Where I have been-
From the time I learned that a formal education wasn't in the cards for me, I struck out on my own with people nipping at my heels and thinking it was pointless. "What are you going to do with your life son.. You'll never be able to do this or that.." My cousin who was the only male role model ever around my life told me one time when he was helping me put new wide fenders on my 68 VW bug, (god how I loved that car-) he said "I need to talk to you Mike.. Your mom is worried about you." Then the long list of wrong decisions I was making came, then the words he said to me some four decades ago that has stuck with me to this very day. He told me he thought I would never do anything, or make anything of my life and I would most likely end up either in jail or dead..
We were a pretty tight family in those days. Not so much now. Thanksgiving, Christmas, other times of the year the family from Waco would come down and stay at Gran's and we would all go down and visit and eat. I can still see Gran cooking at her stove.. She worked at Pangburns candy store and would always have a big bag of candy that didn't pass the shape test at the plant and I'd sneak in the fridge and get me big ole handfuls and spoil my dinner as she would say.. Gran used one saccharine in her tea not two, and she always had a roll of peppermint life savors and she would give me one and put the roll away. I didn't spend enough real time with my Gran and I miss her. She lived right next door to my cousin who had said those tough things to me and my relationship with him was never the same again.
Not mine but close.
I had an apartment at 15, full-time job with car and insurance payments that I paid for myself working for a dollar an hour at the movie house as an usher. Married with a son at 17. Got a new job at Musicland just before Jason was born and I went from salesman to asst. mgr, to managing my own store all in 9 months. It was unheard of at that time and in that company for anyone so young to move that fast. Little did they know they were dealing with someone who really wasn't all that special, just someone who had to grow up fast, knock down barriers, and keep moving. I simply didn't have a choice- It felt good to succeed but I wouldn't say it made me all that proud as the whole time the words of my cousin would roll through my head when things were going well and at night when I would worry his words would keep me awake.. How was I going to take care of a family when I wasn't worth two cents in my mind-
As time went on and my wife and I began to grow up and apart, I couldn't help but be reminded of those words that were coming true- Divorced at 21 that had me considering ending my life and going down that road Benny warned me about.
Nothing was quite the same on a personal level after my divorce. Having just barely touched on trying to figure out how to be a husband and a father while I was still a kid myself, then divorced and totally alone in an unfamiliar deep and dark depression. Ended up losing job after job and making all those bad decisions again.
My mom was and is the reason I was able to stay alive and make it past those days and she worked hard at it never once giving up on me. I ended up sinking to levels that today I detest with intense, unyielding passion.. With the help of an unconditional love from my mom that has never wavered, I pulled myself up from the depths of my self-made hell and started going into business for myself. I built custom vans, Western Hauler trucks, and cars in my driveway and I would work sometimes night and day for days in a row by myself. Again it wasn't anything to be proud of in my mind, I simply had no choice but to keep working. Work kept my mind busy and away from the heartache of losing a little family before I figured out what a husband was supposed to do. Being a father was just an all-out guess and my deepest failure regret.
Not much has changed in all this time. Still, use work to keep my mind busy so I don't think about the life I've missed, and I'm still trying to make my mom proud and thankful she never gave up on me. If I could, I would work 24 hours a day because that is all I know how to do. Getting into television and still photography was another one of those things that I was told I didn't have the education and experience to do, but I taught myself how to use cameras and went ahead and did it anyway. I faked my way into the TV business till I learned what the hell I was doing and I've been around the world doing it ever since.
My drive, my need to be there early, be the last to leave, do more, be better, prove I'm worthy, makes me intense, focussed, and driven. Trust me about this, all of those traits are better left to machines, not humans and are most often mistaken by others as something very negative and impersonal. Perhaps that is why I don't get a lot of holiday invites from friends..
My circumstances and how I grew up sort of forced me to have to miss learning how to be much more than a hard cold machine on the outside, and running full out- The inside is probably something else entirely but I hide it well.. (I think-) Every day the phone doesn't ring I'm afraid my cousin may end up being right about me.. I'm still trying to prove him wrong and make my mom proud at the same time and maybe, maybe one day I can be proud of me too.
