Me, The 90's, and Potential

I have a funny story to tell, funny because while it’s true, and not funny, it’s illustrative of how other people perceive me. Or did at one time. 

Pretty much at the apex of my life

At a time of my life when I was still pretty young, early 20’s I guess, I was a bit of a wonderer. I was drifting along through life (I still am, if I’m being honest with myself here) without any real direction. At the time I worked in a gas station. The gas station was filled with people who had lots of other interests and tons of things that filled their out of work hours.

Let’s see, two guys were in a band that had just gotten signed to a record label and were on the verge of breaking it big.

Two guys had just graduated from college and were football players. One in particular was a QB who had dreams of playing in the NFL – he had an agent, offers on the table to play in the arena league and wrapped up his collegiate career as a pretty successful player.

One of my best friends, who had gotten me the job there, was in a band as well, they were just signed to a record label too. In fact, they were signed to, what was at the time, the largest record label in the world (well, a small label that was owned by the largest label in the world). They knew they weren’t budgeted to be superstars, but they had their foot in the door. Again, it was a big deal.

One day, my good friend and I were chatting about things, the future, what we’re going to be doing in life, you know, when you don’t have any real responsibilities and don’t know that the odds aren’t in your favor. He says to me, “Have you ever thought about how much talent we have here at the store?”

“No.”

“Well,” he said, “think about it, we’ve got Andre, Chris, Scottie, (all discussed above), I feel pretty good about my chances… and yours too.”

“Me?” I asked. “I’m not even playing much anymore.” A reference to my guitar playing.

“Yeah,” he said. “But you’ll do something great.”

And that was that. I never forgot that conversation. He was sincere, and I was touched. I lost touch with most of the guys, except for being Facebook buddies. But none of us, except for him possibly, really achieved anything close to what we’d envisioned. Later on, at his wedding, he introduced me at the rehearsal dinner to the rest of his rather large party as, “the smartest guy I’ve ever known. Go ahead, ask him anything you want to about Star Trek.”

Yeah, that's sounds like something he would say. Good times. In some ways, it was probably close to the high point of my life, in regards to having friends, having no worries, and feeling that the world was my oyster. 

Sigh. I love my life now. But something 'great' hasn't just fallen in my lap. Here's hoping that I'm just a late bloomer.

Those Crazy Days of Elementary School

I had a short post over at Alex’s blog today where I firmly established I’m not crazy. Whew. Glad that matter is settled. Please go read if you haven’t already. I’m sure you’ll find my logic irrefutable.

I had intended to continue my thought over here, but after careful consideration, I’ve realized I have nothing else to say on the subject.  Instead, I’ll entertain you with a story from my childhood.

I moved a lot as a kid, I didn’t attend the same school for two years in a row until I was in 7^th grade. During one memorable stint – 5^th grade – I lived on a farm. That isn’t to say that I ever spent any time farming, just that I lived there. To be specific, we rented a plot of land, plopped a trailer down on it, and lived.

My mother happened to be the proud owner of one ’67 Chevy Impala. It was big, made out of solid steel and had a steering wheel that belonged on a battleship. Estimated weight, 3000 pounds.

My sister, a high school student, borrowed the car from her. A lot. During the afternoons when school was over my Mom would be at work and the car would be there, just waiting for someone to go take it. So, I decided to go for a spin. We were, after all, country people now, I’d better learn to fit in.

Who could resist? No one. It's impossible

I grabbed the keys, a telephone book, and decided to go for a ride.

Oh, the telephone book? I had to sit on it in order to see over the steering wheel.

It seemed so easy at first, just pull out onto the road and stay on my side of the yellow line (if the road had one) and don’t drive off of the road. Everything else would work itself out. It didn’t take me long to determine that being the only kid in the 5^th grade that could drive pretty much made me the coolest kid in school, so I had to show off.

I went to visit friends, waved at the suckers that still had to use their bicycles to get around, and generally got lost of oohs and ahhhs from pretty much everyone. Kids at school were coming up to me and shaking their heads in awe. That’s the kid that drives.

The thing is though, it was scary as crap. I started going for joyrides when I had a chance for a while afterwards – but in the back of my mind, I knew I was riding a bull. It's one of those things that you experience when you're young. You know it's oh so wrong, yet, it's impossible to resist.

It wasn't like I starting doing this all the time, but I didn't just do it the one time, I did it and survived. The cool factor made me do it again, and again. So, after enough trips to start feeling pretty confident in my skills, I was driving in a neighborhood and a car pulls out opposite me, a group of my friends jump out from behind the car, all on their bicycles, and into my path. I was about to run them over.

Like anyone in a tense situation, my perception of time slowed down. I calmly decided that I couldn’t possibly avoid them by hitting the brake of the car. So instead I cut the wheel in the opposite direction and mashed the accelerator to the floor.

What was in the opposite direction? Oh, nothing much, a house for sure. Oh yes, one more thing. A tree. Approximate weight of tree… much less than 3000 pounds.

I jumped the curb and slung mud all over the place. I kept my foot planted to the floorboard though. That tree, I still remember that tree. I recall hitting it - and running the damn thing down.

It was still young, just small and soft enough that it would give when hit by all that kinetic energy. It gave. I killed a tree.

I, and the others that were in the car with me, looked around. I’ll tell you, it was almost worth it to see the look on those kids faces, the ones that were on their bicycles. They were stuck in open mouthed awe at the wanton destruction.  At my destruction.

It was only a moment, then it was gone. We got out of there as fast as we could, got home, acted like nothing happened and hoped that the police wouldn’t show up later. Never could figure out why no one ever did. There were tons of witnesses. One tore up yard, one dead tree, and a whole lot of people that knew who I was.

I learned my lesson though, learned it well. Kids should never, ever, be allowed, under any circumstances, to play in the street. Another kid might run them down with his car.


Happy Wednesday people.