I'M DONE

345 days clean and sober.
330 posts in 345 days.
I'd hoped to hit 365 in 365 with 365 days clean, but I think I'm done.
I might could do 35 posts in the next 20 days, but they would be real crap.
So I just might be done.
Thats what they say down at NA when you are at the end of the road.




LOST IN THE BACKYARD
I said "this is the last time"
A few times ago
But once more it's happened
And that's all in the world I know
I still hear the echo
When you hung up the phone
I feel like I'm lost in the back yard
Just trying to get home.

I woke up in a strange world
I can aptly describe
It's like the streets of a town where I lived
When I was too young to drive
It all looks so Familiar
But I can't find my way
I must have got lost in the back yard
When I went out to play

Don't open my eyes
To nothing like truth
Just leave it all lost in the wind
Let it hide in the blindness of youth
The facts of the matter
Most likely will always remain
And I guess I'll be lost in the back yard
Till I get home again

j. mcmurtry

DON'T STOP TILL YOU GET ENOUGH

"I was a veteran before I was a teenager."

This guy was such a talent. What happened?

ANGEL ON SKATEBOARD

"I became famous almost before I had a craft"

She was sweet...maybe one of the least affected Pop stars ever.

Very sad.

UN-COOL

I went to my very first Rock Concert in 1972.
The band was Foghat.
They had a huge hit with an old Willie Dixon song "I Just Wanna Make Love To You".
The auditorium was filled with smoke and our seats were way up in the rafters, Row ZZ, in the Crows nest.
I was getting very stoned.
There was all that smoke, and all those lights at the stage, and the Foghat dudes were all wearing Rock Star clothes and I wanted to be a rock star too. I didn't have any Rock Star clothes. Mom wouldn't let me. I'd had to do some real manipulating just to be here, because no way would mom and dad let me go anywhere near a Rock concert.

Foghat started to play their big hit "I Just Wanna Make Love to You" and the Bass line was pounding away:
"Buh-boom-boom-boom-boomboom -buh-buh"
and the lead guitar started in with the
'Wah-wah-wawawawa-wah-wah-wuh-wuh"
And then the singer sings

"I just Wanna Make... Love to You"

In my youthful exuberence I was completely overcome.
I stood up and started to rock out.
But then the room began to spin, and I to wobble, and the vertigo kicked in.

Whoa!
The next thing I knew, I was falling into the lap of the cool looking dude in Rock Star clothes sitting in front of me, who looked down into my face and said:
"Very un-cool, dude"

There is no humility that compares to being told you are "un-cool" by a really cool looking dude. Never, ever, stand up if you are in Row ZZ.
Ever.

BIG BAMBU

When I was 16, I went to see Deep Purple
“Smoke on the Water” was a huge hit at the time.
It was my first concert.
In my excitement and youthful exuberance, I had rolled an entire ounce of pot into a single joint using a newspaper.
The house lights began to dim. my understanding was that this was a signal to light up. We had brought one of those giant lighters to light it, haha.
But when I lit it, smoke plumed into the air like there was a California brush fire in the stands, and the cherry at the end glowed the size of a half dollar.
I passed it down to Buckman, and when he tried to hit it, it started to catch fire.
I was starting to get kind of paranoid, all that smoke, and now it was looking like a Roman candle, hissing and popping and belching flames and all, and I began to realize that as great as a 1 ounce joint sounds, its probably pretty un-cool. We had become a spectacle.
Buckman passed it back to me, and I dropped it to the floor and tried to stamp it out.
The smoke coming off it was so thick I could not see the stage, or even breathe!
It took quite a bit of stamping to finally kill it.

The cool looking hippy guy sitting beside me looked at me and just said
“Good choice, Dude”

Never tried that again.

SOUTHERN COMFORT

When I was 17, I went to see 'YES" at a concert.
I knew the girl that sat in front of me from school.
She was drunk on Southern Comfort.
She kept standing up and taking her shirt off.
I always liked Southern Comfort after that.

KING SOLOMON ON ADDICTION

Who has woe?
Who has sorrow?
Who has strife?
Who has complaining?
Who has wounds without cause?
Who has redness of eyes?

Those who tarry long over wine;
those who go to try mixed wine.
Do not look at wine when it is red,
when it sparkles in the cup
and goes down smoothly.

In the end it bites like a serpent
and stings like an adder.
Your eyes will see strange things,
and your heart utter perverse things.
You will be like one who lies down in the midst of the sea,
like one who lies on the top of a mast.

“They struck me,” you will say,“but I was not hurt;
they beat me, but I did not feel it.
When shall I awake?
I must have another drink.”

proverbs 23

STORIES

"Tell me a fact and I'll learn. Tell me a truth and I'll believe. But tell me a story and it will live in my heart forever."
- Old Indian Proverb

FATHERS DAY

I know, I know, I'm a little late.

My Dad was typical of a lot of men of his era.
He was a truly good man, quiet, frugal and conservative.
He attended Church every Sunday, but I never heard him sing.
I know he prayed every day, but I never heard him pray.
I know he loved me, but it wasn't a hugs and kisses kind of love.
He never said "I love you." He taught me to fish, and light a fire with one match, and tried to pass on the principles he lived his whole life by.
He showed me how to make Pancakes.
He fought in WWII in North Africa and Italy under General Patton.

There was a cigar that seemed to be a permanent fixture in Dad's mouth which he used to great effect as he talked to you. Dad could recite the Gettysburg Address in perfect diction with that cigar tucked into the corner of his mouth. He could move that cigar from one side of his mouth to the other and you never saw his lips move. It was as though it rode on ball-bearings.
Surreal.
Whenever Dad wanted to put some puctuation to any remark he might be making, the cigar would come out of his mouth and he would study the cigar, and the ribbons of smoke that came off of it.
When I turned 16 and got a car, I met a girl at a Junior Acheivement Dance. She was not my first girlfriend but she was the first with me having a Drivers License and a car. A whole new world was opened up. Her name was Jeri, and man, this girl could dance!
She was also very pretty, with blonde hair down to the small of her back, Ice-blue eyes and pouty lips that shone with Ice-Cream lipstick.. I am sure that it was her good looks that prompted my Dad into one of our little conversations.
After coming in from a date with Jeri, Dad sat me down.
"Thats a real nice lookin' girl you are seein' there son"
"Thanks Dad"
"You know, son, one of these days that little girl is gonna get the hot pants for you"!
"Undoubtedly, Father"
The cigar comes out and we both study it for a long moment as he blows a slow steady stream of smoke...
"Well when that happens I want for you to take her on to her house and you just come on home too."
"Sure Pop"

It was the equivalent of giving a girl a coin to put between her knees for birth control.

It was good and well intentioned advice, but there were other signs that Dad was losin' it.
His signature was getting sloppy and his writing wandered off the line.
When we worked on the car, he had trouble getting the screwdriver into the slot.
When he pulled up to a stop sign, sometimes he stopped 20 feet in front of it.
I thought jokingly that he must be getting senile.

Two years later in 1975, I heard a Medical term I had never heard before.
Alzheimers.
Dad had the "Early Onset" form of it and it left him completely disabled at the age of 58 years old.
Dad always told me what the right thing to do would be.


Dave Mows Grass, my nephew and I have started being sure to talk to each other every week. Some weeks we talk on thwe phone for an hour, other weeks only a little while.
The thing is, Davy lost his Dad too, and there are so many things we wish we might have talked to our dads about.
So, for you who still have fathers, even quiet and secret men like my father was, you go and talk to them, talk to them a lot because some day you will not be able to talk to them at all.
Its not too late.

35 YEAR FRIENDS REUNION

"whispering sweet nothings to julie, 1975"

Julie:
We all had a lot of fun Saturday night!

We have you to thank for it all, and so wished that you might have been there.
Everybody showed up except for Michele, and heck, she might have been there we just couldn’t find each other.
Tracy didn’t get there till late, and we all went to Lisa’s after for about an hour.

I had a lot of fun being the doorman. Brad got a table, it was way in the back, and I hung out in the front waiting for everybody so I could guide them past the line that stretched around the block, and lead them to the table. When it was just Michele and Tracy we were waiting for, I had even more fun asking every good lookin’ woman that passed my way, with a mighty look of expectation on my face, and in my Best Barry White voice:
“Are you Michele?”
And when they smiled politely and shook their head no I’d say
‘Well, how bout Tracy?”
And they would look at me like I was deranged and start walking a little quicker.

So, we had fun Julie, and if you and Michele had been there I think we would have all been completely out of control!

Your friend, Steve

Now for all my Blog friends, the reason Julie could not make it because her mother is having some surgery done today.

Ya'll please say a little prayer for her Mother, and my good friend Julie.

HAVE YOU EVER HEARD OF JUNETEENTH?

The last Battle of the Civil War was fought at Palmito Hill, near Brownsville Texas more than a month after Lees surerender




In 1984, in the mid part of the month of June, the XMrsBulletholes and I were on our way to Toledo Bend Lake for a camping trip. We kept passing groups of Black folks on the side of the road. Their mood seemed quite festive and it was like a 200 mile long picnic on the side of the road.
She asked me :
'What are all these black folks doing all up and down this road? Is it some kind of party?"
I looked over to her and grinned and said
"I guess they are just being Black!"
It was about then that I realized that it was "Juneteenth", the 19th of June and a holiday in Texas for many years. I believe it is now observed in 31 States as well.

After the battle of Antietam in September of 1862, Lincoln announced his Emancipation Proclamation which was to free the Slaves. It took effect on January 1st of 1863. Lee surrendered at Appomattox in April of 1865.

Two months later June 19, 1865, the news finally reached Texas.
Union General Gordon Granger rode into Galveston to announce
the end of the War, and the Emancipation Proclamation from 2 and a half years earlier. It was news to the slaves in Galveston and throughout the State.

"The people of Texas are informed that in accordance with a Proclamation from the Executive of the United States, all slaves are free. This involves an absolute equality of rights and rights of property between former masters and slaves, and the connection heretofore existing between them becomes that between employer and free laborer."

"...Employer and free laborer." For a people that have been enslaved for 400 years, could there be any words more powerful than this?

The following line appears throughout the Internet regarding Juneteenth.
"Juneteenth is the oldest nationally celebrated commemoration of the ending of slavery in the United States."
Can someone please tell me what would be another Holiday commemorating the ending of Slavery in the United States? Did I miss that day?

It should be noted that Slavery was not really banned in the United States until December 6, 1865 with the ratification of the 13 Amendment to the Constitution.

The State of Mississippi did not Ratify this Amendment until 1995...

THE GOOD OLD DAYS

Folks like to talk about how dangerous it is these days, how you can't walk down the street anymore without fearing for your life, and they long for the good old days where every evening Dad took you down to A&W for Burgers and a Frostie.
But it just wasn't that way.
It wasn't that way at all.


Hell, when I was a kid I had to watch out for about three dozen different bad-asses that would give me a thorough ass whuppin anytime I might stray off my particular block. And it wasn't too safe at school either.
Remember the "Swirlie" hair-do? That's where they stick your head in the toilet and flush. Ever get one of those?

Dan Jensonowski was one of the most misogynic and sadistic Safety Patrol Guards you would ever want to meet. If he is not incarcerated now, then he is surely a Prison Guard, and kickin' some poor innocent Con's ass somewhere. Dan used to give me nuks when ever I had to cross the street at his corner which was twice a day. Some days, if I was feeling particularly puny, I would go two blocks out of my way to avoid being brutalized by Dan Jensonowski.

Then there was James Glowers. He was a fat kid that would sit on you and blow cigarette smoke into your face. He had bad hair, bad breath and bad acne. He was like some kind of villain out of a Batman episode, with weird henchmen and everything. Put poor asthmatic Bill Spencer in the hospital one day, he did. Bill didn't breathe right for years.

I grew up in Detroit during the riots, and there was smoke blowing through our windows every night. Dad woke me up and took me down to Jefferson Avenue at 3:00AM to watch the National Guard* move in.
Don't give me any shit about how its "dangerous" these days....Downtown Detroit was 3 miles away, you could hear the Rat-a-tat-a-tat of gunfire and the whole city was on fire. The result was forty-three dead, 467 injured, over 7,200 arrests and more than 2,000 buildings burned down inside of five days.
Hell, even in my rich-kid Mafioso neighborhood, Grosse Pointe Park, the Mob told the cops to stand down and black limos patrolled the streets for the duration of the riots.
Its all true, my own  mother will testify to it.

So will the mother of Tanya Blanding, a 4 year old girl, who died as a result of a gunfire from a National Guard tank stationed in front of her house.

Every time I hear the Ice-Cream truck coming down the street, I shudder and say a prayer for little Georgie, Georgie Duke, who was run over and paralyzed from the waist down while he was eating his Strawberry Shortcake Good Humor Ice Cream Bar at the ripe old age of 10 in the summer of 1967.

Yeah baby, those were the good old days.


* 8,000 Troops with Tanks. Yes, Tanks, two blocks from my house.

Jefferson Avenue, July 1967




And it wasn’t much different when I moved back to Texas .
I made friends with the guy up the block, Jeff Bargren. He was my first friend here in Texas .

We were friends for all of two weeks when he got hit by a car on the 121 access road coming off the pedestrian bridge on his way to Shady Oaks Elementary. Nearly killed him, and left him with a fair amount of brain damage.
With a Herculean effort and a year of intense therapy, he learned to walk and talk again and was able to join us mates in school.

School, where he was mocked, teased and bullied quite a bit, even by myself though not directly to his face.
In the end the metal shop Hoodlums and car repair guys took him in.
I think of Jeff and those Metal Shop Hoods whenever I start feeling a little judgmental, a little abrasive to other people, and try to remember that just a little kindness can go a long, long way and that kindness can come from some unlikely places.
Meanness too.

WILD WORLD

They kept playing that song “Wild World” by Cat Stevens all night long.

We had sister Churches, St. Paul Methodist and Hurst Methodist, and between those two Churches and our own Bedford Methodist we had a pretty good group of kids. When I think back it seems like whatever we did, they did as well. And whatever they did, somehow we managed to tag along too.
I think it must have been Halloween 1971, I was in the 8th Grade. The plan was to meet at one of the Churches, bob for apples, take a hayride, watch a scary movie, and then on to Hurst Bowl for all Night Bowling. I remember the movie was ‘Tomb of Ligeia” with Vincent Price, but I didn’t pay much attention to it because I was too busy trying to maneuver myself into the proximity of Nancy.
And it seemed like they just kept playing that song “Wild World” over and over again.

Nancy was one of the smartest girls I ever knew. She was not just a classmate, and not just a church-friend; she was also the daughter of longtime friends of my parents. Our parents had been friends before she and I were ever born. In a strange sort of way that made her a sister, or a cousin maybe. It made her at least very much like family, except I had a crush on Nancy.

After the movie was over we all loaded up the buses and headed for the Bowling Alley, where they would lock us safely inside for the night.. It was on the bus that I was very much entertained by Vickie , who kept sticking her tongue out at me and saying it was really a lizard. I was delighted, and from that moment on I was all past Nancy , at least for the night, because Nancy, never would have you know, shown me her tongue, and now I was all about Vicki .
And it seemed like they just kept playing that song “Wild World” over and over again.

So at the Bowling Alley, all night long, I kept trying to maneuver myself into the proximity of Vickie . Didn’t do any good, but we all had lots of fun Bowling. It was exciting to find that I could have a crush on TWO girls at the same time. Ah, the promiscuous heart and mind of an eighth grade boy!
And it seemed like they just kept playing that song “Wild World” over and over again.

At 6AM the next morning, after donuts, we were turned loose into the world. I carried the silver/chrome tray that had had chips and dips on it to Mikes ’64 Impala, where Vickie, Nancy, and no tellin’ how many kids piled into that car to be driven home. It was on Hurstview as we crossed the bridge only a few blocks from my house that the flashing lights lit up the dawn and appeared in the rear-view mirror.
The cops were pulling us Church kids over!
This was very exciting, more exciting than Nancy's wit, more exciting than Vickie sticking her tongue out at me, surely the most exciting thing that had never happened to me before.
I mean, my dad had never been pulled over. Why would anyone want to pull over my Dad?
But in 1971, a car load of bleary eyed kids driving around at 6AM was probable cause enough for Hurst’s finest to be suspicious.

The officer approached the drivers window.
‘Can I see your license”
“Yes sir” Mike says
“What are you kids doing out this time of the morning”
‘Were coming back from an all night Bowling Party at the Church.”
“Your Church has a Bowling Alley?”
Mike stutters ‘Er, well, um, what I-I m-meant to s-say was….”
But the Officer stops him. “I know what you meant son, its OK.” Smiling, he hands Mikes license back.

But then he glances to the back seat and sees me, holding that darn silver-chrome tray for the chips and dips. He frowns and sticks his head in the window.
“What do you have there son?”
I’m frozen speechless, terrified. I had never been asked any question like that by a policeman.
In fact we are all a bit tongue tied. No one says a word, and his eyes are starting to burn right through me. I feel like I am holding a sack of stolen money, or a guys head, or some kind of contraband.
Just when the officer looks like he is about to draw his weapon, Nancy snaps.
“Officer, that is a tray for chips and dips.” She smiles sweetly, takes it from my hands and gives it to the cop. “See?”
He turns it over in his hands, examines the shine of the chrome and hands it back to Nancy saying
“Hmmm, I thought it might be a HubCap”

What a relief!
We all just cracked up!
And on the radio comes that song, ‘Wild World” for the 10th time that night.
I can’t hear that song without thinking about Nancy, without thinking about Vickie, without thinking about that cop.

click here to see a related post about the majikat.

DIGITAL T.V.

Read all about how to handle the Cutover.
(click here)

NOSTALGIA

'Nostalgia" is what they were talking about when they said,
"One day we'll look back on all this and plow into a parked car."
west texas insomniac, in a comment from yesterdays post

I have a friend that plowed into a light pole in the middle of a parking lot.
He hit it dead center in his Dads 1967 Ford Country Squire Station Wagon.
Thats nostalgia for you.
His name is John and I saw him yesterday for the first time in 17 years.
He was sitting at a table with me and two other old friends in a restaurant and we had not all sat at the same table together in 35 years.
Thats Nostalgia for you.

I looked out the window and recalled the day 35 years ago that I passed by that particular parking lot and saw that John had had that wreck. He hit the only light pole in the whole parking lot.
Dead Center.

John pointed out the window at the light pole he had hit all those years ago and said:
"My dad came to the scene. He was all over me. Had me by the ear.
The cop said "I'm not going to write you a ticket, son."
Then he turned to my Father and said:
"Looks like you got this under control" "

Yeah, thats Nostalgia for you.

Dead center.

OLD FLAME

"Nostalgia - it's delicate, but potent.

... in Greek, 'nostalgia' literally means 'the pain from an old wound.'

It's a twinge in your heart far more powerful than memory alone. This device isn't a spaceship, it's a time machine. It goes backwards, and forwards... it takes us to a place where we ache to go again. It's not called the wheel, it's called the carousel.

It let's us travel the way a child travels - around and around, and back home again, to a place where we know we are loved."

The Mad Men

BILLION DOLLAR BASH

COWBOYS STADIUM

Opening night of the new 1.15 Billion Dollar Stadium featured C/W Artist George Strait.

There were 19 arrests for public intoxication and one for a DWI.

Who got the DWI?

The General Manager of the Billion Dollar Stadium.

MIRACLES

The last month has been pretty weird.
I did a post a while back about a dog on the side of the road. It was a pretty post, totally inspired, and a week after posting it I found out that the owner of the dog, through a series of events, had actually been directed to the post. She was touched by the post as I was touched by her dog.


I have a Sister-in-Law that tells me the closer I get to God, the more stuff like that will happen.


Here at work we repair radios for the Airline Industry. Last year the Yellow Pages Phone Book screwed up and listed us as a TV Repair Shop. I get several calls a week, folks wanting their television repaired. I tell them that unless it haS wings on it, I can't help them and direct them to a business in the community that has been around a long time.

Last week I got a call from a very well spoken polite gentleman. He sounded familiar to me so let him talk, explaining to me the problem with his television set until I identified his voice.
'Is your son named Jeff" I asked.
"Why yes, how could you know that?" he says.
"Mr. Maddox, I worked for Jeff, I went to school with Jeff...Hell I've been to your house and did your tile in your Den and you and your wife...Ann, right? Ya'll fed me dinner...we had those speckled Anastzi Beans and Brisket!"
Of course he remembered me, even though it was almost ten years ago..
I gave him my phone nunber and that afternoon Jeff called me.


A few days later I saw an ad in the paper for my 35 year class reunion.
I had spent 20 years being a Chef and did not have time for anything like a class Reunion. Then I spent 10 years so fucked up I wouldn’t think about going to a class reunion. The last 5 years I have been too SORRY to go to a class Reunion. I responded and the last week has seen half a dozen people from my distant past come back into my life.


Some of these people went to Church with me in my youth.
Some were my best pals in Boy Scouts, and shared Boy Scout eggs with me.
I've written a lot here about some of these people.
The miracle is not that our paths have crossed again.

The miracle is that because of the program I am in in NA, and because I have 326 days of being clean and sober, and because I have gained a certain amount of self acceptance, in part because of this blog....

The Miracle is that I am actually willing to let these people into my life again.

THE FIRST DAY OF SUMMER

The first day of Summer Vacation in 1970, I got on my bicycle and started riding. I was 13 years old and I rode and rode and rode.
When I finally stopped riding, I found myself 7 miles away from home at a place called Richland Plaza where they had a miniature Golf Course.
I played 12 games of miniature golf, and was about to start the 13th when I noticed the clock behind the cashier.
It was 6:00 PM and I had been gone from home since 9:00 that morning, having left without a word to anyone, and if I pedaled like a madman I might make it home by dark.
I had forgotten about everyone and everything and I knew that I was "in for it" bigtime!
So I pedaled like a madman and as I rolled into the driveway the street lights flicked on, and there was my mother, wringing her hands and mad as hell.
I was grounded for a week.
I like to think of this as the first day of the Summer of my Narcissism which lasted until...

GODS CASUAL REPLY

ROCKY MOUNTAIN HIGH

Yeah, 9th Grade Church Camp, Russell takes me for a walk into the woods and produces a joint.
It was my first time, and the next thing I knew I was stoned, in a kayak, paddling into this stagnant abandoned swimming pool that was full of algae and frog eggs. It was thick as Lime Jello.
I got to the middle, looked up at the moon, and started a singin’ ‘Rocky Mountain High” at the top of my lungs.

When I got to the part that said
“And they say that he got crazy once and he tried to touch the sun”
I noticed my seat was wet.
When I got to the part that said
“You can talk to God and listen to the casual reply”
my kayak was ¾ sunk and listing badly.

I abandoned the kayak and began sludging my way through the algae, swimming for the shore and when I got to the edge, Andy pulled me out.
I lay on my back, laughing like crazy and finished with
“Friends around the campfire and everybody's High”
and Andy looked down into my face and said
“You are SO stoned aren’t you?”

Church Camp was never the same after that.


Thanks to my pals Lily & Unremitting Failure

HELP

I swallered a whole Peppermint while-ago.

MY TRUE IDENTITY

You see all these different tests to determine your personality type these days.
Things like 'What kind of Dog are you" and "What Color Easter Egg are You" and stuff like that. They all list the traits exhibited from a series of questions and get you into a cute little category of some sort that you can be very proud of.


I think maybe its a lot more simple than all that. I think I can tell you who you are by just asking one question:
"What was your favorite Lunch Box when you were a kid?"



If you are a cop today, Ill bet your favorite lunch box was Dick Tracy, or Superman.
If you are a Five-star General, I'd bet on GI Joe.
Are there any lady lawyers out there? Did you have a Nancy Drew or Honey West lunchbox? Yes, I imagine you did.
If you favorite lunchbox was a Wrestler, you might be a redneck.
If your mother sent you to school with the bologna Sandwich, carrot stick, apple and Twinkie all in a brown paper bag, then I bet you had a notebook with your logo, your insignia, that you carried like a banner.
Barbie, Kermit the Frog and The Terminator.
These are the threads of the very fabric of our lives.


Me? My favorite lunchbox?
Woody Woodpecker, of course!

WHATS YOUR LUNCHBOX?






Ho-ho-ho ho ho! Ho-ho-ho ho ho!
Oh, that's the Woody Woodpecker song
Ho-ho-ho ho ho! Ho-ho-ho ho ho!
Yeah, he's a-peckin' it all day long

He pecks a few holes in a tree to see
If a redwood's really red
And it's nothing to him, on the tiniest whim
To peck a few holes in your head

Ho-ho-ho ho ho! Ho-ho-ho ho ho!
Oh, that's the Woody Woodpecker's tune
Ho-ho-ho ho ho! Ho-ho-ho ho ho!
Makes the other woodpeckers swoon

Though it doesn't make sense to the dull and the dense
And the lady woodpeckers long for
Ho-ho-ho ho ho! Ho-ho-ho ho ho!
That's the Woody Woodpecker song

THE MOD SQUAD

The last 4 weeks has been a time of old friendships coming back around again.
There is "Jimi", a buddy from High School who I found recently at NA with 14 years of clean time. He is the same but he is different. He was the Jimi Hendix of LD Bell High School, the only black spot in a sea of white, which made him a real novelty in these parts, and he became a friend, a cohort and back then, seemed to give a carte blanc of coolness to anyone in his proximity.

We used to get high just about everyday together back then, and if we were still in class by lunch, then there was something terribly wrong.
I see him about once a week now, and he is an inspiration to stay clean and sober.
HE IS ONE OF THE VERY FEW TO HAVE 14 YEARS OF CLEAN TIME WITHOUT A SINGLE RELAPSE.

In a meeting a few days ago, near the end of the meeting, someone called on him to share (talk). Jimi usually will talk even without being called on but this day he declined. The dude next to him pokes him in the ribs and says “C’mon, Jimi, go ahead” but Jimi declines again and says in perfect Jimi form
“No, man, I don’t want to mess with anybodies serenity”

I laughed my ass off, partly because it was funny but mostly because he said it just the way he would have said it 35 years ago. Only back then when he said it, he probably had his hand in your pocket, the way he has his in Lisa's here...

LISA, JIMI, AND ME
JANUARY 1975
3rd PERIOD CHEMISTRY CLASS

DAVY'S BACK

Whoa, there Boy!