Im not the sharpest tool

But I have my moments. I've been drunk and disorderly. Totatall anarchistic, I was on DC during the war riots of the sixties, I got tear gas lobbed at me at Georgetown U and I got maced at the Smithsonian the days after Kent State. I had a change of heart and I tried to be a good soldier when I was drafted. I got pneumonia when I was half through basic and decided rather than recycle Id visit Toronto. I lasted there One fucking week. I returned and submitted myself to Fort George G Meades MP corps and was stockaded. I was after a long stretch invited to leave with and Unconditional Discharge for the good of the service. I took it. It was like Christmas. I drifted, playing anyplace I could find an audience. Before I'd gone in I loved a woman who I felt was the theo only woman in the world. She left me for College, and considering my economic condition at the time and my past drunken/stoned mental attitude It was for the best. But love yer I did and I carried a torch for her for many years. Curcumstances led me to Virginia Beach, Va. in the early 1970s and I got religion at that time. Unfortuantely, a beautiful Red Head with a converted Bread Truck changed my mind about that with her charms and her really good Lebanese Hash. But that didnt last and I met a guy who liked to hitch hike and with a bedroll a couple pair of jeans and an acoustic guitar we walked off to Look for America. All my trials and tribulations led to California, then back east to Virginia again. Then one day friend said "I know some great communes in Upstate NY. wanna go?"
He had an old Charles Chips truck and we rolled on up the the Adirondack Park. It was Beautiful. Pines, reefer, physically beautiful women who were really pretty losse. In no time at all did I have a pregnant companion who "I decided to do the right thingy by". Well there was one small problem. She was married to a guy in Jail. So she told the guy in jail that she wanted a divorce. It was her SECOND divorce. But I didnt know that at the time. He grudgeingly aquiesced, and in July 15th 1975 I married this woman. I had a job and it was in a mill that made pallets, We got a cold water third floor walk up and lived that winter with a space heater running and we had no vehicle so we walkd everywhere we went rain, snow etc... Then one day we found a house. We moved in cause it was really close to my employer a refridgerator factory. I drank, I worked, I got an even better job in Canajoharie NY at Beech Nut Baby foods. We moved to Dolgeville NY a quaint lil town in the Adirondack Park. I knew people there and it was a nice community. I made much more money than ever before and we were livin large and steppin wide. Got a pickup truck.... I still drank after work and on weekends. It eventually ruined my marriage. After a weekend sawmill accident where I chopped off some fingers, and a downgrade to another sawmill job, my wife was making plans. I went back to school and got a B avarage in my education major the first semister. I got a job as a night shift janitor and went to school days. After Graduation I took some bad advice, We'd bought a shack down by a creel in Salisbury Center and it was like 6000.00 total cost, I sold it and we moved to Gloversville. I wanted to attend Albany State University's Education school because I wanted to teach. The missus had had enough. She asked me to go get a job somewhere and give up the idea of going on. She told me she no longer wanted to be married to me. I left and went to Illinois. I got two jobs in the midwest almost immediately. I begged and begged her to reconsider. Shed had sex with some truck driver on a one night stand, and was feeling remorseful. She said if I'd put the money together she'd move to the midwest and giveit one more try. I drove back for them and brought them and a U-haul with our furniture and we lived in Cedar Rapids, Iowa about two years, She met these people fron Maine while I was working the two jobs and told the woman she wanted out of this marriage, The woman told her that in Northern Maine, a woman with her good looks could pick and choose her man. I'd been working on cars for years and had planned to start my own business. My ex talked me into going to Maine because good mechanics were few and far between, I said HEll... I love the mountains! Lets go! So We loaded up out truck and headed on out.
Maine was an adventure that I pesonally wouldnt want to repeat. Im sure the people I met were dirt poor and grasping at whatever, but I never met a gang of liars that large. I fixed cars. I was cheap, I worked as often as they came in. I had a trailer in Dyer Brook. It had a garage. I cut stumpage on the slow day By hand with no twitcher. I hand carried the logs out of the cedar swamp on my shoulders. .80 a log and I'd cut 50 a day.After three months she came to me and said she wanted a divorce. I was angry and begger her to reconsider. She just said no. It turnd out that she'd fallen for a native american with an Oxycontin habit and they now live on the reservation. But at that time he was a successful truckdriver and he built her a new house. (they later forclosed on it). I went back to NY. I tried to find work. I wound up living in a warehouse. I didnt even have a winter coat, so this man I knew who ran a car repair place gave me an old OD green US army field jacket that belonged to a former employee who'd died. It had snotall over the sleeves. Another friend gave me the money to wash it and I had a coat. After 4 months of freezing and panhandlng for a living I got a job. But I was depressed. It was 1983. Id call my kids and my ex would hang up the phone on me or her live in would curse me and slam the phone down. I got a cold water flat, But I couldnt stop drinking. I cut my wrists at one point but I fucked it up and I lived. Our divorce was final in May of 1984 and I owed 50 a week in child support. I didnt make but 100 dollars a week at my job. Needless to say I got behind. In the spring of 1984 I hitched bach to Moline, Illinois. The work situation was bad but it was much better back there, I lived in a 25 dollar a week room in the black Ghetto in Rock Island, Illinois. I paid for it with food stanps while I beat the street looking for a job. I finally found one in Cedar Rapids Iowa. it was making cabinets. They trained me. I got another cheap room and took the bus to work. I worked there until I got involved with a secretary. It was not good. I drank she wanted to get married. We had a nice flat and plenty of food and booxe, but NO great vibe. I split one day. Packed my napsack and rolled on down the highway east. I wound up in Clinton, Iowa. I dont even know why and lo and behold the first place I went to was a sheet metal fab shop and they hired me that day. 125.00 a week I found a room again and went to work. All my co-workers were drunks and I fit right in. My boss however was not but he turned out to be a great friend. He liked my guitar playing and I played a lot wherever I could. Time went by. I met my second wife in a convienice store. We screwed for eight months and then Married. She had other men in her life and we fought bitterly. I didnt hit he but I destroyed the furniture. She had me jailed twice and the last time was Xmas 1987. I went into treatment the day after xmas 1987 and aint had a drink since.
However our last copulation produced a daughter. Talk about LUCK!
She served me with papers in Jan 1 1988 at noon. It was twenty below, and I was in my trialer (Id bought a house trailer and never sold it against this very thing) The divorce was final and at that point we went our separate ways, she owned what she owned and I owned what I owened ... deal.
Then a month later I get a message...she's pregnant. Her lawyer wrote to me that they want me torecind my parental rights and not pay child support and gave no visitation. I agreed and after it was all settled again I never saw them again.
IN 1988 I began dating my now wife of 16 years.
We'd met at A/A and we became friends and then later lovers. We laughed and argued and went places and I wound up in the steel industry. She went on to get her Bachelors degree from a local catholic college and we grew and grew.In 1991 we had a daughter who is the apple of our eye. She is so beautiful inside and out. We vacationed in Cape Cod with some of my old east coast friends, we went to disney world one year and in 1999 we bought the house of our dreams, last May my wife got her Masters degree.
One day in 2000 I got a knock at my door, It was my ex and her daughter who looked quite grown for 12 years old. The mother told me of disobiedience and rape, and nightly escapes through windows and said "she just wants to meet you". I said OK.
We met and I immediately began to pay her some support. We tried to integrate her into the family but my live in daughter and my estranged one did not get along. tooo much sibling rivalry. So I did counseling with a family psychologist. The estranged daughter always walked from the session IF they became confrontational at any point. One day a sherrif showed up at my door and I was summoned to family court. I went and found out that in the state we'd lived in (not my present one) parental rights could be REINSTATED by the custodial parents and I was now the proud owner of a 250 a payday child support bill on top of my back support arrears on the boys. (Id been paying that back since 1990.) You can imagine how wondeful that was. Anyway I tried to continue the therapy but the estranged daughter was totally aginst it. She picked a YWCA family counselor to use as an intermediary and I agreed. We had one session. When I confronted her about her sexual behavior she stormed out and that the last time I saw her. January 14th 2004. I got a call last week from a friend of a friend. He told me she was pregnant at 15. I called the mother at her workplace and her mother said "yes its the best thing for her."
I called my Lawyer and got 8 months chopped off my child support sentence. I cant believer it but it happens. Shes blown her future, and it was explained to me that this preganancy was the result of an ongoing relationship with a 16 year old boyfriend. He has a job, I was told. They both are now being home schooled ( I dont know by who all the parents work) and I ought to be glad. Im just sad and well angry once again
Bowe