Skid marks on the highway
A siren in the middle of the night
Thunderstorms
In the begining, the begining of what very well could have been the end. I was a spunky little eighth grader with wire rim glasses, polyester pants, and a 100 % rayon shirt. I had a 1950's style haircut on a head of hair that was so curly it should have been on a sheep. It was 1972, I hated my hair, I hated my glasses, and I hated my nose. At that point in my life I was the poster child for being a nerd. I strove to get good grades, rode my little green sting-ray bike every where I went, and didn't have any real, true friends, only people I kinda hung around with at school, and the neighborhood kids. I liked to listen to Lawrence Welk, The Monkees, and Herb Alpert and the Tijuana Brass. I even had a stamp collection and a coin collection.
My parents were older than most kids’ parents were. My mom was forty-three and my dad was fifty-two when I was born. That, coupled with the fact that I was an only child made it very difficult for me to participate in anything that was the least bit competitive or had the least bit of danger involved with it. Over protected or sheltered would not be too harsh of terms to use here. Looking back, and being a parent now, I can understand why my parents were the way that they were, but that doesn’t change the way things fell into place.
In the middle of my eighth grade year I finally convinced my parents to let me play basketball. I played my nerdy little heart out, double dribbling my way up and down the court. I had the athletic ability of a pre-schooler, but that didn’t stop me. I don’t think I scored a point that season, and we didn’t win very many games, but for sticking it out the whole season we received a four-inch tall trophy that I was so very proud of. Thus my basketball and sports career came to an end.
It was after one of those basketball games on a Saturday afternoon that my trouble really started. In between our junior high game and the high school game, I took off with another guy on the team to the parking lot to sit in his friend’s camaro and listen to the stereo. We were out there rockin out and talking when one of us found a bottle of champagne under the seat that his friend had stashed in there for after the game. We debated back and forth about if we should open it, then about how to open it, then about if we should drink any, them about how much we should drink, and finally what we were going to tell his friend when he found out that we drank all of his champagne. We got out of the car and went back into the gym just as the other game was starting. By the time we found seats, the champagne was really starting to kick in. We had a blast, yelling cheers with the cheerleaders, yelling at the opposing team, booing the referees, and generally making fools of ourselves. I thought it was hilarious when the principal kicked us out of the gym, and threatened to call our parents. I was definitely not the nerdy little kid that had ridden his bicycle to school to try and play basketball. I was a drunken eighth grader throwing his guts up in the street while walking my bike home…. But I thought I was cool.
I lived a few miles from the high school, so I had some time to sober up and reflect on things. First, I swore to myself that I would never, ever do anything like that again. Second, I started really hoping that the principal didn’t call my house, not only because it would break my parents’ hearts, but because I knew that I would be in really deep doo-doo for a very long time. Third, I started thinking about all of the “fun” we had and that was my downfall: From that day on my “fun” was almost always accompanied with drinking, drugs, or both. I didn’t really learn how to have fun any other way. I sometimes wish that I could go back and relive those teenage years, but this time have the love of Jesus in my heart instead of all the other crap that I filled my system and my head with.
Let me say now that I can’t and won’t blame anyone for the way that things went with my life. Nobody held a gun to my head and made me do some of the stupid things that I did as a teenager and young adult. But I do truly believe that if someone had introduced me to the love and teachings of Jesus instead of that first drink of champagne, I may have been able to be comfortable with myself the way that I am now.
Growing up in a small town, I had virtually the same friends throughout elementary school, junior high, and high school. I guess they changed as much as I did, but in retrospect, I didn’t notice the change in them as much as I did the personal changes that I went through. I think what I noticed most was the change in the people that I associated with.
I went from hanging out with the people that were friends just because we were neighbors or in school together to people that had the same interests as I did. I guess it is a part of growing up, and is a natural event, but I wanted to impress the new people that I was with, so I did things that I probably wouldn’t have done in the years prior. I would brag about things that I really hadn’t done, would break rules and laws, and would snub people just because the crowd that I ran with didn’t like them.
I remember having old friends call and ask me if I wanted to come over, and lying to them about having to do homework or something just because I didn’t want it known that I was still friends with them. I think what the real issue was that I was getting stoned on a regular basis, and these old friends of mine weren’t into that, and so I was embarrassed about being caught in a situation where I would have to explain my actions. I remember one incident where a girl that I had been friends with since fourth grade asked me to come to her birthday party, and I lied to her about having to stay home. I saw her later that night at the bowling alley when her parents brought her in to bowl, and she saw me and asked me about it. If I hadn’t had my “new” friends there, I would have explained to her, but with the people there with me I just blew her off by saying that I had other things to do. She cried, and made me feel really bad, but I had my “new” friends there with me, and they were laughing and saying stuff to egg me on. I just went out in the parking lot and smoked some more weed, and didn’t think about it any more. I still feel bad about it now, but there are a lot of things that we do in life that can’t be taken back or fixed with an apology.
There were a lot more incidents like this, but they got easier and easier for me to take. I don’t know if it was my change in attitude or just that I was getting more into drugs, but I didn’t seem to care about people in the same way that I once did. The thing that I realize now is that people didn’t care about me the same way either.
I started smoking weed when I was fourteen. I was with a girl that I knew, and she and her boyfriend asked me if I smoked. I wanted to impress them, so I said yeah. They got some out and rolled it up, and I smoked my first joint. At first I was scared, because I didn’t know what it would do, but I got to where I liked the feeling of it, and was at ease in no time. We laughed and listened to music like Pink Floyd and the Doors, and then it was time for me to go home.
That feeling again. I had to go home and face my parents. If they found out I was stoned, I would be in big trouble. I rode my little stingray home, and tried to maintain as best I could. I was terrified, and just knew that they knew. For the next couple of hours I tried to avoid them as much as possible, and made sure that when I did talk to them, that I was “normal.” I don’t know if they knew or not, but nothing was said and I made it through the experience unscathed.
That led to me getting stoned more and more often, at the bowling alley, at peoples’ houses, and eventually at school. I don’t know if it was that I liked the feeling so much as it gave me a chance to do things that I normally wouldn’t do. When you’re stoned, people expect the unexpected. I would do things on a whim, and people would dare me to do things. At a party one night, I climbed probably fifty feet up a tree to gather wood for the fire. I never would have done that when I was straight, and would have listened to people when they told me to get down. I didn’t fall out of the tree, and got the wood and everyone was impressed. I was happy.
I was lucky enough to be blessed with a brain that could function under adverse conditions. My grades never dropped even though I was in college prep classes. I did my algebra and chemistry and physics and history work easily, even though I was stoned most of the time. I started using different types of drugs then too. It got to the point where if somebody asked me if I wanted to try something, I said sure, no matter when or where. I wasn’t worried about my parents or teachers anymore, I was doing what I wanted to and having what I thought at the time was fun. I got caught being under the influence of barbiturates once at school, but left before the teachers could do anything to me. I also had a confrontation with my father once when I was taking downers, and still regret that to this day. Not that he beat the crap out of me, but the look on his face and the feelings that were expressed in his eyes when it all happened. Like I said earlier, there are some things that happen in life you can’t take back or fix with an “I’m sorry.”
Instead of quitting drugs and alcohol like I should have, these incidents just made me realize that there was a time and a place for things. I didn’t do anything but smoke weed or drink during school, no more downers or acid. I would only smoke weed when I was at home, which wasn’t too often. I would wait to do anything until I was out with my friends. Real justification, right?
One of the favorite places that I had to hang out was the bowling alley. There were enough people there all the time so I could kinda blend in with all the drunks. I can’t count the times that I was kicked outta there for things. I remember one time they kicked me out for going into the women’s restroom to do some speed with a friend. Another time was for urinating on the pool table because I lost a game of pool. Just little things like that. I realize now that I didn’t blend in as well as I thought, and had developed a reputation that followed me for quite a while. I took the daughter of one of my mom’s friends to Whiskey Flat Days one year. It’s a big town event that is held every February to help out the business people when the tourist trade is slow. Anyway, this girl was a good girl, didn’t smoke or drink or anything like that, and I didn’t do anything that day either. By the time we got back to her house, there were rumors flying that I had her smoking dope and that we were causing all kinds of trouble up there, hanging out with bikers and everything. It made me mad mainly because this girl’s reputation was now tarnished because she was with me, not because we did anything wrong.
A couple friends and I came to the conclusion that we could get our drugs for free, or at least cheaper, by selling some of them. It started innocently enough. We would buy a bag of weed for thirty bucks, and sell half of it for twenty. Then we started to get more and more involved, and soon had a pretty good business going. We didn’t think of it as “dealing,” we just were making a little extra money doing what we liked. By the time I graduated, I had such a reputation in that small town that it followed me to where I went to college. I found out that I was being watched by a few different police agencies, both in town and in the town I was going to school. This was over a year after I had quit selling drugs! There were still rumors that I was bringing drugs into the area, and I was stopped and searched many times after that. My parents were fit to be tied, but understandably so. My grades were not up to par, I was hanging out with the wrong crowd again, and finally got kicked out for not attending classes. At the time, I didn't care, but looking back I wonder what would have happened in my life if someone had let me know about Jesus, and the bible, and how I could be saved.......