The curiosity of curves...

I've given you all a small view of my current reality, but I haven't really delved into who I, Greg - am, was or will be. As I have shared in my profile, I was raised in a very conservative christian home. When I was a child my parents were missionaries and that evolved into dad becoming a full time pastor. I guess you can say that I'm not your prototypical inmate in that I have had every opportunity to have a wonderful life.

I am the oldest of 4 and by far the black sheep. I was always headstrong and wanted to find my own way. I'm not sure why, but I always enjoyed breaking the rules and being the bad boy. I think mainly because I lived such a restrictive life that I found an outlet and freedom in doing what was forbidden or even taboo.The church I was raised in doesn't bear much resemblance to the church of today. When I was coming up we were not allowed to wear shorts, cut my sideburns, wear jewelry, attend movies, swim in coed pools, go to bowling alleys, watch movies that were rated R and lots of other things. The women weren't allowed to wear makeup and no wedding bands were allowed. Divorce and remarriage were grounds for not being a member.
Yeah! Pretty wild huh?Now days, all those things are accepted and the church has changed with the times. Much more accepting and open.
Pretty much everyone in my family was and are practical jokers, which probably contributed to my wild side.
I was always getting into things when I was young. I remember when I was about 8, I "borrowed" my grandfathers credit card and bulk ordered so many rubber lures out of his Bass Pro catalogue that the credit card company called to confirm the order. It was about 10 grand worth of synthetic fishing lures. That didn't go over well at all to say the least.
I was a fire bug as well. Not a pyromaniac, but I thought of myself as a Macgyver protégé, as well as a professional outdoorsman and always kept a lighter and swiss army knife in my pocket.
I once came home smelling like smoke only to find out that I hadn't put out my small camp fire well enough, and almost burned down the woods beside my grandmothers house. The fire dept was called in and needless to say I was "in big trouble mister"
Another time me and my cousin were playing in grandparents basement, more of a root cellar...dirt floor, shelves of pickled foods, lawn mowers, chain saws and those big dusty spider webs that you see in old episodes of The Addams Family. It was always cool and damp in the basement so it was a place the adults didn't frequent, the perfect spot for me and my cuz to hang out.
On this particular day we decided to reenact a scene from Macgyver where he made a torch out of a gas can, but instead of the gas can we decided to use pawpaws lawnmower. So we unscrewed the gas cap. I pulled out my trusty lighter, you know the type, the ones that have the adjustable flame, yep the ones where you can break the front of it and turn the flame up til it's like a foot high. So I sparked my lighter and placed the flame over the open tank. Oh my! What a mistake! No way did Macgyver do this for real. We weren't expecting the gas tank to engulf in flames. When it did we went straight into panic mode. I was more worried about the whipping I was gonna get than burning the house down. I ran and grabbed the water hose from outside, turned the spicket on, ran back into the basement and shoved the hose into the tank. The fire went out. We screwed the cap back on and me and my cousin ran in separate directions. I think we felt this made us look innocent if we weren't together and gave the other a plausible deniability if one were caught.
We thought we got away with it. After all, the fire was out. The house didn't burn down. So no harm; right?
It was a few days later when my grandfather went to mow the yard that I learned about water in gas.
So needless to say, I was the one that got the spanking, but I never snitched on my cousin.
I did have uncles to learn from, they were young enough that I was able to hear all of their stories and ideas - and they were good ideas!
My two youngest brothers are like 12 and 18 years younger than me. Me and my closest brother, three years younger, had to babysit. So I decided to put some of my uncles babysitting stories into play.
My favorite game to play with my younger siblings was eat the fly.
Me and my brother would tie my 3rd and 4th brother into a kitchen chair with a towel. We would open the kitchen windows, pick out a nice juicy "fly", make a wonderful overdramatic show of plucking each wing off. Speak of how ripe and fat this one is. Force their mouths open and using our hands to work their jaws, we'd make them chew "real good" and down the hatch!!!
But unbeknownst to my brothers at the time the flies were really only fat raisins. Not juicy, fat flies at all.
I know all this sounds horrible, but I assure you I loved my brothers. I just loved being the big brother and torturing my younger siblings. It was in good fun though. I never hurt them. I was raised to love my family and put them first.
And after all shit runs down hill. These were the same things I went thru when my uncles babysat me.
I was your average teen; rebellious and in need of finding myself. I think growing up as sheltered as I was, made me unprepared for the world.
I found I loved hanging out at the local pool hall - hanging with friends and smoking weed. I am 100% a country boy and loved above all else field parties, bonfires, and chasing girls.
I joined the army at 17 never having tried any drugs other than weed. I liked army life and the rigors involved and one of my biggest regrets was not making a career of it.
I was injured in a training exercise, and was introduced to opiates, which was the beginning of my decline - my journey down an oh so curvy road...