College...Year One

I had to get a job. I had a part time job at the J&L gas station as the edge of town but making $3.35 an hour was going to get me very far. My lucky day arrived when mom said she had a position for me with a lawnmower distribution center that was a client of hers. It would be on an as needed basis but at least 3 days a week…and it paid $6 an hour so I was happy to take on the extra work.

My mom was a manager at a temporary agency and always had menial jobs ready for me to make some money. I never viewed her position as much of a job but now that I’m older, I think it was a good service that she provided. It certainly helped me make a little money at random times when I needed it.

Anyway, my job was working in a warehouse picking parts for lawnmower repair shops in the Midwest. Being the hard worker I was back in the day, I would get a stack of pick slips and bust them out as fast as I could get them done…that is until the warehouse manager bitched at me for working to fast. Warehouse manger is really an overstatement of his title. He was the only permanent employee that worked back there and I was the only one working for him. He spent most of the day listening to music and packing boxes for UPS. He would disappear at random times and smell like dope when he returned. He taught me how to drag out the job so I could be called back the next day. He was a complete waste as an air breather.

This job plus the gas station gig gave me an income to have some fun with for the summer. I have no idea how many concerts I went to, mainly because I was to drunk to remember them all. Anyway, I put away a little money for the coming college life and drifted through one of my last summers of freedom.

When I started school at Waubonsee Community College, I had all intentions of working hard and getting my life started on the right track. I had a full load of classes and tried out for the baseball team that was good for a small community college. During fall practices for the team the baseball coach had a meeting with all the players and asked one big question. “Has anyone here played soccer?”

I wasn’t sure if I wanted to answer that question. I knew there was a soccer team but I really didn’t think I wanted to play. “PE…you went to H-BR…they have a great soccer program…did you play?” My moment of truth had arrived and I stepped up and said ”I played a little” “Great…You’re on the team” he said and my college soccer career began.
The team sucked thus the need for additional players and in all three of us baseball players were volunteered for positions of ineptitude as we had now started being two sport athletes.

I didn’t want to play goalie but the regular goal keeper had broken his are in a drinking accident. With a starting position in the bag I played every game like I have always played everything…to win. This was a hard thing for me with a team as bad as we had. Playing hard was easy but losing like we at first just wasn’t going to work. I pushed my game to levels I didn’t know I had and ended up being the team MVP and getting all-regional honors to go with it. I also made the baseball team…I wonder if there was a connection.

School was also going well with all A’s and B’s except for a C in Spanish. I really hated my Spanish class because I couldn’t roll my R’s like everyone else. I also didn’t like going to class everyday so I did what I had to do to pass...I copied from my neighbor.

As the first semester came to a close I realized one thing…I wasn’t going to be able to play baseball. Playing baseball in college required a time commitment that I couldn’t keep. I needed to have a job for money but there was no way I could work and play so I worked. I still feel like I played ball in college because I did play a bunch of fall ball games and made the team but in reality I never played a meaningful minute of ball.

Not playing ball hurt. The focus I had the first semester disappeared so I went back to what I knew well…drinking. It culminated during spring break when I went on a road trip with a friend that saw me drinking in Fayette, Iowa at Upper Iowa University and ended with a party where we emptied my friend’s dad’s keg. All I really remember from most of this is trying to hook up with the girl I turned into a lesbian and getting shot down after we were bare ass in my buddies bed. She wasn’t out of the closet yet and apparently still had thoughts of being straight. The killer was I didn’t have a jimmy protector and she wasn’t finishing the night without me having one. I just got up, got my pants back on and went back down stairs to grab a beer.

It really sucks when you get shot down and then can’t have a beer. The keg was dry and it was still early. No way was that going to stop me so I took a collection and headed to find a buyer. Some girl, I don’t remember her name, came along for the ride and we found the random drunk who hooked us up with a few cases to get us by for a while. As we headed back to the party, I found out the reason Kim ( I just remembered her name) came along. She was looking to find out what I had to offer and started to go down on me as I was driving. Now most of you men probably know, alcohol, blowjobs and driving don’t really go together…but you also know that there is know way your gonna turn down a hummer. Needless to say, I took the back roads back to the party.

By the time my freshman year of college was over, I had failed 2 classes and needed to go to summer school if I wanted to play soccer my sophomore year.