Off The Rails: Excerpts From My Life

By Steven Smith

Growing up in rural Northern California in the 1960's and 70's led me on many great adventures and some perilous experiences many of my own making. After reviewing some of these experiences, I realized just how close I came to death on many occasions. Childhood and teenage pranks led me to far more risky behaviors in my adult life. Living the life of a drummer in both rock and country bands led me into even more risky behaviors including drug and alcohol abuse. After hitting bottom, with the help of my family I eventually overcame many obstacles and came to grips with my spiritual path. I wrote this originally for my sons, to help them understand why their father was nuts, and for my grandchildren so they would have a family history to gain inspiration from.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Steven Smith
• Release date: Oct 6, 2013
• ISBN: 9781301313877

Book preview

Off The Rails

Excerpts from my Life

Steven C. Smith

Copyright © 2013 by Steven C. Smith

Smashwords Edition

Smashwords Edition, License Notes

This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author

For Mary, Josh and Matt

Acknowledgments

Thanks to Dale Peterson for his encouragement and support in this project also for his ability to jog my memory. Thanks also to Chris Clark for his inspiration and writing advice and Terry Matthews for her editing help. Also my wife for her patience while I spent countless hours focused on writing. Thanks also to Diane Gill, Dennis Pegues, Clay Reid, Paul Fairchild, Clive Fairchild, Marne Bass, Pat Haley, and my sons for their support and encouragement.

Prologue

I am not a writer, I am not a scholar, if you are reading this please excuse the misspelled words, names and places.

Remember this is how I remember my life, all the characters may or may not be fictitious and any resemblance to reality could be purely coincidental.

This project started as a plain straightforward personal history that I began writing in 2006. It was made up of the bullet points of my life, like when I was born, where I went to school, when I got married etc.

After growing bored with the project and finding little time to work on it, I put it away. The project gathered dust in the garage for several years until 2011.

While visiting friends in Colorado during the last week of August 2011, I received a phone call from my wife, who had been cleaning out our garage while I was gone.

She was crying and sobbing while trying to talk to me. I thought someone had died.

She said; I found your autobiography, sob, I’ve been sitting here in the garage all afternoon reading it, sob, It sounds like your eulogy, I could just see me handing out copies of it at your funeral.

That phone call was a real eye opener for me. It made me realize that my life story was more than bullet points, and it made me think; if anyone was to read this I wanted to take them on a wild ride through my life experiences no matter how good or ugly.

I shared the phone call with my friend Dale Peterson, whom I was visiting in Colorado Springs at the time. He recalled many experiences we shared growing up that I could write about. He also jogged my memory about some to crazy messes I've found myself in, both growing up and as an adult.

Some of these experiences may sound too bizarre to believe, or appear too far-fetched. That’s OK. If I hadn’t experienced these things, I would have a hard time believing them myself.

I did not write these stories in any kind of order. So, chronologically it kind of jumps around from chapter to chapter and sometimes in the middle of chapters.

I did not write this for profit. This is only a writing project that is intended: as a record of some of my experiences while here on earth, something I could pass down to my children so that they would have a record of my ups and downs, triumphs and failures, experiences they could draw from.

I have attempted to not hold anything back, to not censor anything except where it might hurt someone or cause harm. I have changed some names to protect those who requested their names remain anonymous.

I have included a timeline in the back of the book that you can refer to as you read.

While writing this several people previewed it and asked for a copy to read for themselves. This is also for them, and anyone who happens upon it and finds it of interest.

Chapter 1

Youth is Wasted on the Young

Youth is wasted on the young

-- George Bernard Shaw

Butch and Glennis Smith were a young 18-year-old couple newly married in January 1956.

 I was their firstborn in September 1957.

I was born at Enloe Hospital, now known as Enloe Medical Center, in Chico, California, the place where I would become an employee for much of my adult life.

My parents tried to be model parents (whatever that meant in the early 60's). My father worked hard and often long hours. He worked several jobs as I was growing up, he drove trucks of many kinds: logging, milk, candy and bread trucks to name a few. As a young child my mother stayed home to raise my brothers and me until I was about nine years old. She went to work after that at a nut processing plant in Chico, doing seasonal work for many years, then later as I left home she became a bank teller for Bank of America. They supported my brothers and me in sports, scouts, little league and other activities.

They were strict disciplinarians. At a family dinner shortly after my second marriage my mother told everyone seated at the table, We almost beat Steve to death, trying to make sure he grew up right.

Obviously the beatings didn’t work.

The years at 353 East Avenue from 1959 through 1966 were some of my first socializations with children other than my cousins. My brothers and I spent many hours playing and getting in trouble with my neighbors. I remember one occasion on a hot day in the middle of summer. Our house was located between two fields of very dry grass. I decided to see how much of a fire I could start with a book of matches. Needless to say, I could not stomp it out and we all ran to our respective homes. I blamed the twins next door who correctly pointed back to me. By the time it was all over, the fence my father had built was charred, as were the blisters on my butt. The twins had to receive a pretty severe beating by their parents due to my false accusations. I was seven years old. My beating and being grounded to my room was a very painful memory I very clearly remember to this day.

A hard lesson learned.

Some of our cousins lived about two blocks away on White Avenue.  My Aunt Jean Tyler is my father’s oldest sister. She and her husband Leonard had five daughters, Linda, Susan, Mary Jane, Kathleen and April. At this early age I was being taught it was not acceptable to hit girls. I was a slow learner. I resented the fact that these girls were somehow treated special and boys were called Little Snots. Perhaps this is why I wasn’t allowed to visit too often. I don’t think I ever really got along with my cousins until I was about twelve years old, and that was short lived.

I had other cousins that I adored and to this day they have a very special place in my heart. Perhaps I should use caution in calling them cousins. I’m not sure some were really cousins in the traditional sense. It’s just that calling them cousins was much less awkward than trying to figure out their place in the family tree.

The Smith's, Steven, Steven, Claude, Glennis, Richard & Michael 2009

When I turned eight years old I got my first bicycle. It was a Schwinn Stingray, green sparkle paint with knobby tires. I immediately took it across the street to the school ground Saturday morning September 19th 1965. First and most important I had to see how fast it would go. After hitting top speed on the sidewalk in front of the school offices of Jay Partridge Elementary School I lost control. I didn’t remember anything until later that day when I came to on the living room couch. My face appeared to be missing one side, the side I left on the pavement of the school. My mother saw the whole ugly thing from our house across the street and helped me and my new bike back home where she cleaned me up and got some fluids into me as I was suffering from shock and probably a concussion. My face healed over time, my bike was O.K. I got back on the bike the next day and rode that bike just about every day until I was eleven years old.  When I was 11 years old I sold my Schwinn stingray and bought my first 10-speed bike. Only a couple of weeks later, I wrecked it after being struck by a Volkswagen bug on my way to school. The bike was a complete loss; fortunately I came away with only a fractured ankle and bruises. The next 10 years or so I went through numerous bicycles. Currently I ride to work most days on a modified mountain bike. I wear a helmet just in case.

Over the next eight years after my birth my parents had three more sons. I never felt that close to my younger brothers as we were growing up though we had the normal sibling disagreements and fights. My brothers Richard, Michael and Lindsey are as different as night and day and the four of us went in totally different directions after leaving home. We drifted farther apart as we grew older and now only communicate at family gatherings and funerals.

My brother Richard and I participated in a lot of activities together, but grew apart after high school.  In 1977 Richard went into the Navy and got married. I was in Australia on a Mormon mission at this time. We never really were able to connect much after that.

My brother Michael has always been outgoing. He has a great sense of humor and has always been popular with his friends. Something Michael and I have in common is that we play drums. Here again, I don’t believe we’ve ever been really close; however, we did participate in many projects together. At this time, we rarely speak due to many factors. There’s been a lot of water under the bridge since my brother Michael and I have spoken.

My youngest brother Lindsey (changed his name to Steve Stockwell in the mid-80's) has always been the brains in the family. I believe he still lives in San Diego. He has done very well for himself. He seems happily married, and seems to enjoy his job in the computer software technology industry. Here again we are not particularly close. Rifts between myself and my parents over the past 25 years have driven a wedge between my brothers and me. I suppose the biggest rift between my family and me, is my marriage. Everyone seems to love my wife except my family.

Not to say I don’t love my parents. We have just had many rough patches over the past 35 years. The bad feelings and scars from those experiences have had a powerful impact on my life and the lives of my family. I have no desire to revisit those times.

Among their biggest fears was that I would become a hippie and smoke dope. If they had only known what was in my future I think they would have been horrified.

I do however have some fond