If you are new to Broken
Windows, thanks for reading. You may want to start here http://paulblais.blogspot.com/2011/11/introduction.html. I hope you have a good
time with the book.
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I used to hang out
with this guy named Jeremy. That dude was cool. We used to call him Jerm. You
know, like germ, but with a “j” in place of the “g”. His parents used to let
him draw on his bedroom wall and stuff like that when he was a kid. Most
parents would hit you up side your head for being so stupid. They’d say, “Draw
on paper, not walls,” or something stupid like that. Tell that to that Wyland
guy who paints whales on walls and stuff. That guy’s a billionaire or something
crazy like that for coloring on walls.
Anyhow, Jerm got to
draw on the walls of his bedroom and his parents didn’t care. Maybe they
thought he was like that little prince who spelled sherbet all wrong and
everything he did was cute. Stink! He draws some stickman on the wall and his
mom walks in and says, “Isn’t that cute” or some other proud stupid thing like
that. The family that could do no wrong cause they were always right or
something dumb like that.
You wanna know the
funny thing? He ended up becoming an artist and all that junk, and he painted
this one picture and put it in an art show. Then some crazy Japanese rich guy
digs the painting and offers to buy it. And here is the part that’s so crazy
insane. Instead of giving Jerm money for his painting, this Japanese guy sends
him on this all expense paid trip to Japan! That’s crazy! I guess a little
crayon on the wall wasn’t so bad after all. I bet his mom really is proud of
him now.
I always like him,
my friend, Jeremy. He was like one of my all time favorite people to hang out
with. He was always saying funny stuff. One time he said- and this circles back
around to the letter “r” again. Talking about that missing “r” made me think of
Jeremy. Anyhow, he said that we should all be thankful for the letter “r”,
because without the letter “r” all of our “friends” would be “fiends”. Get it?
Fiends is friends without the “r”! Isn’t that hilarious? I always get a kick
out of that whenever I think of it.
It was good having
friends like him. Stink, that whole stupid group of friends were really good to
be with. But somehow I got the idea that there
was something better out there. You know, better friends and stuff. There
wasn’t a lot of glitz with the gang, but they were still good to hang with.
But my eyes were wandering
to a more, you know, “in” crowd. And I thought that this mythical “in” group
would somehow be better and more fun and less constraining and… well, I don’t
know, just different. I wanted different for no other reason than it was
different from what I had.
It must have been
around that time the “r” dropped out of me. You know, I went from friend to
fiend. Stink, I guess you could pretty much say that that’s the kind of friend
I ended up being. I didn’t mean to, but as sure as I’m here today with you,
that’s what I became.
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Remember when that wave broke on you and the board you were paddling on also broke. That was my board you borrowed. Then later that night you used the story of the broken board in talk you gave to the youth....and your wife and I joked how I should get royalties seeing that you got paid to speak and it was my board.
ReplyDeleteAhhh, memories.