Early Childhood

When he was eight years old, he asked his father, Nathan, about the circumstances of his birth, and the reply was unforgettable. “He said, ‘Listen I’m going to shoot it to you straight, Fred. Your biological mother, she threw you away, and me and Betty Mae, we didn’t want to send you through foster care and we adopted you, and you’re my son.'” Freddie had been found abandoned as a newborn baby next large rubbish container) in rural Florida. “When he told me that,…