Life was pretty much sunshine and cherries until my 13th birthday. You see, my family usually took a trip out west or somewhere for a week each summer. Included in this was the badlands and St Louis where my Grandparents lived. But one year when I was 12, we took an entire summer and traveled everywhere out west. From Montana to Yellowstone, down through Colorado and Pikes Peak, and further to Utah and Salt Lake City. It was a fun escape, but it didn’t dawn on me that it was an exploratory trip for Mom and Dad.

Little did I know, Dad had found a job in Colorado Springs and we moved out there only three months after returning from our trip. Which was right after my 13th birthday. My other brother, Kevin [1], was born just before this relocation.

The move was upsetting to me on many fronts. I was starting the turbulent puberty years. I didn’t want to move and start over with new friends and give up everything I knew and depended on. But of course, my opinion wasn’t a driving factor here. So after a quarter at Paynesville Middle School in the 7th grade, we moved to Woodland Park on the side of Pikes Peak in Colorado.

I was quite rebellious then. And I took a lot of it out on Adam (which I now regret immensely). I also started getting into a lot of trouble in school and grades started to slip. I was a straight “A” student prior to that. And to make matters worse, the home front was far from stable. After half a year there, Mom and Dad got a divorce and we moved back to Minnesota. Mom, Adam, Kevin and I spent the rest of my 7th grade living with Grandma in St. Martin and I was back in my old school.

That summer, Mom bought a trailer house just outside of St. Cloud and we moved there. Thus began my real teen life and high school. We’d never been “rich”, but living here set a new level of poor for us. From food stamps to burning wood for fuel, we made the most of it and were comfortable.

I adapted to this new life, but not without a few emotional upheavals and what were very trying times for my poor Mom, I’m sure. I was so used to being in the background that I quickly slipped back into this roll in my social life immediately. But I had my friends, too. Mostly outcasts like me.

After surviving most of high school to my junior year, I started to realize how simple the whole popularity game worked. It’s all a portrayal of confidence. And although it was a bit late in the pecking order amongst my own peers, I quickly established relationships amongst new friends in other school districts and at work that utilized my new found confidence in myself.

I was working at Shopko at the time (worst job ever, but anyway), I started dating various cashiers and getting out a lot more. One of those cashiers soon became my girlfriend and we dated through our college careers. Angie was three years younger than I, but three older than me in terms of responsibility — so we fit pretty well.

Here’re a few highlights that I recall:

• Starring in the high school play as “Young Pip” when I was in the 6th grade. I’d never felt as old as when I was invited to Mr. Carlson’s after party at his house with all of these adults. Not only that, but there was a scene where the girl playing the part of Estella had to kiss me. :) We rehearsed it many times. :) :)
• Finishing all the calculus that Sauk Rapids had to offer me in my Junior year. My Senior year I was a teaching assistant for calculus.
• Spending as much time as possible in the various shop programs available. My projects where often 10 times more involved and challenging. I began collecting wood working tools and made some pretty amazing things out of 2x4’s in my garden shed work shop.
• Sneaking out at night and wandering for miles into the woods. It was my way of refocusing and forgetting about the prior day’s worries.
• One night when I snuck out, the neighbor caught me and talked me into following him back home. He tried to get me to come inside and meet his wife saying they were swingers, but I wasn’t comfortable with that. In the end, I agreed to wait outside while he went in. Soon she was in the patio window of their trailer naked as a jaybird and masturbating in front of me. It was the first time I saw a women without clothes other than in magazines. (No — I didn’t do anything. When she was done, I just went home not knowing what else to do.)
• Many evenings my best friend, Todd, and I went cruising the strip in St. Cloud in my Plymouth Horizon. It was so decked out with a CB system, home-built amplifier, rear seat replaced with 2 fifteen inch subs and multi-disk player before they were readily available.
• Smoking pot with Todd’s uncle, Kenny, and listening to the police band while he (Todd’s uncle) worked on his basement. Kenny was busy digging a hole under his house and discovered a huge boulder there that he was earnest about digging around.
• My first kiss with this “big girl” who was much older than I after drinking behind Dee’s Lanes bowling alley. She used her tongue and it startled me.
• Endless poker nights with my other nerd-friends from high school. We stayed up the entire night drinking a case of Mountain Dew apiece and gambling. When we were Freshmen, I won the first night. It was $11. The last time we gambled together I won again. Then it was over $400.
• Getting drunk for the first time when I was a Senior in high school. We drank the rest of my Mom’s rum that was at least 12 years old and a case of Busch Light. Blech! In the morning, Brad woke up in only his underwear and said “where’re my clothes?” I pretended to sleep and ignored him. We still give him shit for this.
• Getting in fist fights. There were a couple of guys that rode the bus with me and insisted on giving me a hard time. Unlike earlier years, this time I let it out through my fists. They didn’t pick on me after that and I learned the value of brute strength when dealing with the ignorant.
• One time, Todd and I fought over a girl. Her name was Tracy Skuza. Todd kicked my ass and neither of us ended up with her.

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