***

I have very vivid memories of going camping as a child. I remember how musty the tent would smell. I remember the crunch of the leaves underfoot and the smell of decay and rotting acorns all around. I remember we would gather wood to build a fire. I also remember how, if I had to go to the bathroom, my dad would point off into the woods and hand me a roll of toilet paper and say, "here, just go over there in the woods."

Well one time, I had to go, so I wondered over to a fallen tree a few hundred paces away, sat down, and just let loose. As I finished, I looked up and notice that my dad was yelling at my brother. I don't know what he had done, but it was something very bad because my dad was losing his temper.

To this day, I don't know why I did this, but I started wondering off in a different direction. Sure enough, I went a couple hundred more yards and I could no longer hear them. I could just hear a road, somewhere off in the distance. A busy road. Then I realized I was lost.

I panicked. I dropped the toilet paper and began running. I'd run like 100 paces. Then stop. Then turn right or left. Then run some more. Then I started screaming.

Eventually I did find the big road. The cars were whizzing past. It scared me. I took to the woods and followed it up and eventually found a road leading into the state forest. Then I followed that road. Eventually someone pulled over and stopped and asked for me by name. I said yes.

That was when I learned that I had caused a big stir by getting lost in the woods and not coming back. I got a stern lecture.

When I got back to my dad and my brother, they were both calm. Not glad to see me. But calm. My dad said something like, "well, that must have been scary!"

It was terrifying.

On the way home he stopped at a drug store and bought my brother a pack of Marvel cards and got me a TMNT Raphael action figure.

We never talked of the time I got lost ever again.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=4601239&forum_id=2#40735552)

i remember there was a brook that ran through it and had trees and we had all kinds of animals. horses, goats, and the thousands of chickens. i had a childhood friend. 2 of them, "el indio" the indian and "el colorado" the redhead. i still keep up with el colorado. i have all this memories of playing games in the fields with both. we would go swimming in the water hole. climb trees. throw rocks. chase caiman. all types of hillbilly stuff.

fast forward 30 years later. i'm talking to my parents about colorado and how he's doing, etc. we're chatting they're happy he's doing well and all that. and then i go "i always wondered what happened with el indio. he was great. i don't remember much about him." my father flatly says "who?"..."el indio, the kid who used to come to play on the farm with me"..."the only kid who came over to the farm to play was colorado because we knew his parents. it was just you and him."

i sat back and thought and thought. i made him up. he was my imaginary friend. i realized this when it occurred to me that i have zero memories of him and colorado and i together. it was always either me and el indio or me and colorado.

some of my best memories from my childhood were a figment of my imagination.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=4601239&forum_id=2#40735663)

anyway, it's obvious the indian was real. your dad probably accidentally shot him and buried him on the land. they don't want you innocently mentioning this kid to the cops so they are denying his very existence. you need to solve this case.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=4601239&forum_id=2#40743239)

and my dad's point made sense. our farm was really remote. the only neighbor remotely close with kids my age was colorado's parents. so like wtf would this other kid come from? i laugh about it. strangely, i don't mind that it was all in my head. it was nice anyways.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=4601239&forum_id=2#40748185)

Well, I remember I heard about kids daring one another to lie in the street. (Here is an example of those news items: https://www.nytimes.com/1993/10/19/us/not-like-the-movie-a-dare-leads-to-death.html )

Well one day, I dared my friend to go do this. We took turns. We'd do it, then a car would swerve and honk at us, and we'd run into the woods. Did it on a couple of places along the road. I never really understood why we did this. I never saw the movie The Program, but just heard about it as something that cool kids did.

Tyler had a younger sister who died at 17 from a heroin overdose. He also lost his mom to breast cancer when he was in high school. I think he was kind of set adrift after all of that.

Here's the movie scene that all of this was based on:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SiPCmKvgDQo

I didn't see this until years and years later.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=4601239&forum_id=2#40735715)

When those two eventually got married, he was very adamant about getting a dog. In his mind, every family should have a dog. At the time, perhaps because he was wondering how he was going to score some cash for his next pile of blow, he would take us all to the dog track and he would bet and drink Lite and buy me peanuts.

Then one day he decided that the family should adopt a Greyhound. In his mind, Greyhounds were these cool dogs that could run fast and were an amazing sight to behold. He gave little thought to the fact that greyhounds trained for racing typically have a very tough go of it the first years of their lives and are all irreparably broken and mean.

On the first night the dog was in the house, it was in a corner, and I was playing around on the floor. I wasn't messing with the dog at all, but I got too close and it jumped up and mauled me, biting my face, tearing my flesh in my scalp from the top of its pointy snout, and ripping a gash along my eyebrow with its angular mandible, filled with razor sharp teeth.

My parents took me to the ER to get sewed up and my new "Dad" just kept blaming me for provoking the damn dog. He didn't believe me that I was just fooling around by myself and not messing with the dog at all.

Two days past, and the dog went after the Big Tough Guy. Bit his hand, viciously. He had to have like 18 stitches, and afterward he always had numbness and loss of feeling in his middle and ring fingers.

We got rid of the dog after it bit him. Not after it bit me, but after it bit him. That's when I learned the saying "a dog only gets one free bite."

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=4601239&forum_id=2#40736015)

In middle school we were learning about how our area was active during the underground railroad and about the same time my friends and I were obsessed with Goonies, so there was a long time we were sure we'd find some secret tunnels.

At a local public school none of us attended, we snuck into the basement and one of us found a small, hidden door. We scurried along the dark corridor until Brian found a bag of weed. Not knowing anything about drugs, we brought it to school thinking we had discovered some long-lost snack dropped along the way by a runaway slave and gave it to our history teacher. She never corrected us and we never heard anything more about it.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=4601239&forum_id=2#40737220)

I remember going to see my relatives. I remember the tree lined streets. I remember the baking sun. I remember my dad dragging me out to Saddleback Mountain and making me hike with him. I remember getting really tired. Then he carried me. Then I especially remember when the trail narrowed and he put me down and said, "now you need to hug the wall and follow me."

I was scared to death. I could hardly move. I remember him dragging me along. I remember my shoulder hurting. I remember crying.

I have no memory of the descent. All I remember was being out of my mind. Screaming into the thin desert air. Petrified with fear.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=4601239&forum_id=2#40741498)

During the day we rented a pontoon boat and went tubing until my brother and I were both burnt to a crisp. Then we ate hot dogs and hamburgers until we were full. And then, we went back on the boat, and did a long ride to the part of the lake where they were shooting off fireworks. It was magical. That boat ride in the twilight. Then, the night ride back.

Once we got back to the A-frame, my brother noticed that “Back to the Future” was on TBS “Dinner and a Movie.” We watched that movie, perhaps for the 6th or 7th time. And about the time old McFly socked Biff right in the kisser, we slinked up to the loft.

I remember my brother wanted to play truth or dare. That night, he admitted to me that he had kissed a girl named Kaileigh.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=4601239&forum_id=2#40741527)

We’d meet for our meetings up at the First United Methodist Church up at the intersection. It wasn’t a very old church. Kind of boring and bland. I don’t know if you’ve been in a FUMC, but they are sparse inside. I remember my family even went there for Christmas Service one year, and I knelt my head and hair into my candle during Silent Night. Stinking up the pew and infuriating my mother, likely high on cocaine.

In any event, I think by the time we were Tigers, Tyler and I went on an overnight camping trip somewhere. I don’t think we shared a tent, but we certainly laid out our sleeping bags close to one another and whispered secrets to one another way past lights out.

I remember how Tyler told me that his dad was really hard on his sister Anna. I remember how he told me that Anna never seemed to follow the rules. I remember how he said that he wanted to stand up for Anna, but that he felt like he never could. He wasn’t strong enough to take on his dad.

At this point in my life, I too felt helpless. I loved my friend Tyler. I felt like he understood what it was like to live in a world where you didn’t have any control.

In the end, Tyler lost Anna. And I lost my brother.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=4601239&forum_id=2#40741676)

My brother killed himself. He was found hanging in the closet of a cheap apartment. His pants were around his ankles. The police said it was a case of erotic asphyxiation gone wrong. He had track marks all up his arm.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=4601239&forum_id=2#40741708)

I assure you that it was not my intention to seek sympathy with this thread. I realize that I've posted far more sad than sweet stories, perhaps 5:1, and I know it probably seems that way. I'm going to think about my content going forward.

The real purpose of this thread is just supposed to be a middle-aged bro looking back on his childhood in reflection, and sharing those thoughts with others.

This is no pity party. It's just an exercise in self actualization.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=4601239&forum_id=2#40741927)

-Stephen King, The Stand

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=4601239&forum_id=2#40745817)

Nick: Nick was a few years older than me and not really right in the head. Biggest memory is him holding the end of a BB gun to my temple when I was around eight and just laughing hysterically while I wept. I was at my cousin's graduation party a few years ago there (my aunt and then-uncle eventually bought the place), and Nick just showed up, because he was still living at home in his mid-30s. Nick died last year. I don't know of what, but when the obituary of a 40 year old lists one of his favorite activities as "playing high school football", that's really sadder than nothing at all.

Samir: Samir might have been the only Indian kid in town. I have no idea what his parents did. Or at least what his Dad did. His Mom, as far as I could tell, spent her days watching Inspector Gadget on the couch and never acknowledging our existence. She also must have cooked up a storm, because that place always had such an alien smell, which was probably just curry. Anyway, Samir integrated into American pop culture as well as a 10-year-old Indian could, because he somehow got his hands on various House of Pain and Wreckz-N-Effects albums by pilfering various Columbia Record Club 12 CD packages that would appear around the neighborhood. He really, really loved the Rumpshaker video.

I also need to write about Kyle and Tyler.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=4601239&forum_id=2#40742075)

I had a couple of Samir experiences growing up too. At least in the sense of walking into the house of some foreign kid and being assaulted in the nose by the pungency of all those strange cooking smells. Probably just curry, but in the 1990s, curry powder was like special C—a strange and exotic thing.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=4601239&forum_id=2#40742218)

anyway after that i stopped playing runescape

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=4601239&forum_id=2#40742095)

my father worked in sales with some clients in vegas. in the early to mid 90s, he’d have to drive there from california once a month for work, and he’d occasionally take me with him (sometimes with my mother and sometimes without). those trips are some of my most vivid memories. alternating between motown cassette tapes and desert am radio. passing through small-town gas stations. laughing whenever we passed zzyzx road. guessing the temperature before we passed the big thermometer in baker. stopping at the state line casinos and knowing we were almost there. the whole thing was just so familiar and comforting after a while. i rarely left the town where i grew up, but i knew every mile of that drive by heart.

to be sure, the stays themselves were also memorable; the casinos’ family-friendly phase meant that it was the best time for kids to visit. but i remember the drives just as vividly. i loved spending time with my father, and i just loved being on the road. it began my lifelong love of long drives. i had no problem driving 8 hours every other weekend to see my long-distance gf in law school or regularly driving 12 hours to visit my hometown friends after i moved away. it’s hard to describe, but it’s such a great feeling to connect both with a destination and with the journey that brings you there.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=4601239&forum_id=2#40742132)

I'll share some of my childhood memories in the future.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=4601239&forum_id=2#40742151)

I have a ton of these, but one that just jumped to mind when reading the one above about driving with their Dad.

I was probably about 10 or so-- maybe younger. My Dad was taking me fishing down the Delaware Bay. Of course, we left the house really early and we were driving at dawn, sun not quite risen. We were driving down this dirt road to get to the boat launch. Jive Talking by the Bee Gees was on the radio. I remember hundreds of toads hopping along this road. All over the place. Being worried about killing these toads.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=4601239&forum_id=2#40743714)

I tried to blame it on spontaneous combustion but that didn't really fly.

Then this kid wasn't allowed to play with me anymore because his parents thought I was a bad influence. This is a kid who once caught a cat and smashed it against a rock to see if it would survive.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=4601239&forum_id=2#40743777)

It was oppressively hot, the way only the Mediterranean sun beating down on a desert island knows how to be in August. The evening air provided little comfort to locals and tourists - all who were beginning to spill out from restaurants after dinner, their tight cottons gripping their glistening skin, on to the coastline desperate for relief. Through the thick malaise there was one young group of cheerful Greek teens goldened from another Summer on the island. Like the rest, the teens were begging for any release they could, without much hope. That is, until one of the group couldn't take it anymore.

She smiled a coy smile as she glanced around the boardwalk... and her gaze then locked with mine. She traced her hands down her stomach to the bottom of her already soaking white tank top and peeled the layer off over her head, setting her perfectly perky breasts free to take a desperate breath. Her friends half giggled something in Greek then stopped abruptly. One more nervous laugh. then. the rest of her friends peeled off their tops revealing their bodies for the sea's refreshing spray. More laughing turning into elated yelling into the clear night. They dive into the ocean drenching themselves in relief.

As we strolled past, they emerged from the waves onto the sand, nipples all erect from the cold salt water and a slight breeze coming through. The coy smile returned as she found my eyes again - she knew she had imprinted a memory of her perfect body on me forever.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=4601239&forum_id=2#40743843)

So I went to "jif" sites like the Peanut Butter trying to find it. They'd said it was "jiff 1" "jiff 2" etc. Never specified how to spell it. Took me weeks before I came across an image ending in "gif" and realized that must be how you spelled it.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=4601239&forum_id=2#40745317)

What I didn’t fully understand was that after-school practices meant that I would have to rely on my parents to come and pick me up after practice. I also didn’t fully appreciate that, since school had ended several hours before, the school would oftentimes lock its doors so you couldn’t go up there to use the phone.

As a result of this situation, there were several times when I emerged from the field house tired and sweaty from my quick shower, scan the parking lot, and realize all too late that I didn’t have a ride home that day.

One time, my stepdad made a really big deal about me waiting for him to pick me up after practice. I think it was my mom’s birthday or something and he wanted to have a special outing.

So I waited. And I waited. And I waited. Nobody ever come. As the afternoon really started to come on, at 6pm or so, I started walking the 8 miles back to my house. Along the way, some kids in a pick-up drove really damn close to me on the shoulder of the road, honked their horn, and someone from the bed of the truck hit me in the back of a head with a full can of beer. It hurt like a mother fucker.

I remember walking along after that and feeling so ashamed. Then, in the failing light of the afternoon, I looked down at the ground. Picked up the beer and pulled the tab. It foamed up a bit, but then I took a long cold drink of the beer. Things felt a little better after that.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=4601239&forum_id=2#40747851)