Topix Underground

A monkey has to be true to his school. That's the bottom line. I'm glad I grew up before the internet. I did poorly in school. I barely made it out of high school and in college I was either on the Dean's list or on academic probation. I don't even remember being in school except that I hated all of it. But I don't know. We were just outside more. I remember being outside when I was young...all the time, even in the snow at night. A phone was like a toaster - a kitchen appliance we used once a day - not the central feature of our being. I played baseball and rode my bike, went down to the lake every day, winter or summer. Played hockey on the ice when it froze. When I was a teenager I had a shitty car that I painted red with spray cans. We weren't influenced by media to a large because it was not pervasive. There was rock and roll, that was the dark menace leading youth down the road to perdition I suppose but  that was mostly just bad haircuts and shitty clothes, nothing too antisocial. We weren't influenced by religion either. We were Catholic. The Church was just like school or another mandatory childhood institution that was  conformed to but not believed in. When I got older I could see were all technically criminals but in more of a victimless, polite fashion that was integrated into ordinary business and routine. I got arrested all the time but never really got in trouble. I'll say that Ive had an easy life and that any bit of hardship or suffering I ever did was brought on 100% by myself and never near what I deserved considering that my whole scheme of living has been to put in just enough effort to pay the bills so I could do what really interests me - like screwing around with the dogs and cats and growing plants in the basement.