23 Years...

To put you into the right mood and time frame, click the above and loop it till you cringe. It was THE song of 1997

 

Warren RI to me at one time was just a dump to drive through to get to Christie's Landing wharf in Newport to day drink in the summer. You could people watch those who were from all over the country there, plus eye the girls in their summer dress. There were a few times driving home from there I should've been arrested. Drinking vodka in the summer sun creates a very definite, sillier high that doesn't lend itself for driving in a straight line across the Mt Hope bridge. But this was just before MADD went on their crusade against young partiers like me then...and you too if you fessed up.

On either side of 114, the main road through Warren, I saw timeworn homes, businesses that looked like they needed to have closed up in the early 70's because their 50's decor was deteriorating fast and flaking onto the sidewalk. The people on the sidewalks looked less appealing still. Old hags and devious looking blue collar workers littered the area.

Once you crossed into Bristol, things looked up! You could roll down your windows again.

That...until I took a job on Main st in Warren in the mid 90's. At first, I thought it a step down from what I was doing but I needed the money. A good chunk of my job demanded that I learn the town intimately as the clients I worked with lived there. I was a sort of ASL translator/Dad/Cop/Negotiator/Chauffeur/All-Around-Shell-Answer Man. (Kudos if you get the Shell reference, if not, your way too young!).

What I came to find out was that Warren wasn't the shitheap I thought it was. Once you get into the side streets you learn that half the houses have placards on their sides stating they were built in the 1700's. Mostly built then by seafarer captains and the such who made enough money to give up the trade and become land lubbers. Add to that, a ton of little restaurants you'd never know were there unless you lived there. And bars, pubs and plenty of each. Aiden's comes to mind. Aiden's. The only disgusting place I think was the Blount clam processing plant right on the water. But even then, if you have ever lived near the ocean, the salty semi-stench just reminds you of clam flats that dissipates from your nose in time. What emancipates Blount's stink, was the fact that Blount also built ships and pleasure craft next door to the clam place. So there was an air of old money and respectability there. You could watch them build them as their main garage door, that was half the building, was open to the street. To know these things, you'd have to walk down Water street and I did many times then.

Warren is also pretty much surrounded by the Narragansett bay with many inlets and sandbars which made great blue fishing when they were chasing the menhaden. From the second bridge that crosses over into Warren by the American Tourister place, the old sandbar I found, and use to fish from, is still there. There were plenty of flounder and tautog there at the right times too.

**

I was in Warren earlier today and ran into a few of those who I worked with all those years ago. I hadn't seen them since 1997. I swear, after 23 years it was amazing how they remembered me as if it was yesterday and I them. Of course, we all look older, fatter and slower. The reunion was fun and we traded old stories. What I surprised to find out was that some of very clients I worked with were still there. Albeit they were more blind and/or deaf than before.

Driving home I was hit with many thoughts. I was a younger man then at 30. Then, I had a few dreams, hopes and a hell of a lot more energy. I couldn't help but compare that time with where I am today. Then, there was no way in hell I'd be able to predict where I'd be today. I think back then, I thought I'd have moved from Rhode Island, perhaps to Denver, San Diego or the such, making my life out there as I wanted change. That didn't happen. It didn't have to because many of the influences of my life then changed for the better and in a damned hurry. In short, I was relieved of caring for a sick relative I had cared for for years. Also back then, I thought I'd meet that someone who would save me (Ha! All guys I knew then thought this...it barely succeeds!). When I was in Warren, I was chasing this really pretty girl who kept me at arm's length. She had broken up with her boyfriend and seemed so available. Oh...how I tried! What changed was that she went back to him and eventually married him and his career with ARAMCO (A Saudi oil conglomerate. He became well to do, probably a good decision on her part). Well, finding that girl didn't happen but I had some fun along the way with some pretty interesting women in the 90's. IE: Roberta who I spoke of here before. She was far wealthier than I was and realized in time I was turning into a “kept boy.” But so what, it was fun for what it was.

I made mention of the fact to one of the ones I talked with today in Warren that I...we, have all changed but didn't. What I mean by that is that our core personalities are still the same. The differences are on the edges of that core.

So who am I today vs. that salt and pepper haired guy I was at 30 and who could fit into a size 34 jeans?

Driving home I knew, just knew that I had a hundred tons more confidence than I did then. Why? After 23 years of living life, a lot of it repeating itself, you file those experiences away for easy reference. Now I am bolder, more direct (perhaps insultingly so, but w/o malice) and that much more astute. That leads to increased self esteem as well. I know what I am capable of because I've had to “go through it” and pull it off. This isn't the loud, bragging pride so many guys I knew in my 20's. That kind of confidence was a “fake it till you make it” show. What's funny, those young blowhards I knew then learned, rather roughly, that life kicking them in the teeth time after time, that they had better sober up their inebriated and boisterous egos. “Glad you came back and put both feet on the ground! The Earth was always down here!”

A dignity that's based on solid rock and experience usually weathers the world a bit better than bluster.

There's a solidness at this age I didn't have then. I suppose you can't have it then. It's impossible. You haven't lived long enough to have acquired that. To get to this point requires baking for decades until you're “done.” 

The price of this is you have to get older, much older. Do I miss the youth I had in 1997? Of course, I'd be lying if I didn't admit that.  But the fact is this, then or now, here or there, you experience life pretty much the same at each point. Not a whole hell of a lot changes to that degree. People are people wherever you find them.   When I was 30 I was bitching and lamenting that "I didn't have this or that." At 56, I still can do the same. I see young 20 Somethings do this daily and they have youth and all the time in the world. Women, do this from the age of 3 till they're 99. Nothing seems "quite good enough."

This is natural. We all do it. The difference I find now is that you temper this complaint by trading ambitious impatience with acknowledging you're married to the World. To make that marriage work, you have to make compromises with this mate. It's not all about YOU.