Random 2

from 04DEC12

Another in my random collection of memories that pops into my head for no reason that I can think of. For what it is worth, I'm sitting on a plane, flying to California to visit customers and disclose (showoff) one of the patent submissions I have made.

I think I was 18... maybe 19.

I graduated high school in December. Kinda because I excelled at the self 'PACE' style my private Christian school utilized and partly cause they wanted me out of there.  I was the proverbial black-sheep-bad-boy that every strict religious organization warns all the other kids about.

After graduation I moved to Pensacola, Florida.  I had just gotten into town. I was still driving down one of the main streets looking for a place to be. I picked up a kid about my age hitchhiking. He was just leaving work and heading home.

As is common with hitchhikers and their picker-uppers, we chatted.  Something to break the surreal-ness of two strangers suddenly being in the same car. As it worked out, he offered for me to crash at his place. He lived with his mom and she didn't object either.  Looking back, it would be odd in today's world but he offered and I did accept. i slept a couple days on his couch.

While there his mom, a plain and simple drunk and in today's vernacular, a cougar. (Her boy friend was just a little older than I was).  Back then drinking at 18 was legal. (Yes, I'm that old). We got a bunch of beer and liquor and hit the beach early in the day. We drank hard and I fell asleep (passed out) on the beach, in the Florida sun, before noon. I woke up around sun set.

I have never had such a bad sunburn in my life. Within 24 hours my forehead was peeling along with my eye lids. Not to mention the fact that it hurt to blink. The dead skin was so thick I could not rip it with my fingernails. Pretty sure it was sun poisoning. Nausea, my head was throbbing.  Not a good time.

A month or so later, we went to a friend of his place for a party. More drinking. Was my first and only time to drink so much that I threw up and I had a hang over the next day.  Some how i drove back to my little apartment and slept it off.  Man could that little apartment and bed spin.

Not since then have I had a hang over (knock on wood).