I realize that blogging has become an avenue for defining my life, confessing my sins, and reliving my accomplishments and failures. I guess I could have written a book instead, but...

Writing about things in your past is helpful in understanding your present. During my life I have often become offended at something, and then reacted in a spiteful way. The reason I'm here in Tennessee was because of that. The reason Steph's family is not in my life, is because of that.

Today I had a memory of an incident in High School. I used to sing, I have a deep voice and I was pretty good. The Paradise, CA Chamber of Commerce hired me, a buddy and two young ladies to walk around one Christmas in costume, singing carols around town.

But the incident occurred while performing in choir to a large gathering at the school. I got pissed at something, no clue what, and my reaction was to sing everything loud and out of tune. I'm sure I ruined the performance.

That was my pattern in High School. One year I was forced to join the wrestling team if I wanted to continue track and field. It pissed me off so I started wrestling dirty, hurting kids, and the coach finally shook his head and said get out.

The teachers considered me stupid, because I was bored. One day I did a book report and presented it to my English class. The teacher accused me of plagiarizing it, not believing that I could write. I told her fuck you and dropped out of school. Finished up at night school down in Chico.

Years later I graduated at the top of my class at Merritt College in Oakland.

So I see this pattern in my life, and I'm really sorry that I react this way. You can't go back and fix mistakes, but you can learn from them, and try to do better the next time.