And by formative years, I'm talking about the time when you were old enough to know better but still young enough to be stupid and turn a blind eye to what you should or shouldn't be doing. For me those years were right around 10-14 years old.
This was the age that dawned a new level of freedom and personal responsibility. I was old enough -at least in theory- where I didn't have to be under the constant watchful eye of my Mom or Grandmother. That age where it was OK to walk home from school, let yourself in the house and hang out until 5 o'clock when Mom got home. That was the theory anyway.
And in truth the theory worked. Most of the time anyway. But, there were times when my youthful stupidity got the best of me and something was almost guaranteed to happen.
Of course, I wasn't alone in this odyssey, I had two companions squarely at my side stumbling down this road of discovery almost every step of the way.
My buddy Nate was a small toe-headed kid that, like me, was being raised by his divorced Mom. They lived about a 15 minute walk away from my house, and even though Nate had a brother and sister they were much older and had long since moved out of the house. For all practical purposes he was an only child being raised by his Mom.
Nate and I shared a lot of the same interests. We liked sports, but we were average athletes at best. We liked to read, make plastic model kits, and were just being introduced to the wonders of Atari video games. We shared the same sense of humor often times finding comedy in others mishaps and misfortunes. Nate was the cerebral one of the group, and quickly established himself as the thinker of our group.
My other buddy Magoo was about as opposite from Nate as you could get. Tall, lanky with a dark head of hair Magoo had eight brothers and sisters. He shared a room with two other siblings and as the "baby" he often slipped under the radar with his parents. As long as Magoo didn't commit random acts of arson or felonious assault he was pretty much free to do as he pleased.
Unlike Nate and me, Magoo was a pretty good athlete. He was fast, had a good jump shot and played a mean first base on our little league baseball team. He lived about five minutes away from my house and was kind of in the opposite direction of Nate's house. Magoo was a man of action, he didn't want to get too caught up in the details, he was more interested in making things happen. A well thought out plan was a nicety not a necessity for him.
My house was more or less our ground zero simply by the fact that I was centrally located. My house was the epicenter from which most activities sprang. I had my own room and a swimming pool in the back yard and the best part of my houses location was the vast expanse of undeveloped land that laid directly across the street. It was a city address with a bit of a country feel. Of the three of us, I was the catalyst. I was after adventure and I made sure that both Nate and Magoo were focused on finding it. Sitting around doing the same thing day after day did not appeal to me.
As the only child, it was easy to say I was spoiled in that I had just about anything a kid could want. That said, my folks did a good job of keeping me grounded which prevented me from developing a truly spoiled attitude and demeanor. My Dad was very good at making me work for what I wanted so I'd develop an appreciation for what I had. For the most part I think it worked.
So it was with these two friends that I tackled most of my pre-adolescent days. Each of us brought something different to the table and somehow we managed to get into enough trouble to make things interesting, but not so much that we ended up at Juvenile Hall.
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