Let Me Tell You about the Time

By Buck Moore

Buck Moore is an entrepreneur, an adventurer, and a family man. People often describe him as a wheeler-dealer. With 20+ children through foster and homegrown, his friends might say he's a wunderkind.

After raising enough children to populat

• Language: English
• Publisher: New Degree Press
• Release date: Aug 24, 2021
• ISBN: 9781636764764

Book preview

Author’s Note

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A closeness is created when we trade stories back and forth with friends of exciting adventures, great successes, spectacular failures, memories of loves—past and present. A common memory with an old friend may unfold a little differently as you each share what you recall. Maybe only one of you remembers what happened and the other person needs a refresher. Maybe you’ve told some of your favorite stories more than once to an ever-changing audience just as I have.

I begged my father for years to write an autobiography, but he is past that point in his life now. Now the same mantle has fallen to me and I don’t want to let my stories fade away and never get passed on. I know so little about my grandfathers and only have names for my great grandfathers. By the time I was old enough to carry on a conversation, my grandfathers were both deep into their retirement years. I would love to get to hear the stories they told their friends in the prime of their lives.

Between homegrown and foster children as well as others, around twenty-five kids have lived under my roof with me playing the role of Dad at one time or another. That many children should create quite a large number of grandchildren. They need to hear these tales. Maybe a story or two from their family’s past will ground or inspire them. Friends should read this book just to see if I told any stories about our time together. This is a collection of tales. I have told all of these to different people many times.

If I want future generations in my family to know about me, I need to tell them my stories. I realized there would be a short window in my life when I would have enough experiences worth sharing as well as my wits about me enough to still tell about them. For me, that time is now.

I sat down and wrote the first story I thought of and a half-dozen more came to mind. I committed to writing one every day for the next two months and felt like I had my favorite ones committed to paper. The audience I want to reach most are future generations of my own family once they are old enough to appreciate these adventures.

My friend, Trey Humphrey, leads a men’s coffee group I attend. He was writing his first book and recommended a book creators course he was going through. In an email to a group of us one day, he wrote: Go out into the world and do something. Do something crazy. The only two things human beings really want is to love deeply and a daring adventure. So, go do that. Hearing all of mankind’s desires summed up that way struck a nerve. It also gave me the idea to take my past adventures and write them out just as I would have told them to you out on a hike or sitting around a campfire. Chronological events or a list of lessons learned wouldn’t have been nearly as much fun to share.

Maybe you aren’t one of my grandchildren but you are at a stage of life where you want a little different perspective. Traditional paths in life don’t usually call to me. I tend to look for cliffs to dive off—head first. I like being a nomadic traveler and an entrepreneur. This world is full of things to do and see. Tomorrow does not need to look like yesterday unless you want it to. Perhaps this book will spark ideas for a great adventure. This will be easy reading that should bring a smile to your face.

I hope that by being transparent, I will attract other likeminded people into my life. Adventures are always more fun with friends and family. I am also expecting that once I have completed my first book I will want to write more. With the completion of this book, I am a published author. I also know many friends who need to commit their own stories to print. I have lost some great people over the last few years and I wish I could go and read some of their stories I have heard over the years. It is time for you to come on this journey with me. Take a second and read my stories and then get to writing your own. You need to share your stories as well. Put me down for an advanced autographed copy of your book. I will be your first customer. Be sure to write Buck made me do this in there somewhere.

Now—let me tell you about the time…

Part 1

Growing a Family

Foster Parenting

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A couple of weeks before we got married, a police officer knocked on the door to hand me a summons to come serve on a grand jury. Starting shortly after we got back from our honeymoon, I would be in this position for a couple of days per week for two months. I ended up sitting next to Bruce Hornbuckle at lunch on the second day. He was the prosecuting attorney for the county working on crimes against children. He shared with me how his heart had gone out to a little guy around ten years old named Scotty. He had decided to get involved as a foster dad with the Department of Family and Children Services (DFACS) to be able to take Scotty in.

My parents had discussed this idea briefly themselves when I was a teen but had decided there were too many risks and unknowns. I liked the idea of having more kids added to the mix. So, by the time I got home that evening, I was all excited about the idea. Being twenty-two years old with my vast knowledge and experience, I proceeded to try to convince my twenty-year-old bride of three weeks that we should become foster parents. I have always preferred jumping into things headfirst and figuring out how to handle the challenges that come along as I go. Being attached to me as I do so can be rather challenging for a planner like the one I was married to. She had many concerns and objections, which all made it to a legal pad so I could ask Bruce all of these questions the next day. Bruce was more than willing to help me through all of these issues, and I returned home with all the answers to the first round of questions.

DFACS had a training class for prospective parents that met weekly for ten weeks. She decided if I was serious about this idea, she was willing to go through that course with me, and then we could discuss when all of this might be a possibility. That seemed to be a fair compromise. We were by far the youngest people in the class. To my knowledge, we are still the youngest foster parents the county ever took on. Kris got a call around the fourth week of class. We know you aren’t really ready to jump in, but we have an infant we are trying to find a home for and thought of the two of you. Is there any chance you would want to go ahead and let us place this baby in your home?

We both wanted a big family and intended to start our own family fairly soon. Most newlyweds enjoy a few years as empty nesters, but not us. Suddenly she had a chance to have a baby that day. Kris called me, and suddenly she was the one doing all of the convincing. It wouldn’t be any trouble and she could take it to school with her. She was sure her mom would help. I agreed pretty quickly but doubted she would have taken no for an answer. She called them back right away but they had already found a home for that baby. As her hopes crashed, they quickly asked about another child they were trying to place who was a ten-month-old. I have to call my husband again to be sure we are both on the same page with this. She had baby fever by this time and I didn’t require too much convincing. She called them right back and was told they had found a home for the ten-month-old but they had a three-year-old. Before they could get another word in, she said, I will take it! Consulting me wasn’t working quickly enough.

When we went down there a few hours later, we met Micah who was actually four years old. This was more my speed anyway. Babies can’t do much for the first year or so. I liked having a playmate. Whenever I asked him about doing something that was a day or two out, he would say, I can’t. My momma is gonna come get me. Every night when he went to bed, there would be a little tear and, My momma didn’t come and get me today. A few weeks later he was going back to his mother and we were official foster parents.

He was the first of ten kids we would take on over the next decade. Seven of them were for a year or longer. We never got the chance to adopt a single one of them. They all went back home to their birth families. We are in touch with six of those seven longer-term kids still today. The oldest two of my five homegrown kids were born into households with the foster kids there. They are all my children. I still try not to differentiate. I wish I had had more time with the ones who left home so quickly. So with five homegrown, ten foster, assorted stepchildren and others who have lived under my roof for a time with me in a parental role, the total count is around twenty-five kids. As the last few enter adulthood, that season of my life is coming to a close. Now I get to play with all of the grandchildren.

The craziest it got was when we took on a sibling group of four. We had our oldest birth daughter by then and were expecting our first birth son. We had become Godparents for a brother and sister who had been with us a few years earlier. Their parents were having a few challenges and had asked if they could spend some time with us. When Adam was born, we found ourselves with eight children in the household, all eight years of age and under. I was, of course, the biggest kid of all.

Going from no kids to having a baby is a big change. It’s a big change when you go from one kid to two, giving them a sibling to argue and interact with. At three, the two parents can no longer use a man-to-man defense, so anarchy takes over. Adding five more wasn’t that big of deal. Anarchy is anarchy.

The next two kids we took in were siblings named Kimberly and Christopher. With the kids being with us for a little over a year, we gradually got to know the parents as well. We became close enough to the family that their parents asked us to become their godparents once they went back home. I am quite appreciative of them keeping us in the kids’ lives. My godson, Christopher, gets credit for naming me. Many of the kids wanted to fit in with their new social circles and would start calling us Mom and Dad to mirror what other kids were doing and to bring some normalcy to their day-to-day. Christopher’s parents took issue with him and his sister Kimberly calling us that and insisted they call us Buck and Kris. Christopher’s dad brought him over one day and the excited nearly three-year-old squealed out for me, "Daaddddyyyy! He immediately cut his eyes to his dad and switched in the same breath to, Buuuuuucccck." I have been Daddy-Buck ever since. The moniker works well for grandchildren as well and Daddy-Buck I remain.

I have run into Bruce Hornbuckle a few times over the years. He attended the same church as me a few years ago. One day, he was joined by his son Scotty, who was in his late thirties by then. I can imagine better than most what that father-son relationship has been over the years because Bruce made a choice similar to the one I made. Few people have opened bigger doors in my life than Bruce has and I will always be gracious.

Cool Runnings

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When my second homegrown child was born, he came home for the first time to a household of seven other children, all eight years old and under. This was made up of a sibling group of four, a sibling pair, and a homegrown daughter who was no longer the baby of the family. Even today as young adults, our kids will each tell you a different number if you ask them how many siblings they have. The house was chaotic and I loved it. Meal times were a new experience with that size family. We served buffet style one night and by the time the last kid came through the line the first one was back up for seconds. The first night we did that, we sat down after dinner and realized we had not eaten. We drove around