A little reminiscing

I was a bad kid. Well, not bad in the sense we know it today. After all, they didn't have crack cocaine back then. But I was not very good. I tended to steal things. Small things that would fit in my pocket. Later on, when I was older, I took things that wouldn't fit in my pocket. Like cars.

I started skipping school in junior high. It wasn't that I disliked school, I just disliked being cooped up when I could be out running the streets. It wasn't hard to do. I would leave in the morning, like I was going to school, and return after my parents had both left for work. That way, I could be there when the school called by 10 AM. Then I was out of there and headed for the beaches.

The beaches weren't simply the sandy stretch by the ocean. No, it meant the motels along the ocean. The motels had game rooms full of pinball machines. There would also be tourists who invariably brought their daughters along with them. So my buddies and I would hang out at the motels and the game rooms and the arcades. We would gamble on the pinball games and were pretty good. We could also run fast in case we lost.

We hitchhiked everywhere until we got our driver's licenses at age 16. Even then for some of us. I got a car by the time I started school so I didn't have to take the bus. Hated the bus. It smelled bad, it was full of nerds, and it took forever to get to school and longer to get home. If I took the bus, it meant I could not slip out for lunch, couldn't skip any classes, and was at the mercy of the school. I couldn't deal with that.

On the weekends I would go to parties at the beach. The real beach, with the sand and all. At night. It was easier to get away with underage drinking then. I would also cruise the motels for parties and tourist girls. I seemed to have more luck after I had been drinking.

Why was I a bad kid? Who knows, really. I am sure some of it was my trying to impress my brother. That never worked. I was also trying to impress my friends. Peer pressure is a terrible thing.

I am not sure how I survived.