Chasing that normal life… It just wasn’t possible. My mind won’t let me. I have to dream, I have to run after them, or I’ll lose control.
Sitting there, behind a desk, I have been there. It was miserable. For some people, it is the dream. They went to the classes, as I did, and found their path.
Others, they jumped into construction. They build, and love every minute of it. That’s how I have spent parts of my life. Normal… That white picket fence, that car payment, I could not do it.
The bottom of Gen X… Have you seen fight club? That’s life. A generation of men raised by women… A generation without a war… A lot of that movie makes sense.
We were cotton mill kids. We had it all. We had a beautiful town. During Christmas, this place was wrapped with lights. It was amazing.
Then, one day, a man from Washington spoke up. He was going to save u all. A few months later, the cotton mill was forced to close. That beautiful town, slowly died. The mill was burnt, and the property declared unusable.
We got those Red, White, Pink slip blues, Hank sings about. Lucky for us, we would never lose the house. We picked up a ragged out mill house for $5000. I had 5 siblings. Tax checks helped get it.
Then, that mill closed. Like I said, I had 5 siblings. We could no longer afford to feed us all. My older sister and older brother, they had to move in with family. This ripped my family apart, still today.
As it went with the South Carolina motto, from “Smiling Faces, and Beautiful Places”, to ” Dum Spiro Spero”. Eating good, keeping a family car, keeping the heat on, for we had breath, we hoped.
Cartoons and video games. That was my escape. I found a role model in a Cartoon. His mama, like mine, calls him Pete. She is a sweet lady, that only wanted the best for him.
Unfortunately for him, he didn’t have my step dad. He fought, until he died, to make sure I was taken care of, and the generations below me. I will always have that $5000 home to go back to. Except, unlike having giant rats, as it did when I was a child, it is a beautiful bungalow home, stashed behind flower beds that holds generations of my family’s flower. You can even see endanger species in our beds.
My daddy lived his dreams. He worked hard. He was in the Navy, the Gaurds, then spent his life in the mills. He earned his dream.
The way it ended, he told me to never do what he did. I was free. I struggled, spent nights cold and hungry, but I was free. Not many men have what I have, and to never give up dreaming.
This blog is a little background about me. I come tonight with advice. Damn it, they come at me everyday, telling me to stop. They tell me to go find a normal job, have a normal life. They tell me I can no longer dream. I can’t write, build, or anything.
With a smile on my face, I say to them, no. I am living my normal. I’m doing as my daddy did, and building what I want. Don’t listen to them. Be you, dream. Fight for those dreams.
Don’t let their normal destroy your life. Don’t be sitting on your porch, telling you kid that he is free. He will see the broken dreams in your eye.
We talked for the last time, that day. He asked me what I had planned for the rest of my life. I told him I was going to build my bike, save me some money, and then riding as deep into South America as I could get.
He tells me I probably won’t make it back from that trip. But, if I want to go, and come home in a bag, come home in the bag. His last advice for me was to risk everything, for a dream. He told me I was free enough to get on, and go. “Dont let people talk you out of it Pete. I love you son. Go, live more than I did. Stop sitting here”.
So, I have been working. This site is to track my journey until I’m gone. I have almost finished my bike. Then spent years losing weight, getting in to shape. As I said, everyday, someone tells me I need to change.
To them, I say, I spend every dime making this happen. I won’t listen. You made your choices, sit down an let me make mine. You need to reread the name of this website, because it will always be A BIKER’S LIFE FOR ME! Live and die on two wheels.
A Biker's Life For Me! 