Good morning all, and a Happy New Year.

It’s always good to have a commitment to something. I started blogging in 2014 and my goal was to do daily posts. Well, I’ve never accomplished that goal but it’s never too late to start trying again. So I saw this WordPress challenge for blogging every day in the month of January. So here we go.

And today’s writing prompt was:

Wow, this prompt makes you think and try to remember way back. One because my teenage self was about 50 years ago. In some ways, those days are very clear and in other ways, they are a total blur. Those were very difficult but also some fun times.

My father died when I was 9. So I started growing up before the time I was a teen, I think I might have been rebelling against it a bit. At 10 yrs old I biked a fairly large paper route for a couple of years, would dog sit, landscape work, odd construction help. When I turned 14, I helped my Mom buy a car. She let me drive it to a night job working a factory kitchen after school. I didn’t have a license till I was 16. I worked most of my entire teens and just before I was 19 I dropped my first year of college (lack of funds) and started my lifelong career in Newspapers.

I worked hard and played harder as a teen. And so did most of my friends. Many mistakes were made but also lots of great memories.

• I would say if you’re going to work hard to impress someone make sure it’s the right people with the right things.
• I wold say put that cigarette down and never pick up another one.
• I would say you are not invincible.
• I would say to find another way to deal with pain and insecurity than drinking and drugs.
• I would say don’t put off or give up on your artistic interest.
• I would say have a lot more confidence in yourself.
• I would have said don’t be afraid or think it was uncool to succeed.
• I would say don’t drink and drive you FOOL. No, I never hurt anyone or myself but I drove far too many times when I shouldn’t have.
• I would say listen more and talk less.
• I would probably suggest a helmet and roll cage when drag racing and the high-speed runs we made.
• I would have told me that learning is fun and get to it.
• I would say aspire to things you think might not be possible, more in life.
• Life is fun, enjoy it and take better care of yourself because you will live longer than you and others would think.