YOUNG ENTREPRENEUR

A long time ago....
While riding my bike down the street, I observed a large box set at the curb.  What caught my attention was the wheels setting beside that box.  After a closer look I saw it was a small riding mower in pieces.  What they call a basket-case.  I used a wagon and carried the box home.  Over the next few days I re-assembled the riding mower.  I left the mower-deck off and it became a little tractor.  But to me, it was a 4-wheeler.  I took parts off my dad's snowblower to fix the engine and had it running soon after.  I would have been about 10.

It didn't go that fast being a lawnmower so someone gifted me a small mini-bike.  It didn't run, but I managed to work on it and somehow got it working.  I had to pour gas into the carburetor to start it and it basically exploded between my legs.  The heat from the muffler ignited the gas fumes.  I tried to save it, but I couldn't.

I liked the bike so much that I kept it laying around.  At that time my dad had a jail-ministry thing.  the inmates would be released and come work for my dad.  One of the guys saw the bike and wanted it.  He traded me 2-dozen rusty traps. 

About 2 miles from our house was a small airport with a swamp beside it.  The swamp was full of raccoons and muscrats.  So I began to trap that swamp.  I wasn't even a teen yet.  I would ride my bike to that swamp during the summer and after school to check my traps.  My Dad and Uncle would help me skin and clean the pelts so I could sell them at the fur market.  This was the 90's back when people still wore furs.

I saved my money from fur sales and bought a lawnmower.  A simple walk-behind.  I could tie it's handle to my bike seat, then drag it around the neighborhood cutting lawns.  Before long I cut a dozen lawns and a business's grass.  I would have been about 12 by then.

My parents never had extra money to buy us toys.  It caused me to work hard to get it myself.  I never had resentment, I just figured out a way.  This thinking created a survivor.

Shortly after that I began to wash dishes in a restaurant.  My parents' friend was the chef and he got me the position.  From there I took a seasonal job at a cross-country ski shop, grooming trails.   I was just 15 then.  I couldn't drive, so had to be taken to work.

When I came to prison I couldn't bear the idea of letting my family support me.  So I learned how to transform a $16.00 battery powered razor into a tattoo machine.  I've not only supported myself, but bought Christmas presents, paid to trademark 2 businesses and recently purchased a Harley Davidson motorcycle.

Manufacturers place governors on cars so they can only go so fast, farmers place blinders on horses so they don't get sidetracked, they chain their dog so it won't run away, and they clip birds wings so they can't fly.....

And they put me in prison......

I didn't come here to die.  Nor did I come here to lay down.  I've worked out for my entire bid and have transformed my body.  I knew with diligence I could reshape my torn down self into somebody different.  And I did.  My body doesn't look the same anymore.  Likewise I graduated from lawnmowers and rusty traps.

I learn lessons the old way.  These 60 days in confinement has me thinking I'm too old for this shit.  This is a hard way to do time.  Which is fine, because this thing is over now.  I only have 10 months left and the two months I just did here  flew by.

I know the world has changed.  I've been gone a a minute.  But this was a foreign land when I came here.  I set back, figured it out, and took off.  Just like I'll come home and do the same.

I'm not simply lucky.  Nor will I accidentally accomplish what I do.  I'm blessed.  What I do will be because I planned it out over all these years behind this fence.  My tattoo shop has already been open for 7 years.  I'm just bringing it to the free-side of the fence.  This is my year to shine....

HELLO 2018!!!!

REBORN

When everything is gone, stripped away-the lowest form of man is revealed.  I came to prison to die, then be reborn.

Christians baptize by water to receive the same effect.  Something is lost, laid to rest, so that a new man can emerge.  Prison made this real for me.

Being baptized as a boy was nice.  Then I grew into a man.  A man who lost his way.  I needed a baptism by fire---- WELL, I GOT IT!!

I came to prison with nothing.  And then was broken. Taken to my basic form.  I then received a second chance.  I took that second chance and never looked back.

When a person looks back, hopefully it's to see how far they've come.  Being so close to freedom, I'm allowing myself to do just that.  If you have ever been at a church and taken communion, they make a statement from the Bible...

"Do this in remembrance of me"...

I'm about to come home and show you all the stuff I've been talking about for all these years.  Right now I am looking back!  In remembrance of me.  Except that's not who I am anymore.  It's a beautiful thing that people can change.  But you'll see, because you'll be  watching me.

I Am So Thankful

I just turned 39 years old.  I have become a man who understands himself.  When pushed, I know I will bend without breaking.  Should life try to break me, I know I have family who will stand beside me.

For nearly a decade I have been an empty chair at my mother's table.  A picture on my sister's refrigerator.  I have been a letter in my daughter's mailbox.  A memory my family holds dear.

I am thankful to have a second chance at life.  A second chance to be a father to my daughter.

I am thankful for second chances.  Without them I would have no future.

I'm also thankful for word searches and crossword puzzles that friends and family have sent.  I'm thankful for meals-on-wheels.  The food cart that rolls our trays to our door each day.  Thankful for courtesy flushes so you don't smell your cellie's dookie.

I'm thankful for friends and family who take time out of their schedule to let me know they care.

Wishing you all the very best Holidays, spent with those you love.

And to my family.....next year baby!!