Good Morning Friday, March 13, 2015

Hello World,

It’s FRIDAY THE 13TH again – second month in a row!  So be safe today!  At work we’re having an “all day” Block Party (beginning at 10 and ending at 3) to raise money for Relay for Life.  We do this every year.  It should be fun.  Tessa is our Wellness coach…I have a picture of her with Becky:

Becky in the Middle

Tessa is on the right!  She is really cool.  Has had a baby under our “watch” without benefit of husband, but she found her soulmate and they are now married with a “blended” family.  He has a little girl also so now it’s built-in sister for her daughter, Tatum.  They seem happy – I hope they are.

Last night I went to my home group “Cookie” meeting.  Each week I feel more and more at home there.  It’s a great bunch of people.  I even showed up early to help set up, but it was all done and next week I’ll need to come earlier – I guess that means around 6 – I guess I got there about 6:45 and all was set up.  Anyway, there were 2 speakers a man named Murray and a woman named Lisa (I think – it’s a good guess as there are many Lisa’s in the fellowship).  Anyway, I liked hearing from Murray – he shared he was abused as a child physically and sexually which must have been cathartic to say it out loud at the podium in front of strangers.  His was an interesting story and he shared that he has been married (held hostage – never heard that before) 3 times.  It got me thinking about my life and how I’ve been told to write down my life story and I realize that I’m doing that here on this blog.  I just need to re-read 184 entries and I’m sure there will be more before this is done.  Anyway, the next speaker (I’ll call her Lisa as I don’t really remember her name) but I remember her story.   Here is this BEAUTIFUL woman telling her story and I could relate to so much of her story although she is probably 30 years or more younger than me.  That is how it works in AA.  Doesn’t matter your age difference or anything, we’ve all gone through our journey and some are closer  to your own than others.  It started me thinking about what I’d say at the podium and I was thinking about my college years.  I was much like her – as soon as I left the comfort of my home in Connecticut, I was off on a wild ride of drinking (only 3.2 beer – but you could get pretty drunk on that stuff) and smoking pot (it was the late ’60’s early ’70’s afterall).  I remember mostly partying and not studying all that much and my freshman year (I still to this day believe) my courses were just too hard for me.  I was taking European History, Statistics and Calculus and Grammar.  The only class I “excelled” at was Bowling – I took it for 4 semesters and got an “A” in it – go figure.  So needless to say after my freshman year they were going to “kick” me out and I packed up and took all my stuff home after that year was finished.  I can still remember the nights I’d call my parents and cry over the phone that I flunked yet another test.  My poor mother – what she endured long distance.  This was in the day of no cell phones mind you and there were a bank of telephone booths to use where you actually needed to put coins in them to make calls.  I remember wearing army fatigues and combat boots a lot.  We protested everything and it really was something when one of our buildings burned down (across from my dorm) after “Kent State” (4 dead in OHIO).  Then we took a bus to Washington, DC to protest at the Capital.  Of course we were stoned the entire time so who knows what that ride from Ohio to Washington was like.  I can’t even remember if we had to pay the bus fare or if it was “free”.  I got an allowance from my parents during that time for incidentals and I worked in the “dish room” at the Freshman dining hall – my first taste of being “in the restaurant” business so I knew how to “work my way up” from washing dishes to owning my own restaurant (with partners – another story) so I had money to do things.  But it’s all pretty fuzzy on “details”.  Oh yeah, add Chemistry to my freshman year courses and I remember walking into the lecture hall from the dish room with a little bit of scrambled egg on my boot and if you’ve ever worked with food “garbage” you know the aroma sticks with you after your shift – not to mention the pot and cigarettes.  Fond memories!

So it got me thinking about the “unmanageability” of my life due to drinking and I’ve concluded it began in earnest in College.  I started living with a guy named John Stevens and we brewed our own beer in our apartment, so we were never “without”.  He was a year older than me, so he graduated and started working in a “mental” hospital prior to his going to “med school”.  I wonder if he ever got through med school.  I went to visit his family outside Philadelphia and I remember that there wasn’t a lot of support there – his father was a Feaudian Psychologist and I remember John was a follower of “Skinner”.  He was unkind to his mother and had a sister that was really bright – can’t remember her name.  Anyway, in my senior year we were still living together (my parents didn’t know) and I was figuring that since they would be out for graduation (Oh yea, they let me back to school on probation after my dismal freshman year) and I managed to graduate in 4 years with a couple of years of Summer School.  So here is my proof:

Graduated 1973 from Marietta College

I was so “out of it” I gave them the wrong spelling of Elizabeth – my middle name so they spelled it Elisabeth.  Can you BELIEVE THAT!

So guess what – I’m out of time so this will need to be continued!  Have a great day today and thanks for visiting.