As a young druggy, I remember looking forward to weekends with an estranged childhood friend that had moved from Largo to St. Petersburg. He lived in The Lakes, a sprawling apartment complex that stretched between north 9th Street and 4th Street between 104th and 109th Avenues near Gandy Blvd and the stretch of road leading to the Howard Franklin Bridge to Tampa.
We began a practice on Friday nights of distrupting power to any adult tenants foolish enough to throw a party without inviting us to stop by for a free beer or a hit off of a joint. At each building there were groupings of power meters along with circuit breaker boxes foolishly labled for the convienience of cable installers, workmen, and building maintenance. We took idiotic delight in devising a route, opening the boxes we intended to "hit" later that night, then once darkness had settled, dressing alike to thwart any eyewitness accounts to police, and just silently glide through the complex on our rat bikes wreaking havoc and disrupting electrical service to all we felt "deserved it."
It perplexes me to read all these many posts written by people who still lend power to those who oppressed them all those years ago. I am not saying to stop, or that it is wrong to go on hating and blaming all these years later. Do what you will, but I will say that I think it is fuckin stupid. What good is it doing for you or anyone else? You can't bring back lost days, so why do you successfully fuck up the days you have left in the here and now? I guess because it is so much easier than coping, and getting on with your life through action. I did'nt start to really enjoy my own life until roughly 1998, a whole 20 years after Straight. I was pretty fucking stupid of my own accord, but at least I found ways to get over it.
I did not harbor any more grudges. Hell, I did'nt even find the forum until 2003, and by then I simply just wanted to reconnect with lost friends and what-not. In the days following, I travelled south and had a mini reunion with a former girl staffer that was like diving into an ice cold pool on a hot summer day, attended the 2nd Conference, was a part of the ridiculous ISSAC/Safetynet bickering and the resulting fallout, and following the mass bail-out exodus of most well meaning OLDTIMERS, I am now this poorly understood person who most Second Gen clients view as a tee totalling asshole.
It is threads like this that almost MAKE me wish I HAD joined staff when the opportunity presented itself all those years ago. That would have made for some interesting times. Can you just imagine a staff member with bipolar disorder entrusted with the lives of 400 plus teens? I started cracking up in my program and completely unravelled at 19 years of age. I am sure that the pressures of being on staff would have surely caused a rapid accelleration of symptoms and maybe led to something cool, like opening the doors and telling the clients that they were free to go.
What the fuck, something to think about is all. Have a nice day
::roflmao::
