Sam Stafford is a grouchy old man who lives up the road from us. Well when I say old, he's probably in his early thirties, but from the arrogant young age of eighteen, thirty is old. Especially the way he acts at times.
He does, I will admit, have a green thumb, and his garden has the best roses for miles around. Come spring he had an amazing display. That's partly what led to the trouble.
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This story takes place in the summer of my 19th year. I had returned to my hometown after an accident which had left me hospitalized for two months. Upon returning I needed to determine a direction for my life. I had enlisted in the army and was awaiting my active duty date in late 1969 when the accident happened. The damage to my body was sufficient to cancel my enlistment and give me a get home free pass from Uncle Sam’s party in Viet Nam. While many of my friends had suffered as a result of that war, I was not sorry that I did not have to go.
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I couldn't unfasten her safety belt. Have you ever heard those lyrics? They're part of a song that Chuck Berry put out in the sixties.
Basically, the song gives the story of a young lad who took his girlfriend for a drive. He tells of how, when they parked and wanted to go for a walk so he could pitch a little wooing, they couldn't undo her seat belt. She was stuck in the car and he had to home, wooing being deferred to another day.
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Here I was, driving in the middle of the night from one city to another. A friend was getting married in the capitol city where we went to college, but I had since moved away. I drove back for the wedding and was supposed to crash at an old buddy's place. The buddy flaked out on me, so I had no where to stay. I really didn't want to get a hotel room because I'm always on a budget. So, I just decided to pop a red bull and drive back home that night.
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Sometimes a man's path of action is planned out over days, or weeks, or months, and follows well-practiced steps to an anticipated place. And other times...
When I got out of the car at Oakwood Mall on that Saturday afternoon in June, I had no thoughts for adventure, risk, pleasure. I just needed to go to Sears and buy a couple of tools.
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