Reflections on a Misspent Youth


The joke I used to tell was that when I entered college I was 80 and when I left about 20. I was Miss Goody Twoshoes during high school because my mother was sick, my father not coping that well, and I had a little sister to look after.

Mother, in her infinite wisdom made me turn down a math scholarship to an "away" college and enrolled me in UNM because she didn't think I was adult enough. At which time fate stepped in and promoted my father to a job in Denver. His joke was they could not get me to run away from home so they ran away from me. It was the wild and crazy '60's and after a very strict upbringing I turned pirate. I had three rules that stood me well: 1) do not get pregnant, 2) get your bachelor's and not your MRS degree, and 3) do not get arrested. The last may have been just luck but I worked hard on the other two.

If the 60's were insane the 70's were even wilder. I had the bachelor's degree, the pill and the number one status symbol of my age -- the FBI file. My resume, without careful editing, by the time I entered my red neck period (1981) qualified me for only one thing , authoring a tell all book. Whoever came up with the t-shirt - Been there, done that - obviously knew me or traveled a similar path.

So last night exchanging memories with one of those friends who shared parts of the decade of the 1970's I had no regrets but somehow see did. Wasn't she with me in the VW mirco bus crossing to California with 9 kids, two dogs, a goat and not enough money? Or when we dumped everything but the VW at her parents in San Fernando Valley and took off to visit a beautiful and sexy friend in Hollywood.

So why does she now have to hang with an alcoholic with a Harley Davidson? But it was Jan that did the Harley's with me. And only me that did the alcoholics. You think, however, she would have gotten some wisdom from watching me make those mistakes. Not that I really list any of my adventures in my youth as mistakes but they definitely shorten up the bucket list. A changing world with video on every cell phone would have deleted a few things I already checked off.

I felt like a mother when I sent my friend off this morning on a hog driven by a man already sipping from his flask to the Red River Memorial Day Run now infested with biker gangs and not just Vietnam vets. Surely she knows what to avoid but then after our wild and crazy hippie days she (and the new dude) are Rush Limbaugh fans and registered Republicans.

I meanwhile am contented doing some gardening and later a bit of painting. The dogs and I walked through the fog this morning on land a long way from the noisy stream of bikers. I am too old do repeat my youth and do not want to anyway. Been there, done that, and have the mental bullet holes to prove it. I got lucky.

Comments

  1. The Blog of BeeMay 25, 2013 at 10:45 AM

    A book would be fascinating. Your friend I feel, is looking for something she thinks she missed out on or is desperately trying to recapture what she had without realizing you can never go back. Great read.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Ien in the KootenaysMay 26, 2013 at 2:36 PM

    If you ever write a memoir I would love to read it!

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

I write for me but I care what my readers think. Please be polite and no scamming.

Popular posts from this blog

Polyethylene Packaging - a Dark Times Journal entry

Image
I was in the fourth grade when our family moved from El Paso, Texas to Albuquerque, New Mexico. We moved because I could not breathe the air there. I want to say they cracked petroleum there. But what did I know beyond the sky was sometimes yellow and I could not breathe. Mom was pregnant with Debbie, and Gary and I rode in the backseat separated by a round tank full of Dad's tropical fish. Dad had a job with Sealright, Inc which made paper milk cartons. Sealright was a polyethylene packing subsidiary of Phillips 66. The petroleum company. I was rather proud of myself for learning to say that, and to not laugh when adults would stare at me not knowing what to ask about that. Albuquerque smelled better. Then. Before all the freeways were built and the shape of the valley trapped the exhaust down near the ground in the winter months. We lived in the foothills. I could breathe. I learned that if I could see the air I could not. Still it was better than El Paso though I missed our trip...
Read more

Swimming

Image
For much of my college career my fitness workout was swimming on the B squad of the swim team. I remember it as the days before heated pools and women coaches. I also remember being so exhausted and cold I could only lean against the shower wall and throw up. Not exactly warm fuzzy images but I was in awesome shape. Needless to say it did not leave me with a overpowering desire to swim laps. Point of fact for years my swimming became really informal: Swimming to shore after the canoe tipped over, challenging my sister once a summer to across the lake and back, seeing how long I could back float without moving a muscle, and a scuba course. I also played around with other ways of staying fit: aerobics, bicycling, jogging, skiing and dance classes. All of which seem to be bad for the knees, back or feet. After my ski accident my physical therapist steered me back to the pool. Damn if I was going to swim laps! However, aqua fit was just getting rather seriously taken so I took it. It r...
Read more

The Pruning the Crown of Thorns

Image
Crown of Thorns Before I am a lover of Euphorbias . They are from the deserts of Southern Africa and Madagascar. They have evolved physical characteristics and forms similar to cacti of North and South America and are often incorrectly referred to as cacti. My big Crown of Thorns was one of my first of a growing collection of these succulents from the spurge family of Euphorbiaceae. I picked it up as a 6 inch plant in a New Iberia nursery when my sister and I were touring the northern gulf coast. I believe that was 15 years ago. I made an attempt at limiting its height a few years back to allow it to devote more energy to the new branches and make it a denser plant. That failed. And the height of the plant continued to challenge the window space and soon the long branches were leaning over and leaning against the window. I googled and found the proper way to prune this treasured plant. Still it was very difficult to cut off the four longer branches. Even with a plan. The f...
Read more