Portsmouth Rhode Island Summer Part One

Today is Monday January Eleventh Two Thousand Ten. I really want to smoke for some reason this morning so I have been gobbling up nico candies left and right in order to combat the cravings. Its just that I miss smoking so much even tho I can feel the diffy when I do cardio already. I know if I just grey knuckle it (not white cause of the nico candies) a few more weeks I will right as rain. I will still miss smoking like I miss my first dog but thats the way it is. I had a fantastic weekend in the Tops with my folks and spent some much needed relaxation time. Watched a few movies, ate food, worked out, hung with the parental units, and read. Good times, I like how a mellow weekend is good for me these days. I am looking forward to the AA meeting tonight, always plenty of eye candy and recovery !

So after I sorta graduated from Tabor I lived on a fifty foot sailboat for about six weeks at the Goat Island marina. I had been hired by an elderly couple to be a bn for the summer. It didn't work out for a variety of reasons, much of them mine and much of just the downright bizarre behavior of the owners. I think they were super religious and thought I was a heathen or something. I walked off the boat and went back to Topsfield to take advantage of an empty house. My brother thought the same thing and was surprised to find me at home relaxing with a beer. I didn't get along with my brother very well at that point but he promised that he would stay mum about my employment situation. Here I was almost eighteen and had ten weeks of summer without parental input or supervision. Sounds like an awesome idea.

I spent the first two weeks living at a friend's house in Salem whose parents were very cool, I had done bong hits with his mother that previous christmas. I picked up some kitchen shifts at In A Pig's Eye which served as an alcohol and pot distribution point as well as a payday. We also got jobs working for ESPN who was covering the LPGA that was happening at the Frencorft golf course in Peabody, Ma. We first ran cables all over the course and set up various television doodads. Once the tourney was underway it was my job to point a shotgun mike at the ball when it hit the fairway. Not much to it and I got to hang out in the sun completely stoned about five miles from my folks house without them knowing it. I remember one day I was so hungover from drinking after a kitchen shift I fell asleep and one of the asst producers had to go check on me. I told him I was suffering from sun stroke so I spent the rest of the day in the shade drinking Gatoraide and smirking at my friends.

Once the ESPN gig was over myself and two other friends had to game plan for the rest of the summer. We decided that the north shore just wasn't going to do it for us so we decided to move to Newport, Rhode Island for the rest of the summer and thus began one of the best summers in my life. What kind of trouble could three teenage boys living on their own for the first time in their life get into ? Well, we never got arrested but should have and it was a life changing time for all three of us. We partied harder than ever before all while holding down jobs, going to the beach, and seeing lots of live music. We secured a eight week lease in a one bedroom apartment above a funeral home in a town just north of Newport called Portsmith, Rhode Island. We had many visitors over the summer and had the time of our lives although many memories are pretty hazy I will attempt to remember what I can.

So, we scored a pad in Portmouth, Rhode Island right off rte 114 which is the main road to Newport. Thankfully it either wasn't a busy time in the death business or the funeral home its self wasn't busy in fact they only had one funeral the entire time we were there and it was the day before we moved out. We didn't have any furniture or other decorations so we made do with what we could scavenge or steal. We broke into the funeral home by riding the casket elevator from the embalming room into the the main area. One there we stole anything the looked cool and two items come to mind. One was a gold crucifix and the other were some US casket flags. Yeah, I am going to hell but we did make sure that the stuff we made off with was stored somewhere that wouldn't be checked on till we were long gone. I spray painted the crucifix day glo orange and hung it on our wall in the living room. Jebus was about sixteen inches long from toe to crown so you could see it from the road. Def got some odd looks and comments from our friends about him.

There was a abandoned car the back parking lot of the funeral home that we decided would be the home of all our empty beer cans. The empty liquor bottles were stored on top of the fridge for some reason. We pretty much filled the entire car with empties by the end of the year and I know I puked in it at least twice. As we were moving out our landlord noticed the car and blamed the neighborhood kids. One day a car overheated on rte 114 and pulled into our driveway. The driver asked if he could get some water for the radiator and since he didn't have a container for the water we filled up a dozen or so plastic half gallon booze bottles and gave him those. The look on his face was priceless, esp when he came into our pad to use the can and he noticed the crucifix on the wall.

The three of us would make nightly jaunts into Newport to visit some of my friends from Tabor and to get rip roaring drunk. For the first ten days or so myself and a roommate worked in the same kitchen and we used to go to the liquor store during the lunch/dinner break while wearing chef's whites so the would sell to us. Another fun activity was to go to Provi and see Max Creek every wednesday nite. At the time they would play the Living Room and there was a shakedown street in the parking lot. You could pretty much get your hands on just about anything you wanted and we made sure to stock up for the week ahead. Many, many times I have driven from Provi to Portsmouth while tripping on acid. They have really cool lights in the tunnels heading out of town. One night we blew off our other roommate for some reason and when we returned in the wee hours of the morning he wasn't home. He came in a bit later with his tooth in a cup. Evidently he had tried to stop a fight and had his tooth knocked out for it. Well, thats it for now and I will write about this again tomorrow. Good memories are surfacing.