As one travels down the twisty, hilly, bumpy road of life, have you ever wondered when you came to a crossroad if you made the right decision and what direction your life may have taken if you'd turned either right or left instead of just carrying on? I don't know about you, but I've often wondered about some of the decisions I made that I know for a fact would have had a tremendously different effect on my life. It's a little too late to beat myself up (besides I bruise easily) about some of the disastrous decisions I made and it's way too late to shift my old body into reverse and back down the road I've already travelled. However, there is one decision I made that sometimes toys with my curiosity and it took place when I was a young man of 21 years. Back then, age 21 denoted that I became a man, regardless of how immature I may have been, and thinking back to that early year, yeah, I was really still very immature - why hell, I'd hardly started shaving! Over the years, I've often thought that the most important decision a person can make is the mate they've chosen to hopefully and successfully spend their life with, have kids with, share dreams and desires, you know, that special someone to depend on and have them depend on you.
When I was 21, I worked on a racetrack, was in my 3rd year of art school and I drank a lot for a skinny little guy with no bum that weighed 125 lbs. soaking wet - dang, I often got drunk twice a day - my second home besides my tack room at the racetrack was the Legion near the corner of Hastings and Renfrew in Vancouver, BC. I liked the Legion; a place where just guys hung out, threw darts, played shuffle-board, cursed and smoked while the waiter loaded the small round tables with an endless supply of beer - only 20cents for a large glass - No Women Allowed! Many a time I heard a disgruntled girlfriend or wife banging on the Legion door, demanding to be let in so they could see, no, more likely to grab their boyfriend or husband by their tender ear lobe and drag their sorry-ass home. I had wild friends and wild times then; what was the mad rush to settle down? However, although being with the guys, drinking, gambling and carousing was a fun time, women at that age was a constant priority on my mind and I had a girl friend; very straight-laced, level-headed, affectionate and very nice - her name and the person at the crossroad of that time in my life was Maureen Cairns. Did I also mention she was quite good looking and could fill a pair of Wrangler jeans more than wonderfully; her heart-shaped ass made more than my heart throb?
Maureen was about the same age as me and was the first woman I loved as a legal man, even though I had to show my birth certificate to get into the Legion - looked like a teenager with dabs of toilet paper stuck to my face - razor cuts from trying to shave the fuzz off. I drove a motorcycle then, and thinking back, I sometimes wonder why I'd survived while some of my friends had been killed while driving drunk - in those days, the cops didn't do much if they pulled you over, just confiscated the beer and said you shouldn't be driving. Oops, I'm getting side-tracked but perhaps that's the reason she refused to ride on the back of my bike - nope - she never did plant her nice heart-shaped ass on the back seat of my bike.
Now, back then, I was kind of an artsy guy but never really a hippy - turned down the drugs - especially LSD, which had been offered on quite a few occasions - some of my friends thought I would do some amazing art but until you've seen an ambulance pull up and drag off one of your friends that's taken a permanent mind-expanding trip - alcohol seemed the best way to go. However, like I said, Maureen was very straight-laced, hardly even took a drink. We'd been going together for about a year; it was pretty serious; often had dinner with her mom, two sisters and brother, even slept on their couch at times. I can remember looking through some catalogues at engagement rings and through jewelry store windows with her checking out the diamond rings too. Well come Christmas, I imagine her hopes were set on an engagement ring and me, being the immature man that I was, and don't forget an artsy-man too, I bought myself a brand new 35mm Pentax camera and her, a cheap silver bracelet with a little dangly heart - sure didn't look as good or feel as good as her heart-shaped ass. Needless to say, that's my conundrum and what this blog is about - here I was standing at a crossroad with a good woman at my side - I'd bought me great camera that I just sold a few years ago for about 10 bucks and she said, "Come and see me when you grow up!"
Well, the jury is still out on that one - doesn't look, even at 70 years of age. that I'm ever going to entirely "grow up" - maybe it's a good thing or maybe it's not such a good thing - I don't know but here I am, living at the base of Green Mountain, Fosterville, NB with a great wife that I love very much - she's quite a bit younger and I have a feeling if I really acted my age, was to "grow up", she most likely wouldn't love me the same way. Now, I have no idea what became of Maureen Cairns; last time I saw her, I was stocking shelves at K-Mart just before I got fired and headed to Lethbridge, Alberta where I married my first wife Doreen not too long afterwards. She was a good wife and I loved her dearly (still do and always will) but that was another crossroad and I sometimes think about that decision too. It's not like life comes with a book of instructions but damn - it sure does come with a whole lot of questions - sometimes we answer them correctly and sometimes we don't. I doubt very much that anyone reading this blog knows Maureen or that she reads it, but if she or anyone else does that knows her, I'd really like to hear about her and how she lived her life - she was very grown up and I was very immature - cheers, eh!
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