Many times, I sit here and wonder why am I still alive. Am I being saved for something special?  Maybe I haven’t fulfilled my purpose in life yet.  Do I even have a purpose?  Are we humans just a random bunch of creatures walking around on this planet? I am quite sure that someone, or something is watching over me. There have been many, many times I escaped serious situations with hardly a scratch. The stories are too many to call it just plain luck. All of this started when I was still in diapers, crawling around on the floor. I have to be honest with you here, I do not remember the full story. I do remember crawling around. The rest of the story has been told to me by members of my family. I was a very inquisitive little fella. If there was a way to get into trouble, I could surely find it. The general purpose was not to get into trouble, but satisfy my curiosity. I was crawling around the kitchen floor and looking into all the shelves under the counter. They did not have doors, only curtains. Dad and his brothers did not have time to put doors on them before we moved in. So mother just hung curtains on them to look better. Well, behind one of these curtains, I found one of those green coke bottles. The bottle was half full and I wanted a drink. Well I took the bottle and hid so as not to get into trouble. When I took a drink from that coke bottle, I was in trouble for sure. The coke bottle was full of kerosene. This was used to start the kitchen stove when mother was to do the cooking. From what I have been told, I stopped breathing. You know, that is not a good thing. Well they performed first aid on me by throwing me into the snow bank. I don’t know what that was supposed to do, but I guess it worked. I am still here. I guess I did get a good case of pneumonia from that event, but I learned a valuable lesson. Do not go poking around behind shelves with curtains. Well this knack for getting into trouble followed me right to school. I know for sure the kindergarten teacher told the first grade teacher to keep an eye on me. She was forever calling my name with instructions. You know things like, pay attention, or stop doing that. Well one day, I got tired of this so cousin and I went for a walk about town. When the bell rang to go back to class, we just went for a walk instead. One thing I remember from that day is no one came looking for us. However, at supper that night, I was informed about twenty people told my folks about my adventure. I was lectured how important school was and sent to bed right after supper to think about it. It impressed me that so many people knew who I was. I was that little White boy that was always causing trouble in class. It wasn’t intentional that I was getting into trouble with the teacher. I would do the assignment and have to wait for the others to finish. How can you expect a first grader to just sit there and wait for the others to finish?  There was always some part of me that just could not sit still. The teacher really did not appreciate me up and walking around when my work was done. Now, probably, I was one of the reasons they invented Ridlin. So the teachers did not have to put up with my actions. Oh heck, just give him another pill.  Well, this is how our society has progressed over the years. I know some folks that take twelve pills a day just to make their body function. I try hard not to take any, but I do take one teeny tiny pill. This helps me deal with anxiety. I know there are diets and such and such that would do the job for me. But I am actually too lazy to follow a regimented type of diet. I sincerely feel at my age it is ok to have just red hot dogs and horse radish for a mid day snack. Follow this down with a nice cold bottle of Moxie. You know, maybe, just maybe, this is one of the reasons I am such a cantankerous old buzzard.  Ken White COB mountainman

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