That is some powerful shit. Seriously, you should think about writing a book. I'm sure you could fill the pages. Thanks for sharing.

Yes, that's exactly what it was. Deep down inside he was a good man. A good man with an addiction problem that led to horrible choices and a shitty lifestyle. What he could've been vs what he was and became.

I don't know the first thing about writing a book. I just know how to share my stories. I guess right now im kind of using CP as my book, lol.

Thanks everyone, i appreciate the kind words. I'll try to tackle another story sooner than later.

I still have that story about James and the drug run that went wrong, which is what i was TRYING to get to today. I mean, it's not as dramatic as it sounds but it was pretty intense when it happened.

My moment
 

Okay, I'll give it a shot......

All my childhood, I was the smallest child or one of them in my class. Every sport I tried out for, I was the first one cut. Kind of hard to improve at any sport when you're the first one cut. So...I buried myself in literature to escape. I quickly developed quite a vocabulary, and learned how NOT to use it. Small kids with large vocabularies get picked on! Sam, last name withheld, beat me up 4 days in a row...5th day I ran home! My dad wanted a jock and his nick name for me was "panty waist".

My Freshman year, 9th grade, actually, because middle school was 7 through 9th grade, I discovered wrestling. At 98 pounds, there was no one! So I started wrestling. I think I lost every match but one, but I wouldn't stop trying. My father didn't show up for a single match. That year, a wrestler at 145 picked on me by viciously shoving me in the showers, causing me to fall and get stone bruises on both knees...they really hurt!

Sophomore year I wrestled 112 and won about 50% of my JV matches. Sam, last name withheld, was a big man on campus and wrestled Varsity at 132.

Then came my Junior year....a true eye opener! I had the pleasure of wrestling JV under a true stud at 132 pounds. He eventually took 3rd in State that year. BUT I had learned enough that we had to "wrestle off" for Varsity almost every other week. I kept getting better. At Varsity/JV tourneys, some schools would drop their Varsity wrestler to JV so he could get a Gold medal, instead of simply getting beat by Curt. Coach would let me know so I would get up for the match. It was a pleasure beating those Varsity wrestlers and watching my coach grin! Sam, last name withheld didn't wrestle that year.

Senior year! Wrestling was kind of our schools thing. We absolutely sucked at football and basketball. I had about 8 guys in my weight class of 145 pounds, 3 of us seniors. After about 2 weeks, the other seniors got the hell out of my weight class. One went up a weight class, the other went down a weight class. They realized who was Varsity at 145...

First big match at one of our rivals, I was in the locker room waiting to weigh in. One of their wrestlers looked at me and asked, "What weight?"

"145" I answered.

"Oh, dude, I'm sorry....that's Richie...." he said, and he looked truly sorry for me.

Richie came in, wearing his letter jacket. He seemed to lean towards his letter side due to the numerous medals he was wearing. He pinned me quickly.

Next time we wrestled, I was slightly ahead, made a mistake and he pinned me again. I kept at learning.

In practices, I would do my turn wrestling "Corners". "Corners" was a drill where the Varsity guy would wrestle for 20 seconds with a wrestler from his or the next weight class above or below. Then do it again with a fresh wrestler. Then another. Then another..etc. Usually 6 to 8 rounds then the other varsity guy had the same routine. The kid who shoved me in the showers in the 9th grade wrestled at 165. I would then go up to 165 and abuse the "shower pusher" sometimes taking several turns. It always ended with him begging the Coach to make me go back down to my weight class!

Sam, last name withheld heard that I was Varsity and there were no Senior Challengers. He decided to go out for wrestling. His first day, I asked Coach to let me have him as a "Partner" since we were the same weight.
Now, usually in practice, wrestlers go at about 75% to 80%. I went about 103% all practice. I hurt him so bad, that he quit and had no more practices...

Then came my schools Take Down Tournament. Richie would be there.... This time I made no mistakes. He was 24-0. When the match was over, we were both totally exhausted, and I was his first loss. I remember laying on the mat..looking up at the packed stands and seeing my Dad jumping up and down in his plaid sport coat. It was ugly. But he no longer had a "panty waste". Richie was so angry that he said he was gonna quit wrestling. His mom and girl friend had t-shirts with his face on them...and they were crying all over the t-shirts. Of course he didn't quit.

Now, I will say, the next week, at HIS schools tournament, it came down to him and me again. And he barely beat me. And, of course, that week we got our picture on the front page of the sports section of the KC Star. One of his team mates told me that he worked on countering MY best moves all week.

I had that one moment....and many years of retribution.

Epilogue: One of the coolest things ever to happen to me was the next summer. I was waiting to weigh in at a freestyle wrestling tourney, when I heard this whispered....."That's {insert my name here}!!!"

That ****ing sucks your dad acted that way, im an asshole but Im more proud of my kids for their scholastic achievements as I am for their sports achievements.

I long ago accepted that he didn't know any better. I was the first of my siblings in sports. He seldom missed my sisters track meets or my brothers matches. HE had to grow a bit too.

I asked my Mom why she could go watch my brother but not me?

Her response was, "You were so little that I couldn't bear to see someone grabbing you, man handling you. You brother has always been large, so it never bothered me."

He really ought to. That's fascinating stuff.

Thanks for sharing, Detox.

Himalayan salt lamp and a hat I about to do this one. After they banned wearing hats at work last night.

Mine simply starts with 3 words....

Then the midgets...

Love this story.

In Iowa, "corners" are known as "heavyweight drills." Those are brutal.

Your story reminds me of a guy who wrestled in Iowa (graduated HS last year) named Matthew Randone. He was JV as a Freshman, Sophomore and Junior...then won state as a Senior.

We called that drill shark bait. It was a physical beating for the guys who were overweight or displayed a bad attitude.

I've heard it called that before and totally forgot about it!! When we would have districts/state practices, we would practice with the other qualifiers from Burlington, Columbus Junction, New London, Mt. Pleasant, WACO and Wapello...Columbus referred to those as shark bait.

I wonder if it's a geographical thing... Their head coach wrestled in college at Central College in Pella.

They would literally kill me now.... but I ate them up.....BACK THEN.

Offseason is boring and there is some great material to read and more space to share your stories.

LMAO That last part. Damn that must still be a little devastating in your mind knowing she knew the whole time. Damn whores.

This may not be my best story, but I need to get it off of my chest and I don't know where else to drop it. So without further delay....

Today, I found myself in a medical facility to see a specialist for something I've put off for a long time. That appointment wasn't anything out of the ordinary, but at the end they send me for labs. This isn't a hospital or a clinic..it's a specialist place with a floor for consultation and a surgical floor.....and a lab.

I'm sent to the lab, which appears to be a makeshift walled off area in an atrium area outside the office entrance. There is a sliding door that closes it off. Employees scurry in and out as I wait outside as directed on the sign.

Eventually one of the golden girls patients comes out and it's my turn. To set the stage the entire room feels about the size of a full sized pick up box. There is a large chair in the center facing the sliding door. To one side a stack of containers-supplies, and to my left a tray with vials of blood.

After some confusion about what they were to do, they get it figured out, strap my arm up like a heroin junky and start thumping a vein.....just as she starts to stick me, Mrs Doubtfire slides open the door and steps into the area. She's 3 maybe 4 feet directly in front of me. She's presenting something in front of her like a child proudly showing a parent a brownie she helped make

Betty white isn't holding a brownie.....it's a turd in something that looks like a paper plate or coffee filter and she wants to give it to the lady who is drawing my blood. Sorry ma'am I really don't need your hepatitis mainlined into my forearm.....and she stands ther, oblivious to my situation, talking with the lady who is drawing what must be several quarts of my blood. They're talking about poop....can she make more....no, Hillary Clinton thinks she's done but assures that she will definitely be able to lay a cable at home later and another lady hands her some stuff....and she leaves....no more than the door shuts, and another lady opens the door and hands a cup of piss to them.....she leaves quickly and then mrs doubtfire pops back in and I am blessed with a conversation about keeping a turd in the fridge and another room temperature and how she's going to use the glove to pick up the dooky.....

How I didn't vomit on those people I will never know.....but I will wake up in a sweat tonight, screaming....afraid of the lady with the poop on the paper plate.

Gross.

One of my best fishing stories.

I should start this story by saying I'd been skunked two days in a row. So, I was a bit frustrated.

So when a buddy of mine, Muzz, asks me if I want to go fishing for the weekend up north during the "super" moon, I hesitated. Apparently, this weekend the full moon would be bigger and brighter than any we've had in a thousand years or whatever. This will most assuredly get the fish into a wild feeding frenzy. I think about this for about 0.1 seconds before deciding that fishing would be medicinal.

So we head up late Friday afternoon. We don't arrive at the campground until way after oh-dark-thirty. We set up camp, then get rigged up and hike up and down the bank for a few hours, chucking large dark colored flies and mice at splashy rises in the 'super' moonlight.

Nothing. Zero. Zilch. Nada. Less than one. None. No way, Jose. Goose eggs. SKUNK.

So, just a couple hours before dawn, we hike back to camp and grab a bit of shut eye.

The morning brings wind. Not breeze. Wind. Cold. Wind. Thank God for coffee.

Mike catches his first fish trolling a hopper. Right, I think. This is going to be easy.

More skunk is immediately served onto my tube. Not even a nibble between 7 am and 3 pm. 19 flies are alternately tied onto then clipped off of my tippet. In fact, new tippet must be tied onto my leader, so many flies are subjected to fruitless dunking hour after hour.

Finally, I've had enough. I switch to a sink tip and tie on a Lenny's Special Lite. I kick towards a rock I know harbors no life whatever. I cast. The wind kicks up as I release the line, throwing it away from yon stone. I get a snarl in my fly line and mumble words of potent evil magic.

I finally get the snarl un-snarled and give it a quick double twitch. The fly comes to an immediate halt. I've hung the bottom. Of course. I continue my incantations of as many four letter words as I can remember. I invent three. I'm kicking back towards my fly when the bottom starts to pull southerly. I am a bit confused, and stop kicking. I lift the rodtip and pull firmly on the line.

The bottom begins to throb. Then it banks left. I start fighting. Muzz asks me if it's a good fish. "Think so. Maybe a really springy tree branch."

One minute goes by and I can't get the bottom to come up to the surface.

Two minutes.

Three. Finally the bottom begins to rise. I can feel it shaking its head and twisting down there. Sucker? I caught one in almost the very same spot last year .

4 minutes. I see color. Something pale yellow. Sucker. It comes within three feet of the surface then heads back down. It takes nearly another minute to get it back near the top. I see spots. And a shark-like dorsal fin. Do suckers have shark-like dorsal fins? It goes by Muzz, who says, "what the heck is that?"
http://i358.photobucket.com/albums/o...g?t=1336456262


It's the world's heaviest yoyo, I think, as the fish dives back for the bottom.

6 minutes. This hurts. And my 5 wt. plus the 6 lb. tippet I've got tied on is not helping me control this fish one bit. But it's slowly tiring. She's not heading so deep anymore. Bit by bit, I gain an advantage.

7 minutes. The fish, whatever it is, must be tiring. He/she/it swims around me several times, shrugging off my best efforts to bring to either net. Then it happens.

I threaten Muzz with unspeakable horrors if he doesn't grab that fish's tail as it thunders by him. Most of this must have been in my head, as he only remembers me screaming, "grab its tail! Grab it!"

He does. And I owe him my firstborn child and a case of beer on his birthday the rest of my life.

A very hasty measurement teleports me into the surreal. Close cousin to Alice's.

At least 30 inches. Possibly as much as 32.

What a way to get rid of the skunk.

http://i358.photobucket.com/albums/o...g?t=1336459845

http://i358.photobucket.com/albums/o...0inchBT12g.jpg

http://i358.photobucket.com/albums/o...g?t=1336456468




Peace.

Instead of fretting about the Kung Flu and no grass hockey races on tv, maybe we can resort to the good stuff. I'd rather read about your best day.


This is something pretty close to what I shared with friends this winter but not here.

In 1982 I was 9 years old sitting at a table in the local Dairy Queen. I was eating a cherry dip cone, Joan Jett was blasting "I love Rock N Roll" on the juke box. I jealously watched a kid with a seemingly endless supply of quarters play Donkey Kong over and over and over. I didn't have quarters, definitely wasn't getting any coins from the adult I was with to waste on a video game, and I was thinking about the show, silver spoons and how that kid on the show had his own arcade games in the den.

I told myself that someday, I'd have my own damn donkey kong game.
"Someday" was last night.
I didn't have any quarters at the DQ that day, but I've got all the quarters I need in life. Bucket list item, Check.