Sin of My Youth

I'm sure we all have a story or two we could tell about our younger days and some stupid things we have done.  Right?  It's not just me?  Right?  Don't pretend like you didn't just think of three instances of being not smart in a situation.

I was thinking about this today as I was listening to a podcast called 'Tell the Bartender'.  The host has guests on and they tell stories.  The topic varies from episode to episode, and it's a lot of fun.  It's something different for me.  It's not sports related or political.  Just another thing to listen to on my work commute.  So here's a story about a kid talking to me while I was getting drunk...

It is very safe to say that the summers of 2004 and 2005 were my making up for not partying in college.  I did go to a few parties in college, but not many.  They were fun, but I was always paranoid about getting busted underage drinking.  So I didn't really partake.  I did, however, make up for it while working on Mackinac Island.  Being of legal age while working there, I made too many trips to the bars.  And while I may have spent more than I saved, they were the best of times.  I made numerous friends working there.  More than I did while attending college.  These friends are who I consider my college friends.  And as you would expect a group of twenty one to twenty three year olds to do, we drank.  A LOT.  At our house, at the bars, on the porch, in the kitchen, in the shower.  All places where I consumed alcohol as I'm sure my friends did as well.  We had our favorite bar, Patrick Sinclair's Irish Pub.  Mainly because they tolerated us, but also because it was named after the guy that helped to build where we worked.  It was almost a guarantee that on at least one night of the week you would be able to find either a whole group of us or a small number.  Just relaxing and being college kids.

I don't remember the exact circumstances to this instance, but I was having a bad day at work.  It was hard to have them, but was possible.  About halfway through the day, I started asking my co-workers if any wanted to go to the bar after work.  Just have a couple of beers and a shot or two and then go home.  Something to help forget whatever it was that was causing the day to be so bad.  After getting a few nos, I was able to convince a couple of people to go with me.  So off we went once we were finished.  Smelling of wool, sweat, and sobriety. 

I remember walking in and it being around dinner time, so 5:30ish.  They never had a hostess, so we found a small table off to the side and a waitress came over with menus, welcomed us back.  I handed the menu right back to her and said 'I'll have a Guinness and three shots of whiskeys.'  She kinda stammered and walked away after the rest of the orders were put in.  We all chuckled about it and waited for the drinks.  

We got our drinks and just kept to ourselves.  Conversing, cursing, and not paying much attention to anyone or anything around.  I drank some of my beer, took a shot.  Drank more of my beer, took another shot.  Conversed, cursed, and staying oblivious to what was going on around me.  The waitress never really came by to check on us, but why would she when we ordered everything we needed right after we sat down.  The empty beer glasses and shot glasses just kinda hung out on the table. I finished my beer, took the last shot and we waited for the waitress to get our check.  

While we waited, there was a family a few tables over that had finished their meal.  They paid their check and got up to leave.  Before walking out the door, out of the corner of my eye, I see this kid start walking towards our table.  He couldn't have been more than six or seven.  He walks right over to me, tugs on my shirt sleeve, and said 'thanks for showing me your gun today!'  Without a care in the world.  I look over, and was at a loss for words for a second.  The alcohol may have attributed to that.  Just maybe.  All I could muster up was 'you're welcome.'  I mean what do you say to that?  Getting blindsided by a kid like that.  The mom and dad, of course, look at the table semi-full of empty beer and shot glasses and ushered the kid out the door.  The dad might have mustered a 'have a good night.' to us on their way out.  I don't quite remember.  

At the table, we just did our best to keep from busting out in laughter.  The kid obviously had no clue we were on our way to getting stumbling drunk.  He just recognized us from earlier in the day.  Oh, to be oblivious to the drunks at the bar!  

Looking back, I'm sure the parents were terrified.  But it's also fucking hilarious to think about.  It makes me wonder if they'll tell their kid one day 'hey Junior, remember that one summer we went to Mackinac Island and that soldier at the fort?  Well, he was completely shit faced and you told him thanks for seeing his gun!'  

Re-read recap

Last November, I decided to take this year and re-read some of my books.  They had been collecting dust over the years and thought that as long as they're there, I might as well enjoy them again.  Isn't that the point of keeping them?  Along with the list below, I read the Walking Dead graphic novels.  They have put together two compilations for the entire series so far.  It was a nice change of pace from the novels I read.  So here's a breakdown of what I read over the past twelve months:

• The Old Man and the Sea
• The Killer Angels
• Diary
• Raise High the Roof Beam, Carpenters and Seymour:  An Introduction
• Franny and Zooey
• The Zombie Survival Guide 
• Prison Writings:  My Life is My Sun Dance
• Nine Stories
• 44 Dublin Made Me 
• Jedi Search
• Dark Apprentice
• Champions of the Force
• Gone for Soldiers 
• The Dharma Bums
• Skeleton Crew
• Survivor 
• On The Road
• The Catcher in the Rye

This makes me happy on several levels.  One, I read more this year than last.  Two, these books are re-read for a reason.  I enjoyed then when I first read them, I loved them when I read them again.  I have, since I first read it in high school, loved The Catcher in the Rye.  It has been my favorite book ever since.  Slowly closing the gap, however, is 44 Dublin Made Me.  I have not read many memoirs, but for whatever reason this one gripped me when I first stumbled across it in a second hand book store down in Wichita.

The Star Wars books I bought while in middle school and high school.  I have about a dozen books at my mom and dad's house.  I'll eventually get them all back to Minnesota, I just don't have a ton of space right now.  I have really embraced my nerdy past recently and I'm loving every minute of it. These books are easy reads which are something everyone needs to have in their book collection.  Easy reads feel like a reset button to me.  They remind me of why I enjoy books and reading. 

I got to the middle of August and started to regret my decision to do this.  Right around the time I was reading 'Gone for Soldiers'.  Mainly because I started to collect a ton of books that I really, really wanted to read.  But I made it a point to read nothing but books that I had previously read and I stuck to it.  So I made it through the year of re-reading.  Almost twenty books in the year.  Quite a change from last year's six books.  Now, on to the stack of books that have been calling my name for the past four months.  

Historic Events

Two weeks ago, I was sitting in the bar area of a restaurant in St. Paul on my day off.  I was out and about and thought 'I want a burger'.  And not just a fast food burger, a real burger.  There is something to be said about having a beer at lunch in the middle of the afternoon in the middle of the week.  Mad Men-ish without the killer hangover afterwards because I only had one, not four or five.  So while I was there, they had CNN on one of the televisions and then suddenly, white smoke!  

White smoke, everyone knows, means new pope.  Pope Francis.  And everyone went ape shit, or maybe not.  So it's always a historic moment when a pope is elected because once you're there, you're there until the end (mostly).  Growing up Catholic, I grew up with Pope John Paul II.  He'd been around since forever.  When he passed away it was the biggest deal for the church because he had been the pope for such a long time.  I was more intrigued by the election of Pope Benedict than I was with Pope Francis because it was the first time I had seen the process in action.  That's not to take away from Pope Francis' election, it's just that I had just seen it eight years earlier.  It was historic, however, in the fact that Pope Benedict stepped down, the first pope to do so in six hundred years. 

Being someone that loves history, I find these historic moments fascinating.  Are they historic because you think they are, or are they historic because we are told they are?  With these events, you should want to be able to have that 'I knew exactly where I was when ______ happened.'  But these events are can be person specific.  Of course you're going to have those events that everyone remembers, but there are also going to be events that happen that grab some people and not others.  One that comes to my mind is the space shuttle Columbia.  For whatever reason, I have always remembered turning on the t.v. in our college apartment and seeing the pieces of the shuttle burning through the atmosphere.  I was just sucked into the coverage.  I skipped my morning classes that day to watch the coverage.  We eventually knew what happened, but I just couldn't pull myself away from the coverage.  The weird thing is, I have never really paid attention to space travel or what NASA was doing, it just didn't interest me.  The human element at it's finest.  

These historic events do not always have to be tragedies.  I'm sure there were tons of people that will forever remember the day that Prince William and Duchess Catherine (because Duchess Kate is too informal) were married, or Prince Charles and Lady Diana for that matter.  That's not my thing, so I can say I was around for it, is that okay?  Think about sports.  There are going to be teams that make runs to the championships of their sports and there are going to be people from that town or city that will remember it until the end of days.  I thought I would remember LSSU's hockey run in the mid-90s, but I really don't.  What do I remember?  Beating Wisconsin, losing to Maine, beating Boston University.  All the in the span of three years.  I was younger, but I remember watching those games.

Historic events are such because they go down in the annals of our society.  They are events that are important not just in the moment, but for years and years afterward.  They are passed down from generation to generation.  They get written down in the history books so one hundred years from now, when everyone that will remember the event, will no longer be on this earth.  They are historic because we make them historic.  We huddle around the television and look at each other and collectively think 'I will remember this day.  I want to remember this day.'  

Nerdgasm

While I putz around on the internet in the mornings, I have a tendency to play music.  Just for background, plus it keeps the tv off, which to me is a nice change of pace.  So I put the music on shuffle and just let it go.  Unless there is a song that comes up that makes me want to listen to more of the same music.  That happened today.  When a song from the 'Star Wars' soundtrack came on.  The sci-fi nerd in me did a happy (if not awkward) dance.

A few seconds after it started playing, I decided to play the soundtrack, beginning to end.  It made my morning.  I have always loved the original trilogy, the prequels were okay but were a money grab.  When the music started playing I had a thought back to my teens.  I owned the cassette of the soundtrack.  I bought it when I was in sixth grade maybe.  I played the shit out of it.  Morning, noon, and night.  When everyone else was up on the latest music, I was hanging with John Williams.  The connection with the movies made the music that much better.  When the music was playing, I could picture what part of the movie it goes with.  That is the true power of the soundtrack.   

I was on the edge of grunge music era, just a little too young to understand the angst when it came out.  I lived in a town that consisted of a top forty station, adult contemporary, classic rock, and country radio stations.  Not exactly the perfect place to hear the latest Alice in Chains or Pearl Jam.  Whenever I would have to mow the grass, this was the cassette in my Walkman.  And mowing the grass wasn't a half hour job, it took long enough to play the tape once through and then some.  When CDs became prevalent, this cassette went by the wayside.  On occasion, I would bust it out because I enjoyed it.

I have always embraced my nerdy side.  Even when it comes to music.  Other than having a strong connection with the movies, one reason I enjoy the soundtrack was because I was in band for eight years.  Not 'A band', band.  As in high school band.  As in band geek.  Again, I embrace my nerdness.  Playing music was fun.  The people I was in band with were great.  Looking back, I could have put a ton more effort into it, but who wanted to do that?  In high school it isn't as cool as playing football or hockey, but that is what I wanted to do. 

A Bit Cold

Today, it was cold.  Bitter cold.  It was because of the wind.  The high for today was negative seven in the Twin Cities.  That's not too bad.  With the wind, the real feel was around negative thirty five.  THAT was bad.  The sun was out, it looked beautiful, until you got into the wind.  It cut through my wool coat like it was a wimpy little wind breaker.  Despite these facts, I was okay with it being that cold.  It's what winter is all about.  Even if it was too cold to snow.

With all that said, there was no point in leaving the house today (unless work was involved).  I was surprised at the amount of people that were out and about.  Just to go shopping.  If I learned anything growing up in the Upper Peninsula, it's that going out in the bitter cold is no fun.  Our parents weren't mean enough to send us out in the negative temperatures so I am not going to sit here and tell everyone how hardcore we were going out and playing in an environment that a tauntaun would shy away from.  I will tell you I do remember having a lot of indoor recesses as a kid because of the cold.  The last thing a school district wanted to deal with was kids having frost bite just because the teaching staff needed a little break from all the kids.  

Maybe it is because I am much older and no longer a kid, but I recall winter being more hardcore.  Snow hills are no longer as impressive as a thirty year old.  We spent a lot of time sledding as kids.  We lived by a Michigan Bell and every year they made two snow hills when they cleared their parking lots.  And every year we went back there sledding.  The great thing about it was that every year, the sledding runs were different.  You had to make the sledding runs at the beginning of the winter.  And if there was a huge snow storm, they dumped more snow and maybe would mess up the runs that were made.  Then the fun started all over again as we tried to make new runs. 

Because of growing up in the winter epicenter of Michigan (if not the WORLD!), I love the cold.  Still love the cold and always will.  Even if it means my car won't start and ice forms on my beard when I walk outside. 

Childhood movies

We just finished watching a good portion of 'Newsies' on the TV.  Not the best movie ever made, but I loved it when I was younger.  Loved it as in watched it a couple of times a month or at the very minimum once a month.  I don't know why, I just loved it.  It has catchy songs.  Nice storyline.  Maybe this is where I got a taste of fighting the Man.  Watching it just now, is it a good movie?  Not really.  Was it fun to watch again and have just a split second for the lines and songs to come back?  Yes.  My wife just rolled her eyes. 

It made me think of some other movies from my younger days that I still enjoy.  Let's start with 'The Goonies'.  This is another movie that was on a constant loop in our house (much to my mom's chagrin, I'm sure).  Who doesn't like this movie?  A bunch of kids on an adventure to find lost gold of a pirate to save their homes?  Sure.  And let's be honest here, One Eye Willie sounds worse when you are grown up as opposed to when you are in your innocent childhood adolescence. 

'The Great Muppet Caper' was my first real exposure to Jim Henson's headliners.  I vaguely remember Fraggle Rock (but watching it in adulthood made me think Henson was on some serious drugs), I never saw The Dark Crystal, I never was around when The Muppet Show was on, so 'The Great Muppet Caper' was it.  While I don't remember watching this as much as some of the others from my childhood, I still list it as one of the tops from my youth.  

Driving lessons

We passed a student driver on the way back from dropping our friends off at their apartment this past Sunday. The first thing I noticed was the nice spacious vehicle they had. I learned to drive in a Dodge Neon. Do you know how to cram four high school kids and a driving instructor into a two door car? Very carefully.

As I passed the kid going the speed limit (lame) I glanced over and saw the typical ten and two hands on the wheel. The only time I really have two hands on the wheel is during the two snow storms that occur each year or when I am making a turn (and that isn't always the case). Hell, I once drove fifty miles on the highway just using my knees in my Cavalier.

The kid was also up on the steering wheel. As close as you can get without actually removing the steering wheel and holding onto the steering column. I remember being that kid. I can remember driving south on the highway back home for fifteen minutes and getting off the highway and turning around and going back. It was exhilarating. Now....not so much. And then I thought about it, I have been driving for thirteen years. People that are taking drivers ed. in high school right now either were not born or just born as I was getting my learner's permit.

Franz Ferdinand's Do You Want To is playing now.  Well, do ya?  

I don't know what made me think about this today, but while I was on my first break at work I thought back to the old high school parking lot.  It was big and open and when I thought of it, I had these great memories of doing doughnuts and fishtailing before and after away swim meets.  

When we would get home, it would be twelve or one o'clock in the morning and the parking lot would be empty.  After a three or four or five hour bus trip with some close friends, even that early in the morning, I would be wound up.  Just giddy I guess.  So I would jump in the truck (my beloved first vehichle) and just go spin on the ice in the empty parking lot with no care in the world.  There were not a lot of light posts, so I didn't have to worry running into them.

The other thought I have on this is getting in my best friend's truck before leaving and having a great laugh doing doughnuts.  He had this huge lead weight in the bed of the truck to help prevent fishtailing, and it was sliding from left to right banging the hell out of the truck.  And on top of that, another swimmer jumped in his mom's little sedan and was doing them in reverse.  Writing it down now even brings a smile to my face.  

good times, good times.