His name was Ken and he was my Big Brother. (No, this is not a reveal of someone hidden within our lineage – I was involved with Big Brothers when I was a young teen!)

I was 14 when we first met. Ken was 10 years older than me and about 10 inches shorter. It didn’t matter how much I physically stood over him because I still looked up to him.

When we first met he lived in Hamilton in an apartment on the mountain. I don’t recall going to that apartment very often because we generally went out – bowling, playing pool or whatever would grab our attention. Although we got along great and talked almost non-stop, we never really talked about how I was feeling or anything too deep. I don’t think it mattered. With Ken, having someone to go out with on a regular basis and have fun was what my spirit needed from him.

St. Catharines

Within a year of meeting Ken, he moved to St. Catharines to be closer to a new job. He moved into a one-bedroom unit in an apartment on Geneva St. Once or twice a month I would visit with Ken in St. Catharines, usually staying over on a Saturday night. Often Ken would buy a case of beer and he would have a few. I don’t ever recall him being drunk – just enjoying some beer. He would give me one or two occasionally. Yes, I was underage, but maybe he thought I couldn’t get into any trouble. Or could I?

On one particular visit, things were going as normal. We had gone for dinner and then settled back into his apartment. He had a few beers and offered me a couple, which I was glad to accept. This particular night I had an elevated taste for the brown pops. Ken went to bed a little after midnight and I had my bedding on the couch I normally slept on. Once Ken was sleeping, I helped myself to a couple more beers. I wasn’t drunk, but I was feeling mildly euphoric – this was all fairly new to me. This particular night I was also feeling adventuresome.

My Adventure

Ken drove a yellow car. I believe it was a Ford Fairlane, or something very similar, roughly 1972 model. It was a big car. At 1:30 in the morning, with Ken asleep in his room and 15-year-old me with a few beers under my belt, I decided to take the car for a ride. How hard could it be?

I got the keys and quietly snuck out the apartment door and took the elevator to the main floor. The parking lot was behind the building. I found the car, opened the door and slid behind the steering wheel. It was helpful that the car was an automatic because having no driving experience whatsoever rendered the steering wheel, gas pedal and brakes complicated enough.

Turning the key, the engine started without a hitch. I backed up out of the parking spot and I carefully memorized which spot I just left. Slowly I drove down the lane-way, stopping at the lip of Geneva St. Given the time of night, there were few cars around.

Turning left, I drove onto the road. I was keeping in between the lines, driving rather well and enjoying every second. I drove down Geneva for a few minutes. Since I started getting a little nervous that Ken would wake up, I somehow turned around and drove back to the apartment parking lot. Thankfully the same parking space was open, so I pulled in.

My Adventure Continues

I went up to the apartment and found that Ken was still fast asleep. I sat on the couch for a few minutes and quite easily talked myself into going for another ride. Same sequence: quietly close door, go downstairs, start the car and go to Geneva. This time I got a little more adventuring.

I turned off Geneva to a long road with almost no cars on it. Carefully I drove it one way to scope the nuances of the road – the gentle bend and one minimal dip in the road. I turned around on the road heading back to Geneva. Holding my breath, I hammered on the gas pedal. I wound it up to around 75 mph (that’s miles, kilometers) in the city of St. Catharines before having to slow down before reaching Geneva. Again, nervous about Ken’s awakening, I went back to the apartment.

My Adventure Ends

I didn’t take long for me to convince myself to go for another ride. This one had its own level of excitement – very unplanned. I did my run down that same road, hitting around 75 mph again. Cruising back along Geneva heading back to the apartment I was on cloud nine. I was feeling good – until the car started to make a strange sound. It started to jerk and slow down. I was running out of gas.

I managed to pull over in a parking lot of a tiny strip plaza. This was not good. I had about $6.00 on me, so I had enough for some gas, but the gas station a few stores down wasn’t opening until 7:00. I had almost 2 hours to fill, smoking cigarettes and sweating bullets. When the gas station opened, they did have a can for me to use to fill up with gas and take to the car.

I filled up the $6.00 worth of gas, returned the can and went back to the car. As I was about to get in the car, a man approached me and asked me for ID. Seriously? I found out very soon that he was a plain-clothed juvenile police officer. He had been watching me nervously going about my gas-filling duties and something looked wrong.

He took me back to Ken’s apartment. We woke up Ken so the officer could explain what had happened and I filled in some of the blanks (I didn’t mention the 75 mph trips). After the officer left Ken was pissed off and spoke very little for the rest of the day – until a knock came to the door which would make things worse.

It Got Worse

Having no driving experience or lessons, I wasn’t aware that I needed to back out straight a few feet, then turn the wheel so that the nose of the car doesn’t clip the car beside you. Apparently, I turned too soon.

The knock on Ken’s door was the owner of the vehicle parked beside Ken’s car. He had spent some time trying to figure out who owned the car who dented his. After they sorted out the details and the guy left, Ken was even more pissed off. A short, blasting lecture was followed by even louder, longer silence.

I don’t recall if I took the bus or Ken drove me home. Either way, Ken gave all the details to my mom. There was over $200 in damage and I was told that the money she was going to use to buy me a new bike would be paying that tab.

I never had another visit with Ken after that one and I don’t believe we ever talked again. It was a punctuated ending to a necessary relationship.

The New Inner Voice

My mom, in turn, told my step-dad all the details. He didn’t come over for a week or so to confront me about this. I recall coming up the house one evening and seeing his car on the street. I went into the house, completely petrified about his reaction. He looked at me, paused, raised his fist for drama and said, “When is the last time someone punched you right in the mouth?”

I froze, but he didn’t follow through. Thankfully, he didn’t punch me or hit me in any way. But something odd happened. For the first time in my life, I heard a tiny, barely audible voice coming from deep within me. It was a voice talking to my step-dad. That voice was actually a scream, but the layers of fear turned it into a soft whisper. That voice had eyes and as it looked at my step-dad it simply said, “Fuck you”. These words never left their inner confines, but that moment changed the relationship between my step-dad and me forever.

At The Edge

I have told this story to a few people in the past and to many I seem like a juvenile prankster, getting the due consequences of some stupid actions. Superficially, that is an understandable summary of events. But so much more happened.

My decision to take the car seemed like fun at the moment. Standing on the edge, I had the choice to step back and not go joyriding or leap off the edge landing behind the wheel of the car. The combination of beer and youth created clouds which blocked the view of the jagged rocks below. I chose to leap. The collision on the rocks had many impacts.

One impact from this incident is that I never saw Ken again. We never talked on the phone or got together. It was the first time that my actions, fueled by drinking or anything else, caused a fracture in a relationship. It wouldn’t be the last.

Another impact was the slight, but significant change in the relationship with my step-dad. That inner voice trying to scream out “fuck you” was that piece of me that trying to break the binds of the enveloping, smothering fear I had of him. Those binds were very strong and it would another 20 years before those words actually came out towards him.

The final impact was more subtle. I didn’t even see it then. I was in the early stages of a downward slide. This slide was masterful in its deception, baiting me with some exciting adventures and some fun with drinking. The early stages of the slide barely point down at all, maybe a degree or two. Enough of a slope to start the decline, but not enough to notice. A seeming friend with demonic intentions.

I was on the downward slide and I didn’t even know it…

The post Starting the Downward Slide appeared first on Randy Bassett.

For me there were a couple of times in my youth when someone, sometimes unwittingly, played a father figure to me. Those moments provided periods of much-needed respite from the emotional storms within.

Mr. Lowry was one of those people.

Big Brothers

I connected with Big Brothers when I was 12 or 13.

I don’t really recall how I first set up with them, but knowing how I was, I am sure I just went to their office or called them to get things rolling. I also don’t recall the details of the application, but I do recall the waiting period – the time taken to find a match.

I am not sure of the norms now, but then it could take 6 months or so to find a big/little brother match. This was the waiting period for the little brothers because there were more little brothers on the list than there were big brothers applying. The big brothers that applied had much shorter time. In my early 20s, I was a big brother and it took less than a couple of months to connect with a little guy.

Because of my age, it took longer for them to find me a big brother. It seemed that most big brothers wanted younger kids to connect with. Maybe people thought that kids my age weren’t as cute as the younger ones or maybe they thought we might have more baggage to deal with. I was too young to bother analyzing the sociology of it all – plus I didn’t mind the wait.

The Coach House

During my waiting time I would meet weekly with a social worker at the Big Brother office. In the early 1970’s, the Big Brother office was located on Victoria Street, just south of Main. The main building was an old house, nicely carved out inside to a warm web of rooms converted to offices. Tucked in behind this old building was a small building called “The Coach House”.

This little building was easy to miss if you drove past the Big Brother main office. It was in the shadows of the bigger building and its outer decor made in blend in like a brick chameleon, but this room became so important to me that I always looked for it whenever I passed by – even years later.

The exterior bricks of the building were painted gray. It was a simple one-story building with no basement and only three rooms. Two rooms were off to the left and they were small – one being used as a tiny meeting room, the other a storage room. The main room took over 80% of the space in the building. There were a few seats against the walls of this room, but its main features were the pool table and the ping-pong table.

The Coach House was one of my favourite places to hang out. This was where Mr. Lowry and where we spent most of our time.

Meet Mr. Lowry

I am not really sure if he was a social worker, an intake worker or what his title was, but to me he was simply Mr. Lowry. It didn’t really matter to me what his title was (for this blog, I’ll just assume he was a social worker). What did matter was his impact on me.

I cannot recall what his first name was. I likely saw it on some name plate or piece of paper, but I never called him by his first name. He was always “Mr. Lowry” to me.

Mr. Lowry and I met at the Coach House on a weekly basis. We would battle it out over a game of pool or ping-pong and then spend some time just hanging out and chatting.

He Had a Plan

Little did I realize that Mr. Lowry was using this time to get to know me better. There was no Freudian analysis with me on a couch and him scribbling notes and saying “hmm, tell me more” as I rattled on about the goldfish I lost when I was 7. No, he was effectively sneakier than that.

He spent the time letting me be a boy and showing me he genuinely cared. Through games, laughter and warm smile, he quickly gained my trust.

He must have also recognized that I needed that time because we met for a lot longer time than necessary to get to know me. We met weekly for nearly a year without fail. It didn’t stop until I was eventually connected with a big brother.

The Impact

When a father leaves a family, it can create a hole inside the children left behind. When my stepfather left, that hole expanded. Owing to the physical abuse and emotional neglect, a hole had already started, but it grew when he left. The continued pattern of his fatherhood whenever he stopped by only served to turn that hole into a flaming cavity.

I spent years trying to douse the flames and fill the cavity, but occasionally someone would come along that was able to throw a cover over that hole. Often it was temporary, but it would provide a much needed period of respite from the internal storm.

Mr. Lowry gave me that period of respite. He was filling the father void within me, even if it was only for a brief time. Although I couldn’t label the feelings then, he made me feel like I mattered and that somebody cared. I loved every minute spent in that Coach House with Mr. Lowry. Without recognizing it then, I loved Mr. Lowry too.

Thank You

Eventually they found a big brother for me: Ken W. Soon after being introduced to Ken it was no longer necessary for me to meet at the Coach House. I never saw Mr. Lowry after that. I tried to track him down many years later to give him a simple message.

I discovered he passed away, so I will say my simple message now:

Dear Mr. Lowry,

You showed me that we should never under-estimate the enduring impact we may have on people.

You made a difference by giving me a time of rest from my inner fires. You helped me see that a father’s hands are better spent holding a boy’s heart. You also gave me a brief glimpse of hope.

Thank you, Mr. Lowry.

Love, Randy

The post Emotional Respite appeared first on Randy Bassett.

Music has gone through a wild ride in my lifetime. From the mix of folk and rock in my early years to the choice of disco or punk rock in my late teens. Admittedly, I am out of touch with the newer music now because I still enjoy filling my speakers with the music that filled me years ago.

Music has changed so much over the years, but so has the delivery. I am much too young to have owned any 78s, but I have listened to Elton John on records, 8 track tapes, cassettes, CD’s and mp3’s. I also had a collection of 45s that I thoroughly over-played. Sometimes I could only get singles on 45s – they didn’t come out on an album. Other times, I would find gems on the B side. Elton John’s “Philadelphia Freedom” was only available on a 45. The flip side had a duet of him and John Lennon singing “When I Saw Her Standing There”. That 45 was magical.

My Therapy

Music has always been my therapy.

For well over 40 years I have enjoyed putting my headphones on, dialing up a song and singing like no one is listening. My singing volume forced people to listen even when they preferred not to, but I didn’t care (and still don’t) because for those moments or hours, I fall into a wonderful, peaceful world where I am the star just waiting to be discovered.

Like many people, my choice of music would depend on my mood and maybe how tired I was. Whenever I was heading to the cottage with a few friends for a weekend of endless, useless drinking, we would play AC/DC, Led Zeppelin and Van Halen at max volume. On the return trip, while tired and on the early stages of a 2-day hangover, we would play Gordon Lightfoot, America and Harry Chapin with the volume barely audible.

Most of the time I was picking the songs to play, but every so often, a song would pick me out – it needed to send me or people around me a message.

Words

Although I love a great guitar solo and or a calming melody, I love the words in songs. I don’t lean towards songs with just instruments playing. I need to hear the words to capture what is being said. So many times it seems the musician is singing to me, telling me what I need to hear at the right time. I recall the first time I heard Rob Thomas sing “Little Wonders”. The line that hit me was “In the end, we will only just remember how it feels”. I reminded me then that I needed to enjoy and feel life’s adventures, not just fill time between meals.

The most powerful songs that impacted me through my life were not just the songs that spoke to me, but they were the songs that seemed to be speaking for me. These were songs that were strong reflections of the challenges I was going though. It was like they were trying to open my eyes to what was going on around me. In my early years, they also may have tried to help me say what I was too afraid or unable to say.

Smokey’s Message

I got Tears of Clown on a 45 when I was young. I played this song for hours on my little record player when I was 12 or 13. It was a little turntable with only one shitty little speaker – yet it sounded fantastic! Something about Smokey Robinson and Miracles belting out that song grabbed me. It took over 20 years for me to recognize why I loved that song. It was describing me. It was letting me know why I was a joker, a prankster… a clown.

It was so easy to see the light or funny side of things – and it still is. My wife gets annoyed at me when I poke fun at something she is trying to lecture me about. I can easily twist things around and find irony where it didn’t seem to exist. I have no problem pointing out the funny when the funny is there. I’ll make fun at others, but I also have no problem making fun of things I say and do. I do it now because I know it makes people feel good and I simply like doing it. It’s a nice remnant from emotional growth because when I did it back in my teens and 20s, it wasn’t only for fun… it was for protection too.

It wasn’t until my mid-to-late teens that I even identified any emotions. I saw a social worker named Carl deLottinville for four years. Up until then whatever I was feeling was just a bunch of stuff churning within. I didn’t even identify this stuff as feelings. The communication layer tapping within me was thin and ineffective.

It was easier to mask the mess with a smile and some jokes than to reveal it to anyone. Through my teens the internal pressure increased and the emotional mess did surface in many ways (drinking, drugs, suicide attempts). Yet, when I was able, I would beat it back with a laugh.

This song was also trying to tell others what was going on with me, even I didn’t recognize it. Being completely out of touch with my emotions when I was in my early teens made me unable to recognize the significance of my attraction to Tears of a Clown. Even if I was able, I would have been too afraid to open up to anyone. Yet the fact that I was playing and singing this song so much should have been an indication to people around me how I was feeling. In this situation, the song was trying to speak for me, not just to me. To no one’s fault, the message wasn’t heard.

Music’s Voice

Music has been and will always be a form of therapy for me and it is a very powerful communication device. I pay attention to what music my children and wife are listening, not to censor them, but just to look for any messages hidden in the songs of choice. I also pay attention to whatever song is grabbing me at the moment – just in case there is something within the song that I really need to hear.

What songs spoke through you?

What songs are speaking to you through your kids?

What songs are speaking through you now?

The post Tears of a Clown appeared first on Randy Bassett.

It took me a long time before I could say that to my step-father.

The Cot

We lived in a small 2-bedroom apartment until I was 14 years old. It served us very well, most of the time. One bedroom was used by my parents and the other I shared with my sister. We had bunk beds because there was no way 2 single beds were going to fit in the room. There was a period of time when one of our relatives stayed with us, so she shared that bedroom with my sister during that time. I slept on a cot, set up in the short hallway connecting the living room and the bedrooms. During the day, I spent so much of my time running around and playing that I could have slept comfortably on a bed of nails, so the lack of comfort of a cot was not an issue.

What was an issue was the fighting I recall coming from the living room while I was supposed to be sleeping. They were only 12 feet away, but being around the corner where they couldn’t see me must have offered an illusion that I wasn’t there or that I was sound asleep. The darkness in the hallway did little to mute the arguing. I pretended to be sleeping, not wanting to get involved in any way. I am absolutely certain that my mom would have done or said nothing to me, but I wasn’t so certain about my step-father. I would just lay there, wanting it to stop, but with no ability to make it stop.

I do recall some of the topics. The common topic was my step-father’s girlfriends. This didn’t make any sense to me at all. How can he have girlfriends when he was married? There were other topics as well, but I don’t recall them. Sometimes there were other people in the apartment, making the arguments that much more intense. I just laid there, eyes tightly shut, feigning sleep.

I watched, observed and absorbed.

Bringing Things Together

When I was 10 years old my mom and father split up. Looking back it was the best thing for my mom and ultimately for all of us. Up to the time he left, my step-father was the disciplinarian. That seemed to be his sole role. My own memories of his dealings with me didn’t seem too bad. Years later I would hear stories from other family members about the extremes he used when doling out my punishments.

After he left our family, his role as the authoritarian continued. I would only see him when I was due for some lesson. Up to age 16 I got into trouble frequently. Sometimes we would say we were sleeping at other friend’s houses and stay out overnight. One night we decided to camp out in a 45 floor building that was partly built. We got caught. On another one of these sleep-outs, we broke into a bunch of Wonder Bread trucks, looking for pastries and goodies to feast upon. We got caught. Another night I was staying with an adult friend (he was my Big Brother). I was 15 years old and after he fell asleep, I took his car for a joyride, driving 70mph through the streets of St. Catharines. Eventually the car ran out of gas… and I got caught.

You’d think I was a dumb delinquent, getting caught all the time, but there was probably so much more to it. Most people do not recognize the drivers behind what they do or say, least of all a young teenager. Like many behaviours driven by forces and influences completely unaware to me, my actions seemed to be serving a purpose. I would do something deemed needing correction, mom would call dad in and he would “correct” me. Even though I was getting beat up and beat down, there was something else going on. For those moments, however uncomfortable, the family would be together, my dad would be around.

Even more, I watched, observed and absorbed.

Emotional Lightning

Around age 15 or 16, the pressure of internalizing all I that was watching, observing and absorbing started to build cracks in my foundation. I couldn’t identify what I was feeling, so I didn’t recognize what was flashing out of me – bolts of anger, frustration and depression with the trailing thunder meant to create maximum impact with the least amount of time. In a very short period of time, the pressurized container emptied, leaving an even larger problem.

That quick escape of molten emotion left behind a smoldering vacuum at my core, a tank which I would spend years trying to fill. Drugs and alcohol would at least partly fill the reservoir temporarily, but the tank had leaks and would never stay topped up with these deceiving promises of fulfillment. What seemed pleasurable, like drinking way too much, too fast and too often, became a chore to take away the imploding pressure of this emotional vacuum. I wanted to stop, but the drive to fill the void persisted … maybe the next time the tank will stay filled, yet it never did.

Through this cycle, despair would inject its influence. So viciously caught in this cycle of filling, emptying, filling, emptying, I found it hard to see beyond the present moment and borrow a piece of hope from the future. In some of those moments, it simply seemed easier to leave, easier to die and stop the seemingly endless spiral into the darkness. Fortunately, there was a little piece deep within me that wanted me to live, but it was dormant, waiting quietly on the sidelines, watching the internal turmoil unfold. It did show when called upon. It helped me reach out to someone a couple of hours after I took hundreds of aspirins and sleeping pills one night. It also helped me reach back and find my footing on the dresser that I had just stepped off in that cold, dark garage.

During one of the many stays in psychiatric wards, I was assigned to a social worker named Carl. I saw Carl very regularly until I was 20 years old. He was very influential in helping to start sealing the leaks in my emotional vacuum. The seeds he helped to plant would eventually grow, slowly giving me more internal strength. I was lucky to have someone like that on my side to help turn the tide.

Getting to Thank You

So now to say “thank you” to my step-father. First, a thank-you for nothing. Thank you for not being there when I was a little boy when I needed you. Thanks for opening up an opportunity for me to deal with alcohol abuse for nearly 20 years. Thanks for helping to create an emotional environment inside of me that was so toxic that death seemed like a viable option. And no, I am not being sarcastic. I thank you for these because these dusty paths to where I am now were constructed largely by you, and I love where I am now (but there are easier paths to here!)

Next, I thank you for everything. The void in your shattering infidelity taught me relationship integrity, and I never cheated on anyone I was connected to (dating or marriage) ever. Also, thank you for helping me to be a better father to my own son, for showing me that there are two sides to a hand: one side that provides discipline (figuratively, in my role as a father), but more importantly, the other side that provides the guidance and nurturing a young boy needs.

George, my step-father, died a few years ago. Even though we only lived 10 minutes from each other, we saw each other only 2-3 times in the 20 years before his death. I remember when my brother-in-law called me to tell me that he passed away, simply saying “I’ve got some bad news. George is dead”. I felt bad at first because I thought he was talking about my Uncle George. Then it dawned on me that he was referring to my step-father. I was surprised at how little I felt either way – no relief, but no real sadness either, beyond that which I would feel upon hearing of the passing of anyone else. I will never be able to say thanks to him in person, but that is not the point. What is more important is that I am at the point of saying thanks to him, wherever he may be.

I watched, observed and absorbed. Then I eventually grew.

Thank you, George. Thank you, Dad.

The post Thanks for Nothing and Everything appeared first on Randy Bassett.

But there are other decisions that happen infrequently, that significantly shape our future. These are the decision points that put us at “the edge” and force us to decide to jump, retreat or freeze. These times influence where we are versus where we could have been.

Mr. Destiny

A few years ago, Michael Caine and James Belushi starred in a movie called Mr. Destiny. Belushi’s character (Larry) was a mid-level accountant as a large company. He was constantly haunted by a moment in his youth. Larry played minor baseball and his team was in the state championship. Bottom of the ninth inning, two out and with his team down by a run, Larry comes to bat. Digging in with all eyes watching, he strikes out. Absolutely devastated, the memory had eaten at him for 20 years.

“If only I had hit the damn ball. If only I had swung a little earlier.”

In a series of seemingly unfortunate events, Larry met Michael Caine’s character (Mike) who was a bartender in this mysterious bar called The Universal Joint. After a brief exchange where Larry tells of his problems and how they all stemmed from that fateful strikeout, Mike gave Larry a drink called “The Split Milk”.

Once leaving the bar, Larry soon discovered that he did hit the winning run and his life was dramatically different. Rich, famous and powerful, it seemed like he had it all – yet he also had the memory of how his life was. As glamorous as the new life seemed, he missed his wife, kids and friends.

At one point in the movie, Larry asked Mike what happened to his life, why did it change so much. Mike simply replied, “You hit the ball, Larry”. Larry did not understand how it could make such a difference.

In a brilliant demonstration, Mike (who we can call Mr. Destiny) showed how a major decision or circumstance in one’s life can bump them in a slightly different direction down one path or another, almost unnoticeable at the moment. But the differences in the two paths widen as time goes on, causing a change in destiny.

Like many of you, I have had some of those moments that have created my destiny. Some of these moments involved me making a decision on my own. Some of these moments involved other people nudging me one way or another.

Ultimately, it was me who had to decide which path to follow, but sometimes it was input from others that presented the options. These moments seemed so minor at the time, that I probably didn’t express my feelings adequately right then. I still do the occasional Google search for the names of people I want to thank.

A Bump in the Right Direction

My path through school was not traditional. I dropped out of grade 11 four different times, from three different schools. I still don’t have a high school diploma. When I was 19, I decided to go back to school to get a grade 12 equivalency from a local college. Since I was doing this on my own choosing, it worked out a lot better. I dug in and applied myself.

I soon discovered that some subjects came very easy to me and I was fortunate to have good marks in math. This helped create a connection between me and the math teacher (Doug J.) and we got along extremely well.

One afternoon, Doug and I were having a coffee in the cafeteria. I recall distinctly when Doug asked me, “Have you ever thought about going to university?”. I can remember the room we were in and the table where we were sitting. I can still picture Doug very vividly, his head slightly tilted as he leaned in and said these words.

Up to that point, goint to university was never on my radar. I never thought about it either way. No one in my family that I knew had gone to university. It was simply not a concept I entertained – until that moment. The seed he planted was so small that it was hardly recognizable, but it was a seed that would grow and blossom. That small birth of an idea would open doors for me for many years to follow.

A Bump Away From the Wrong Direction

I left home when I was 16 years old. Through a series of twisting and winding events, I moved into a group home. Wesley House was a group home for teens like myself – not coping at home, yet needing a halfway step to complete independence. It was in this group home that I found my wings, with the help of the amazing staff and the friendships of fellow residents. Yet, like some environment where a number of teens collect, we experimented with some drugs and drinking.

On a particular Wednesday night, one of the residents (we’ll call him Dave) got some acid to share with us. I remember it was a Wednesday because those were the nights we played pick-up ice hockey with some of the group home staff and their friends. Prior to hockey on those nights, I also played in a bowling league with one of the other residents. I decided to take a hit of acid before going bowling. I was disappointed.

Even after bowling I really didn’t feel much of a reaction. I had to go back home before going to play hockey, so I asked for another hit. Dave obliged me. I went to play hockey that night. Since I was playing goalie, I was focused all through the game and didn’t think much about the acid. When I hit the change room after the game, the acid took its effect.

I proceeded to laugh continuously for the following few hours. The staff members in the change room asked what was up, but I just said I was in a great mood. I thought this was great – the acid made me feel better than ever, seemingly. The next day I asked Dave for some more acid. I wanted to relive that rush, that euphoria.

I was a drug dealer’s dream – one taste, and I wanted more, but thankfully Dave wasn’t a drug dealer. Instead of giving me more that day, he just simply said “ask me again one week from now. If you want some then, I’ll get you some more acid.”

I never did ask him a week later. In fact, I had just got back to my life and forgot about it entirely. By Dave being so wise in his teenage years, I was able to step back from the edge, and not take a jump into the abyss that more acid would have dragged me into.

Only a Few Decisions Made the Difference

The stories above are just two examples of maybe 6-8 decisions that have helped create the life I have now instead of living on the street, homeless with no family – or maybe not even living at all.

This may seem excessively dramatic, but I firmly believe the difference between me and the person I am giving money to on the street is only the result of 6-8 decisions. These are moments on the “edge” where I retreated or jumped, and made the right choice. There were many times I didn’t make the right choices, but fortunately, I did choose correctly sometimes.

I have often thought about Doug and Dave. I know Doug is a retired math teacher from Mohawk College. I would love an opportunity to meet with him one more time and thank him. I have no idea where to start looking for Dave, so I will just have to shower enough gratitude into the air and hope that some of it is sprinkled on him.

Thank you, Doug. Thank you, Dave. (I just cried while typing these last 2 sentences)

Do you have decision points that you know shaped your destiny? If so, please share it with us.

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