It is fun sometimes to just stop and take the time to check up on some of those guys that you went to school with or hung out with when you were a kid. I did that a couple years back.

We were the trouble makers. We were the ones in trouble all the time. We never hurt anyone or  damaged any property but we were not unknown to the city police or some of the county deputies. And not only did we have hair... it was long hair.

First names only, no complete names because we must protect the innocent..... never mind.... that won't work because there were none that were innocent. Ok... how about no complete names because some of them have jobs they would like to keep.

Ed - He was a dreamer, an intellectual, a rebel. Ed led the great 1977 "Heck no.... we are not cutting our hair because of the dress code, walk out, stand in at the base of the flag pole in front of the High School". If Ed had lived in some third world country and there was a revolution he would have printed and distributed the leaflets. Ed now works for the CIA. Truth.... not a lie.... the man works for the CIA. (It is nice to know that being a part of the "Heck no we are not cutting our hair because of the dress code, walk out, stand in at the base of the flag pole in front of the High School", will not keep me from getting a Top Secret security clearance.)

Don - Don was the guy that stepped up when I got tired of thinking of things to do to get in trouble. He always had an idea and they always worked. Don was with me the first time I sat in a police car. Now that's a friend. Of course he was sitting in the car with me. Don taught me to lean forward and a little sideways to keep the cuffs from binding up on your wrist. I think that Don was the one that figured out that since I had a moustache (I've had one since about 7th grade) I should be the one to buy the liquor. See... if it were not for Don I would probably still be paying that homeless guy in the alley of the Red Barn Liquor Store to buy my Sloe Gin and Cherry Vodka. Plus alone I would never have thought to mix Sloe Gin, Cherry Vodka and Lemonade..... again... thanks Don.

I tracked him down by first finding his brother. He told me that luckily Don was only a few hundred miles away at a prison in eastern Oklahoma. Crap.... That was close, I guess we drifted apart just in time. We had been room mates for a short time. (Did you know that if you buy 15lbs of potatoes and put them in the floor of the kitchen and just leave them there, they will actually rot through the floor in about 18 months? I didn't either till then.) I decided to use the prison email to contact Don and arrange a time I could visit. My email was eventually answered with a very nicely worded email from Don.... the Warden.

What the heck is going on???? Are they just giving away security clearances AND the keys to the prison.......

I'm really not feeling as safe as I was a few years ago. The monkeys are driving the bus.

Anyway......... I guess I said all that to be able to say this....

There was another guy. His name was David. David lived across the street from me when I was about eight. We would ride our bikes, play board games, eat snow cones on hot summer days and just have fun. David and his family moved to Louisiana about five or six years after we met. My family and I even went to Louisiana to see them once. Then we just kinda lost touch. The last thing I remember about David was riding on the back of his motorcycle in the dust of a dirt road in the middle of "Nowhere" Louisiana, laughing joking and having a blast. He was the nicest, kindest most polite kid I ever knew. I tried to find David a few years back but it was like he had dropped off the face of the earth. I finally tracked down and talked to his sister about three years ago. David has spent the last 25 years in Angola Prison in Louisiana. He is serving a life sentence for murder. Something about his girl with some other guy. Said guy now being dead. For what???..... the honor of some girl that had no honor.

What causes one friend to be a warden and the other an inmate?

I can't help but wonder, if we had stayed close, if David had had someone to talk to, could things have been different? I wish I had made an effort.

I guess it could have been worse... but not much.