Wild Rides

Being Manic makes you feel like superman. I started to realize I was different around the age of 12. I couldn't sleep regularly especially during the full moon. I was lucky that my parents moved to the village of Baldwinsville and I could easily slip out my bedroom window onto the garage roof and hop down and roam the village of B'ville. I had a really cool BMX bike that was tricked out and would ride it through the woods at night as fast as I could through the woods towards the school campus doging trees and jumping puddles and streams. Knowing full well that I would have to go to school that day I would ride sometimes all night during the full moon. One time I rode to the Seneca river Bridge on a full moon and climbed to the top just for the thrill of it at the age of 11 or 12 I think. This was the first time I contemplated ending the racing in my head. I remember it well as I had a game that day I think it was a lacrosse game and I didn't want to miss it so that was that didn't jump. I rode my bike down North Street it was pretty steep and I liked going there then down to Mercer Park and wait for a tug or boat to go by in the early light on the Erie Canal system. The point is that being manic is a double edged sword no matter which way you slice with it you get cut. Of course my academic performance by then was pretty much just barely average. I relied on others and people liking me to get by. But, B'ville was a sports town and I was in with the athletic crowd and the coaches and teachers were very patient and helpful. I had a teacher that once made us in middle school memorize all fifty states on the map with their capitals and their correct spelling. Boy that was hard. I can't spell a lick. But, she made me and some other fellas stay after class and miss practice time until we could do it. Everyone worked together to make sure we qualified academically to play. So it worked for me sports taught me to mange my time and be responsible to myself and others. But, even having this community of teachers coaches and friends and family I still always felt as though everyone else was better off somehow and my brain didn't work correctly and if I asked for help or even told on myself something bad was gonna happen. So I would just do what worked for me and that was working out. The more I could expel my energy the better. And hitting people on the sports field was exactly how I wanted to do it. It's funny now that I think about it bell ringers kinda became my drug of choice. There is something about those first three plays or first three minutes of a lacrosse game where the action is just getting started. I craved the hit.