It All Started When..

I was held back in kindergarten, I never would have pegged myself having to go through that experience. At some point later in life I had asked my Mother why it had happened, and I was told that it was because of two things. The first was because of my inability to differentiate the colors Blue,and Purple from each other. I guess it was assumed I had some sort of learning disability at first, but later it was discovered that it was merely a vision problem, and apparently one that a few of my relatives live with as well.
The second reason that was always given to me was because I wrote left handed a majority of the time. Being ambidextrous I'm pretty much equal in my dexterity and both fine and simple motor skills with either side of my body. It would be a lie if I said that I'm able to write just as well with my right hand, I definitely write left handed exclusively, however my writing with my right hand isn't supremely terrible either. These were the reasons given to me as to why I had to spend an extra year in Kindergarten, and looking back on it knowing it now, it does seem weak of a school to make that bad of a decision based on those two reasons.

My youth life was for the most part, cookie cutter, it was much like any other young boy's life. I was outside a lot, got dirty daily, got into trouble every kid gets into. I had friends, a mother and father, siblings and so on.
School was pretty uneventful, save to say I really didn't learn how to read until the end of first grade. Looking back on it and knowing that many kids had a better grip on reading than me is somewhat funny since I have a good interest in books,and don't find many words or sentences in even what's considered advanced for even someone of my age, to be challenging.
At some point my parents had made a decision that they had wanted to move. A few years after they had became set on the idea, we moved to Pontiac,Mi.
As an interesting note, up to the day we moved to Pontiac, I had only known one African American. I didn't know of Hispanic people, or Asians. Yet the first day of living in this new city, I had witnessed people of all sorts of skin color. School was the same experience of course. As I said I had only been around my own race of people, and Caucasians. My first day of school I was around all sorts of different people, and each with their own dialects of speaking.
I also had no clue why I had to have money for lunch, or having my own packed lunch, when I saw other kids around me getting school meals for free. It wasn't until much later that I found out they were provided the food for free of charge because of their income bracket.
At my old school kids during lunch were loud, there was tons of talking, and when you were done eating you just went outside until the bell rang. But here, if it got noisy in the lunch room they'd make everyone stop eating and stand up and they'd make us wait until they felt we had been punished enough, and would let us sit back down to eat. After a period of time they would tell us table by table to stand up and get in line by the door that led to the playground.
We'd have to wait until everyone was done to go out. If we didn't walk silently and all in single file they'd make us stand faced against the wall and remain silence, until as before, they felt we had been punished enough.
It was so very different, and obviously not as fun as my old school. However I gained many friend of different backgrounds, which did well to broaden and improve my views of the world...

Middle school was the experience many kids had. You went from just some kid with no care in the world,to a young guy or girl that all of a sudden had an image, and one you wanted to look good. Before middle school I had no care what brand of clothes I wore, or how they looked. I think I had lived my whole life up to that point with the same haircut. But in middle school I wanted to make sure I had "cool" shoes and that I was wearing "cool" clothes. There was the whole having a locker thing of course, as well as moving to different places in the building to get to my 5 classes I now had. Gym was no longer a once a Friday thing, it was everyday and it was now called "Physical Education." I was learning algebra in 6th grade, and after talking with my Mother, Algebra for her generation was an optional class in High School! It came as no surprise that later on when i was in High School that my math homework was something they really couldn't give me help on.
Middle School and that bracket of my life was my first foray into dating. Obviously not the sort of dating that goes on when your 16 and in High School or, now as an adult. Young teens from my generation went to roller skating places, went bowling, and so on. The mall was like some sort of special event. Looking at how things are today, kids in middle school are taking dates out to dinner, seeing movies and so much more. It's wild to look back to then and see how much different things are now.
My parents bowled every Saturday evening, and they'd take one of us kids alternately each time. It's there I met this girl named Kandi that I went on to date for about a year. At some point my parents started taking all of us with them. So I at first saw her once every 3 weeks, and then once a week. We never went out together anywhere, we always hung out at the bowling alley on the Saturdays our parents took us with them.
We were babysat until I was in 8th grade. Our babysitter had hearing aids, freckles, bright red hair, 2 boyfriends that loved to show up at her or our house and fight each other. She always fed us pancakes for dinner, we got to watch Nickleodeon at 8pm and on. Before that time though, the TV was pinned to MTV. It's because of her that I know about Marky Mark and have his damn song engrained into my brain.
The age of 12 is when I had started playing Ice Hockey. For most people they start at 6 years old or even younger. So 12 as you can imagine is definitely a late age to learn how to ice skate. However I wasn't completely new to skating or hockey. For many years the friends I had in the neighborhood, my brother and I all played roller street hockey.
We did play everything though. We played basketball, baseball, football, hockey, soccer and so on. All of us played on our Middle Schools soccer team. But street hockey was the sport that garnered the most attention. We regularly went through a pair of roller blades once or more a year. Often times the first thing we did with new pairs was saw off the stopper on the heel of the skates, as it only hindered us. Later years you were able to take them off, or we bought actual hockey roller blades. We went through sets of wheels many times a year, bearings and so on.
At the least we had 6 people playing, other times full 6 on 6 with each team having a fully equipped goalie. We had a few places we played in our neighborhood, or rather 4 different streets. In front of Jeremy's house, Dan's house, my house, and Marks house. We all had a set of nets, a set of goalie gear. Our own sticks of course. Stuff to set int front of the storm drains so we wouldn't lose a ball to the sewer. If we did, we simply lifted the grate off and used some surgical skill of using 2 hockey sticks like chopsticks to pull the ball out then promptly slap it around to get the nasty off of it.
We never played short games. Often in the summer we'd start around 10am and play well until it was completely dark out. Taking breaks once in a while to rehydrate ourselves via a garden hose.
For picking teams we always had 2 people be captains. From there some process was used to determine who would pick the first person. Dan or Jeremy were always the first two picks. You couldn't go wrong picking either one. I was mediocre, definitely not the worst, but I wasn't the best either. I rarely played goalie at first, but later on I played it more often, and grew to really like it.
It's from playing street hockey on rollerblades that afforded me the basics of ice skating. I of course still had to learn how to hockey stop and so on. But I had what I needed to locomote myself around the ice rink and knew how to for the more part, handle a puck. After I had completed a course of the "Learn To Skate" program I told my parents I didn't want to play out, I wanted to be a goalie. Any sort of negativity or resistance I saw about the decision came from my Mother as far as I remember. It was something she really didn't want me doing.
But before the first season had started they took my brother and me out to score up equipment. I had made some bad picks for gear. I laugh about it now, but I at the time had felt I picked out some "bad ass goalie gear."
I had picked out a Franklin brand chest protector, glove and blocker since our street hockey stuff was Franklin and I was used to how their stuff worked, and it was a brand I knew. It wasn't until later that season I found out that Franklin equipment was pretty bad. Most of the stuff was used equipment, understandably so.
Goalie ice skates were completely new to me, and something I hadn't expected. With regular hockey skates I could really fly, the hockey stops were short and quick. There was a lot of support in the ankle. Goalie skates, were none of those things. They were cut short on the ankle, the blades were fat and cut more shallow, so stops took more work to make short, and you couldn't stake as fast.
The equipment was heavy. Especially the leg pads which were filled with deer hair, in comparison to the closed cell foam thats used now. I hadn't worked out or anything, so it was all exhausting. I had no clue about controlling the edges of my skates, butterflies, or any of what I was being shown. In street hockey you just made kick saves and caught the ball. I was glad it turned out that way, because it went from something I liked, to something I became quite passionate about.
Moving onto my High School years, the first thing I remember was walking in for the first day of school and seeing that I had to not only put my backpack through an xray machine like the ones at airports, but I had to also walk through a metal detector and show my ID. I remember after picking up my backpack, seeing this girl pull a razor blade out of her mouth. And not 10 minutes later seeing a guy with a gun tucked into his pants. It was needless to say, intimidating. It was my first experience with fighting, violence, gangs and sex. It wasn't uncommon to see a guy and a girl groping in the commons, or having sex in the bathroom. People smoking weed in the bathrooms as well or walking around the basement floor doing so.
My first girlfriend in High School was a girl named Tabitha Parks. She was hyper, insanely hyper. If she drank a mountain dew it would really get her bouncing off the walls. It was the first time I had ever recieved or written a note to someone. But it ended up being something that was happening everyday. I started to include drawings with them. And art became another love of mine. She would regularly come out to the house, and I'd go out there. We'd go to the mall, movies and so on. She even stayed the night a few times, something that still boggles me today. What parent in their right mind would let their daughter spend the night at their boyfriends house?
One night I was sleeping and woke up to jabbing pains in my chest. She had decided to climb on top of me and start jabbing at my chest with a Playskool plastic screwdriver. I flung her clear off the bed in shock. It was definitely a crazy moment in my life that still ranks up there.
If there was one thing that also stood out about her, it was that she was horny all the time, day and night. She was what, only 13/14? Usually it's the guy that's got sex on the mind that much, but she was different. It didn't matter where, what, when, she was always grabbing for my pants. Sitting next to each other at lunch, in the car rides to my hockey games with my parents up front, any time at the house and so on. Obviously most of the time I had no issues with it. It was the times like, riding to hockey games that I didn't like. Mother and Father in the front driving us there, talking to us along the way.
After a year of dating, I broke up with her because she was just too hyper. I couldn't deal with it. At that point, I pretty much started what would be a habit for me for years. A day or maybe a week later I started dating Becky Stager. Much to Tabitha's dismay of course. She ended up transferring schools just because of that.
Becky wasn't as witty or even so far as to say intelligent as Tabitha, but she wasn't as wound up. She looked better, didn't paw at my crotch when riding to hockey games, and was closer, so I could see her more often.
I had gotten onto the Varsity Soccer team, scored a job at a beer distributor where my mom worked, and managed decent grades. It was my second season of hockey and I still hadn't played a single game yet. I had to quit the soccer team when hockey season started, as work, hockey and school took up too much time. However one thing was apparent. Sports Practice will attract girls. She loved watching me at soccer practice, and then at hockey practice and games. In turn I of course liked it back.
I lost my virginity after the homecoming dance. I had stayed the night at her house, and was even allowed to sleep in the same bed as her? Again, I have no clue why a parent would let that float! After that, sex became, well, quite a common happening. I had thought it was something that was done a bit more sparsely, but I guess I presumed wrongly.
Around the end of my second season of hockey with my team, I had contemplated quitting altogether. I had only played one game, and the last 2 minutes of another game. I knew something was wrong, I wasn't a bad player. I was literally in tears, I couldn't understand why it was happening. My parents ended up talking to the coach who said "I'm sorry I haven't played him, I'm just nervous putting him in because he hasn't played before." It made my parents mad, it however, made me livid.
I tried out and made it onto a different team. I inquired into my chances of playing regularly. The coach assured me that the first 5 games each goalie would play half a game. So we would switch half way through the second period. After that, we would alternate games. I'd play a game, then the other would play the next game.
My team did amazing, and I soared. I had gotten a pair of pads designed and measured custom for me. A new chest protector that was half the weight, twice as protective. A new mask that was made of kevlar, where my old one was thick molded plastic. It weighed so much less, the opening was wider, it just fit better. My favorite piece that I upgraded however was my Trapper (glove). It was a Heaton Helite IV. The very same trapper worn by New Jersey's Martin Brodeur. I had gotten it for christmas. I loved it. I drove over it with our GMC Jimmy a few times, put a puck in it and sat my bed post on it. Took just a week for it to be broke in.
How well did I play? I played well enough to be at the top of the statistical listings each week in Michigan Hockey News. A sub 1.00 Goals Against Average. Which meant that on average I let in less than one goal a game. My SAV% (save percentage) was .994, which meant that 99.4 times out of 100 shots, I would make a save on the shot. My counterpart did just as well. We both netted 15 Shutouts that season which is a record still held for the Michigan Midget B Age Bracket.
We won various invitational travel tournaments, with the major ones providing trophies, which are still in a showcase at Detroit Skating Club ice arena in W.Bloomfield.
10th and 11th grade I started slipping in my studies however. The combination of being bored with the educational material, and hockey were the main reasons. What was being presented in school was stuff I already knew, or things that just bored me because of it didn't hold my interest. I didn't find it engaging. So I started skipping school. This was something I did to varying degree's the rest of the time I was in High School. I started smoking weed, my sister and me started to drink alcohol.
However on days I had practice or a game, I wouldn't smoke or drink. My next season I found myself with new faces, as I was now in the Midget BB age bracket. It was a completely different team from the one from last season. It was smaller in number. The goalie was a forward who had switched because their old goalie raged out and went into the stands to fight I'm told. So he was kicked from the league. Because of this situation I was about to be provided with an amazing year of oppertunity. I went to Chicago and St. Louis with regularity. We won State Championship, then U.S. Championship. I later was picked for U.S. Under 19 team. Went to Canada to play other countries. Because Travis, the other goalie was really just a forward that made the switch to goalie out of necessity, I was playing nearly every game. I let in more goals, but then again, I was seeing double the amount of shots. We were a very offense oriented team. I loved it. I was in heaven seeing 50-60 shots a game. I liked facing impossible shots or odds and coming out on top. It was because of that year I really knew why I loved playing in net. I love it because it's one of the very few things in life where you have complete control over the outcome. My actions during a game, would decide who wins, and who loses. It was different from a forward or defenseman. It has it's own set of rules, its own structure, methodology, and perks/strifes. It's a position of leadership.
It felt great being "the man." Seeing people put their heads up to the sky in dismay over a save I made. To be able to shove and hit, assert myself and hold my turf. To have a goal that said "your only goal here, is to deny everyone elses goals."
One game that stood out was one in which not only my parents, sister, brother and girlfriend were there, but so were my uncles and so on. I had really wanted to snag a one sided win in front of them. But, we lost the game. We lost somewhat badly. 5-1...
I felt like I had played terrible. I mean I felt I played every game under par no matter what the score was, but this one especially.
However after the game was over and we shook hands with all the players, the opposing team's coach motioned with his hand for me to come over. I didn't know why. So I skate over and he shakes my hand and puts it on my shoulder after, leaning in. "That was the best I ever saw anyone anywhere play in net." At the time it was little comfort, looking back on it however now holds a lot more meaning for me.

This is it for this post, It's quite long so the next will be in a few days, as it gets quite more involved and complicated, which makes it much more interesting and outrageous :)