Razor Blades

I used to think Ronald Reagan was full of horse shit when he claimed to remember so little from so many important meetings when his gang of Nazi sympathizing thugs were in control of America and selling weapons of war to anybody with a bank account and a big supply of brown paper lunch bags to load up with kick backs. Now that the years are catching up to me, I am starting to sympathize with Old Maggie's crazy old Irish American friend. I do not remember much any more and I do not remember anything that happened before I was about four years old.

My mom reminded me of a little early Beer history the other night. The Hockey family was camping before my two sisters were born. Mom and dad were drinking Canadian Club and Shasta cola by the fire after my brother Axel and I had been laid down to sleep in the old canvas army tent my dad stole from the army. My mom, who was a good mom even when she was loaded, left the fire and my dad's suggestions they make another fucking baby and unzipped the tent instead of her old man's pants to check on the two of us.

Axel was sleeping on his canvas army cot like moms like one year olds to do. I was playing with my dad's razor blades in the dim light of the hissing campfire; rolling the sharp double edged discs around in my little hands. There was a lot of blood but I was having fun like two year olds are meant to. Maybe razor blades were the gameboys of the middle part of the last century.

My decision, many years later to first become a hockey goaler and then join the punk rock wars, began to make more and more sense as my mom related her camping horror story. Looks like I have enjoyed pairing pain with pleasure from a very young age.