Oreos and MTV

1990 was good to me. I have often thought of what might have been in the last 19 years if I had done things different then. But I didn't, and some things you live with for the rest of your life. I was 9 years old. What my parents didn't know was that I was a Navy SEAL. I would wake up at about 5:00 a.m. in the morning and go into the living room. I would watch things that my parents wouldn't let me watch at that time. I would also scale the kitchen counter top and grab the Oreos. Those wonderful cookies were like crack to me. So I would sugar up and watch MTV, Jaws, and other thing (not really bad things) on T.V. I loved it. That was my time.
Whenever summer break came, that was my hay day. I would be able to work with my Dad as much as I wanted. I was a paid employee, after all. Wherever he went, I went. We would have to take orders, load our van, and travel all over Arkansas. It was much better than hanging out with my Mom and little sister. It was man time for us, sometimes early in the morning, or sometimes it was an easy day.
On day in June 1990, the day was supposed to be a slow one. No deliveries, maybe just going to the warehouse and getting ready for the next day, but it was 'my day off' for the hard-working man that I was at 9 years old. It was very early in the morning and nobody was awake but me. My Dad got up early too and started to leave. I was on stand-by so, of course, I said 'where ya goin'? He said he needed to have the brakes on the truck replaced. So automatically I was going along with him. He said he didn't need me because it was going to be a quick chore and he would be back so rest up because we had a lot to do in the warehouse that day. So I went back to my MTV while he walked out the door.


He never came back. It only took me a minute to realize he didn't go for brake replacement when the news was told to me that he had to go to Fort Smith for a work emergency. I knew that was a lie because he would have picked me up first.

19 years and I still wonder what would have happened if I stood in the doorway stopped him from leaving. I was the one that watched him go, everybody else was asleep. I didn't stop him but went back to watching T.V. Somethings happen for a reason, and some don't. If I decided to sleep late then I would not have to play out that 1 minute in my head for 19 years. But I was on the couch for no other reason than to watch my life change forever. Maybe that is why I sleep late now.
That is why when Kleibold's mother was interviewed last week, she said that she had wished she could have just stopped him from going to school ten years ago. And she still remembers him leaving the house that morning. Well, my advice is that feeling still isn't going away for at least 9 more years.