Now I do! I would say up until my forties I ignored my gut feeling and instincts, I called them spider senses because I actually felt the tingle of a warning sign or walking into a place and immediately felt you’re in the wrong place but stayed anyway only to get the shit kicked out of me or end up somewhere even worse. My biggest problem with all this was women, I would approach them and would see the red flags flying all around her and still buy her drinks and shots whatever she wanted I just had to have her. I would say I was probably a creep back then maybe even a sexual deviant although there were many times I could have taken advantage but did the right thing. Even doing the right thing got me arrested a few times, I always blamed myself it wasn’t the woman’s fault for being hot and sending all the signals that got us in bed, it was the eighties and nineties and socializing was totally different than today, but the instincts were the same I just needed find my way back to myself once I did life became much easier to live.

None, I would say I’m kind of a dinosaur when it comes to podcasts, but I like to listen to regular old radio. I have a couple of favorite channels that I listen to and it’s always while I’m driving in my car rarely at home do I listen to anything. I wake up early every morning like 4:00am early and there is already a song playing in my head and the music continues all day long each and every day for nearly my entire life. Thank GOD I grew up in the 70’s 80’s and 90’s because those were the best years for music so I can tolerate the music in my head because it’s never a bad song. I spent a lot of years questioning why and I did find some “tools “ to help me find answers, primarily meditation works the best because it gives me some control over the madness that going on inside my head.

Daily writing prompt

What was your favorite subject in school?

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I was a huge fan of English, my junior year of high school I had two English classes. To this day I cannot figure out why, it wasn’t like I was an aspiring writer or even wanted to have any career in writing like a lot of subjects I was curious, English, music and art were my big three although I would include math, but just a little I seemed to get lost in all the equations and fractions and such that I lost interest. Gym class was my nightmare and probably a nightmare for some of my classmates, but I never said anything to anyone I just showed up and did what was asked and left. I kept to myself, didn’t have friends so I found my happy place in books and that was why English was my favorite subject, even today I still go through a book a week.

This is a great subject for me, it’s a solid yin and yang, I have had many moments of pride, but they were short lived because of arrogance. I was never taught the difference between the two, it was just one of many character traits I had to figure out on my own. As a child there were few things I was proud of, because my dad worked so much during my childhood I had very few masculine ideals I was always with my mother and her sisters so most of my proud moments came from the kitchen or my grandmother teaching me to sew, knit and crochet. My aunts taught me to wash dry and press clothes. I would listen to them complain about their husbands, my father and uncles. I was taught to handle tools by the neighbor down the street that my dad would bring his lawn mower to be repaired, I would wrench my bicycle and mostly learned thru my mistakes. As I grew older and making my way through middle school I wasn’t very good at school, I hated being there and couldn’t wait to get out. I was picked on almost every day by the other kids for being fat and shy. I was completely disconnected from my classmates. It was so ironic that years later in my early twenties when I lost a ton of weight and was hitting the weights and the boxing gym that those classmates from school finally showed me a glimpse of respect, naturally I had to earn it by beating their asses, but respect is respect. I was proud of myself then, but also arrogant, I wouldn’t learn the difference until I began studying martial arts, karate, judo, taekwondo I studied hard and learned more from there than anywhere else. I didn’t turn my back on my catholic upbringing, but spent more of my time studying Buddhism that is one of the top three things I am proud of. Where we grew up in New England everyone was catholic there wasn’t a lot of options and most parents wouldn’t accept you if you didn’t go to church every Sunday. I was the only one of four sons my parents had that left to practice Buddhism, it was the best thing for me, but my family wasn’t very happy with me. But in the words of the great Bonjovi “it’s my life” and once I started living my life for me every moment is one I am proud of. I’ve done great things with my life, I dabbled in acting and stand up, I’ve quit jobs to go on road trips just so I can see the country, I also married outside our family culture which is a huge Nono. I had a wife and two sons and was proud of them, but my family had a way of destroying any pride you had with manipulation and bullshit. That behavior cost me my wife and sons, the divorce was one of the lowest points in my life and I regret it even today thirty years later. My life today is the life I wanted since my twenties, but here I am in my sixties living the life I dreamed of, my beautiful wife is from Thailand and we have a very nice home there, we travel back and forth every year. We’ve been to surrounding countries and even to Europe. Today my life is full, completely satisfying and that I am grateful and proud.

I was 38 years old and moving to Florida from Connecticut, that was as close as I ever got to feeling like an adult…27 years ago. I always lived within 8 miles of my parents house and even closer for work, which was a family business so I was always surrounded by family a family I felt I didn’t belong to. I wasn’t really close to my father he was busy working day and night to support his family, he was the most responsible person I ever knew and hardest working. Mom stayed home and raised four boys and did the best she could which wasn’t that bad none of us ended up in prison or a dope addict are an alcoholic, I think a couple of us dabbled in it, but for me I got tired of feeling shitty and useless. We all married good women and had solid families of our own, we each have children and now grandchildren that are good human beings so all and all my parents did well raising a family. My two older brothers also did good for themselves no breakups or divorces and my younger brother has been married for thirty five plus years. I on the other hand was married to my first wife for eleven years we had two children, boys, but our marriage was a train wreck after ten years and just got worse by the day. I was definitely not prepared for a divorce, but it was inevitable and she took everything from me and put the boys against me so now after thirty five years my oldest son talks to me maybe five times a year and my youngest son doesn’t talk to me at all. I never blamed them for hating me that all she ever spoke to them was how terrible I was. So after all that I left for Florida in the hopes of rebuilding myself as a person to find who and what I wanted to be not just my parents son who also works for them. Since leaving Connecticut I have had countless adventures that touched my soul and broke my heart, but learned to cope with them and all the other emotions that we humans have. Life is wonderful and tragic in my own personal experience is the more I laugh the lighter life gets. I married an amazing woman nearly ten years ago who shares a similar view of life, but even better than that she chose to spend her life with me… that alone inspired me to be a better person if not for me for her… Maybe that was the moment I became an adult.

Great question! I initially started to just get the thoughts out of my head, maybe share a little wisdom or experiences I’ve been through. Then, at some point I realized I was part of a community, I read the works of some gear writers in this community and I am truly humbled by their writing. It’s at that point that I question myself, my ability to write as well as my peers, then I realize writing (for me anyway) is a form of therapy that I never knew I needed until I started writing. And honestly I don’t keep at it as much as I should, but I’m still working sometimes full time sometimes part time. I’m just about a year and a half away from retirement and the theory is I will have more time to write, but if I’m being completely honest I have time every day I just busy myself with other things like working around the house or doing more for myself like spending more time in nature reconnecting with myself and nature, even as I am writing this I feel the pull of the outside world wanting me out there to bask in the sunshine will walking through a mountain trail surrounded by the lack of man and the noise we make, I get lost in the silence of nature and listen for the whispering wind to direct me.

During the week there was no TV until the evening after dinner and that was grown up programming like the news or maybe a game show. Come Saturday morning and all bets were off, cartoons ruled the morning with bugs bunny, Elmer Fudd all the looney toons, Sunday brought claymation with David and Goliath, Gumby and Pokey and the square heads, the late morning was Captain Kangaroo and mister Rodger’s neighborhood later on came Jonny Quest and He- man and so many more that I’ve since long forgotten.

Apples, bananas, pears, mangoes and papayas. I also eat nearly every fruit that I come across when traveling. Growing up in the northeast apple orchards were everywhere they grew other fruits as well like peaches and pears some even had a field for berries which you can go and pick your own. My all time favorite fruit are my children… they didn’t fall far from the tree.

Los Angeles, thirty years ago I would have jumped at the opportunity to go to LA, but today it just seems to be a cancerous city. San Francisco has fallen into the same vein, there are still many, many areas of California I would love to see before I’m gone. The north or South Pole where there is nothing but cold and snow, Mt. Everest. The other end of the spectrum is Arizona, Las Vegas, Ecuador. India because of the oppressive heat and billions of people, there is nothing attractive about meandering through a city where everyone is sweating profusely and are shoulder to shoulder. There are many places in the world I would not want to see which is great really because I have a pretty good chance of seeing the places I do want to see.

I’ve had tattoos since I was seventeen. My first one was a skull with a top hat smoking a cigar I had put just under my left shoulder. Tattoos were illegal in CT. So we had to drive to Rhode Island to get it. Sailor Joe’s was the name of the place and Joe was the busiest guy in the business because he was located near the naval shipyard. Back then, the late seventies the only people with tattoos were sailors and felons, that’s what we were told, my dad was a sailor and had four tattoos all related to the navy and American. My second oldest brother was the first of the sons to get a tattoo then my oldest brother was next. He stopped after two my second oldest got dozens of the I got one and after listening to my mother degrade me I stopped for a few years and then got four more. Then life got busy, a wife, a house, kids, responsibilities sidelined my tattoos until my fifties. I now have about seventy five percent of my body covered with beautiful tattoos from one guy I found in Buffalo NY. A tiger and dragon covers my entire back, koi fish on each pec on my chest, bald eagle carrying a snake with his claws on my left arm Neptune in his watery realm on my right arm, a geisha girl on my right side from my armpit to my knee, a peacock on my left side from my armpit to my knee, our family coat of arms on my left thigh, a ninja skull with swords and throwing stars on my right thigh, a mid evil gladiator on my right calf side. That about “covers” my tattoos. I enjoy them and love where they have evolved in today’s society, other than neck tattoos I don’t understand stand that one, but not my neck so who cares.