents enjoying TV in the same living room in which I hung out. I remember a LOT of other things, including the following.

Indoors, my great grandfather showed me how to use tools when I was young, and I took to building things (e.g., models from hobby shop boxes, an erector set which was a favorite, even winding an electric motor) and liked to take apart anything I could and put it back together.

Very importantly, my parents had a set of Time-Life encyclopedia books, and I loved the pictures, years before I could read. The encyclopedias heavily impacted my perceptions of the world, history, and the Universe.

Two other book collections also impacted me:

One was a set of World War 2 fine photography books. My father had a fascination with war, and so did I. Pictures of all the war machinery, the human conflicts, the destruction, the dead people, the soldiers and the expressions on their faces, and the action in progress ... it was just captivating. This had a major impact on me lifelong, in my fascination with war.

The other book collection had large and fine photos of the space program, which was still new at the time. This fostered my interest in space endeavors and things beyond our planet.

I could not read at the time, but like the old saying goes, a picture is worth a thousand words, and I absorbed tremendous amounts of photos from those three collections, especially the huge collection of so many Time-Life encyclopedia books. Sometimes my mother would explain things to me from the encyclopedias. I was more on my own with the war books.

The encyclopedias also showed war and conquest in ancient times, and life before modern technology. I tried imagining all that, living in those times. However, it was fascinating ... and disturbing ... to imagine the wars, conflicts, and conquests in detail, including use of the weapons of the time on others' flesh, and how it affected individuals, groups, and societies.

I spent a lot of time outside. I explored plants and bugs in the yard, the wonderful rocky area across the street (we lived on a steep hill and in a diverse geology), and the forests around. The most wonderful thing was the small junk yard of automobiles and small trucks just a few hundred meters away down a quiet dead end road.

My father also brought me to see war movies at the Veterans Hospital at Fort Roots where he worked, and I was absolutely fascinated with war machinery, though I couldn't stand to watch the human violence, as I am very sensitive (like my first daughter). Some scenes were very disturbing to me, and occasionally my father would cover my eyes with his hand momentarily.

All of my life, starting at a very early age, I have been fascinated by war. I started by questioning why people fight and kill each other. However, like other kids, I enjoyed my toy weapons and war attire, going out on imaginary patrols in the neighborhood, and playing out battles with other kids. It was fun to imagine and then play it out.

Back then, in movies and on TV, if somebody was shot or otherwise killed, they usually just fell onto the ground and died, without a lot of blood and suffering displayed graphically. That changed over the years to graphic violence in movies. I could not bear to watch a lot of scenes in movies anymore. However, I noticed that some of my friends sought out the thrills of graphic violence. There were issues of just how deficient in "manliness" I was. We were in a world of recent and ongoing major wars, and male willingness to go fight and bravery were what was expected of my gender. (That changed somewhat later, when resistance to the Vietnam War arose, but that's a later phase of my life.)

My father also had a fascination for war, and that contributed to my own, but he expressed distinctions about when it was necessary and when it was not. Working at a Veteran's Hospital, he saw a lot of the ramifications. During World War 2, he hadn't gone to Europe because he was slightly too young, but he did serve in the Army and was quickly promoted to Sergeant. His photo albums had him standing next to blocks of troops, whereby he was the leader. That was the epitome of my father, who could be a tough, dominating man, and a strict disciplinarian, but with purposes and reasons stated, not just dictating.

Generally, he was a very warm, joking and playful father, and had very adaptable social skills out in public, whereby I saw many personas and how to adapt to others. All the time, he exercised impeccable moral leadership and guidance. He sized up people quickly and dealt with them accordingly. However, his Latin hispanic roots come out in his personality, especially when his emotions got going.

I was less than 1 in this photo with my great grandfather the mechanic, my grandmother, and my father holding me here. Across the street is the rocky hill which I spent a lot of my time on, as I loved rocks, and behind it some forest where I explored plants and bugs, plus the street between them was a dead end with a wonderful abandoned vehicle junkyard. This was my environment until I was age 8 and we moved. This photo is in the front yard of our North Little Rock home.

All my father's family here spoke Spanish when they were around each other.

My mother was the opposite in most respects except that she was also very warm and pure morally. She never joked and was never playful quite like a lot of other mothers I know from visiting friends at home. She never lied. She was always calm, never lost her temper or patience, and always had reasons for everything, explained in a pleasant way. My mother was generally quiet. She had compassion for every living thing, and was very sensitive. I was emotionally very close to my mother. She also read a lot in her free time, and didn't watch much TV. She didn't socialize much with the neighbors, though she did a little bit.

My father and mother were like fire and ice, opposites attract. He was very extroverted, and she was very introverted.

I trusted my parents 100%, and pondered morals and "god" and the universe a lot. My parents didn't preach much about religion or instill any dogma, but they did talk about the concepts, especially morals. My mother taught us bible stories when I was very young, but I didn't believe them, like I didn't believe what I saw on TV and what many other people said, something I seemed to have learned early on. My mother would give many people the benefit of the doubt to try to be fair, but my father was skeptical and cautious towards people, and I followed my father a lot on that. The same applied to beliefs of people.

I was fortunate to have seen cave men in the encyclopedia and the general concept of evolution, which made a lot more sense to me. A lot of the stuff people believed about religion to me seems to just be security beliefs, wishful thinking, and a simplistic outlook. However, I learned that religion is a sensitive topic, and not to raise the issue of evolution vs. Adam and Eve and the various other beliefs with many people, as some other people sometimes got defensive and hostile.

Generally, I avoided conflicts with other kids and other people. My father later told me that when my brother and sister would argue, I just minded my own business and continued what I was doing alone (such as playing with my toys or reading), as if nothing was happening around me, and I was in my own world. I always had a lot of focus, and often disregarded the world around me. I was not into arguing and debating with other people, and I remember thinking that many people are too hard headed. I had a few friends who were even tempered and curious like me, but many others weren't.

My father describes my personality as remarkably "even tempered".

In some ways, my formative years were too protected and morally pure. I had a good family and some friends who I could trust. I tend to trust people in person unless and until they prove otherwise, though I don't initially expose or extend myself nearly as much or as quickly as before. Nevertheless, I do recognize the base feelings I have, and try to carefully maintain relationships with trustworthy people like my parents, similar to when I was young and they were, too.

However, most of my young life was not social. I loved exploring the woods and nature alone. I was fascinated with plants and insects. I also liked to build things, and take things apart and put them back together. I loved the abandoned cars at the end of a dirt road, and long wondered why and how things wore out. I was fascinated about how things work.

My father took my brother and I on outings to a small airport with little airplanes we could walk up to, and a railroad yard with trains. I played a lot putting together plastic toy models, usually of airplanes and war machinery. I was fascinated with magnets and electric motors.

One of my father's favorite stories was about a transistor radio which stopped working and they planned to throw away. With nothing to lose, I happily took it apart into all its pieces, carefully, then put it back together. After that, it worked. I had "fixed" it but actually all I did was take it apart and put it back together. However, it just ramped up my desire to be able to fix things and make things last longer.

It also made me wonder why people get old and die, and what we can do to try to live longer.

My first two years in school there, before our move (next section), were normal. I got along with everybody and had some friends, but I was generally just coasting at school. I started school just around a month before I turned 6 years old. My mother didn't send us to kindergarten.

Age 6 started a new phase of my life because of starting school.

Some things I remember most in my very early childhood up to age 6, growing up in the 1960s in America:

• I loved nature, animals, plants, bugs, rocks
• lots of pictures from a Time-Life encyclopedia collection, before I could read
• war
• the space program
• the erector set with tools, screws, lots of parts to put together
• JFK and the Kennedy family
• when JFK was shot, my mother crying, and my father coming home and them talking about it ... and when Kennedy's assassin was also assassinated, my father commenting something like it's the reality of power competition and violence in the world.
• World War 2 movies which my father took me to at the VA hospital
• there was something called Communism which didn't sound bad to me despite what some people expressed, as I was a very young and naive kid who didn't understand why we had a military enemy over that kind of system, and why we couldn't coexist peacefully in a friendly way ...
• the threat of nuclear weapons, the superpower rivalry, and how the world was developing

There are lots of memories, but the above are what I find more remarkable now.

Here are photos of Stuart and I in 1966-67, our last year in North Little Rock.