Leave by Any Door: A Memoir

“Don’t read a book! Live a book!” barked my big brother, as I lay on my bed reading Jack Kerouac’s On the Road. There was no way, at the time, that Bob could have known I was, at age 16, planning my escape to Denver, Colorado, leaving behind the never-ending chaos I’d lived through as long as I could remember. And live a book, I did! Many years later, while lying sick with pneumonia on a Seattle bed, I vowed to write about it all. It was a "bucket list" item that was in jeopardy of never being completed. My life’s story had to be told — if only I could do it justice.I often wonder how I managed to get through it all. Through this nation’s vagabond days of the late ‘40s, early ‘50s, dads like ours had to constantly look for work. So, we Comstocks all but camped out anywhere along America’s Mother Road — the now-famous Route 66.When, in Washington State, our Dad, along with our notorious uncles, threw weekly cockfights in our backyard. And in Santa Fe, our family left town in a hurry after Dad had a panic attack over repeatedly being interrogated by the Police as a murder suspect. (Our favorite neighbor across the street did it!) Moving day was a constant in our family, like a travelling circus, and just as unpredictable.You’ll be there for “the famine of the 50s”, the “Phoenix Drunk”, the deadly gang fight in New Mexico, and how the kids in town thought I was the one who dropped the pipe. Come along for cross-country motorcycle trips and thrilling teenaged joyrides in Kansas and again in Oklahoma. You’ll fly along on a stolen airplane with my 14-year-old friend at the stick.Each chapter still makes me smile. Some, of course, are grim as hell, but then, from pain we appreciate pleasure all the more. Read more