Glory Days

 

The letter G.  Hopefully you watched the video before reading, the song sums up my post today...so it makes it easy...I'm done...see ya.....

No, I didn't think it would be that easy.  Like I said, the song (besides being one of my favorite Springsteen songs) sums this up, but only sums it up.  Today you are going to get a little bit of an insider view of some of my past.

I have stopped trying to fool myself, I do long for the glory days of years past...sometimes.  Looking back I am surprised I am still alive after some of the fucknut antics I did.  Let's jump into our DeLorean, set the circuit board to 1984 and fire up the Flux capacitor for my first actual memory of doing something that I thought was cool.  My parents made maple syrup for a majority of my youth and we owned a working sugar house.  For about two months in the winter/spring I basically lived there.  Now if you grew up in the 1980's you will remember a Styrofoam glider kit that was gigantic, the wing span was probably 6 feet across and it was about 3 feet long.  If you tossed this glider it would go straight up and then straight down, no matter how hard you threw it.  Usually after the first 2-3 tosses the body broke and you were left with only the wings.  

This is how I pictured myself, before crashing.

Now, before I go any further, let me remind you that I was an only child so 75% of my idiotic ideas were concocted by no one else but me.  OK, so with that being said, as a 7 year old I was able to tape the Styrofoam wings to my arms by myself and climb to the top of our sap tower (which was about 12 feet off the ground).  Can you guess what I did next?  Whatever you thought I did next, I can tell you, I could not fly with those wings, just like the glider, I jumped straight out and then straight down.  No broken bones or anything, luckily I landed on my head.

Now, that was when I was 7 AND being alone...over the years I was able to assemble a team of super dumbasses to help me along the way, kind of like the A-Team, except we were idiots, here let me introduce to you some of the team we assembled call the Saturday Saints.

Yup my side biz is named after my friends.

****Names have been changed to protect the culprits...OK, actually they are just backwards.****

First person onto the scene in my life was Evad.  Evad and I met when we were three years old and have been best friends since.  We have been struck by lightning, shot at by each other with .22 rifles and even had a near death experience traveling 100 mph in the back of a flatbed pick up truck with no sides.  Evad's role in the group is the crazy mofo.  If he wanted something or to do something, he would just do it....without thinking....at all....what-so-ever.  This is the same person who thought it would be a brilliant idea to go target practicing in a cow field and end up shooting the cow pies.  Of course I was with him, we called it shooting the shit and we went home covered in cow shit....lovely huh?  Evad is an extraordinary person who is like a brother to me and I love him like one.

The second person to stumble into my world was Deraj.  Deraj is the brains of our group.  Back in college we went to the mall and sat in the food court, looking up the three of us, consisting of myself, Deraj and Nala (who you will meet next) pondered if it would be possible to drop an object from the third floor into the food court and possibly land it on a table.  Deraj said, "Let's try" and we went and bought....rubber chickens.  Yes rubber chickens, why you ask?  Because they were rubber chickens, duh...  Nala and I went to the third floor while Deraj stayed in the food court to "keep watch" and "provide a target".  In reality he knew what was going to happen, as I dropped the first chicken Nala caught a glimpse of security guards coming at us.  We were promptly dragged into the mall security office where we had our pictures taken and given a piece of paper saying we were banned from the mall for 6 months for dropping a rubber chicken into the food court.  Keep in mind, Deraj came out unscathed, he was down below masterminding the whole thing.  This holds true for almost every situation we every encountered.  Smartest person I know to this day.

Enter Nala.  The very first time we ever met he sliced my face with a knife while I was driving him to our college orientation.  Oh, don't worry, we take turns hurting each other not knowingly.  He is my tag team partner in the team, we are the doers, although I am on Team A and he is on Team Suck My Ass.  If Deraj says something should be done, yup we do it.  Nala is the reason I don't remember the first 4 months of my 21st year.  We went to Maine on Spring Break, not Florida or Cancun, but Sebago Maine.  Maine is a perfect place to go for Srping Break...right?  We wanted to play paintball but we didn't bring our gear so we did the next best thing, we went to Walmart and purchased BB guns and used those instead.  If you run into Nala, don't believe him, I didn't almost shoot his eye out...I missed by at least 3/4 of an inch and chipped his eye socket.  Smart, no one ever claimed we were but to this day whenever I want to do something stupid, he's the one I call.

Then there was Yffud.  He came late into the group.  Yffud is a severe black rain cloud, the most pessimistic person I know, yet loyal and true to the end.  Yffud is the "muscle" of the group, kind of like the Hulk, he can get enraged, turn green (no really he does, I saw it happen once....but that was after a night of drinking A LOT) and will smash things "just because".  Yffud wasn't accepted at first, but after we made him make sweet love to a statue ad sit on a bike without a seat he was in.  Yffud is a fountain of useless knowledge and kicks our asses in Trivial Pursuit.  One of the loyalist people I know today and someone I am proud to have as a friend.

There were others that have come and gone from the Saturday Saints, I do want to give a shout out to them...oh, you don't know what or where Saturday Saints came from?  Oops, my bad.  

The founding members are Deraj, myself and Nala, or more affectionately name Jared Christ, Bubba Joneses, and Assloaf.  Deraj and I were sitting watching TV one night, probably Beavis and Butthead and a commercial for the Latter Day Saints came on and with our brilliant minds decided we can change Jesus Christ to Jared Christ and Latter Day Saints to Saturday Saints.  Seeing I was Deraj's right hand man like Moses, I was Bubba Joneses.  We needed a name for Nala and we decided on Assloaf, why?  because we could.  Every member that gets inducted has to go through a trial and we issue their name.

There are tons of stories I could share, some funny, some stupid and even some ending up with injuries, but  wouldn't trade these memories for the world.  Looking back though, maybe it is a good thing I got married at 22 and settled down... have I ever steered you wrong before?