It was 2008 and I had bought a trailer with my now X wife Stacey. One night while working in the garage, Stacey had came into my shop with the phone and said Tristans cousin Forest was on the phone and need to talk to me. I hadn't talk to Tristan or Forest in 8 years, there was something in his voice that didn't sound right, he went on to tell me that Tristan had died. I don't think I had ever taken a loss so badly, I had never loss someone so sudden. I asked how he had died and was told he had been bitten by a pig-me rattlesnake and had went to the hospital and was sent home, but he did not respond to the anti venom like he should've and died at home with his wife and 3 kids. After this I located all mine and Tristans old friends to tell them the news and to keep more in touch with them, life is to short to take people for granted, I've learned this to many times. I felt bad for Tristans wife and kids so organized a party much like a wake and asked everyone to bring twenty dollars each to send to his wife to help in there troubled time. To this day I still talk to my old friends some who I've known for 30 years and with my current wife Haylee of 4 years had a son Tristan Jo named after my lost friend and my mother, he was born on my mothers birthday so I think there both smiling down us. 

It was the beginning part of 1998 and things couldn't have been any worse they admitted my mother into the hospital, they said they didn't think she would make it through the night so they called the whole family to say there goodbyes. I prayed more then I ever had before. This went on for two weeks the Hosptial would say every day they didn't expect her to make it the night. My mom had a very strong will to live that I don't think they where counting on. After the two weeks in ICU she got better and was moved to a regular room and for the next week someone would stay with her overnight. I went back to work I was out of time off and that weekend my dad was exhausted so I told him I would stay with her at the hospital it was Friday night. I worked second shift but I got off at 10 and was up there by 10:30, when I got there she was sleeping so my dad left an I was watching tv in the recliner. I glanced over and my mom was smiling at me I hadn't seen her smile in months. I will never forget that. I didn't know but this would be last time I would get to spend with my mother. After a long Wednesday night of fighting with Stacey and her using your cancer ridden bitch phrase in regards to my mom I was sleeping on the couch and I get the phone call a couple hours after getting to sleep that she had died. So the next couple days we where making arrangements. While at my aunts house Stacey starts to pipe up about the stuff she was wanting of my mothers and I bluntly told her not to fucking worry about it. My uncle smiled patted me on the back and said stick to your guns boy. All the mean shit that had ever been said to me I could forget but the things that came out of her mouth I will never forgive.

It was 1997 and life was an up hill battle. My marriage couldn't be any worse and I was spending my time on the couch when I was home and either at home or at the hospital. My mom was in and out of the hospital several times ether with complications or she would have to stay the weekend to get her injected chemotherapy that she would receive through a port they had put in her chest. Thanksgiving came and it was the worst one I ever had, we had it at my aunts house where my mom was staying and since the cancer had spread to her stomach she couldn't eat. So I spent most of my time visiting my mom but our visits where kinda one sided she had to have a tube put in her nose to drain bile out of her throat. So she wasn't  able to talk so she would listen to me ramble about her granddaughter and work and I had bought an old Camaro that I was working on. So when the family went to eat thanksgiving I wanted to dye inside thinking of my mom laying in the other room while the family ate and carried on. To this day I hate going in the room where my mom was. It wasn't long after this they brought hospice in and where trying to keep her comfortable. I have the upmost respect for my aunt and uncle who would help take care of her in there home no less. And my father who lived in a recliner for 3 years at her side. This part of my life I still have a hard time processing it was a lot of bad shit to happen at the age of 19. I  would sometimes get so stressed I would get hives all over my body and was on the verge of a breakdown.

It was early 1996 and I ended getting set up with a girl from a prior X girl friend which should be good indication of trouble. So I ended up meeting this girl and we hit it off good at first, within 6 months she was pregnant and we where married and it seemed like it was all good. I went from not having a job to having two jobs. I made a promise to my new wife I would give up my drug use and my old life. I was tired anyways of all the craziness and was ready for a normal life. looking back I think that's why I chose to move so fast was because I had lived a lot in just a few years. After my daughter was born things went to shit in my marriage we would Fight nonstop and over anything and it was nasty fighting. I completely adored my daughter. I worked second shift and would stay awake and take the 3am shift getting up and feeding the baby. Stacey didn't work she stayed home with the baby and would take the 7am shift.  Stacey I think had realized things where not working out so she had a goal of making me look as bad as possible so when we had to do the custody thing I would lose. So anytime we would fight she would say anything to push my buttons even going to lows like referring to my sick mother as a cancer ridden bitch, I wasn't completely innocent by any means but damn I couldn't keep from having conflict with this person. I worked all the time and would be up all night arguing. And there was no going to the couch she would follow and pick and pick and try and get me to react so she could have my ass put in jail. In the first year we both had cheated on each other and the police where getting called daily it seemed like. My mothers health was getting worse the cancer had spread into her stomach and she wasn't able to eat anymore. Aside from my daughter my life has went from bad to worst.

It was 1995 Tristan and I were living at my parents house, my dad worked out of town Monday through Friday and my mom was living at my aunts still due to illness. The house was pretty much a drug den 3/4s of the time. Before my mom had gotten sick she had bought a whole deep freeze full of different cuts of meats like steak, and filet mignon  off some strange guy in a jeep with a deep freeze in the back. So Tristan and I ate really good for about 3 months, then that ran out so we started eating the insane stock pile of canned goods my mom had. My mom was a bit of a hoarder when it came to food, so for another 3 months we lived off canned chili and canned ravioli. Sometimes  when we would get tired of those options we would mix the two, it was pretty good. After that food was scarce my dad didn't really like supporting his drug addict son and friends, who could blame him. He wouldn't buy much food pretty much enough for just me to eat but he knew I would share it with Tristan. We used drugs everyday mostly LSD and even sold them for cigarette money and pot. Things seemed crazy most of the time, seemed like there was always someone you wanted to kick their ass or wanted to kick yours. There was one night that comes to mind Tristan was at some guys house I didn't know and after coming home he was pissed I guess he had gotten messed  up and they ripped him off for 50 dollars worth of LSD. So me, Tristan an two other friends ate a bunch of acid and went back to these peoples apartment we each had some kind of weapon I had a orange mallet, being messed up on hallucinogens it looked kinda cool. So we go into these peoples apartment and give them The ultimatum they ether pay us the money they owed or we would kick there ass and take everything in there house. So they were emptying their pockets and change jars on the coffee table until they paid what they owed plus interest. They had a Pink Floyd poster on the wall that I took. After getting home I thought about what had happened and was thinking what kinda life I was leading  and starting to reevaluate the way I was living my life. I had became a disgrace to myself an my family an was on my way to becoming a full blown junkie. 

It was 1990 and growing up on the west side had its disadvantages like it didn't matter what time of day it was if you lift anything of any kind of value out without it walking off. I had  payed $400 dollars for a Chrome Molly bike an had went in my parents house for dinner an upon coming outside realizing that it had been stolen. So being a very angry teenager I had my brother drive the neighborhood and surrounding areas to try and find it, even going to  (friends) houses who I didn't really trust who liked my bike who I knew who liked to steal stuff, but without any luck. So next I wanted vengeance so I devised a plain I would take an old dirt bike and put out for bait and when one of my thieving hood rat kids in the neighborhood would take the bait I would spring the trap, I would rig the bike where the wheel would fall off when it was moved so they could not get yet another bike from me. So me and every kid I could recruit for my madness we started our plan we set the bike out at the street, for a finishing touch the 5 other kids who I recruited who most at some point had something stolen so was a little hungry for vengeance as well, all urinated into a bucket and had plans on after catching our little thief, not only was he getting beat up but was going to get a whole bucket of nastiness dumped on him, an each one of us had baseball bats, crowbars, anything that could be made into a weapon.So we all hid in different places two guys in a tree I was under a camper shell. So now all was lift to do is wait and after 3 hours the troops started to get grouchy, I started arguing with the guy in the tree and rite then we heard someone coming down the street, so we all shut up and two kids a little older then us came down the streets on dirt bikes, we heard one say to the other hay that was a free style bike so one waited down the street and the other reached down to pick up the bike an couldn't get it while on his bike so after getting off his bike we all jumped out after him and chased him down the street through yards, I swung a bat and nearly hit him in the face maybe an inch. A Olympian runner was born that night we never caught that kid but gave chase for 2 long hours. I guarantee he thought twice about stealing from kids again. The thief had left his bike so we turned into the police and even told them what we did leaving a few things out of course. And after a couple months no one claimed the kids bike so I got to keep it, almost thought about making a Robin Hood type Business of robbing thieves at the same time cleaning up the neighborhood, but was to lazy for that.

It was the summer of 1997 an as young teenagers we had no cares in the world Tristan, Brandon, and I spent almost almost every day together. We would play football and I always liked running the ball. My brother was about the only one that could tackle me when I had the ball. Although, Tristan would sometimes be able to. Tristan was into tae kwon do and was very flexible. He even could put his feet behind his head! He would always jump on my back like some crazy lemur monkey with his hands around my neck. He then would wrap his legs around my waist and kick me in the testicles until I fell down. We would make daily trips to Consumers Market to buy junk food like the family fun packs of Snickers and Reese's. My friend Brandon and I always liked tormenting Tristan, Tristan was a Wiccan and didn't like whenever people littered. This being such we would eat the candy and throw the wrappers on the ground. We would get a laugh at how much it would piss him off as he picked up every peice, We also would laugh at all the cussing that would follow from him. We spent a lot of time at Tristan's house where we would even tease him more. His mom was a very attractive nurse who liked to do aerobics, so me and Brandon would always ogle as she worked out an make very crude comments to Tristan. One time as we were walking to Consumers we found this badly decomposed rabbit and a leash. We got the bright idea to take it for a walk or more like a drag. Once we got to Consumers like a good pet owner would do, we tied our pet to the post outside. Then we told the cart guy that we would kick his ass if he let anything happen to our beloved pet. When we came out they had thrown the rabbit in the trash. So of course we dug our furry friend out and went to our friend Mike's house. Although, he wasn't home we trusted our pet with him and stuffed our rabbit friend in his mail box.  

It was 1987 and I was in 3rd grade and it was about half way through the school, I still remember this day like it was yesterday but there was a new kid who just moved an now was going to our school I still remember thinking to myself seeing this guy I figured that he must have worked for the office an had been a JR high kid, because he was as tall as the teacher was, to my surprise he was in my class, I remember it was cold out and we had an inside recess an I was playing with Legos an this big guy comes over and starts playing with me, at first I think I was going to get my ass kicked but after talking to him we both had the same likes and we became very good friend, we would spend the nights at each other's house almost every weekend. One day we found a roll sheet laying on the teachers desk and it had every kids name and phone number, an this was long before caller ID or anything else if at best you had a cordless phone with a giant metal antenna, so we went down the list and would crank call all the kids we didn't like and eventually we would walk to consumers market and dig out the entry's out of the prize entry boxes at the Coca-Cola displays to when a new car an call these people an tell them they won a new car an to claim there prize they would have to go to a nearby neighbors house,it was amazing how many people fell victim to this prank, I guess most of them had remembered felling out the entry form so didn't think about it being bullshit. It's kinda amazing not to many people can say they have best friends who they've had for 28 years and with anything there's been good and bad times, but we've always remanded loyal to each other and have always protected each other, an after this long it's more then a friendship it's a brotherhood.

It was 1990 and I was a 7th grader at Study elementary and I had been going to this school since kindergarten and had gotten a reputation of being a problem child. All the Faculty knew me very well so much I had to spend half my day in the basement with the screw up kids, it was kinda funny I was the only one that was in the wings program after school which was for kids with a high grade point average and in the screw up class as well. Most kids in that class their behavior sucked and they didn't do well academically. This is where I met this very strange kid who was very highly intelligent and was quick as a whip to come up funny off the wall stuff and to the point the teacher wouldn't even get mad, in fact he would laugh as much as the kids. Just looking at this guy you could tell he was strange duck. He would wear baggy pants which almost looked like bell bottoms and purple Doc Martins boots and his hair was shaved only on one side and the other half was long past his shoulders and most of the time he would wear a death metal shirt like A Cannibal Corps shirt. This kid hung out with everyone, he didn't have a clique he would set in. It was just whoever he would be most entertained by is who he would hang out with and after school one day he asked if I wanted to walk to Elgin's house which was another kid we went to school with and it was freezing being in the middle of December and being in the single digits so we walked for what seemed hours and we laughed so hard just talking about off the wall shit. For example we passed a drainage ditch and had a whole conversation about E.T the movie from the 80s and somehow associated it with the ditch. This guy was probably the funniest person I had ever met. But back to our story we got to Elgin's house and we hung out for a while. I still remember my walk home I could feel my feet and actually gotten frost bite on them, but after that point me and Tristan where inseparable.

It was  1993 and I decided after living with my brother for about nine months to move back into my parents house after my brothers roommate moved out and rent was going to go up and I couldn't afford it working at a pizza place. So shortly after moving back into my parents house I had to take my mother to her yearly tumor marker test I had the only running car except for the one my dad would be using and be gone with 5 days a week, that and my mom didn't like going to these appointments by herself. So after taking her a couple days go by and she gets her results and her levels are high so back to taking chemotherapy and after a month she would end up moving back in with my aunt. I ended up getting a job at Arron's automotive with my brother so for the next couple months I pretty much would go to work, smoke pot,sleep and then repeat. It was a pretty lonely time in my life my friend Dave who was living with me the year before had met someone and was straightening out his life and keeping clean and I was happy for him, he seemed very happy and I really liked the girl he was with. She never judged me for things and never made Dave give up his friendship with me, but I think she knew I respected Dave's choices and wouldn't do anything to interrupt that. So after a while my other friend Tristan moved in he was a very funny person who to this day I believe was the most entertaining person I've ever met, he was a very unpredictable person and was a very free spirt but the bad thing for me and him the drug use spiraled out of control and started using LSD every other day combined with meth and pot on a daily bases. 

It was 1992 and it was the summer before my freshman year, I just had started Central High football camp roughly a month before school started. The first week was what they call conditioning week which translated into running your ass off, after a summer of playing video games and eating pizza needless to say it sucked. So for the next two weeks I had thoughts of quitting. I wasn't used to the culture diversity of this school and not going to lie, I was a little intimidated by being one of the only white kids and not knowing anyone made things strange. Prior to this I went to the same school from kindergarten though the 8th grade so I wasn't used to change like this. One day running though their torture drills they had I fell on my ass and this african american kid Kevin helped me up and and patted me on the back and told me you got this man! Now let's do this! So I pushed on and after two weeks I started to know everyone and found a sense of worth and need. Playing football in Jr high I had lifted weights and prided myself in being stronger then all the other kids and being a lineman I was depended on to protect my other team mates and Kevin being the quarter back I wasn't going to let him get hurt. So in a month I went from being the weakest links to someone who was dominating at drills. The coach Mr Staley was the best coach I had to this point he was always funny and you could tell he cared about his kids but he would push you to your full potential. I Remember we lost a game to Kickapoo, I think we lost before we started we had probably 17 kids on our team and they had a storm trooper like army  of 40 or so kids. So after seeing this horde of players march on the field we gave up so after losing our next practice our coach wore a  complete Kickapoo  jersey and told us he had a new team he knew we had given up before we started and pissed about it. So after we promised not to give up he promised not to wear the jersey again. I loved playing football and it will always bring me happy memories it's hard to believe something I almost quite would become something I would always cherish. 

In 1993 I was working at Mr. Gaddis Pizza. After work one day I was driving home from work and was backing out of the parking lot and hit a geo metro. I hit it on the driver side front fender and being a dumb kid I didn't have insurance. This being the case I told the guy I didn't have insurance but, I wanted to make it right with him. To do this I offered to pay him whenever I got paid. The fender looked to have been wrecked before but, we agreed on a price and everything was settled. I was still living with my brother and his two roommates. You could say that not everything was on the up and up. Though Hector (my brother's roommate) had been dating this girl he really liked. One day while he was at work she was waiting at the house for him to get off work. She ended up hooking up with Tim (another roommate). So that ended Tim living with us but, I still remained friends with him. I kind of looked up to him, he was four years older than me and seemed like another brother to me. Soon after he and this girl he was dating at the time got an apartment together and he had boughten a 1979 Trans Am. I loved it so I ended up trading my 1966 Barracuda, a waterbed, and $200.00 for it. Tim had gotten into some bad habits while with this girl. He started I injecting Meth. I had been there while they where using but, I would always just snort it, I guess I was always to scared to do what he was doing and for good reason. He ended up in the hospital about a week later, I guess he had a anxiety attack and thought he was having an heart attack. For the next week I visited him everyday while he was in the hospital until he got out. I went a couple of weeks without seeing him and he showed up and took the Trans Am I bought from him. He still had the title seeing how I owed him 100 dollars for it still I guess him and his chick ended up having a fall out and he needed a car. I learned a valuable lesson that day very few people in this world can be trusted specially junkies.

The year was 1993 and after a very long year of my mother taking chemotherapy and being very sick her tumor marker test came back that her cancer was in remission. Everything seemed to somewhat go back to normal, but not so much for me after having a year of doing whatever I wanted I had grown to like the freedom of doing what I wanted when I wanted. So I moved in with my brother and his two roommates for the fee of 150 a month to rent what was a dining room.  Unfortunately for me was the only way to get to the bathroom and two of the bedrooms, so privacy wasn't a thing for me but freedom was. Living with my brother was an every night party with drinking and smoking pot which was fun most of the time but on nights when I tried to go to bed early I would sometimes wake to drunks hovering over my bed, which was met with a quick response to get the hell out. My roommates liked me living there at the time I worked at Mr. Gaddis Pizza and was able to bring home what was left of the buffet every night so they loved that. That job I would drink at work a lot I was a dishwasher and it was located next to the beer keg and when the boss would do paperwork I would set a beer next to the other mugs that needed washed and sometimes would run a 5 gallon bucket through the dishwasher and fill it up with beer and would take it to my car sloshing beer all over my legs and inside my car, I had never gotten caught lucky for me a few months later I was working in the dishwashing room and the day shift boss was making pizza dough and was using a giant mixer with a dough hook and was cleaning off the side and hit the on button while doing it and broke her arm to the point the bone punctured through the skin it was very disturbing site.

So far I have mostly written about the self destructive things in my life and although those things are part of who I am today but 3/4 of everything I've done I'm far from being proud of those things, if anything I hate who I used to be. But I would now like to talk about the positive things that's impacted my life and I think made me realize Starting with my mother I couldn't have had a better mother she was probably the purest at heart person you would ever meet she had a loving nature and an almost child like trust and caring nature of the world. I remember as a child she would read bible stories to me and my brother and would always cuddle me when I would get sick an would always made everyone in house loved and welcome. My dad although he worked out of town most of time always worked hard for his family and anytime I would do something stupid he would get stern and after he would blow his stack he would come in and hug me and give me lecture me on him just wanting the best for me and was doing it because he loved me. And my brother although we tormented each other I would give my life to save his and I think God everyday for my brother, when the chips are down and life's gone to shit the one person who is always there to pick up the pieces is my brother.  And although my wife Haylee didn't come into my life until 4 years ago she saved my life and gave me a new life and new hope for the future.  She backs me up no matter what happens and is always there when I doubt myself.

I would say the most difficult point in my life I was 16 and my mom was having a whole gamble of health problems. The Dr she was seeing should have retired but continued to misdiagnose my moms unknown health problems for two years and refused to do anything to figure it out. And lucky but unluckily for her he was on vacation and another Dr was filling in and within a week she was in for surgery for a hysterectomy and before coming out of surgery the Dr came out with a rather grim look on his face and met with the family and said she had ovarian cancer and was given 5 years to live and with chemotherapy she might have more time but the prognosis wasn't good the cancer had already spread. An even at 16 all I could think was only if she would have seen this dr 2 years ago this might not have been as bad. So after my moms wakes from surgery she given the news of her condition and doesn't do well with the news but who would. So the family tried to keep a positive attitude and try and keep her in good spirits for the long road she had before her. After starting her chemotherapy she became very ill, couldn't keep food down, her skin became yellow, she could barely walk and came to the point she would go live with my aunt for help. With my father who worked out of town all week that left me at home by myself. At this point I already dropped out of school to Pursue my career at Steak N Shake and smoking pot, so not liking being by myself my friend Dave moved in. So for the next year me and Dave pretty much did whatever we wanted and for me it was a distraction for what was happening with my mother.

Growing up I always enjoyed going to my grandmothers house. My dad had a rule in our house every other weekend we would visit his mom my grandma. I never liked the trip to get there, my grandma lived in Eldon Missouri a small town 30 miles from Jefferson City. It was always relaxing there,  I didn't have the stress,pressures and noise of a big town. Things where simpler there, my grandmother would always had a very large garden and me and my brother would always work an she would pay us for a good days work. Which I always looked forward to, my grandma always would had strange pets at one time she had a pet duck who lived in the pond down the street and he would come up to her house to get fed.  My grandmother always had a lot of tough love she always said what was on her mind and most of the time she would come off as mean. She used to refer to me as fat ass when I was younger and when I was a teenager I would walk down to the pond and smoke and no matter how much gum I would chew  she could always tell. Sometimes as soon as I would come in the house she would grab me by my ear and twist and lower me down to her shorter stature level and hold me there till I breathed and she would  smell my breath, then I would get a lecture how I was going to need an oxygen tank one day and everyone she knew who had died from smoking. I always had a lot of respect although she was seemed mean she did because she cared and I've never met anyone with work ethic as good as hers. 

Knowing your audience

Reading everyone's responses I realize how many of the people in this class are very similar to me in there likes and dislikes. I think a lot of the questions are what you would expect people to ask like what would you do with a million dollars and if you could meet one person who would it be. These are questions I think this getting to know my audience assignment  makes me think that everyone is very similar in some ways. Everyone  has dreams of what their future might be like and I would like to write in a way that gives people hope. I really think people aren't born bad and that anyone might start life as one person and be someone completely different when you get older. I think in a world with such negativity it's important for people to have hope and I like the thought of reaching someone who is in turmoil. I also think my audience would like a good underdog story where the chips are down and the characters of the story come back and are successful in whatever they pursue and at the same time be entertained and to be able to relate to the character of a story. I really think as divided as this country is in this time people are fundamentally the same. We all grow and love and live and die. If you really want to get to know your audience and be able to not only grab but keep their attention you need to not only have an exciting topic you need to know about it. I mean I couldn't talk much about my wife's Mary Kay or her cooking and baking because these are not things I am really interested in. Now if you want to talk about cars I have a lot to say.

I remember the beginning when my fascination with cars started. I was 14 and my brother bought a 1972 Dodge Charger this had to be the early 90s it had some work to be done on it so he didn't drive it for a couple months in that time I would come home and sit in it behind the wheel and the largeness of the car and the old smell of the car and to look out over the hood which was huge, the car was yellow with what had looked like black shockwaves down the side but they had painted them in the wrong direction so they looked more like fish gills. We would tease my brother and would refer to the car as bills gills. My brother ended up selling the car in need of something more dependable for work. But I had already caught the fever that would change my life. My brother ended up moving out of my parents house and he bought a Nissan pickup to drive to work but he would always have projects he would buy and trade, he came across the strange car with a huge back glass it looked like something out of the Jetsons cartoon it was 1966 Barracuda and I ended up talking him into selling it to me so a deal was struck and I would make him payments with my yard mowing money and would mow his for free. 900 dollars in 15 dollar increments for each yard it took a while to get up enough money for the car. My parents would go to my grandmas house for the weekend sometimes and would leave me alone at home so I would drive the car with no tags and me with no license all over the neighborhood. By the time I was old enough to drive and get a real job I had it paid for and was used to driving it.

I've made a lot of poor choices in my life like at the age of 12 I used to go to the little dinner/bar and use their cigarette machine. The owner of the establishment would see me in there but never said anything. At $2.75 a pack in the early 90s was highway robbery. By the time I was 13 I was riding the city bus all over town and started smoking pot. My friend Brandon and I pretty much had the freedom to do what we wanted. We were quite the delinquents, we would go to the mall and take turns acting like we were handicap trying to get people to give us money. We didn't have a care in the world but just to have fun even at others expense. I don't think we were without a conscience one night after going to the mall riding the bus home,we had this guy start talking to us he would've been I think maybe 19 we where 13 and he didn't have any place to sleep and it was cold. So we  took him to my parents house and told my parents he was Brandon's cousin so he ended up staying the night, through the whole night Brandon and I were extremely nervous on who this guy was. He could've been an axe murder for all we knew so neither one of us got any sleep. For the next 3 or 4 days he stayed with us and after the first night we didn't really watch him anymore. I think we still did more harm than good in the world. Our hobbies included buying bulk of paint balls and we would shoot them through our slingshots we would walk down the railroad tracks and bombard the houses with paint all the way to the bus stop and anytime someone would start screaming at us they could never catch us most of the houses where fenced in the back and we would get a head start before they caught us. 

It wasn't always sunshine and happy days growing up my favorite aunt and my two older cousins I adored where living with us off and on because of my uncle who was an abusive alcoholic, Being only 6 or 7 I didn't really understand the whole Dynamics of what was going on I remember one time my mother got a call that my uncle Ronny was beating on my aunt again, My mom was pissed so me my brothers and mom all piled in the car with bats and anything we could find to use as a weapon and luckily for everyone involved we passed my aunt driving on the street I guess this memory sticks in my head even as young as I was, I guess because of all the excitement and my mother who was a very gentle passive person getting so mad. But that was her sister and she would protect her at all cost. I always enjoyed my cousins coming over even if the situation wasn't ideal. I really looked up to them. My cousin Rhonda was beautiful and a very strong person who was very protective person especially of her family I mean being in an house with an abusive alcoholic would make you that way, I remember one time the neighbor kid I angered smashed my hand with a hammer and my nail came of immediately after going in the house showing Rhonda she went to the top floor of her rage level, I remember her talking to the kids mother who looked very concerned for her on self well being and there was language I had never heard before all I could think was how nice it was to have someone care so much for you that they would put themselves in harms way just to protect them but I would've done the same without pause. My cousin Rhonda's life was cut short at the age of 36 and the whole family was crushed but that's another story.

One of my youngest memories was sitting under the porch of a vacant house that was in the large field next to my parent's house. I was talking to another child who lived in my neighborhood, we couldn't have been older then 6. He was a strange kid who cursed and chewed tobacco. Me, being a curious child I asked him for some. At the time I wasn't aware you didn't swallow chew but, rather you spit it out. I ended up getting very ill. To this very day I can't stand to even look at chew, although I smoked for nine years. Chewing tobacco unlike smoking brings back those unpleasant memories to me. I almost wish I had smoked back then. This is because had I done it then, then perhaps I wouldn't have continued such a bad habit in later years. As a child I always had a vast amount of freedom. I got to go pretty much wherever I pleased as long as I could hear my mother yell at dinner time. I also made it a habit to come home when the street lights came on as that meant it was getting late. I didn't fair too well with all this freedom. My brother and I were the terrors of the neighborhood. One day we had the bright idea to throw croquet balls at the neighbor's chimney until the bricks caved into his house. Another time my friend Dave and I tied fishing line to one of his mom's purses and hid in the front yard. We put the purse next to the road and would watch as people got out of their cars to get it. Once they tried to get the purse, we would reel the fishing poll in laughing the whole time watching them chase after it. This usually was followed by the sound of loud cursing of a very unamused adult. Another time in the field next to my house (which belonged to Muller Steel Company) my brother and I decided to dig a huge hole in which we could climb in. After about a week we had the hole dug over our head. Eventually they had a dump truck and a backhoe come out and fill said hole. During the summer time we would be at our worst doing such activities as mentioned above. I believe much of this was due to boredom and the vast amount of freedom instilled upon us.

Sibley rivalry

Being the younger brother has always had its ups and downs mostly downs. like getting handy down cloths being always compared in everything you would do or everything you didn't do. And every time my dad would leave for work 5 days a week. My brother would always feel the need to try and step in his shoes and sometimes that turned to furniture getting broken and countless fist fights but did come in handy when fighting kids my own age being used to fighting my brother who was  four years older. There was an never ending amount of sibling rivalry at our house I could never physically beat my older brother so I would have to find new avenues to piss him off like he would spend weeks meticulously putting model cars together painstaking painting every part and letting them dry and then painting even more detail on each and every piece and buying high dollar metallic spray paint to paint the body. And one day of giving my daily pummeling I decided I would take a can of hair spray and a lighter and made a make shift blow torch melting his master piece down to a blob and not even bothering to take it off his dresser first. This is just one of many stories of mine and and my brothers sibling vengeful rage.   

I believe free writing

I believe I'm a good father sometimes my kids are ornery and I think there all good kids but there really loud and they like to drive me crazy sometimes my sons riding his bike up down the hallway. He loves his daddy he tells the people at the store this is my daddy this isn't your daddy, he looks up to me and I never want to disappoint him I love my family and always want to take care of them. I think this free writing is kind of cray cray but I can type a lot in a short time. We went to the park he fead the ducks he was trying to go six places at once he makes me feel old trying to keep up the sky was blue that day, very hot the pool was closed not sure why because it's still hot. Next time we will have to feed the ducks I like ducks, I'm glad ducks arnt extinct.

I believe

I Believe I'm a good father,

I believe I'm a good person

I believe I'm a good mechanic

I believe I'm kind to animals 

I believe the sky is blue 

I believe the earth is round 

I believe dog fur is itching 

I believe the paint on the wall is pealing 

I believe the good guys lost 

I believe the fight is fixed 

I believe the poor stay poor and the rich get rich 

I believe the paint is red 

I believe the my feet are smelly 

I believe I wait to long to do my homework 

I believe my ten minutes are almost up.

I believe I was wrong 

I believe my wife needs to tell me my times up

I believe this dogs breath stinks 

I believe that this is crazy.