10-year-old Me
I often think about 10-year-old me. It was a difficult time. 1983, in a small, rural, West Michigan town. I was often alone and left to my own devices. This could have led to any number of places. Drugs, fights, almost anything young boys get up to, but from an early age I would get lost in my thoughts, and that was where I found myself most times. Dreaming of a future that I did not know if I would ever see. I was raised in bars, and this isn’t a dig at my mom, she did the best she could while struggling with her own challenges, but the reality is, I went to school, I came home, I did my homework, and then… I went down to the bar to make sure she got home.
By the fall and winter I had had enough of it. I can remember a weekday, somewhere around 2 in the morning in the bar in Hart, Michigan, waiting for my mom and my aunt to come out of the bathroom. It was closing time and we had to leave. The bartender didn’t care where anyone went, so long as they left so he could. Both of them were drunk. They’d been there since just after work, around 4 or 5 pm. Almost 9 hours. I had joined just after five, and spent the evening and night roaming the downtown block of Hart.
This was not a big area. I also hadn’t eaten anything since lunch at school, and I remember having found an unopened pack of Oreo cookies in a garbage can. I sat at the local park on a bench near the only stoplight in town, and ate them, shivering in the cold and wondering what life would be like if it wasn’t like that. I had many dreams of getting out of Hart, Shelby, Mears, Oceana County. Of doing something, seeing the world, and would day dream most of the time about that. Around one in the morning, so the police wouldn’t question me, I went into the bar, got quarters and played Pac-Man until closing time.
I can remember thinking I didn’t want to spend evenings and nights in the cold, eating Oreos out of a garbage can (they were a full unopened pack but that was what was in my head), and waiting to be driven home. As I waited for them to finish in the bathroom, I saw the bartender take the trash out back, and I knew he would be gone for a few minutes. I saw the bar phone sitting next to the cash register, and without really thinking, I made a choice.
I slipped under the bar, lifted the receiver and dialed “0” for the operator. I asked to be connected with the Hart Police Department. When an officer answered, I said as clear and as firm as I could, “There’s going to be a drunk driver at the stop light in Hart in five minutes.” and then hung up. I knew I didn’t want to answer questions. I knew I didn’t want my mom or my Aunt Betty to find out it was me, but I knew it needed to be done.
They came out of the bathroom, stumbled their way to the door, the parking lot and into the car. I remember sitting in the backseat wondering if it would even work. My Aunt Betty drove, and as she pulled out to the stop light, I questioned if the police would even listen. When she made the left to head through downtown to take us home and the red and blue lights came on behind us, I was awash with relief.
It was a surreal experience. I sat in the back as the officer talked with my aunt, took her license and other documents, then when he returned asked her to step out of the car. They arrested her, and my mom was told to drive the car straight home. I remember being baffled at this as my mother was just as drunk as my aunt, but they did not either consider that, or care. No one ever told them they’d gotten a call. My aunt went before a judge that next week and she was told that if she went to Alcoholics Anonymous the charges would be dropped. She agreed, and my mother went with her. After that, as far as I know, the two of them were sober until the days they died.
I say all of that to give you an idea of who 10-year-old me was. I often think about him and what he would make of where we are now. I think I fulfilled a lot of his dreams. I left home, enlisted in the Marine Corps Reserves, then went active-duty in the Navy. I served 19 years 2 months 26 days, was discharged honorably, and I have seen every continent but Antarctica, I’ve been all over the world. Had tons of adventures. Seen amazing, breathtaking places. I’ve played roleplaying games for decades. Lived countless lives and experienced enormous, immersive worlds to the point it has become a core pillar of my life.
When I think about 10-year-old me, and what he would think, I have this image (one of my school photos from that time) of him with his little bowl cut, and broad, genuine smile. I think he would be amazed at technology today, what I’ve done with it in my life, what I’ve experienced and where I am at with my career. I think he would be full of questions and would not hold back from asking them, and I would sit smiling, answering each and every one of them.
