Feel the Sting

1982 will forever rule the class wars. Period.

Somehow, someway, I managed to hang on to this throughout my trials, travels, and tribulations. Some things are important to one. And less important to many. Farmington Scorpions Plate: Photo Credit: Ric Leczel

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Well, Friends, we find ourselves here again. My trip to Farmington New Mexico begins Wednesday, September 7, 2022. A bunch of Substack authors spend a lot of words and time telling their readers how to opt-out of their newsletters. They write words like click here to unsubscribe and if I bother you click here and this post might trigger some unreasonable mechanism you have been harboring for years if not decades, click here. I say if I make you happy tell me about that. That’s my goal here.

Tell me what makes you smile and chuckle. I bet I learn more about you in 15 minutes of listening to that than hearing all the crap you told all the therapists all those years. I feed you one meal and I know your life story. I drink with you, I know your repressed obsessions. And how to face them up. Yours and mine.

Am I right? I thought so. Only because of my time in a small little burg called Farmington. Follow along to follow along. My latest Founding Member shall remain anonymous, but knows that their financial support has been invested right back into this effort.

There is no other way to ask for money other than to ask for money. Think about all of the times in your life you have received money because you asked for it. There are a bunch of ways to subscribe if you like.

Pretty brash, I know.

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The 101 Freeway was empty as I drove to the Bowl Sunday morning. That happens about never in LA. It was picture-postcard-perfect. Windows down. Radio blasting. Time for just two songs. The first one made me cry. The last one made me laugh. I made them yours at the top of the playlist. 

The songs are complete opposites of each other. Lamentations of a lonely life living solo on the road, and coming home to a blown bridge. Followed by fearful frets of a forever fellowship and a Tuesday morning take-off. Both are road songs. One brimming and burning with the pain of solitude and the other bragging and boasting of a Solo YOLO.  

My tears weren’t sad but they sure were salty. My laugh was more haughty than hearty. My emotions were like a baby taking its first steps. But it was all real and all felt. The wind was hot and the air was burnt. The sun was full-blast and the music glowed on my skin. I cried like that baby and laughed like a schoolgirl. For no reason at all. And for every reason on earth that I could think of.

Epiphanies come rarely enough to me that I could not describe one or another as common or unusual. I’m more at ease with good fortune and completely comfortable with serendipity. Those benefactors require little else of the recipient than leisurely enjoyment.  

Epiphanies come with a checklist it seems. Or so it seems to me. As I said, rare events evade accurate explanations. So this epiphany mandates emotional expression. So be it if only for myself in the car on the freeway. 

You’re the best in the world at One Thing. 

I don’t know what that one thing is. And I bet you don’t know either. How? Because I have no idea of what my One Thing is. Wait. What? That’s your epiphany?

My whole life I chased that illusionary goal of being the best at that thing I was chasing. So did you. And we both ended up at the same dive bar in Farmington NM. Or elsewhere. The bar is different; the dive is the same.

I pursued the same thing that all other kinds of people were chasing. Some were smarter and more driven than me. Others were not. That put me right about in the middle. 

Don’t get me started on the whole Jan and Peter Middle-Child Syndrome. That’s my next post. Or my last therapy session. But that’s the nut to crack here. We, meaning me, chase this thing. The musicians I’ve talked to speak of it. Athletes and celebrities too. And all of us normal peons and peasants do too. What are we chasing? Our tails, most likely. 

Keep chasing shiny things. And catching them. And feeling worse than ever about the whole process. And then wanting one more to make it feel better. And then wondering why it never does. 

So here it is: It’s not the thing you’re chasing. It’s not a thing at all. It’s knowledge. The knowledge that you are the best in the world at one thing. That’s a Superiority Complex. Of a good sort. Who cares if you haven’t stumbled upon that thing yet? 

This might be that stumble. Or not. Only Lady Time and her Watchmaker know that. I just know that when I stopped chasing after it, I found more time for my life. Now, I laugh when I should cry. And I cry when I could laugh. And it’s all good. Because just knowing that you are the best in the world at one thing, anything, just something, is a power source. 

It’s the source of my willpower and my work ethic. It provides me with motivation and determination. In my life, not just in my different professional endeavors. Like all of you probably have, I’ve read many of what I call the Move My Cheese genre of self-help biz books. Collectively, they implore us to Find Your Power Source.

This is that Power Source. Tap into it for a version of success that can be customized to any situation you find yourself in. Your success doesn’t look like mine. Just like your pants and mine are probably different. Yeah, they’re pants for me and shorts for you. But that’s life right? 

I wake up and go and do my life. I don’t go to work. And then go to another job. And then come home and do it all over again and again and again. Why should I? More importantly: Why Should You? 

You didn’t even graduate from there

In the last couple of posts, I’ve been describing the trip I just spoke on, the 40th High School Reunion at Farmington NM High School, Home of the Scorpions, Class of 1982. 

Post 9/2

1st TAKE/2nd LOOK: #25

Everybody is Different.

Mentioning it to The Brother, he said that incredulously. Fair enough. I graduated from Arroyo High School, El Monte Ca, home of the Knights. I went there for just three months No, I’m a Scorpion. I attended Farmingville, as we affectionately called it, from January 1980 until March 1982. It was the longest tenure of my life in any school. 

Two years and two months. Sounds about right. Starting halfway through and not finishing it out. Story of my life. Or rather the way manhood was modeled to me. I wrote in my last post about being a Constanza-Bourne love-child in that not knowing who you are and making the opposite choice of your instincts go hand-in-glove. 

Farmington is a two-faced lady for me. Beholding her cresting the hill from Shiprock for the first time is breathtaking. Seeing her coming back down the hill from Durango palpitates the heart. Turning left at Bloomfield means your home.

Farmington and the greater Four Corners Area, her people, her food, her history, and all of the elements I write about were born there for me. 

And so were all of the dark memories about dark moments. They were here in my Farmington as well. Were they buried with the dad? In an unmarked grave in my soul? That’s my hope. People I care about have told me to tread lightly and take caution. Sound advice I suppose. Duly noted. 

I visited The Parents today and rummaged through the boxes of my life kept in a shed in La Verne. I found the treasures I was searching for and am teasing them here. You saw one of them at the top. One must keep reading to find out the reveal. 

Farmington was the beginning of consciousness for me and the end of innocence as well. I can only imagine what it must be like to have age-old memories of the house or town that you grew up in and have lived in for most of if not all of your life. I have close friends on that life track.

I left Flora Vista in 1978 after spending 7th grade at Koogler Junior High School in booming Aztec NM. Sadly a town of 3000 suffered a school shooting. Our classmate has suffered much. God Bless her every step.

Our Dean of Students killed a man and is living a prison love story. We’ve had too many of us lost and not found. And then those living with the Lord. From back then and from last week. And yet we grind on.

I’ve attended three reunions. The 10-Year was a SkyLiner continuation of campus life. Fast-Forward. Barely a memory at this point. But still there lingering. I made the 25th as well, when the Hustler, condoms, Tiparillos and I think Pee-Wee’s Letterman jacket were dug up. Thanks, Neil!

Let’s kick the tires and light the fires,

Ric