Clark Joseph Ford
{ Nickname }
Ford - it's all he really goes by in The Middle
{ Age }
21
{ Gender }
Male
{ Sexuality }
Heterosexual
{ Hometown }
Christian Park, GA
{ Role }
The Comedian
Clark was born into an average, but loving, family. His mother, Kim, was a grade school teacher and his father, Ken, owned a restaurant in town. There were three other children in the family: Savannah (six years older than him), Taylor (four years older than him) and Caroline (two years older than him). He was the youngest of the bunch, and the most anxiously awaited by his father, who loved his three daughters but desperately wanted a son. Well, he got that with Clark, and he definitely embraced it. He put Clark into as many sports as possible and spent nearly all of his free time in the yard tossing around a football with his son, or teaching him how to throw curve balls.
Clark appreciated his time with his father but even as a kid, he realized that there was a lot of pressure on him to be the perfect son. He was the only boy that his father would ever had and if he screwed up, there were no backup kids. So, he put all of his time and energy into his father's dreams. His time was nearly all spent either doing homework and studying or playing football, which was the sport he was pushed into focusing on come grade school. His father insisted that he needed to be the best player on the field and the best student in the classroom if he wanted to score a scholarship to Ohio State University, the school he attended years prior.
It's hard to imagine, but for most of his life, Clark was serious, uptight and had very few friends who he socialized with. Once high school started, he was friends with the guys on the football team but that really remained on the field. He had one close friend, Cal, who had lived next door to him since birth, who he did hang out with. He was probably the only peer that Clark would consider a real friend and similarly, the only person who saw the fun and humorous side of him that he would later end up fully embracing in the afterlife.
In his father's eyes, at least, all of Clark's hard work paid off, because he was granted a full scholarship to OSU to play for their football team. He would admit that the school was fun and over the years, he had grown to enjoy football, but he was really just going with the motions. He was glad that his father was giving him his approval and was proud of him, but there was always part of him that wanted to escape his life and all of the responsibilities associated with living.
{ Last Moments }
Clark and his sister Caroline were the only children of the family who came home on school vacations anymore. The other two had graduated from college and were living in other cities where they now worked, and this would probably be the last summer break he would spend with even Caroline. He was excited to come home and spend time with her their parents, and his few childhood friends, even if it would mean talking about football and school whenever his father was around. The first week was great and the rest of the summer looked promising, until July 4th weekend. There was a big party going on in a town about a half an hour away, and Clark had planned on going with Caroline, Cal and Cal's sister, who happened to be Caroline's best friend. Last minute, though, he backed out due to a migraine, and the trio left without him.
Caroline was supposed to be the designated driver but didn't adhere to that and ended up driving home. Her BAC level was over three times the legal limit when she she hit a minivan head-on. Cal and his sister, as well as a woman and three-year-old boy in the opposing car, died on impact. The husband in the other car died two weeks later due to his injuries and their four-year-old daughter survived but would be permanently paralyzed. Surprisingly, Caroline walked away from the crash with only a few cuts and bruises, but she was arrested for DUI and would later be charged with vehicular manslaughter. It obviously ruined his parents and all of the stress put on the family just caused him to snap. He couldn't imagine living without his best friend and the idea of his sister being behind bars for years was no better than her being dead, too. His father had turned to alcohol and his mother was heartbroken. He knew that suicide would hurt them even more but he didn't care. He needed to be selfish for once, and using one of his father's guns, he finally freed himself.
Entertaining, relaxed, helpful, positive
{ Negative traits }
Sometimes immature, self-critical, impulsive, detached
{ Personality }
Ford's personality on Earth was very different than it is now. He used to be very serious and collected. His focus was nearly fully committed to school work and football, and even though he wasn't as passionate about either of the topics as he acted, he felt trapped. He had grown up under the pressure of impressing his father and was never able to escape that. He was a hard worker,
☼Fishing
☼Hunting
☼Nature
☼Making people laugh
☼Whiskey
☼Harry Potter
☼Grilled cheese sandwiches
☼Sleeping late
☁Beer
☁Pressure
☁Responsibilities of any kind
☁Vampire movies
☁Storms
☁Mosquitoes
☁Seafood
Clark stands at 6' flat. Although he is fairly thin, his years of football training have given him a decent amount of upper body strength.
{ Hair Color }
Dirty blonde
{ Eye Color }
Light blue
{ Other }
He has a six inch scar on his elbow from surgery he had after a football injury in his early teens.