Drop Out and Do Lots of Drugs

Once upon a time, I had all the mind, to lay your burden down. Leave you where you stood. You believed I could. You've seen it done......before.

Not really. That's from a song.

But on the topic of advice, I have received all sorts of advice. I've gotten it from those who could give and guidance AND those who shouldn't. Just today I heard that I should drop out and do lots of drugs. Haha. If only. Nah, I don't do drugs, but I have thought about dropping out before. Not high school, but college. I'm only a freshman, but I've thought about it. Never really considered it.

But the best advice I've ever gotten was from man. Not a woman, a man. I can still see him laying on the couch, a kitten napping on his beer belly, and Fox News on the telly. He has the "Ring-Around-the-Rosy" balding going on, and has a Heineken in his hand. Two empty bottles sit on the coffee table, and many more lie in the floor board of the truck.

One day, he looked at me with a look of age old regret and guilt and said,"Son, if you ever stop going. If you ever stop learning. If you ever stop dreaming, then you will turn into me. I stopped at your age and settled down. Don't give up, and you'll never get old." He then turned back to the TV and started yelling at Democrats 1500 miles away.

I decided that day that I would never become my father. He raised me the way he wish he would have been raised, and I'm not going to be the man he doesn't want. I've always loved him, and I always will, but what he said that day changed my view of him forever. I'm not going to stop. I'm not ever getting old.