Down in Florida there lives the black sheep of my dad's family. It
was not the uncle I was staying with but another brother who looks exactly
like my dad just with a mustache. That is the universal shorthand of how to know the wild
version from the buttoned-down one. In his youth he had been into
various crimes, biker gangs and real legit stuff including onetime
getting his residence shot up in a drive by. Like I said, real legit
stuff. When I met him he was a little older and a little mellowed
down but still a lot more worldly than my absolutely conservative
parents. He only lived a few miles away and one day He took my cousin and I on a canoe trip down a river to his
cabin and it was lots of fun to see the local deadly snakes and
alligators on a leisurely paddle down what may very well be the most
cliché metaphor for growing up there could be. When we got to his
cabin on the river and were waiting for our ride back to civilization
my uncle invited us to have a couple of beers, or some booze or
pursue his porn collection. These were all well outside the line of
what I was invited to do on my family outings and I was a little
uncomfortable. He told me that he wouldn't tell our parents so we
didn't have to worry about that. I opted for playing some pool which
I thought I knew how to do but I was wrong my uncle had a pool shark
level of unbelievable skill and it was not fun to play against him so
we decided to just watch him make a series of trick shots. I was not
tempted in the least by the beer or the booze, I had never found
alcohol that appealing, I was however a little intrigued by the
possibility of perusing some adult literature. I was too shy to do
that though and I was embarrassed for my cousin to know I would be in
to something like that. Therefore, thus resolved to not be observed
taking a peek at the lusty ladies of playboy magazine I only indulged
in a couple of quick and fervent glances into the one magazine left
in the bathroom. I could only look as long as would not be a
suspiciously long time to be in the bathroom which was usually two
minutes or so. We spent the the couple of hours waiting for our ride
watching a VHS copy of Smokey and the Bandit 2 and I taking a
couple to many trips to the bathroom. Then we went home without
partaking of any more of the available carnal pleasures. Bullet
dodged.
