Born into a generation where youthful adventures and uninhibited bicycle journeys during the day for children were soon put to an end, as a result of kidnappings and other such crimes involving the mistreatment of children were on a rise more so then ever before in American society. We had to suffer, as we were forced to watch other lives live adventurously through a television screen. And wonder why we couldn’t be out there discovering dead bodies like in the movie STAND BY ME or helping an alien friend return home as in E.T. THE EXTRATERRESTRIAL.

Growing up my friends and I weren’t allowed to ever venture to far from home or our neighborhoods for that matter and growing up as a teenager in suburban society of a small town wasn’t much easier either. Most I ever did as a youth was ride my bike about 2 miles down the road to my buddies house where we’d often sit in his room and daydream of the days when we could finally leave our parental prisons and guarded homes and travel beyond the walls of our encampments. Oh yes, our adventures came much later in life. Unlike the last “free-generation”, which gave birth to skaters, and not too mention the other exciting youths from previous generations who grew up before the late 70’s and early 80’s. My generation’s adventures were tamed or restricted, put off until a much more MATURE age. We had to wait until our 20’s before we could truly be rebellious. Being rebellious at 20 seems silly but let me tell you it IS, trust me. However, we had no other choice. This is the story of me and my generation and our self proclaimed adventures lived late in our youth. In our last days of youth.


I was first placed into school at the tender age of 5 years old. I never managed to escape. I was imprisoned in this place of education until the age of 19. I was already attending college at The Art Institute of Dallas before I was 20. I remained there until the last few months of my 21st year. During my unobserved time in this urban society I subtly began to find myself to be completely free of all youthful restrictions that once held me back from my adventures. At first I wasn’t sure how to deal with it or what to do with my spare time. And then…

I realized something, Where is the pressure coming from? Who is it really who is putting THIS pressure on me on us to do this thing called LIFE. This isn’t living this is farming. America has gotten itself into such a frenzy of the working class, business man and woman state of mind that there is no more time for anyone to actually live or be adventurous.

The only people who actually get a semi adventurous life are celebrities and even that comes with a cost. Sure they get all the money they could ever want or need for ENTERTAINING us the lower classman of the world, But as their reward we have people chase them around like animals photographing their every move as if they’re some kind of Discovery channel special. They get to live adventurous lives for entertaining us who don’t have the time or the money too and then we stalk them down when they do something we WISH we all could do. Things that people use to do on a regular basis like mountain climbing, or hiking, or sailing, or whatever freedoms the wealthy are permitted to do as a reward for having money in their pockets to do it with. And people wonder why celebrities have such big homes and why the have so many of them. Those aren’t homes, they’re elaborate, expensive, cages that they hide themselves in with multiple rooms so that they MIGHT get a chance at privacy if they can manage to get from one room to the next or one home to the next without being spotted by the paparazzi.

Meanwhile the rest of us, are stuck sending our children to school as soon as they can walk nowadays. Then as shortly after we give them permission to drive we send them off to College which seems like we’re letting them go free. Which of course everyone KNOWS isn’t in the least bit true because what happens when they’re in college. They’re paying for it or racking up one hell of a debt with loans. And if they go to college they have to have classes, keeping them to busy to ever really go to far from school or home for risk of failing. Going to class restricts any real work time so the income isn’t as good as it could be so they definitely can’t go to far then. Unless of course they come from a wealthy family and then a few of the circumstances are different, but I wouldn’t know anything about that. I’m not speaking for the richer classes here, I’m speaking in general discomfort for what America has done to its youth in lower or middle class societies.

Next, after graduating from college they’re suppose to do what? Get a job. Oh, yeah that’s right, become some cooperate slave and help someone else get rich. Then you’ve got your two diplomas in your pocket you’ve got your steady paycheck you living alright now, actually got a reliable car to carry you to and from work and home. Bills are most usually paid off every month. Bills including, car payment, insurance payments, life insurance and car insurance and whatever else insurance they make you get along the way. Not too mention the 200 dollars you have to send in every month to pay back those loans that got you the job in the first place. Oh yeah real nice guys. I got the job everyone wanted me to get but I can’t enjoy it because all my money is already spent before I have time to save any of it. Leaving me STILL BROKE and no money or time to go anywhere. Same bullshit I had to deal with as a kid. A kid yeah childhood was a real good time let me tell ya. Talk about getting pissed off when that trip was over. Filled my head full of dreams of being an astronaut, cowboy, gunslinger, hitchhiker (seeing beautiful America), bum, mountain climber, movie star, or rich wealthy man. Wait, you mean I have to wait even longer before that happens, you mean I have to do all of this shit to get there. Well take it back. I don’t wanna do it then, just let me be free, free or obligations, free of debts, free from work. WORK? WORK SUCKS!!!

Then, oh yes, there’s more. Then they want you to find a wife. Mom and Dad wanna be grandparents before they’re too old to enjoy it. But no no no, they don’t wanna be that young and be a grandparent. Dad says becareful son, “always wear protection. Or just don’t have sex at all”. And mom says “sweety you’ll find a good one for ya someday, you’ll see. Just don’t give up.” GREAT! Still paying off debts and working your ass off to make sure you do that NOW they want you to try and have some kind of social life misk in with all of that mess. You do it, you get your little wifey the love of your life which brings love, sex, drama, and even MORE debt into your life. Especially after that wedding bill, for the invitations and decorations and plus you just added the college debt of the Miss’ onto yours once you got that joint account together.

Where are the kids? The kids? Oh yes you have to have the kids so mom and pop can become grandmom and gradpop before they pass on. Now you’ve got Love, Sex, Drama, and crying Baby, plus stress from work and everything else mixed together. No wonder suicide rates increase occasionally.

Let’s recap, shall we?

BORN
Crawl, poop, spit up
Walk
Age 5 (if lucky) GO TO SCHOOL
Walking still
Reading
Doing math
Age 16 (if lucky) LEARN TO DRIVE
Driving
Still walking
Reading
And doing math
Age 19 ( if you don’t fail) or (if lucky) GRADUATE
YAY!!!!!!
Age 19 ( if rushed) GO TO COLLEGE (get a degree and try to find love of life)
Still driving
Now learning a Specialty
Age 23-24 … 22 ( if lucky) GRADUATE
YAY!!! Again
NOW GO TO WORK (bullshit)
GET NEW CAR
PAY OFF LOANS
GET A WIFE
GET HER PREGNANT
HAVE KIDS
PUT THEM THROUGH SAME DRILL
Bullshit
Bullshit
Bullshit



IF LUCKY….



Finally get to LIVE early 50’s when vacation time has accumulated to 3 months paid vacation time. And you can afford to buy the RV that you’ll use once. YEAH RIGHT !! By the time we’re 50 we’ll be working harder then ever. Son of a bitch.



These are the thoughts that keep me up at night.


You see what I’ve done here. I’ve given a BASIC run down of everything we’re mean to do. Where in between all of this is there REALLY any TIME to live adventurously? Maybe for most Americans this is a NORMAL life. And they’re perfectly content going from day to day living their lives as a gear in this well oiled machine. As for me and my friends. There’s a few of us who just couldn’t stand living in this manner and we wanted a way out. Some chose to do nothing at all and really be like a bum working hourly jobs paid week by week living from pay check to pay check never attended college. Some of us attended and hated every minute of it, wishing we’d never gone. Others went to college didn’t really dislike it but felt we were forced into it as a result of it being the next thing to do on the itinerary of life. Which scared a few of us considering what comes after college if it hasn’t happened already. At some point we knew we were suppose to get married. Not necessarily a requirement but something people expected out of a few of us anyway. None of us were scholarly types but we admitted to knowing a thing or two.


Ah, who am I kidding? We were all young and rebellious against the life path we would all eventually fall into in some form or another. But for those of us who thought their JUST HAD TO BE MORE TO LIFE aside from what was already stated. Well we persisted in attempting to do and see and live as much as we could without letting up until someone finally broke our knees or forced us in someway to stay put and do the inevitable.

What were we suppose to do, give in and do what we didn’t want to do and be miserable doing it or were we right in our last rebellious act by not going along with the predetermined life plan set before us by American standards? I had my high school diploma I had my Degree; I knew my studies and how to gain the information I needed in order to get back into the industry. Or so I thought. But I also had a huge debt of about 50 grand looming just around the corner that I would soon have to start paying off. I was freaking out knowing I had 3 months left to actually LIVE before I was going to be hard pressed by the government to pay off my loans. 3 months before a ten year stretch of bills asking for money I wouldn’t have. Never the less, I was once told that I should never worry about anything, because that’s precisely when everything starts to get messed up really bad. I said Fuck it. And decided I wanted to do whatever I could to travel and LIVE during that time. And that’s what I decided to do during my last days of youth. Last days of seemingly real freedom. Anything after that remaining 3 month window of opportunity would be done on borrowed time, requested off time from a job, time I didn’t really have to lose off the clock for fear of not being able to make the payments that were required of me. I had to take the chance and not worry about any job opportunities that might pass me by IF I didn’t go. Things always have a way of working themselves out in the end anyways right? And everything happens for a reason, there’s no such thing as coincidence. These are the things I trusted in as I made my decision. That and also my belief that you should ALWAYS follow your heart. Well, damn it my heart said go. I went. Let me tell ya…..I’m 100% sure that I made the right decision. Besides after all as soon as I wanted to that preset Itinerary of life is always there when you decided to come back to it.