There's something about loss

I've probably seen more loss than victory, and not just from the world of sports. 

Redman Street 

High school was a barrage of

Friday night parties I was not invited to

On Monday the sounds all around my desk

were laughter, all the drinking, fun and vomiting I missed

It's said the diploma was the goal

More important than a degree was

four more years of directionless loss

Administrators pushed me through second grade

because I could read

In third grade I learned how to hate myself

In fifth I learned how power can abuse

If seventh grade went as quick as sitting next to a pretty girl

in ninth grade science class

eleventh grade would have been more tolerable

I'm not even going to mention any more even numbered years

Every Saturday afternoon I heard the marching band play

at halftime from my backyard

I'd been beat up under those bleachers too many times to see them filled

Had lockers broken into more times that I want to remember

Problems were solved with withdrawal, not a gun

another shot of whiskey means

another game of dodge ball forgotten

There's not enough whiskey

but there's plenty of time to move forward

What happens when you move away from your things

In a random thought the other day, I was Facebook posting and thinking about my old pachinko machine. I received it as a gift sometime in the mid to late 1970's from either my parents or grandparents. They were inexpensive, due to the Japanese flooding the market with them at the time.

It was cool to have, trouble was it was very loud and then it broke so you had to reach around the back of the machine to advance the balls.

Looked up how much it would cost to replace a machine today and was rather shocked by how much they had increased in value. Then a friend piggybacked my post about things you owned in your childhood that was lost, and I may be able to find the book she was looking for. And I then made a comment to her about letting me know if she had a pachinko machine.

To my surprise and shock she and her husband own one. It's in their rec room, but does not work.

Then my wife found out her co-worker has a storage shed full of them, and may be willing to part with one at a reasonable price.

I am not sure how my son would react to having one of those in the house. Again, it is very loud, and the stimulation may flip him out. He's had some odd reactions to the skill crane in the grocery store so I may not be willing to put something loud and over stimulating around.

But it's a small world, you mention something you think is obscure and it pops up in the most unexpected places. I doubt my old machine is still in my step-father's attic, but I'm going to call him and find out if he knows what happened to it.

There's also a Rolling Stones concert shirt I owned which I last saw in the attic thirty odd years ago. Anyone have one of those lying around?