Oh boy, where do you start?
Selfish more than anything.
I always made sure my dog and I always had the best food, liquor, and drugs and we always had a nice place to stay.
And did we meet some interesting people.
But I only ever got close to one girl I met on the road and you can read about her in one of my previous blogs.
But I wasn’t a genuine person to anyone I met.
It was like I was playing a part in a John Steinbeck novel with my German Shorthaired Pointer playing Charley.
I made many people who would consider me friends, but unfortunately, I remember them more from what they did for or to me rather than the very cool people they were.
But there’s one thing about me.
I have repaid every debt I ever incurred and I took care of every single person that helped me and showed me kindness in my travels.
I never stole or killed anyone, but I am sure that’s not the headstone my momma was thinking of when she gave birth to me those many years ago.
The stupidity started early.
Read one of my earlier archived posts about the caper I tried pulling in my second-grade classroom.
Classic.
When I first moved to town in the late seventies, I was going on a soccer scholarship to UNLV. I had finagled the schollie due to my previous European connection to one of the coaches.
He had followed our American team in the highly-competitive youth league in central England in the mid-sixties. To everyone’s amazement, except our own, we finished second-place to the perennial league champions in our inaugural season, losing by 1-0 to the champs.
After the hard-fought match, our two teams met at the base Youth Center for a party.
As a leader on our team, I had a great opportunity to show class in our narrow defeat, but no.
I was stupid.
I hate losing and I am sure I showed it as I did my best to ignore our very polite guests (and classy winners) for the remainder of the “party.”
I was merely ignoring them until I finally overheard one of the Brits tell his mate that they had expected to beat us by “at least a treble.”
Of course, I wouldn’t have been the total asshole I am unless I told them we could whip their asses in the parking lot using a tin can.
Which I did.
That is how the affair ended, with both teams puffing up, ready to go at it, and I am sure I set back US-British relations about twenty years that night.
We would end up transferring to Louisiana before our two teams would clash again, and I never kept in touch with any of the team.
It would be ten years before I played competitive soccer (football) again, and I think back on that magical run we had in 1967 and I remember what we had to do to earn respect in the league.
Our bus was constantly being spit on, and more than once, a rock broke one of our windows.
They really didn’t like us.
We were Americans.
We ran the score up on every opponent we could.
No sense of decorum.
We were loud and offensive to everyone and everything, but hey, we were just being Americans.
And my ass still smarts from that 1-0 defeat.
Stay well.
