In previous "From the vault:" posts I've mentioned that all these stories took place in Western Maryland. Well, to be more precise, they all take place in Cumberland, MD.
I currently live in Panama City, FL(there's a "From the vault:" post concerning that reason, in the future). Shortly after graduating from Fort Hill High School in 1999, I came to live here in 2000. Moving 1,000 miles was an opportunity to get my life on track and change my direction(which I didn't have). Since moving to Florida I quit using drugs, and no longer get drunk. I've finished school, and have a pretty good job as a Land Surveyor. I also met my wife, and got married at 22. My life is comfortable, and more than I expected of it a few years ago.
So, when I say these stories no longer reflect me, I mean it. But, they definitely reflect the person I used to be(and the person most of my friends still are). I just figured I never really speak about myself because such posts are usually boring to me, and I didn't want to bore you. So, that's why I decided to just hit the highlights and lowlights real quick with these "From the vault:" posts.
This one concerns my hometown: Cumberland, MD. The "Queen City" as it says on the welcome signs on the edge of town(because at one time Cumberland was the second largest city in MD). Since those days, however, most of the factory work left town and all the blue-collar workers basically became unemployed, or moved away. The city has become kind of a retirement town, since only the retired can afford to live there. And retirement towns don't offer much in the way of entertainment.
Being a teenager in Cumberland was like slowly drowning in your own inevitable future. No one seemed to have any real ambition. Entire families had literally grown up and stayed put there. Some of my friends could find there father, mother, grandparents, aunts, and uncle's graduation pictures in the school library. I didn't have that distinction since my mother, Debbie, moved us to Cumberland when she decided Baltimore was getting too rough in the early 80s. My father, Rene, was a U.S. Navy salvage diver, and also from San Juan, Puerto Rico.
My parents met in Baltimore when my father was stationed there. Their relationship was always turbulent. When my mother got pregnant with me, they decided to get married, and moved to Puerto Rico. Knowing them both today, I'm not sure what they had in common besides me. They got divorced when I was 4, and my mother got custody. Afterward, she brought us(myself and my older brother Mike from a previous marriage) to Cumberland.
Now, as a young kid, Cumberland was just fine and dandy! You could play outside without supervision, ride your bike around town without worry, or play with all the other kids running around in the streets. I enjoyed being a young kid there, swimming in creeks, eating wild berries, and sled riding like crazy. When I got older the lack of actual stimulation in the city began to become more apparent.
In fact, I would say the total boredom of the place was the number one factor in me deciding to try alcohol and marijuana! I had to do something to kill the time! I mean, when you've got nothing to do but watch TV and play video games, after a while you're gonna want to do something to enhance the mundane and repetitive. You get tired of going to the Country Club Mall(the only damned mall, and it's very sad), or the bowling alley, or the campgrounds, or the rival high school, Allegany, to bust out windows with rocks. After you've done that so many times, there isn't much else. Cumberland looks like the town in "Footloose", only we allowed dancing because the parents payed no attention to their kids(most of the parents were too busy getting drunk or stoned themselves).
The highlight of the Cumberland Times-News paper was the Local Police Log. It's such a small town full of substance abuse, that you can open the paper everyday and read about the drunken arrest of someone you knew. Welfare was also rampant, and there were three full scale projects: Jane Frazier Village, Fort Cumberland Homes, and Benjamin Banniker Apartments.
Most cities have about a half a dozen High Schools, it seems. We had Fort Hill(my school with the red and white colors), and Allegany(with the blue and white). Our school mascot was "The Sentinel" soldier. Theres was a "Camper"(yeah, what the f*ck is that?! An Indian). High school football dominated the little valley. Just like being able to find your dad's graduation picture, you could also find his football jersey retired in the gym. "Varsity Blues"-type pathetic local sports traditions of every boy in certain families being on the team.
Missing from this photo, are the two gymnasiums on the right, and the auditorium on the left
So, living in such outright nothingness was definitely a factor in my past behavior. My home life at the time, was also just as strong, but I'll talk about that later.
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