A Loner's Companion
...seventh grade boys were busy mutilating their toy Ninja Turtles or harassing their helpless little sisters. However, there was one thirteen year old that would have nothing to do with such frivolities. He spent his days in seclusion, hours in his room without the sound of anyone's voice but his own. Yet unlike his hyperactive counterparts, this young man was content with solitude. He found a best friend not in the neighbor next door, but instead in a piece of lifeless wood with six strings attached to it. Even though it caused him to forget the meaning of loneliness, this boy was not a recluse. This boy was a musician.
Roger Lee Jones was born on December 5, 1979 in Morristown, a small community smuggled into the rocky foothills of eastern Tennessee. His father, Roger, now 48, had recently begun a career as a pharmaceutical sales representative, and his mother, Teresa, now 46, had previously been a lab technician before she gave up her job to assume the full-time position of "mom". In 1985, Lee and his family moved from the edge of the Appalachians to a much colder climate in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. After three enduring years of snowmobiles and blizzards, the Jones's once again packed up and left town. This time they headed for the sunny south.
Roger and Teresa, along with their three school-age children, settled in Greer, a growing city ten miles from Greenville in upstate South Carolina. Several years later Lee entered into the sixth grade at Greer Middle School. At first, he played football, baseball and ran track like the rest of his energetic, roughhousing pals.
"Then, all of sudden, none of it mattered anymore," said Lee. "I liked being an athlete, I liked being challenged physically everyday, but I needed that challenge mentally, emotionally and psychologically too. I wasn't getting to that level on any sports field."
Things changed...
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