Al and Pauline Kunderman, 1973

Safely back in the US after a month spent traveling in Europe, The Kundermans settled in nicely after the four day after-effects of a nine hour time differential settled down in their sleep to the point where Al didn't wake at five am wondering which lightbulb to replace in the nursery.

Three and a half weeks into their honeymoon, The Kundermans, Al and Pauline were nestled in Lake Geneva when word came that Pauline was late on her period and her boobs hurt.

The Kundermans knew somehow that the spare bedroom in the rear of the home was to be a nursery, they just weren't exactly sure when it would actually be used as a nursery instead of a makeshift office for Al, who wrote early on Sunday mornings, after devouring the local newspaper.

Al was an insominac of the highest order, and he'd wake at the moment the newspaper hit the front doorstep.

It was February 26th, 1973. The Watergate hearings were on the Television all summer long, and Al sat in his favorite chair, coming up with short, rhythmic ways of illustrating the hope he felt for the remainder of the 1970s. A man who chose to live in denial from the constant coverage used it as a way that the Republican Party needed a new boy, as ballsy as Nixon, but with enough bravura and connections to get away with the dirt that would certainly be involved in the clean up of the moral schism that had recently crumbled away.

He was never much of a Ford guy either, the guys at work needling him at the obvious lack of staying power Gerald Ford held as successor to a defrocked Nixon.

These were the thoughts that interfered with his poetry when little Stewart was born.

Pauline came into the hallway on a warm Spring evening, her head soaked with perspiration, her eyes far aware. Al had read a description that matched this scenario perfectly in one of his History books he'd consult nightly. "A thousand yard Stare"

Stewart was raised on the outskirts of Los Angeles County in the early morning of May, 1973.

Al came home after the baby was born and Pauline was still at the hospital. Shed need to stay overnight, and Al came home to get dinner and collect a few of her things.

It was the first time he'd been home this early on a weekday in years. And in one isolated moment, Al looked in the mirror and realized suddenly that he was still chasing his childhood, and that twelve years of bachelor hood had laid claim to much of his robust, thick head of hair and much of his inner chutzpah, which he'd attributed to the often-castrating decision of middle management.

Al didn't stick around long enough to complete the picture. Four years after Stewart was born, Al left leaving Pauline a sizable income. Al had avoided the shame that was sure to come at work for a middle-management guy to abandon his family, so he paid Pauline half of his salary up front. He took the rest and spent in on a modest cottage with a view of Laurel Canyon.

Pauline, left with a sizable income considering the time she spent at University (two years on a secretarial binge, meant for better things, but knew that Al had a lasting career, hell he'd made it to middle management on the strengths of his design skills as a skilled engineer. He'd sweated out his dues on the ground floor and now he was literally coasting on a scaffolding that he had designed. There was nothing left to do but leave.

he'd vowed to be a supportive, loving father, even if he never really got the chance to do so.

Pauline, with Stewart in daycare all day (she to had her little share of lies.) Stewart was cared for by a woman named Daphne Gauphine, who was under the impression that Pauline was a high-powered career woman.

In the meantime, Pauline spent her daytimes sheltered by the comfort that Al's paycheck bought her and decided one day while cleaning to curtains to become a drug addict.

It didn't happen overnight, all of a sudden, but just as quickly she found herself in the throes of addiction to a packet of pills that came in rows of yellow, like the petunias shed had in her garden before the window shade to her bedroom came down in the morning and stayed that way until the reflection of light from the house-lamps reflected on the overgrowing grass.

In the wake of all this, Stewart was raised in the shadows of all this, by Daphne, and her boyfriend Nick had a "on the level" art job, although in all reality, he painted nudes and occasionally picked up strange men and brought them back to the studio while Stewart and Daphne baked cookies for the rest of the Unitarian Church on Elm Street.