Saturday, February 8, 2014

The Times They Are A-Changin'



When I was a kid, I had access to stuff that I should not have had access to.

I was curious, I poked around in places I shouldn't have, but no one really looked after me.

I was an afterthought, I was a pest.

I learned to be alone.

I went for long walks in the hills, I explored, I walked through railroad tunnels, I walked across trestles, I tempted fate by standing on my tippy-toes over 100 feet in the air on a railroad bridge, in reverse, sometimes hoping for oblivion.

No one called my name.

My grandfather, among his many vocations, was a coal miner. He had dynamite and blasting caps in his possession

Have you ever taken blasting caps to school?  I did. How's that for show & tell?

Have you ever taken a loaded .25 semi-automatic pistol to school?  I did.

Have you ever lined the driveway with flares in a fit of drunken rage?  I did.



I had access to all that, yet I never once harmed another person.  I could have taken dynamite to school, I could have built a bomb, I could have shot up the school. (At times, I was an angry young man.)

Instead, I did not.  I had the means and the method... yet I did not hurt anyone else.

What has changed?

Oh, the times, they are a changin'


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