Lets just get this outta the way…My Father is a paper salesman, my mother either works with mentally retarded people, or mentally ill. My stepfather is a minister/head of the county youth bureau. My stepmom is a teacher.
I don’t remember my birth, so I’ll skip that portion of my life. But soon after I was living in a house in the small city of Olean, New York. A shrinking city, of factory workers, beer drinkers and buffalo bills fans- though I’m sure there are other demographics mixed in. It’s located in the northern most part of the Allegany(or Allegheny) mountains, nestled between the Salamanca Indian Reservation and the small town of Portville, NY where I live now.
The earliest memory I have is my dad shoveling sewage from the open sewage line of my first house, I was two. Soon after those innocent, curious, sewage fumed days I’m so fond of my parents moved to a house in Weston Mills which isn’t so much a town as it is a “suburb” of Olean and Portville. For the years up until my second grade year we lived there. It was a good time, catching salamanders and “crabs”(crayfish) in the stream next door, walking over to Cousin’s lake with my grandpa to fish or catch newts on the trail after a hard rain, and climbing the huge pine tree in the front yard to build a fort near the top. Like I said I only lived there until I was in second grade, well sort of. This is when my parents got a divorce. This was a good time. Actually, far from it. I don’t remember much of that time, maybe because I suppressed it or maybe because nothing eventful really happened but I’m sure it’s the first one. All I can really say is that I remember a lot of arguments and then finally court where they split up me and my brother’s time between the two houses(my mom moved into an apt. in Olean). It actually wasn’t too bad, I’d spend half a week with my mom and then the next half with my dad, they were at this time still getting along too. That would soon change. I don’t remember when it all changed, but I do remember my brother deciding to stay with my dad full time and I staying neutral and not wanting it to change. Eventually it did and to be honest I don’t even remember what the shared time was. Man, I must of suppressed this because I can’t even remember. I do remember summers being dreadfully long, and drawn out because I’d be at one house for so long. I think this contributed to my itchy feet, the being tossed about between each house. Even today I hate being somewhere for too long, but then I feel the need to get back after while. At least that’s the most logical conclusion. Anyway, my dad married my stepmother Bonny, who had a daughter from a previous relationship. They had a baby boy. On my mom’s side she married Tony, our ex-preacher from when I was a little boy. He had a son from a previous relationship and then they had a baby boy. So my family grew quite large, very quickly. -Fast forward to highschool- I was a badass, coolest kid in school. Lol, Actually I was far from it, well not far, but definitely didn’t give a shit about being the cool kid. I was always athletic(still hold the JV discus record), but never one to conform the cool group in school. I was friends with some of them, but I’d rather go camping, read a book or watch discovery channel than go drinking at some kids house because his mom was gone. I did well in school, enough to make high honor roll all the time, and V.P. of Rotoract, student council officer..yada yada. I was also a Boyscout(Eagle Scout). I made the all-star football team senior year and before I knew it my highschool career was over. Although, thanks to my football coach Mr. Swetland I’ll never be able to live down the guilt of not waking up at 6:00am every morning and working out. To this day I still wake up every day at that time with the intention of doing so, but always end up setting it to 8 or 9 instead.
With highschool over I went back to my summer job at Allegany Beverage which my uncle ran and owned. It was a beer distributor. I loved that job, the guys were all kinda rough around the edges but really good guys. My friends worked there and the work was great. You’d get on a beer truck at 7:30am and go driving all around western NY dropping off cases of beer at bars and restaurants, and picking up the empty ones. Those were good times, and the fact that I was half drunk 90% of the time I walked in every morning surely contributed. Then college came a knocking. Not knowing what I wanted to do with my life I applied at SUNY Albany figuring I’d be an English major and get a law degree(Sounds awful looking back on it). That was the only college I applied to, sure I’d get in I didn’t bother with the rest(seemed wasteful). Anyway, I did get in and after summer made the 5 hour drive to Albany to survey my new home and roommates. Albany seemed great at first. At first. I ended up living with 5 other guys in a suite. Not a bad set up. Well that is until I realized my roommate doesn’t sleep at night and the drunks that come back from the bars have to walk right past my 1st floor room to get to theirs. I didn’t sleep well for a year. Classes were alright. My favorite was the Bible as Literature. It was taught by this Jewish guy from NYC. It was then and there that I realized my dislike for religion was completely supported by the text. I also realized that you could go to school for something called “creative writing.” I know, it sounds like a load of crap, and it is. I got weary of Albany though, living in the city with no way to get out was like a mobile prison for me. So after one year I decide Albany wasn’t for me and I put in a transfer application to the University of North Carolina at Wilmington to study film. I got in. Though I must note that I needed a math credit to get it to UNCW. I am horrible at math, but I took the class so I could get in. I wasn’t doing very well and I somehow woke up late to the final. I took the final with about 15 minutes left and handed prof. Khan a note explaining my situation and why I needed at least a C to transfer. I also told him if I ever won an Oscar he’d be in my acceptance speech(I keep my word). When I got my final grades back I received an B- in Math. Thank you prof. Khan, although it’s probably Dr. Khan by now. That whole summer I spent waking up at 5 am and driving to Buffalo to work in my uncle’s family beer distributor because the one in my town got closed down. Also because they paid us $12/hr to do so. This was a long summer or work and more work. But soon I had to leave again for the sunny south. It was smoldering hot when I got down here, as it usually is in the summer. I unpacked in my apt, a good 2 miles from school(I had to ride my bike on I-40 because I had no car). I then started my days at UNCW. Not much to say other than I went for Film Studies(learned more about film theory than production, a friggin’ joke), I double minored in Religion and Creative Writing(told you it was a load of crap).

Here I am now sitting at my computer contemplating what to do after graduation and waiting to go to work in my restaurants kitchen and hang out with the illegal Mexicans. Why am I writing this for you? Because it makes me feel important? Maybe. That doesn’t really matter though, what matters is you just spent the last 5 minutes reading what took me a half hour to write. And I should really be outside riding my bike or something of the sort.