I'm sure with this post it will become painfully obvious to some that I might have had a somewhat colorful upbringing.

Now don't get the wrong idea or nothing though and don't be putting my parents under a microscope. Dot and Wayne are damn good people. Me and my brothers did not learn our behavior from our parents. My parents do not drink, smoke and they don't even use ugly language. My Dad was a Sunday school teacher and my mother could make Holly Hobbie and Betty Crocker look like street walkers...she's that damn pure.

Well to clarify something real quick and I hate doing this. But my REAL father is also named Wayne. The Wayne I call Daddy is technically my stepfather but I do not call him that or even introduce him that way.

My mother over the years has shaken her head and told me and Mike both that despite not living around our biological father we somehow managed to pick up a few of his bad traits. That man to this day is still a party animal, drunkard, gambler, cheater....he's a horses' ass to be blunt. I can't stand him and I ain't seen him in over 25 yrs.

But...Mike and I both have acted like him....in our youth anyway. I know it broke my mother's heart but we were kids and kids do that kind of shit sometimes.

My brother Mike picked up the stupidity trait more than anything.

Seriously.

Mike has been in and out of jails, prisons, juvenile detention centers starting at the age of 12. He was a bad bad boy. Today he's a 40 yr old man, covered from head to toe in jail house tattoo's but he's okay. He's living a good and somewhat clean life. I don't know how he survived it but he did.

My brother also likes to get married alot. He don't like staying married but the boy is not shy to walk down an aisle.

I've only liked one of his wives and that was the first one. She was a real sweet girl named Carla and she was from Champagne, Illinois. Her and my brother got this cute little older house together and Carla was smart. Not booksmart but streetsmart...ya know what I mean?

She worked 2 jobs. One at Barry's Oyster Bar as a waitress and the other job was at a Kwickie Mart. The Kwickie mart was in walking distance from her and Mike's house. Everybody that worked there knew my brother was husband to good ole' Carla.

Georgia don't sell alcohol on Sunday but Barry's Oyster Bar used to do this Jam Session thing on Sunday nights. The owner who was Barry...duh...but anyway he would let folks come in, have an open mic set up and he'd offer food. He would also let you bring in your own liquor. He wasn't selling it soo technically he wasn't doing anything illegal. Surprisingly Carla used to say that on Sunday nights she made the most tips so she always wanted to work that day of the week.

Well this one Sunday my brother was at home, watching a football game, drank up all his beer and decided he wanted MORE. He walked to the Kwickie mart wearing overalls with nothing underneath and barefooted.

Stop laughing. It's not funny.

Okay...it kinda is...go on and laugh if you must.

The guy working that night knew my brother was messed up and trust me it wasn't just alcohol he was juiced up on either. These were my brother's darkest days of when he was a heavy drug user.

Mike waltzed on over the beer cooler and found it was locked. The clerk hollered out that it was Sunday so no booze could be sold.

My brother busted open the glass door, reached in and grabbed a 12 pk of Budweiser and walked out. He walked home with his stolen beer.

Let me stop right there by saying this is very troubling to me. I mean if you're gonna steal some beer you should at least steal GOOD BEER. Am I right?

Well....by the time my brother popped open his first stolen can of brew the Po Po was knocking on his door. That clerk had called the police and was very helpful to them because he not only knew who had just robbed him, he knew the robber's HOME ADDRESS.

Sooo...Mike went to jail for that.

Carla left him while he was locked up and moved herself back to Illinois which at the time was a very smart move for her. Mike was bad off in those days.

When Mike got out of jail he knew his wife was gone and he knew my parents had taken care of his mess and by that I mean his house and all his shit. He had to come back and live with us for a while and that was no picnic let me tell ya'.

One afternoon my mother came into my room and said; "Go on and walk up to the store and get your brother some cigarettes." She was holding out a 5 dollar bill in front of me. I asked her why couldn't Mike go get his own cigarettes...I had noticed that neither one of his legs was broken.

"Sandra Lynn...don't give me no lip today. Now I buy my gas from that store and I ain't gonna have your brother embarrassing me to death. I don't want to have to drive clear across town to go to a different station. Now just go and get his cigarettes...you know what he smokes right?"

Yeah I knew...he smoked them King Kool menthols back then.

I had to stop what I was doing and go to the store for his dumbass. As I walked out I passed him on the couch and I think I flipped him off. I just know he was grinning at me like some kind of jackass.

I can't remember what he did but I know he went back to jail while he was living with us again. It was just for 30 days in county so it was probably fighting or somemthing. The boy did like to get into fights back in those days.

I had come in from school and found my mother sitting on our sofa and she was crying her eyes out. She told me she just didn't know what to do with him no more. I knew then that he had gotten locked up but for some reason I didn't ask her why...maybe I never did know about that time. I didn't care anymore. The first time upset me and even the second but after that you just kinda go numb to it.

Now I love my brother and somehow we have managed to maintain a very close relationship but he did the most fucked up stuff when he was growing up.

My mother likes to say to me now things like; "I don't understand why you drink alcohol...after seeing what it did to your brother, I just don't understand how you could ever put that stuff in your mouth."

Well....I suppose it's because I've never robbed a store or beaten somebody with a tire iron because they made fun of my dog. Which is a true story and my brother did in fact do that and I ain't even gonna discuss that incident because it was horrible and yes he did that in front of me and my baby brother Darrell.

Maybe Mike should have turned me off from the world of drinking but somehow he didn't.

And I might ought to be ashamed or embarrassed about some of things Mike has done but I ain't. Not really.

He's my brother...the good, the bad and the ugly sides of him....he's all mine.

It can be funny and people can laugh about some of the silly things folks do while they're drunk but there is a line you shouldn't never cross. It's like for me...I like to drink but I'm no big fan of being drunk. I don't much care for being DRUNK.

I did learn that much from my brother. Losing control over yourself is just...well ya know man it's not good.

I used to resent my brother a little bit while we were growing up because of all his troubles he always seemed to have my parents full attention. He was always the center of all our discussions, he made my mother cry but then I'd see her flip over backwards to please him or try and make him happy. I hated him some days...I really did and living with an addict is very painful. They truly upset an entire household.

Mike did keep me from ever wanting to experiment with drugs though. I learned my lesson about drugs from him and I ain't talking about weed. I don't consider marijuana a drug....not really. I mean I don't smoke it myself but I did when I was younger.

The thing is when you see someone act up at a New Year's Eve party or something like that it is funny. You can laugh. I can laugh at my one neighbor because she drinks like once a year and once a year she gets rip roarin' tore up drunk. It's funny but if she did that every weekend....it would start dripping over into the VERY SAD DEPARTMENT.

Right?

I guess I'm saying this because I often make mention of my love of beer and I don't try and see how long I can go without having beer in my house either. If I were to see my fridge sans beer I would be very upset.

BUT...I don't never sit around and see just how much of that beer I can put in my belly either.

I like to have a few and that's it.

Just a few.

I enjoy the taste of beer not the effects of downing 12 of 'em at one sitting.

My husband at times has had a single beer every single day for weeks straight.

But just the ONE because that's all he wanted at the time.

Now if he were to ever get to the place where he couldn't stop at one then we would have a serious problem on our hands.

As much as I love BEER and honey I do...trust me on that....I am however very paranoid about it and I know the warning signs.

Getting drunk can be fun but being a DRUNK ain't funny one damn bit.

Just gotta keep it in check ya' know...

My brother doesn't drink anymore and his drug days are long behind him.

I don't want that for myself.

I want to keep on enjoying my few beers for as long as I live because when people have to give up something it's because they over indulged with it. I don't want to struggle with an addiction on a daily basis. Now I ain't struggling with smoking because I'm still doing that....ain't no struggle there but you know what I mean?

Now for me it's a special day. It's Sunday. I cook my ass off on Sundays and I like to enjoy a few beer's on this day also.

I want to keep doing that.

I don't want to ever have to give that up.

If you have a vice of any kind....respect it a little 'cause if you don't it surely won't respect you back.


P.S.

Okay Libby...you can find me at my blog The Pea Patch, here.