Epilogue

"Why I would not change anything about my life."

I wouldn't change anything in my life because I really don't see anything that desperately needs to be changed. I have great parents and even great siblings (whenever we're getting along fine anyways). I even have great extended family, no weird creepy uncles or anything. I have some really grand friends, some from before and some from after senior year's beginning (even some that don't mind playing weird but highly entertaining sports like disc golf). I've learned quite a lot this year too, which might not be so important in why I wouldn't change my life but it's a positive thing. WE HAVE ALPACAS (enough said eh?). I've got a better score on my ACT than my older sister (that's somewhat of a big deal between the two of us). I'm not addicted to nicotine, drugs, or alcohol like some idiots already are. I'm highly skilled with wood (take that as you will) and can possibly make anything given enough time. And I was a really cute kid; so really what need have I to change anything? Except for maybe a new car.

Chapter 8

“Nigh Unto the End”

                Senior Year wasn’t at all as bad as I expected it to be. I mean getting out of school half a day early to go and work every day definitely helped and had its perks compared to a normal school day but even when I was in school it was tolerable. My favorite class was definitely AP Lit., but that’s kind of expected whenever the only other major class I had to compare it with was pre-calc. (which I am absolutely awful at), and I’m going to kind of miss it (although I won’t miss writing all those essays).  I don’t really have a lot of lasts to talk about like other seniors as I’m not involved in anything, although I could say I’m going to miss using the bathrooms at school and eating really cheap lunches but really the bathrooms are disgusting and the food does taste cheap like cheap food so I don’t think I’m going to have a problem leaving either of those behind. Unfortunately I can't act tough and say that I won't miss anything at all because there is one thing that I'll miss and that's all the friends I've really acquired during senior year and all  the times that I've played disc golf and went to the movies with various ones; it’s really going to be lame when they leave this area to go to college because it’ll really reduce the amount of times I get to those things (which was only something I really started doing this year so it’s rather short lived). You know, thinking back I don’t think I can honestly say that there was anything I really didn’t like about this year, which is a first for me as I’ve harbored a resentment for it and have never been a great fan of school ever since that very first day of kindergarten. 

Chapter 7

“Senior Prom”

Everyone told me it would be fun, terrific, fantastic, greatest night of my life, a highly memorable moment. Well… they might have exaggerated it a wee bit but hey it wasn’t bad. I mean my date was gorgeous (much more so than a schmuck like me deserves but hey I’m not complaining), I was with good friends (some that I hadn’t seen in eons it seemed), I ate a ton of great food (so much so that I couldn’t finish it, which is saying a lot for me), listened to some really great and some really weird conversations (notice I said listen instead of talked, I’m not loud enough to usually get a word in when a conversation really gets going), and all around had a great time. The part that people always talk about being great though, the actual prom, that part was unfortunately a wee bit boring (although it may have helped if I knew somewhat how to dance but that’s not among my skill set so far) and in my point of view somewhat stupid (you can thank the circle in the middle of the floor for that). If you could just eliminate that part of the night then it’d be really quite a grand thing. Maybe replace it with having people with the best sounding speaker systems turn them up real loud in a parking lot somewhere and putting on their own dance for just their amigos. Sounds like a fantastic plan to me. Too bad I’m leaving and won’t be organizing a prom. 

Chapter 6

“My First Chica”

“Who needs girls?” This was my staunch position as a growing bobbin. I didn’t see a point to ‘em, well besides my mom and grandmas and that was because they fed and loved me.  That position may have been partly caused by being continually outnumbered by females in my family. They would torture me and I would torture them right back; all was fair in the name of sibling warfare in our minds. So my not very fully developed ideas of females can be somewhat understood. So on that fateful day in first grade when a nice little chica told me that she liked me and gave me some baseball cards, gum, a yo-yo, and a note…. well I was flummoxed to say the least. I certainly hadn’t seen it coming as I know I wasn’t putting myself out there for the taking or making eyes at any females (well that part may not have been true because I was somewhat of a tease back then, luckily I have matured past that point). I was merely minding my own business running about and being a happy go lucky li’l fella leading games of who can jump the farthest on the jungle gym and catch the monkey bars without slipping and breaking an arm. So I did what any good young lad with good southern manners would do, I smiled at her and then when I got home I asked my mom if I should give her a rose. Luckily she said I probably wouldn’t have to or else my poor young self would have been broke. And also happily for me that certain female gave up on me after I didn’t pursue her (especially since I didn’t know that’s what I was supposed to do in that situation). But it did teach me something; females are a nerve-wracking ordeal. 

Chapter 5

“My Childhood Amigos!”

I’ve had many good friends growing up; starting with my very first best friend in elementary school and then progressing on to my good friends in middle and high school. But I can’t really pick any one of them as my absolute best and greatest friend in the whole wide world because as circumstances changed for me going through school, so did my friends. But that’s just in school; outside of school it’s a whole ‘nother ball game! Then it’s always going to be my cousins as first pick for me as my best friends no matter what the circumstances. And since I have many cousins I can’t go and single one out as my absolute best friend ever without feeling guilty about leaving someone out, they all would have to qualify as my best childhood gang. And I say a gang because like a gang we always have each other’s back. We’re always there to support whatever another does unless it’s extremely stupid (even then we still have their back sometimes). And we protect each other from whatever happens to come our way. Even at times when it seems that all we do is fight with each other we know that we count on one another. There is nobody else I would trust more than them to have my back if anything ever happened or to help me get back on my feet from something that did happen. Most of this trust comes earned from our many romps through the woods and fields together as wee li’l bobbins so it’s easy to understand why I trust them. 

Chapter 4

“Ancient Times”

Once upon a time in my life I was not very technologically savvy believe it or not. I did not use a computer on a daily basis. I did not text people from Canada, Wisconsin, New York, and Missouri so much that I could do it without even looking at the keys. I didn’t listen to the latest and greatest music on the radio on the way home from school (although my mom did listen to NPR then). So how might a wee li’l tyke stay occupied and entertained all the time then without that myriad conglomeration of technology to distract him from life?  I played games. Not video games or things like Angry Birds but hide and seek, tag, and cops and robbers (cowboys and Indians); games that required imagination and belief in others and their imaginations in order to succeed and games that required physical, blood-pumping activity and a little bit of skill. These games are what made life great back then. There is no feeling better than being with a group of your closest friends and running pell-mell around the woods playing intense games which pitted groups of good and evil against each other in epic battles, battles that seemed to us to be determining the fate of the world as we knew it. Unfortunately we had to grow up. And in growing up we seem to lose our connection and hold on these things which at one point in time had seemed so important to us. But even so I can safely say that I do still enjoy all of these games whenever the occasion presents itself to remember myself as young’un. 

Chapter 3

“I Grew Up… Somewhere.”

I don’t really know where exactly I grew up at. And it’s not because I don’t know where all I’ve ever lived; it’s because I’ve lived in a few places and I’m not sure which one would qualify for me as the town I grew up in. I’ve lived on a farm in Wisconsin but I don’t believe I really grew up there because we moved from there when I was five. From Wisconsin we moved to a small li’l town in eastern Kentucky called Morehead, which I can’t really say is where I grew up at either because even though we lived there for six years and moved away when I was eleven it doesn’t really seem like that important of a place to me. This might have something to do with the fact that my mind maybe wasn’t completely aware of everything going on around me when I was still that young so I didn’t really develop strong emotional attachments to it. I do look back on it fondly at times but not all too often. And then we moved to Madisonville, which is where we have actually lived the longest, eight years by the time I graduate. Thinking back I suppose Madisonville is actually the town that has probably influenced me the most and that could really qualify as the town I grew up in. It’s here that I’ve really developed my personality, ideas, way of thinking, really the majority of my whole identity. Without Madisonville and the people in it, I would most definitely not be the person I am today.