Jan 28

Hiding Out In The Open

Hiding out in the open

I began hiding out in the open.

On the night that Jane was arrested, she only had to stay in jail overnight.  She was released on bail and was awaiting her trial.  So when I got back to Louisiana, she thought I should just stay with her instead of staying in a hotel.

Her trailer was just outside Ft. Polk in Leesville.  There were always people coming and going and so everyone was told that they would have to keep quiet that I was back around.  First, because I had brought a shipment of Ecstasy with me.  Second, was the fact that several law enforcement agencies were hunting me down.

My main goal was to get rid of what I had and get back to Houston as soon as possible.  This was usually not a problem because no one could get it in Leesville or Alexandria unless someone brought it from Houston.  I was one of the few people doing this.  Plus I made more money in Louisiana than I could in Texas.

So the pattern started up again.  Buy “X” in Houston and hang out in the clubs there for a week, drive to Louisiana for the weekend and deplete my supply, go back to Houston.  The trips back and forth were sometimes with other people and sometimes alone.

In Alexandria, my main place of business was in a club called Late Nite, the place where I first tried “X”.  Entering the club presented its challenges.  The regular buyers would recognize me and they would all start swarming towards me.  This made the reason for my presence, blatantly obvious.  Drawing attention to myself was not what I needed.

So a couple of my friends would quickly intervene while notifying them to stay cool and back off.  Working my way around the club, one by one people would give me money and I would hand them pills or they would give money to one of my friends and they would get the pills from me.

Another challenge was the fact that I was constantly using while selling.  My tolerance had gotten pretty high and so it took more to keep me going.  I had been mixing different types of drugs together trying to intensify the effects of one or the other.  Sometimes “X” with acid, or “X” with cocaine.  Alcohol had no effect.  Most of the time there was not a lot of difference, just a really messed up guy.  Somehow, I still was able to make my sales and leave with money.

By the end of each night, taking the hour trip back to Leesville was a struggle.  You did not want to be on the road anywhere near my car.  It is a good thing no one else was really ever on the roads.  I distinctly remember many nights, slamming on the brakes in the middle of the road because the mixture of drug cocktails and exhaustion from not sleeping caused me to have hallucinations.

At this point, I was pretty far gone.  Just medicating myself, and becoming numb.  There really was no cost to me and so my supply was unlimited.  If there was something I wanted that I didn’t have, I could just trade for it.  I began to lose sense of time, purpose and reality.  Faces, drugs and money blurred together.

The fact that I was a soldier was a joke. The fact that I had a family that was worried about me was getting fuzzy.  The fact that I had a relationship with my God was absent from my memory, even though God had not given up on me….

Jan 21

I Decided To Grow Out My Hair

I decided to grow out my hair

I decided to grow out my hair

I Decided To Grow My Hair Out

On the day after my beautiful wife and I exchanged our vows, I decided to grow out my hair.  So I didn’t get a haircut for 2 years.

You can imagine the process.  At first the hair began to creep down to the top of my ears.  Then the ears started to become less visible over time and the back got thicker and thicker.  The top was too heavy to spike up anymore and so I just parted it.

During the beginning of the in-between stages, I looked a lot like Ferris Bueller.  The hair of course, not my face.  As a Cosmetology Instructor I am amazed at this phenomenon.  A client will believe that the picture they bring in will be the insurance that their face will change to look just like what ever celebrity is on the page.  But I knew that I didn’t look like Ferris Bueller.

Going to work everyday with fellow hair professionals and aspiring students was interesting to say the least.  And you can imagine the exposure of my growing hair to some of our more “mature” clients.  This subjected me to multiple observatory comments and discriminating viewpoints daily.  “You growing your hair out?”  “Does your wife know about this?”  “How long are you going to grow it?”

Because of all this criticism, I decided to keep growing in until I had enough hair to donate to the Locks of Love foundation.  It needed to be at least 10″ long in the removed ponytail.  This hair would then be made into a wig for children who had lost their hair.  Once I started to announce this change in motivation, the comments changed to a more positive nature.

The hair continued to grow.  When the length hit my neck, I resembled one of those people that took care of the King’s horses during the middle ages.  This haircut is call a Page Boy.  Not attractive at all.  I think I know why they kept those guys in the stables.

Finally I had some long hair.  You might want to say it was like the Euro version of Jesus, like in the velvet paintings found over the mantle in any trailer South of the Mason Dixon.  Wait, do trailers have mantles?  Most people would say that it did not resemble those heavenly locks but was more akin to Charles Manson.  This could explain why women would grab their children tightly when passing by me in the mall.

My wife was not fond of the longer version.  She likes it longer but NOT that long.  I am convinced that I know the real reason she wanted me to cut it off.  You see, as we would go out to dinner together and be seated, many a young handsome waiter would saunter over to our table and with flirtation in his voice say “What would you ladies like for dinner?”  Really……?  I have a goatee, sort of….

I had to go out of town for a hair cutting class.  While staying in hotel, I decided to use one of those tiny blow-driers that are attached to the wall.  Almost instantly, some of my hair was sucked up into the back of the dryer.  It was at this point that I decided to go ahead and volunteer myself to be a model for the cutting class.  They put my hair into about 12 rubber banded ponytails and snip, snip…

Like Samson, I felt all my strength leave my body.  OK, that didn’t happen but, it was a huge change for me.  My wife was really excited to see the result when I came home from the trip.  I am glad that some child benefited from my loss.  This was of course after all the grays were segregated out.  Little kids don’t want to look old!

Sometimes I get the urge to grow it out again.  The voice in my head says, “If you hadn’t cut it off, I would be so long right now!”  My wife is my stylist and so……

Have you ever tried to grow out you hair?  

Did people try to stop you?  

Have you ever donated your hair?

Jan 14

Back To Louisiana

Back to Louisiana

Back to Louisiana

It had been awhile and so it was time to go back to Louisiana.  The US Army Criminal Investigation Division was still looking for me and so going directly back to Ft. Polk would ensure my capture.  Alexandria was my destination, where staying in a hotel and visiting with people over the weekend would be safe.  Some of the girls came up but none of my fellow soldiers came with them.

The girls said that Ft. Polk was locked down which meant soldiers could not leave the post.  They were preparing to go to deploy.  My unit was tasked to take part in Operation Nimrod Dancer, which was the precursor to Operation Just Cause or the US invasion of Panama.  They told me that my AWOL charge had been changed to desertion at this point because I missed a combat movement.
The charge of Desertion still carries the death penalty according to the Uniform Code of Military Justice, if the act is committed during the time of war.  Although the Army has not executed for desertion since 1945, it was kind of scary.  So back to Houston seemed safer.

Upon my return Dee informed me that Sid had been busted.  He had a job at an ice cream shop called the Marble Slab inside the Galleria Mall.  He had been dealing while at work and accidentally sold something to an undercover cop.  They locked him up and he had to wait awhile for a trial.  We had no idea how long this would take, if he would receive any time for this offense and if so, for how long.

This was a problem, Dee did not work and I had no money.  Sid paid all the bills at the apartment.  We made an agreement that taking over Sid’s responsibilities until he was released would be the condition that I could stay at the apartment.  This still did not fix the fact that there was no income.  The possibility of a regular job did not cross my mind.  Imagining that filling out any application paperwork, anywhere, would reveal my deserter status and I’d be arrested.

Aspirin

Aspirin

Necessity is the mother of invention and so rummaging throughout the apartment I discovered a bottle of aspirin in the closet.  I noticed that the aspirin looked identical to a particular kind of Ecstasy with the exception of the letters spelling aspirin on the pills.  Grabbing the bottle and a metal fingernail file, I went to work.  Filing away the letters took some time and I needed to be gentle as to not crush the pills.  They looked pretty legitimate and there was enough to take with me to a club.

In the Montrose area of Houston is a nightclub called Numbers, It was a seedy area of town but the club was hugely popular.  Numbers had its regulars but a lot of visitors to Houston would try this club because of the music, concerts and the fact you could get Ecstasy there.  I had been there many times and knew not to use my regular contacts because what I was about to do would forever discredit me as a dealer.
I quickly located a really desperate middleman that was always eager to make a little money.  I told him $5 out of every $15 we made from each pill he could keep, if he would do all the running.  I stayed in the shadows and kept supplying him with the pills as he would come back for more.  It took about an hour before the first complaint.  He told me one of the first sales he made was not noticing any effects, I told him to reassure them that it was legit and then I bailed.
With enough cash in hand, I contacted Sid’s dealer Red.  He mad me a deal on some “X”.  Enough to sell and make a pretty good profit but, I knew that I needed to stay away from Numbers for awhile until things there blew over.  In Alexandria, “X” went for $20 a pill instead of $15.  So I left some money with Dee for food and drove back to Louisiana….

Jan 07

Walk To School And Back Adventures

Walk Home

Walk Home

Walk to School and Back Adventures

In 1979 my family lived in base housing at Shaw AFB South Carolina.  I was about 9 and my brother was about 8.  The school we went to was pretty close to where we lived.  So we walked to school and back each day together.  There are many fond memories of adventures that we created or experienced on these trips back and forth.

Sometimes we made up original songs  and sang them together.  One song in particular was so awesome that we couldn’t wait until we were old enough to be discovered by a record agent.  I think it went something like “Baby, baby, I love you, love you….”  I am 92% sure that Justin Beiber stole these very lyrics from our song.  There is probably a huge multi-million dollar lawsuit, that we would surely win if we pressed the issue.

There was the imaginary belief that we were supreme commanders over all the combined US Armed Forces.  We were personally responsible for the destruction of all enemies of the World great and small.  Go big or go home right!  We would argue about which one of us was actually the Junior Officer.  I am sure it was me of course, I am the older brother.

Wild Honeysuckle flowers grew in abundance along the fences of the school.  It is called this because after you pop the flower off the vine, you can pull the stamen out of the bottom of the flower and eat the droplet of sweet nectar.  (Click here to see how to do this.)  One is never enough and so we would devour every flower on the vine like a couple of goats grazing a field.

The strangest sight would appear in the trees all over the housing area and around the school.  These huge webbed cocoons would form around the nooks and crannies of the trees.  After a while they would begin to move and pulsate.  Was it the largest egg sac of venomous spiders known to man?  Was it early pupae stages of alien life getting ready to hatch and invade our bodies during recess?  No it actually was a community cocoon of caterpillars.   Hundreds and hundreds of little furry creepy crawlers.  We found this out by touching one with a stick and as they came raining down, we ran like Forrest Gump! (If you really want to see this click here!)

And there were the fights.  Name calling, pushing, shoving, using your book bag as a weapon fights.  I am not even sure what we fought about but, I have the fingernail marks on my wrist to prove that my brother was a berserk maniac!  I mean I never did anything wrong, EVER so it had to be HIS fault….. However, once when a particular bully tried to grab my bike, my brother jumped on him, held him down and yelled “RUN David, RUN!”  He totally saved my life.

The biggest adventure of them all happened on a very rainy day.  Hurricane David (fitting) was hitting the East Coast which included South Carolina.  It had been raining pretty hard all day.  When the winds picked up and it looked like it was going to get worse, we were all told to get in line at the office and call our parents to come get us.  Now, we started to follow directions and got in that line.  It was just to dang long!  Tired of waiting, we decided in all of our wisdom and experience, that we would actually get home faster if we just walked.

Leaving the school we walked passed all the silly waiters, they would be there forever.  Outside one of the sewer drains had filled completely to the point of overflow and a kid was swimming in the waist deep pool of lovely brown water like a happy pig wallowing in mud.  Not sure what he was thinking? That was nasty!

Heading off towards our house, the rain was coming down so hard that we could hardly see.  “Just follow the sidewalk, it will lead us home” I thought to myself.  Not only was the rain picking up but the gale force wind was whipping it around in so many directions that it even was raining from the ground up!  We were beginning to struggle even walking upright.  We were soaked to the bone!  I started to get nervous and wondered “Is this it?”  “Are we going to be swept off the planet?”

Just then, a car pulled up next to us.  The door opened up and the driver seeing our struggle asked “Do you boys want a ride?”  “Yes!” We both answered in unison as we simultaneously leaped into the vehicle.  The kind man drove us to our destination, and let us out at our front door.

What?  “You got in a stranger’s car?”  This is what you’re thinking, and so did my mom.  As well as “Why didn’t you call?”  And, “Why the heck did you walk home in a hurricane?”

It seemed like a good idea at the time…..

What adventures did you encounter as you walked to school and back?

Jan 01

I Needed A Place To Stay

Cocaine

Cocaine

Now that I had my car back, I needed a place to stay.  Sid and Dee decided to let me crash at their place for awhile.  At some point, the urge to call my parents came over me.  I did not want my dad to get into trouble for knowing where I was.  Since he was in the Air Force he would have to inform the authorities in order not to be charged with aiding a military fugitive.  My location stayed a secret.  The conversation went something like, “Mom and dad, I got into trouble for drugs.”  My mom cried and repeated “drugs”.  They had been informed that I was missing but not sure if they were told why.  My dad said “You need to turn yourself in.”  My response was “I can’t” and “I will try to call again.” They said that they were praying for me but, I wasn’t really listening, I just wanted to let them know I was fine.

 

Sid introduced me to other types of drugs.  My only experience up to this point was ecstasy.  Sid had a lot of connections and always had something coming in or going out.  Once he had a huge brick of Marijuana delivered from Mexico that he had to “clean” (remove stems and seeds).  After cleaning it he segregated it into various sized distributions amounts and placed in bags.  A large portion of this went into a coffee can surrounded by coffee grounds, taken to the post office and mailed to someone.  Some of it went to Dee, and the rest Sid kept for himself.

 

He rolled some up, lit it, and gave it to me.  The smoke burned my throat and nose, and had kind of a burnt rubber smell.  I coughed for a bit and tried it again.  At first my head started to pulsate with a dull heartbeat sensation and the room started to spin.  The pulsing grew to the point where my head began to feel swollen from the inside out.  I could feel my intellect diminish by the second.  Everything seemed extremely silly and I felt very comfortably stupid.  I don’t know how long this lasted because at some point, I took “X” again and I could not tell whether I was coming down from one thing or going up on another.

 

In another situation Sid had a shipment of cocaine.  He used a triple beam scale, which he was super proud of for some reason, to measure out ounce bags, half ounce and 8 balls (eighth oz.).  As always, some of it he kept for himself.  He gave me some to try with a straw to snort the white powder up my nose.  It burned my nostril pretty bad, like pepper would if you breathed it in.  Then I felt nothing, numbness.  My heart started to race and it felt like it was going to burst out of my chest.  I could not get enough oxygen, and it felt like I was ready to run a marathon.  This drug did not last as long as anything else.  As soon as it started to wear off, a sense of panic and anger started to overtake me.  I needed another hit. Danger is the only description I can come up with to describe this drug, scary danger!

 

One evening out at a club, someone gave me some LSD.  I chewed on and swallowed a very small square of paper that had some design on it.  About a half hour later, my vision and hearing became distorted.  The people in the club began to stretch out vertically, very tall and spindly. The music became unrecognizable and loud.  I did not recognize anyone or anything, nor could I tell if I was in a room or another dimension.  It was dark and very colorful with a pink and greenish hue.  There were no faces just figures swirling and pulsating to a base beat which was all I could hear at this point.  About two or three hours later I kind of snapped out of it abruptly, as I was being led out to the parking lot by my friends.  I don’t remember actually leaving the club.

 

In Sid’s fridge was a quarter oz. of crystal meth.  He said he couldn’t sell it because, it had melted together.  Since I wasn’t sure how to take it, I swallowed it.  Right after that, I smoked some marijuana and the only thing I remember is feeling my stomach having some kind of convulsions as my body also shook independently from each other. It was very intense and so out of control.  I blacked out and lost consciousness.  Can’t remember how long I was out…

Dec 17

We Were Free!

We were free!

Houston

We were free!  Escaping all judgment and punishment, we were on our way to a new life with no rules or restrictions.  I was excited to do whatever I wanted, whenever I wanted to.  As soon as we got there, I took out the maximum daily limit out of an ATM, which was about two hundred dollars.  I continued to do this each day until my account was dry.  I wasn’t sure how long before they would freeze my bank account.

I think Sal had a little cash.  I did not have any money left from drug sales, because the last shipment was confiscated with Jane’s arrest.  I would receive one more paycheck, and I did have some money from being a barracks “loan shark”.  I also had some money that my parents sent me, to fly to Germany for my brother’s high school graduation.  That would not be happening.

We were free

I bleached my hair and shaved it into a Mohawk

We drove to a Holiday Inn where we could stay the night and decided to pay the weekly rate.  One of the first things I did was to change my appearance.  I bleached my hair and shaved it into a Mohawk.  I did not want to look like a soldier, I needed to blend in and it was also an act of rebellion.  So for the first week, we did nothing but sleep, eat and go out to the clubs of Houston.  It was easy to find ecstasy and so we did that too.

That weekend Jane and a couple other people traveled to hang out with us.  She had been released on bail and was waiting for a court date.  Since it was her first offense and she was not in the military, she probably was only going to get probation and community service.  She also informed us that she saw Sal and me on a news report back at Ft. Polk.  They were hunting for us, and posted pictures of us as two AWOL military fugitives.

We paid for another week at the Holiday Inn but, this was not going to last.  My money was going to run out.  Sal was doing nothing to contribute and basically had become like a whiny leach.  Partnering with him was such a dumb idea.  I had to drag him around everywhere.  Tension started to build and he could tell I was not happy with him or this arrangement.  I think Jane was starting to get sick of him as well.

We had to downgrade to a cheaper place to live, and we found a motel that gave a military discount.  I still had my military I.D. but I made Sal check in because I did not look like a soldier any longer.  This place was terrible.  It was a seedy area of town and I am 95% sure some of our fellow dwellers were prostitutes.  We set up for another week but, I was determined not to stay there any longer than that.

We were visiting Sid and his girlfriend Dee and Sal asked for the keys to my car, he needed to go get something. Hours passed and he did not return.  I was furious, I had a bad feeling about this and I was getting angrier by the minute.  Some other friends from Chicago were in town and said they would come get me to find out where he had gone.

For some reason I decided to check the bus station.  It was there that I found my car.  The keys were in it but all my stuff and any money I had left was gone.  He took everything including my clothes and a knife collection, and bought a one way ticket back to his hometown.  We had missed him by a half hour.  I think it was a good thing because had I caught up with him I was literally going to kill him….

Dec 10

Rambo Knife Plus Teen Boy Equals ER

Bayou

Bayou

Rambo Knife Plus Teen Boy Equals ER

When I turned 13, I proposed a purchase to my mom and dad. I know that it was probably something that they had been waiting their whole lives to hear. I exclaimed with great enthusiasm “I want a Rambo knife!” Now I know what you’re thinking, “He’s going to hurt himself!” Of course, that’s what my mom said too. I did not grow up hunting or fishing or anything remotely rugged at all, so this was a possibility. I had some training in marksmanship and my parents already allowed me to own a pellet rifle. To date, I had never shot my eye out, so I figured I was good.

 

They must have agreed, because my dad took me to buy the most awesome survival knife ever! It was really big, really shiny and really sharp! It had a screw off lid on the hilt which revealed a hollow handle. This is where you could put all kinds of “just in case you ever get stranded in the wilderness” stuff.  Things like: matches for starting fires, string for maybe getting yourself out of a hole, fishing line and hook for obviously fishing (which I had never done), and a sewing kit for maybe if you tore your clothes or if you ever cut yourself in the wild you could sew yourself back together.  You never know, you know.  I had plans for this new toy!

My brother, some friends and I used to climb through a hole in the fence that separated military housing from the wild Louisiana bayous.  Once in the jungle like atmosphere, we would try to catch snapping turtles and hunt snakes and craw-fish with my pellet rifle.  Mind you, there were some seriously venomous snakes living back there, like copperheads, water moccasins and various other sorts of craziness.  But we were boys wearing camo, with a pellet gun, and so we were invisible and lethal!  Once we got a snake, we would skin it and take the skin home to dry, which my mom was thrilled about.

Alligator
Alligator

We actually saw an alligator once, but it quickly jumped into the bayou and swam away.  Once, while crossing over the bayou on a slick log, by brother fell into the brown water and went under.  It was said alligator that my brother was sure he was standing on when he hit the bottom.  I didn’t see anything though and he still has all his arms and legs.

Snake
Snake

On the first excursion with the knife, my friend and I headed to the hole in the fence.  We were in search of snakes.  Through the dense foliage we trudged deeper and deeper in search of our next kill.  Underneath some ground covering green plants, I noticed the biggest snake I had ever seen outside of a zoo.  Only part of it was visible and that part was huge.  It looked like some kind of constrictor.  It was at this point, I realized, I forgot the gun!  No problem, I would just make a spear using my handy Rambo knife and a stick.  As I started to fashion the deadly javelin, I broke the only knife rule there is:  “Don’t cut towards yourself.”

As the blade entered my finger, I realized only too late, that I had broken this rule.  All that was keeping my knuckle on the first digit of my index finger was a little piece of skin.  So I dropped my spear, sheathed my knife, wrapped my now bloody finger with the bottom of my t-shirt, and ran.  It was a couple of miles to the ER.  Because I had to run, all the blood that pumped out of my finger was now splattered all over my shirt from my waist to my neck.  As I entered the ER, the desk personnel with a horrified look on her face said “What happened?”  In my adrenaline rush, I shouted “I cut myself, with this!”  as I held the knife up like a scene from “Psycho”.

They called my parents and told them I had multiple lacerations to the hand and so they showed up immediately.  I ended up getting stitches, and saving the knuckle however, you guessed it, the snake got away!  As I’ve said before, I think God gave me daughters for a reason.

What is something you wanted so bad you couldn’t stand it, and then ended up being a bad idea?

Dec 03

Busted Again!

Railroad Tracks

Railroad Tracks

I told Jane about getting busted and that I wasn’t snitching for the cops.  She knew I was cool and could trust me and so we took another trip to Houston. We combined our finances to bring back a big haul of “X”.  We were going to make a killing and have plenty for ourselves without even putting a dent in our profits.  In Houston, we met up with Sid (our regular dealer) who introduced us to Red (his dealer).  Scott did not have enough on hand to supply us with as much as we were going to buy this time.  We made the purchase and went back to Ft. Polk ready to sell.  Jane kept all of it in her room.

The next evening, we were all hanging out in the living room when I heard a loud bang as the door flew open.  “Hands up where I can see them and no one move or I will shoot!” yelled the first Sheriff that came through the entrance.  And then an assortment of uniformed and plain clothed cops, including Special Agent Thundercloud, came pouring in taking up positions in the room.  Pistols were aimed at everyone who was sitting and or standing very still.  A search brought forth the drugs from Jane’s room.  The Sheriffs arrested Jane and took her away.  Because Sal (Jane’s boyfriend and a soldier) was also in her room, Army CID took him away.

SA Thunderbolt took me outside and questioned me about why I had not informed him of this shipment.  Somehow, I convinced him that I had no idea that she even had anything.  He told me to go directly to my barracks on post and stay there, no stopping anywhere and that he would follow up with me later.  So I drove back.

Later that evening, I was told I had a phone call.  I picked up the barracks phone and on the other line was Sal!  “Dude, I escaped!  Come get me now!” he exclaimed.  Without thinking, I grabbed some clothes and personal stuff, and then headed out to get him. I found him and he jumped into my car.  He told me that his guard made him do a urinalysis.  Instead of watching Sal, the guard went into a different stall to pee.  Sal bolted out of there, and ran as far away as he could before calling me on a payphone.

As we were driving back to Jane’s to get his stuff, we were passed by a Sheriff.  I yelled to Sal to get out and run down a set of railroad tracks until he got to Jane’s.  As soon as the door shut I saw flashing lights in my rear view mirror.  I pulled over and sure enough, the cop recognized me from the bust earlier that day.  I told him that I forgot my shoes for physical training.  He said that I needed to get back to Post and stay put the rest of the night.  I assured him that is what I would do and then proceeded to Jane’s.

Sal was hiding in the woods behind Jane’s and when he saw me, he grabbed his stuff, ran to my car, jumped in and said;

Let’s go to Houston…..

 

Nov 26

Trailer Life

Trailer Life

Trailer Life

Trailer Life

At the age of 3.5, my dad was reassigned with the Air Force.  We moved from the country of England to a Red Neck area, of back woods Sumter, South Carolina.

My parents did not have a lot of money and so they bought a trailer.

You know, a house that could be pimped out with some sweet rims.  (We never did that, but that would be awesome!)

We lived in a community of other mobile domiciles, which is French for “Trailer Park”.

We lived in the trailer for a few years.  During that time my second brother and I had quite a few adventures.

I am not sure if it was because there was no Internet, or that all the danger in the world was not as publicized, but we used to roam around that trailer park with absolutely no fear.

We would navigate our way through all the long, rectangular, propped up houses like little Navy Seals in search of action.  Sometimes we would play for fun and other times we would get into mischief.

Trailer Park Ninja
Trailer Park Ninja

There were always tons of wild blackberries growing in the brush along the perimeter of the trailer park. We would pick them and eat them.

Sometimes, we would climb up into trees and jump out of the lower limbs like trailer park ninjas, attacking our imaginary arch-nemesis.

We played in the dirt with my “Johnny West” action figure complete with horse, holster, pistol, shotgun, chaps and hat.  Hey, it was South Carolina y’all.

A couple times during the summers, my dad, brother and I would get so sunburned that as it started to heal, we would all take turns peeling the sheets of skin off our backs.

We had a couple of really deep pot holes that filled with water after it rained.

You guessed it, “Trailer Park Oasis”!

We swam around in them to stave off the heat from the blazing South Carolina sun.

Muddy as a couple of pigs straight off the farm, we tried to enter the house.

Our mother recoiled in horror and exclaimed “You will not be coming in here like that!”

She marched us to the back of the trailer and stripped us down, buck naked, grabbed the hose and sprayed us down until we were squeaky clean.

I can understand, she did not want us to destroy the fine interior of our stately residence.

Backyard
Backyard

My dad had to go to Thailand for a year and so my mom had to take care of us on her own.

We drove her CRAZY and so she would send us outside and lock the door of the trailer.

It was like 10,000 degrees outside and so every so often the hatch of our land yacht would open and a couple of lemonades would appear on the steps.

Immediately the hatch would slam shut, and I think I could hear my mom say “Dive, dive!”

When she would finally let us in, we would plop down into the crime scene, dead body position with our faces placed directly over the AC vents to drink in the arctic blast of rejuvenation!

I don’t know if it was all of South Carolina or just our neighborhood but, we experienced a flat frog anomaly.

There must have been like a million frogs living around the trailer park.  Kind of like a reenactment of the second plague of Egypt.

For some reason, they never seemed to be able to make it out of the way of cars.

This meant that the sides of the roads were always paved with many, very flat frogs.

They wouldn’t decompose, but rather just turn into frog chips.

They were so flat that you could pick them up and throw them like Frisbees.

So we did.

One of the benefits of having frugal (broke) parents was that we were allowed to wear specially selected, fine garments from only the best stores.

My parents would order us some manly Tough Skin jeans, with the reinforced knees patches, from none other than Sears.

(By manly, I mean that they come from a store that sells tools.)

Because we were sure that the knee patches were like Kevlar, the first time we wore them, we ran right outside and tested them out.

We scraped our knees vigorously on the cement slab driveway just knowing that they would be impenetrable.

When we stood up and inspected the brand new holes in our jeans, the gravity of the situation sunk in.

Let the whuppin’ commence.

Now a days, you would hear:  “Stay within eye distance, wash your fruit, don’t climb trees, toy guns are the devil, put on your SPF 90 or you’ll get cancer, don’t STEP in the puddle, keep your clothes on, don’t touch dead things on the ground, and you are going to pay for that out of your allowance, but for right now you are in a time out, no Instagram for a half hour!”  (Overprotect much?)

Watch this video of Andy Andrews.

Three things:

First, I am sure God gave me three daughters for a reason.

Second, people just don’t know how to have fun anymore (including myself).

Third, you can take the boy out the trailer, but you can’t take the trailer out the boy.

 

What crazy childhood fun do you remember?

Nov 19

Daughter and Father

Daughter and Father

Daughter and Father

We have three daughters: 13, 11 & 3.  Everyone says “Just wait!” in regards to the Estrogen Armageddon that we are supposed to experience during their adolescence.  “Oh, you have all girls?” they say, “Boys are easier…”  Great, thanks!  So far with our girls we have had relatively no problems.  Our daughters are awesome!  We are so proud at watching all three of them develop into beautiful and wonderful women.  They are not perfect by any means, but they’ve made parenting pretty easy up to this point.  I am constantly amazed at the things they say and do.  They balance family, friends, school, church and activities better than I could ever handle myself.  They are kind, compassionate and they have awesome hearts.

Child number three, our youngest has had some unique differences from her sisters.  I am sure that God wants me to feel my age of 44 because she has more energy than my wife and my two other daughters combined.  She is so strong willed that you can’t even convince her to do something that was her idea to begin with.  I love her to death.  She is hilarious and such a great source of entertainment (one of the main reasons to have children).  But I do not understand why she will do the same things over and over again, especially the things that get her into trouble.  Dad Disclaimer: (I tend to be hyper aware of behavior issues with my kids and so I focus on fixing “issues” more than I should.)

Last year, her most dangerous hobby was the “Escape”.  At any store, if she could see the front door, she would run like Forrest Gump.  Sometimes she would make it through the door before we could catch up to her.  If the garage was open, she would run out and down the sidewalk up to three houses down before we could grab her.  If you would turn around for a second, she’d be gone.  With her speed and ability to escape and evade, I am not sure if she will grow up to be an Olympic runner or a Navy Seal!

I read that Michael Phelps has ADD and that the reason he excels at swimming is because of the lines at the bottom of the pool.  They have always told him where to go.  During worship at church on a Sunday morning, my daughter was dancing around on the hard gym floor.  When I say “dancing” I mean spinning around like a tornado!  I was sure that she would slip and hurt herself and so I applied the “pool lines” principle.  I held out both my hands and grabbed hers into mine and danced with her.  I guided her, directed her and kept her safe from certain disaster.  I loved this moment we had together and it was awesome to know she put her trust in me.

This made me think of my relationship with God. When I am off on my own, I tend to do things that are dangerous and self-destructive. But when I reach up to my Heavenly Father, grasp both His hands and trust in Him, I can rest in His protection.  I know that this does not keep me out of the way of life’s difficulties, because life is not supposed to be easy.  But I know that when I am totally surrendered and dependent on Him, I am choosing His will for my life over my own.

How do your relationships help you feel connected to God?