one way or another

to continue.......

Okay, so it's been a while.  Where was I?  Oh yeah.....Navy.

The Navy is actually mostly a blur for me.  I was experimenting with a vast new variety of drugs.  This was California in the 70's.  Pot and LSD was practically given away everywhere you went.  Cocaine was pure and plentiful.  And there was always a plethora of speed, ludes, and gawd knows what.  I took it all....with gusto.  Strangely enough, I never drank much alcohol.  I considered it boring. 

I'm thinking that there was hardly any day in the Navy from the time I reported on board a ship that I wasn't high.  Kind of scary when I look back because I was doing some extremely dangerous things while stoned out of my mind.  If getting fucked up and steering a forty thousand metric ton naval vessel through a busy port wasn't thrilling enough, I started dealing.  Got to meet new and interesting people.... with guns....and they used them.  Several times I was AWOL from my ship because I was caught up in a drug shipment and was unable to return to San Diego, or even the U.S.  I figured the cost I would have to pay to the Navy for being AWOL was far, far less than the cost I would pay for failing to perform my other business duties.  That business kept growing and really exploded when my ship sailed overseas.  

In a lot of ways, that was when I kind of passed a point of no return, or at least changed from the naive small town hick that had left Texas. 

I miss that guy sometimes.