A double life

 

My life was fairly well balanced when I was growing up.  I lived on a farm, most of my friends were the same. I spent summers sitting on a tractor or changing sprinkler pipe. 

As time went on, I became more exposed to different people with different lifestyles. A friend of mine, before I was in the church, invited me over. They prayed over dinner, which I found odd. 

When I was a sophomore in high school, I went to my first drinking party. My older brother Set up our big army tent and invited fifty or so friends for a bonfire keggar. 

Soon after high school, I moved with a friend to Boise Idaho, where we threw lumber in a sawmill. We smoked in the house there, brought crusty women over and raised Cain. 

Three more years of riotous living, and I decided that if I’m going to stay on this trajectory, I would wind up being a loser, with a loser for a wife, surrounded by little losers for kids. So I decided to clean up my life. 

That wasn’t so easy, most of my friends were on the rougher side. I drank, I smoked, I used foul language, I had a stack of nuddie mags six inches thick. All of  that was tough to give up. 

Even today,  I will long for the days of not caring about my future. I may slip up from time to time. I will think about fun times.

However, I look at my old friends from those days and most of them have became losers (others cleaned up their lives in their own way). Can’t keep on a southward direction and wind up in Greenland.

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