I Wish I Could Choose My Relatives

Here it is, the end of March, and the old fucking refrain about "in like a lamb, out like a lion" currently holds true. I walked down to get some smokes and booze a bit ago, and it was half rain, half snow. temp at 32 degrees, and it just can't make up its mind what the fuck it is gonna do. Don't think it gives a shit...

This time of year puts me in deep depression, and I struggle. Man, I wish to fuck my shit was real! I have been spending time lately looking back over my life, and the little things I have done, and am not happy with a lot of it. It is petty shit, like how we used to tease Roger A. in school. He was tall and skinny, and gained the name "Rouge" which was a really comical thing at the time. I remember going to a history class, though, and driving poor old Roger along with the rest, and seeing him blow, slamming his clipboard on a railing so hard that he broke it in two. I thought it very funny then, and now I am ashamed for being so cruel.

I thought about Julie Slone, my first real love. She was an identical twin and in my sisters class. Her twin was named Jolene, and Julienne was the fairest girl a man could ever come across. My sister introduced us, and as a naive school kid, fell for her instantly. She was a southern girl, with a father to match. This redneck fucker would not allow anyone within ten miles of his daughters, and I suppose that had merit. So, we snuck around.

I met Julie at a basketball game one winter's eve, and we sat together at the game, and were very much in love, as young love goes. I can see her shining face to this day - big beautiful blue eyes, long blond hair tied back in a pony tail popular at the time, and a blue ribbon to tie it with. Her sister, Jolene, sat with us, with the same eerily beautiful good looks, and a pink ribbon on her hair to tell the two apart. It was one of those "moments" ya know? Time stands still, you only have eyes for one another, and being in love is the most important thing in your life. I honestly say that this is the first woman I have ever loved. I took her most of the way home, made out with her in the back seat of a '49 Chevy, and had the opportunity to feel her up a bit. She was sweet sixteen, and a well developed, beautiful girl.

Life got in the way. Her father, may he rot in hell, found out about the relationship, and that was the end. Julie was grounded, and I had to sneak around to see her week by week when her friends could hook us up. I remember walking through snow asshole deep to a 10 foot Indian just to spend minutes with her at a pond where a good friend and her were ice skating. I had no winter coat, no boots, and subsisted on love springs eternal. We kissed, and wished for the future. The future, of course, was never to come...

To this day, some 48 years later, I think of Julie. It isn't an everyday thing any more. But the thoughts never cease. I see wintry blue eyes, a crooked smile, and the most beautiful girl I have ever had the opportunity to know. By now, she is probably fat, has a dozen kids, and probably doesn't remember my fucking name. But it is there for me, and it is a memory that lingers.

A good friend once told me that memories are what makes a life. For the Roger's and Julie's of the world, I salute you. I tip a glass of good Canadian Whiskey to those that have shaped my life - good or bad.

Fuck it, don't mean nothin'...

Drive on

Charlie~