Dearest Betsy...

I thought of you today.

I seriously doubt you ever think of me.

I don't know how the conversation got to that point but there you were.

And next thing I know I am rambling on about you, and Tom (I really do not remember his name), and Pizza Hut and everything.

I realized one thing at the end of my rant....I am the exact guy I want my daughter to never know.

We ran it into the ground at a break-neck pace.

What were we? Eighteen? Nineteen?

That cigar box full of shake in my glove box. Rolling joints in the middle of the night on our way up North, to wake at first light in the front seat for the dawn patrol at The Inlet.

Late night drinking by whichever landmark you can think of. The airport. That gator infested lake in the middle of that empty field alongside those buildings.

I remember falling asleep while making out with you in front of my crappy apartment.

You were one of what I would grow realize to be a long string of girls, and eventually women, that wanted nothing more than to be loved, and I was that guy that took everything and left.

You were not the first one I walked on, and sadly, you would not be the last.

And maybe that is now my penance for being That Guy.

I was what is now my worst nightmare for my own daughter.

That V8 in my T-37 would rip the rubber right off the tires if I let it, and I let it do so often.

Rusty, rough, fast, reckless, I was a lot back then.

So were you.

And so was that T-37.

Long may you run, long live the warm nights, the youth that went too fast, the cars that went faster, the waves, the weed, the drinks, and the organic matter.

And may God forgive us all for our idiocy.