Watching The Tide

In answer to the prompt, no I am not at all prepared to enter yet another goody two shoes phony baloney overpublicized advertisement ( read: Challenge Contest ) for this excuse for a blog site.

Answer: Sometimes. Question: Has this stopped me in the past? Continuance: Do I have currently or/and am I actively seeking employment? Smart ass answer: If I have ever had a job it would have involved surviving; this is something easy to underestimate, especially if one believes in the concept of life after death.

Surviving has not been without its moments, some of an almost positive nature. Harrowing experiences can be twisted into amusing comedic material; this happens all the time, figuratively.

So now I find myself having to substantiate the above by relating a few amusing anecdotes and making as if in the end they added up to something I enjoy reflecting upon or something, I guess. The signature such epihany of my life may have happened on an elementary gridiron.

Allow me to set the stage. Our hero's elementary school gladiator team was attempting to complete an undefeated season after six relatively cut and dried victories over admittedly inferior competition. Before each contest our coaches would relate to us that we were the physically larger, faster, more talented better coached team. There was no denying this based upon each week's result.

If this does not tell you that things were somewhat jury rigged, odds are that you will never figure out the equation. Case in point: the coaches eldest son played Quarterback, the younger one was somewhat of a star as well at halfback.

I played on another stacked team in another sport that had superior athletes and could not help but emerge victorious. I cannot say that I organized any protests against any of this or felt an overwhelming sense of guilt.

In yet another sport I recall our coach informing us that we were indeed up against it. That team did not overcome the odds either.

My epiphany insofar as athletics if not in life took place on the final extra point attempt before halftime. To make this brief, I collided with a ringer type of fullback, we triumphed and I have been damaged goods ever since, due to some undiagnosed blunt head trauma.

Up 'til then I had excelled scholastically to a somewhat nauseatingly saccharine degree. Since the head injury, completely untreated of course, I have experienced quite a different world, one which required quite a bit of isolation; I never was a social butterfly again.

If their has been a positive aspect to this seeming tragedy of sorts this might be that I relate to just about any type of underdog, being a cripple myself compared with what I vaguely recall seeming to be. So I am that flamboyant traitor to my gender, indeed a self described male defender of all things feminist.

It will be as they say up to history to record or ignore whether or not I succeeded at much of anything. I turned into your classic jack of many trades and ADF regarding most.

I conclude that like a pop song lyric says " Everybody's working for the weekend " which does not always meet expectations. I am reminded of a visit I made to the city in my adolescence. I found myself sitting on a stoop or porch with a couple of dudes listening to the host moan " Another dead Saturday " .

You would have had a hard time arguing with that assessment. Such was the dilemma as it were of youth.

So: Was there a lesson learned? Probably not much of one. I know I found myself embarrassingly attempting to bemuse my host's eldest sister the next day while he was in church with his mother. I ended up figuring that I was not deemed by the family to be Catholic Church material or something.

To this day their are two states where I have yet to be invited successfully to Catholic Church, per se. However I did attend chapel at a St. Alphonso's sponsored psych ward.