Wasted Youth

By Frank Gilbertson

Wasted Youth is a fast paced, light-hearted romp that follows one man's attempt to deal with his self-imposed midlife crisis and maybe win back an old flame in the process. Join him and his salty crew as changes in latitudes find them sailing into a hurricane and diving shark-infested waters in search of shipwrecks and treasure. Relax and play a

• Language: English
• Publisher: Stratton Press
• Release date: Sep 7, 2020
• ISBN: 9781643458861

Frank Gilbertson

The author has seen her on The Dream Catcher in The Sea of Cortez. He started his adventure in frigid Cudahy Wisconsin but flourished in Southern California where he was raised. He currently lives in Encinitas, California, with his wife of over forty-years Barbara and his Beagle Sailor. He has two grown children and two grandchildren that he loves and visits whenever he can. The author would like to thank all the family and friends that it took to put together this labor of love. I hope you enjoy the journey as much as I did.

Book preview

Wasted

Youth

Frank Gilbertson

WASTED YOUTH

Copyright © 2020 Frank Gilbertson

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping or by information storage and retrieval system without the written permission of the author except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

Stratton Press Publishing

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Wilmington, DE 19801

www.stratton-press.com

1-888-323-7009

Because of the dynamic nature of the Internet, any web addresses or links contained in this book may have changed since publication and may no longer be valid. The views expressed in the work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.

ISBN (Paperback): 978-1-64345-884-7

ISBN (Hardback): 978-1-64345-885-4

ISBN (Ebook): 978-1-64345-886-1

Printed in the United States of America

Contents

1. Lucky Guy

2. Young Love

3. Confessions from an Airport Bar

4. What Do You Say to a Naked Lady?

5. Lost at Sea

6. Another Story

7. Heroes and Villains

8. The Barley Boys and Hops

9. Little China Dolls

10. The Road Less Traveled

11. Who the Hell Is Joe?

12. The Mickey Mouse Marines

13. The Five Ws

14. FYI

This book is dedicated to my wife, Barbara, for understanding that it’s just a story.

To Jordan and Raymond for loving me unconditionally.

To my brother, Scott, whose undying faith in me and this book made it all happen.

Thank you.

1

Lucky Guy

What was I thinking? I mean, seriously what the f——k was I thinking? Just to show you how screwed up my state of mind is at the moment, I’m sitting in front of a roaring fire all by myself at a place called Point Joe’s, deep in Baja, thinking I was gonna write a letter to Nikki Harms. I’ve had some stupid ideas in my life, but that one rates right at the top of the list. Especially when you say it out loud.

I haven’t seen or talked to the girl in almost twenty-five years. She was and I guess still is the first love of my life, but that was a lifetime ago. Back in the day, our friends did call us the perfect couple, and we somehow managed to spend three pretty good years together. Even talked semi-seriously about marriage, but we were way too young for that. She spent the night with me the day before I left for the islands, which was the last time I saw her, if that might help my cause, but I don’t think it would. She even called me once a couple years after the breakup, but I couldn’t help her and I doubt if she’s thought about me since. It was a lifetime ago for her too.

Simple fact of the matter is I have no idea what she even looks like now. I used to know not only what she looked like, but what she smelled and tasted like too, but all I got left now are a few vague memories.

I could have been standing right behind her in the check-out line at the grocery store the other day and not had a clue.

Besides, the fact is I’ve only written a couple letters in my life and they probably ended up in the trash ’cause they were to Nikki back when I was a young, lonely, brokenhearted deckhand living and working in Lahaina Maui for Windjammer Cruises. If you believe that lonely, brokenhearted crap, I got some swampland in Florida you need to look at. Still, I did write her a couple letters way back when, and I’m sure if I knew what her last name was now and her address, this letter would end up where those other ones did, the trash. Yep, told you it was a stupid idea.

Still there must be some logical explanation why, when I should be out partying with the boys and all our new friends, I’m sitting here drinking and smoking myself into a melancholy stupor pining over some long-lost love. And there is. In fact, it’s been a series of seemingly totally unrelated events, I’ll explain those later, that have me sitting here reminiscing and asking myself what if. What if it happened the other way? What would life have been like then? I guess I better deal with my fucked-up mental state of mind before it gets too serious, but I’m afraid it already has.

Could this be the deadly, cursed midlife crisis that only happens to lesser individuals? Happening to me? It would seem almost impossible, but what other reasonable explanation could there be? I did go out and buy that little sports car on a whim, but my wife drives it more than I do so that shouldn’t count against me. Still, the reality of the situation is that there’s a lot more of the road of life behind me than lies ahead. But it’s been a great life with few regrets till now, I guess. Still, there must come a time in everyone’s life when they stop and ask themselves what would have happened if I had done it differently. I mean everybody’s got a Nikki Harms in their past. You know someone you thought was the one, someone who felt like the one, someone you loved like the one, but in the end didn’t turn out to be the one, and I figure it must be my time to ask that question. Sounds like as good an explanation as I can come up with from this rickety beach chair I’m sitting in. Hell maybe I’ll just call her mom when I get back to the States and ask where she is.

So I guess if I don’t want this night, my vacation, and even possibly the rest of my life to turn into just another wasted youth, I’d better just sit right here in camp and figure out who I am and exactly just what I’ve become. When I’d really rather be with the boys a few campsites down partying. The girl from the camp store may even be there. Captain Bob’s son Billy, who’s been here before, said she was fine and he wasn’t kidding. She smiled at me like she might have been interested, but I seriously doubt it. Billy had said she was untouchable. Besides, the last thing I need right now are more girl problems ’cause like it or not, all girls are trouble in some form or another. No, I think I’ll just stay right here by the warm fire, cold beer, and good jays. Got to deal with the problems at hand before I create some new ones.

The first question is pretty easy to answer on the surface at least. I’m Frank Gilbertson, always have been and always will be. Really haven’t changed my style much since Nikki and I were together. The man, the myth, the legend, and soon to be the movie. At least that’s what my friends and family put on my fortieth birthday cake, and I guess to some extent, it’s true. I make things happen, been the guy in charge, a man with a plan, always have been and always will be. Some people say I’m just a lucky bastard, but I think if you define luck as preparation meets opportunity, you’ve got me. I’ve never meet an opportunity I didn’t like. They all didn’t work out, but you never know, one day, I just might find the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow. Some people think I already have.

It’s always been my calling in life to make it better for my friends and family. I guess that’s why they call me a lucky guy. Had twenty people working for me when I was only nineteen years old. I remember it like it was yesterday. I had a new girlfriend I was head over heels in love with. I needed more money than I had, so I got a job through the college working at this warehouse. Worked part-time there during the school year and most of the summer. When the Christmas rush hit, they put on a late shift that needed a foreman.

I lobbied hard for the job, and just because I’d smoked pot with my boss had nothing to do with the fact that I was the best man for the job, at least not in my mind. Not to mention that I was the manager of the company softball team and anybody who wanted to play needed to stay on my good side. Needless to say, I got the job.

It was my first night on the job and the crew was supposed to have gone home at seven, but it had been a much busier day than even the high honchos had expected, and at quarter after eight, I still had my crew busting their asses. That’s when the biggest honcho of them all, a guy named Earl Letz, the classic bald Jewish businessman, walked by my department shaking his head in disgust, thinking he’d made the biggest mistake of his life by putting a punk like me in charge. Ten minutes later, my phone rang, and I answered it instantly. I was expecting the call. It was Earl.

Frank, he growled into the phone. Do you have any clue what you’re doing down there?

Absolutely, Earl, I replied without missing a beat. The gasp from his throat told me wasn’t used to this kind of insubordination.

Why are your people working? Overtime? he demanded, short of breath.

Well, Earl, he hated the fact that I called him Earl when everybody else called him Mr. Letz, I calmly replied, This was the busiest day the company has ever had and the traffic department tells me that the next two days are going to be even busier. So I figured we better clear the dock and get ready for tomorrow. Oh, by the way, I’ll need more overtime hours the next few days if we’re gonna keep this up.

I’m sure this was the first time in his life Earl was speechless, but after a long lull, he finally spit out, Good call, Frank. You’ve got all the overtime you need, and just as quickly as the call had started, it ended. I had that job for two years, and nobody in the place ever screwed with me again. Oh yea, the softball team won the league championship both of those years.

There was this one guy though who rubbed Earl the wrong way a lot worse than I did, and it led to the most bizarre confrontation I’d ever seen in my life. Bill Miller was his name and screwing with Earl was his game. Remember, Earl was the typical Jewish businessman and Bill was full blooded, born, and raised German. Not just a German but also a Nazi who fought tooth and nail for the Third Reich in World War II. This was a disaster in the making. It was Bill’s Panzer division that spearheaded the attack on the Arden Woods in France in what became known as at the Battle of the Bulge. Bill saw too many of his friends die there to ever be normal again.

But by the time I met him, he had mellowed some with old age and was a wonderful human being who told marvelous stories about growing up on the Rhine River in early 1930s Germany that could rival Huckleberry Finn. He also told terrible stories of life under Hitler, of the glory and honor in marching off to war for a cause you believed in, and the horrible destruction war brings. I think the one thing he wanted me to understand the most was that in war, there are no good guys or bad guys. In war, everybody’s a loser. That people die and lives change just like his had.

On top of that, after his wife died from cancer, Bill spent all his spare time drinking beer at the Bavarian Gardens with the other ex-Nazis so that he was totally hungover every day. Throw in the fact that the old boy ripped the smelliest, stinkiest farts on the face of the earth, and you had the makings of a real gunfight at the OK Corral when him, and Earl hooked up and this is how it went down the day World War III exploded on my receiving dock.

Like usual, Bill had barely been able to back his truck up to the loading dock he was so hungover. Once parked, he had somehow managed to get his jovial body and short legs up the ladder to the dock where I had already fashioned him a comfortable seat in the back of his trailer from the various-sized boxes and other assorted garbage on the dock. Bill thanked me, handed me the packing list, and took his seat as if it was his throne, while I proceeded to unload his truck just like I did every day.

Now most days, Earl stayed as far away from the real work as he possibly could, but for some unknown reason on this particular day, Earl walked on to the dock like his shit didn’t stink. So when he stopped in front of Bill’s trailer and asked me why it smelled so bad around there, I just nodded toward Bill half asleep on his throne.

Smelly German stinks like a pig, Earl proclaimed loudly to everyone within earshot, and laughter tore across the dock. It was the truth, but Bill didn’t take very well to it and came unglued.

Here I was a nineteen-year-old kid watching the participants from World War II battle it out right in front of me as if it was thirty-five years ago. They got nose-to-nose and hurled shocking insults and pointed fingers at each other while everybody on the dock looked on in stunned silence.

In the end, Earl demanded Bill leave his property immediately and stormed off to find security to enforce his edict. It was then that Bill came flying out of the back of his trailer and screamed the most insane words I’d ever heard, and they shook Earl’s world to its core.

It should have been six million and one, you Jewish bastard.

The vengeance and hatred in Bill’s voice stunned me. Earl turned on him with a rage and hatred I never knew existed and charged Bill as if he would kill the old man with his bare hands. All I could do was lay a blindside tackle on Earl just as he was about to get his hands on the old boy’s throat and we sprawled across the dock like rag dolls.

Security burst on the scene just as Earl tore away from my death grip, and they stopped him from tearing Bill a new asshole. When things finally calmed down, Earl kicked Bill off the property, promising he’d make sure Bill would never work in this business again. But Bill was a thirty-year union teamster truck driver, and it really pissed Earl off that there wasn’t a damn thing he could do to Bill’s job. I never saw Bill again after that day; his company sent him to other stops to avoid a scene, but I heard through the grapevine about ten years later that he had died. I was sad about that.

Anyway, back to my problems. They are what the stories about. So maybe I am a lucky guy. I’ve got a beautiful wife who loves me and is as proud to be at my side as much today as she was the day we met. Not to mention the fact that after twenty-three years or so together, the sex is still pretty good, and I can’t help smiling every morning when I wake up and realize she’s in my bed. Plus, it was Barbara who realized a long time ago that a happy Frank makes for a happy Barbara. She’s lived her life by that simple golden rule, making our lives and trips like this one, better than any regular Joe like me could possibly hope for.

Like I said before, if you use my definition of luck, I don’t think luck has anything to do with it. Still I’m the living proof that the All-American Horatio Alger Success Story can happen to anybody. But I think a man with a plan deserves a better fate than to be called lucky. Anyways, after I’d come home from Lahaina and started dating my wife, her foster mother, oh yea I forgot to tell you I married an orphan, didn’t like me one little bit and wasn’t shy about it in the least. First off, she didn’t like the fact that I was screwing her new daughter, but I knew from the first instant I saw Barbara, it was my lot in life to take care of her, not some wannabe mother’s.

She constantly called me a bum and put an end to my so-called nasty habit of dropping Barbara off at work in the morning then taking her hard-earned first new car surfing with my friends all day before picking her up after work and coming over for a free dinner. If I wanted to keep dating her daughter, she announced one night at the table, I was gonna have to get a job and become an honest man or Barbara was going to have to move out. I hate work and it was gonna be a tough decision to make. One that would change my life forever. Needless to say, Barbara didn’t live there much longer.

I really liked the girl, thought I might even be in love with her, but work at this point in time just didn’t seem like what I wanted to do with my life. You gotta remember I’d just returned from a two-year stint in Lahaina Maui as the diver on the glass-bottom boat, and reality was a long way from where I had been.

Like the song said, I don’t wanna work. I just wanna bang on the drum all day. That was me in a nutshell. I didn’t want to work, I just wanna surf all day. So it was gonna be a tough decision and one I didn’t want to make when fate stepped in and made it for me. As it turned out, my lucky streak stayed intact as it was the best decision I ever made in my life.

Barbara was and still is a good girl; in fact, she’d been a virgin when I first met her but wouldn’t go against her new mother’s wishes. We hadn’t seen each other in five days, and touching myself just wasn’t getting the job done. I was about to crack, racked by sex-starved fantasies, and drive up the hill and tell her mother I’d go get a job the next day if she’d only let me talk to her daughter when a loud knock on the door brought me back to my senses.

It was my good buddy, Paul; his younger brother became a fishing boat captain in Homer, Alaska, and I almost died on his boat one day, but that’s another story, and the words that came out of his mouth put a smile on my face and scared me to death all at the same time.

Want a job? he asked.

I was totally confused instantly. Should I continue to live life with the lunatic fringe or succumb to society’s wishes?

How much? I shot back, like it mattered, the thought of sleeping with Barbara tonight had already made the decision.

Five bucks an hour, Paul replied.

My mind went into instant calculations. I made way more money than that just doing my little scams, but then again, her mother wouldn’t want to know about those kind of things, but I mean we’re talking about working for wages here. Paul sensed my hesitation and added quickly, You can get lots of raises if you’re good.

I’ll take it, I cried in anticipation of getting laid. When do I start?

Tomorrow morning 6:00, he answered.

Suddenly, I realized that if I did this, took this job, I wasn’t going to be able to surf tomorrow, and work again didn’t seem like anything I wanted much to do with. Not to mention 6:00 a.m. is way too early for anything but a dawn patrol in search of waves, a burrito at Pedro’s, and a nap.

What time do we get off? was my next question.

Two thirty p.m. Paul replied.

That wasn’t too bad, I figured; there was still plenty of time left to haul ass to the cliffs at Huntington Beach for an evening session. A good south swell was due in the next few days, and I didn’t want to miss it. My desire for Barbara was stronger than my desire to be a surf bum.

See ya in the morning, I reluctantly told Paul, and he walked away, never knowing he changed my life forever.

Guess who’s coming to dinner? And the news I brought spelled doom for Barbara’s foster mother’s plans get her new daughter a respectable man. At first, she didn’t believe a word of my shit, knowing I’d do or say anything to get back in her daughter’s panties, and she was right. She wanted us to take a wait-and-see attitude, but my loins couldn’t wait any longer and the wild look in Barbara’s eyes told the whole story. She didn’t want to hesitate one minute to join me on the wild ride that would be our lives together.

We moved in to our own apartment three weeks later, and the rest is history. We haven’t seen the foster mother in over twenty years. I won again.

But the story doesn’t end there, even though getting the girl is a nice touch. No, there’s a lot more to this tale of a lucky man. I got a dollar raise the first day because I could read a tape measure and convert fraction to decimals. You learn that shit in grade school, but it’s amazing how many people can’t do it.

That’s when I realized that in this construction business gig, you didn’t have to have a college degree, be the smartest kid on the block, or have connections to the owner’s family. No, if you wanted to move up in this business, you only had to be smarter than the people you worked with, and from that very first day, it was obvious, at least to me that I was.

Think it was Wednesday, my third day on the job, and I was having lunch with all the old guys who’d spend most of their lives working there. After I finished my sandwich, I jumped off the table and proclaimed loudly to everyone sitting around that I would be running this place in a year or so. They all laughed so hard that food was spit from mouths everywhere. Except for this one old guy I was sitting next to. While the pack of jackals laughed louder and proclaimed me an idiot, he calmly looked me squarely in the eyes and said, I believe you. You’re different from us, and you can do anything you put your mind to. So if you want to be the boss at this place, I have no doubt in my mind that you will be.

His name was Maron Adams, and we called him Ma. Not because he was the oldest and wisest of us all but because those where his initials, M. A., and you had to initial all your work.

Thanks, Ma, but they don’t seem to believe me, I said sadly.

Frank, he said in that patient voice of his. They knew it the first day you walked in here and they’re laughing ’cause it took you three days to figure it out.

Ma had taken a liking to me from the beginning and taken me under his wing when no one else would. It must have had something to do with this totally bitchin’ red Hawaiian shirt he was wearing my first day of work. I told him at break that it was the coolest Hawaiian shirt I’d ever seen and I’d lived in Hawaii. From then on, he was my best bud at the place, and on the next Friday when I got my first paycheck, he handed the shirt to me.

I can’t take this, Ma, it’s yours, I protested.

This shirt could never belong to anyone else but you, kid was his answer.

It was about a year later and I was hustling to leave work the instant the bell rang. There were waves, and by now, I had my own car. You can take the boy from the ocean, but you can’t take the ocean from the boy. I was at the time clock punching out when Ma strolled up like he didn’t have a care in the world, and why should he? He was six months away from retirement, had just made the last payment on his house, and was looking forward to days filled with nothing more pressing than getting another beer, sharpening a few knives—Ma loved a good sharp knife—and mowing the lawn.

Have a nice weekend, kid, he said and slapped me on the back.

Today’s only Thursday, Ma, I told him as I put my timecard in its slot and turned to run. I’d brought my board with me to work so I wouldn’t have to waste any time getting wet.

We gotta work tomorrow, I reminded him over my shoulder.

Not me, he replied.

This stopped me dead in my tracks. Ma was as solid as a rock, had the work ethic of a beaver, and was at work from bell to bell every day without fail, something must be wrong.

Everything okay? I asked, suddenly not so worried about the surf.

Oh ya, he assured me, just going to the doctor for my back.

I was relieved to hear that. He’d been complaining that his back was hurting him for a while, but when you’re sixty-four and have put in a solid forty hours a week your whole life, your back should hurt.

Great. Enjoy your day off, I replied, figuring some beers was gonna get drank, some knives sharpened, and the lawn mowed.

Oh, I will, he answered with a sparkle in his eye. I never saw Ma again.

It was about four months later, and my day had finally come. I was the boss. Some of the old guys rebelled, some of the young guys cheered, but most guys just figured I was in way over my head. Be that as it may, I was the man, and things were gonna be done my way from now on. I had a plan. It was sometime after noon that very first day I finally got a chance to take my very first deep breath, it had been a fiasco. That’s when I remembered I’d promised Ma’s wife I’d call him. Ma was bedridden and dying.

His once-proud body, decimated and lifeless from cancer. I always promised myself I’d get out there to visit him, but I never did. Who would have thought it could end so soon?

Hello, Carol, is Ma there? I asked his wife as she answered the phone. Her reply made my heart sink.

He’s very weak, Frank, and I don’t think he’s strong enough to talk to anybody.

Is he gonna be okay? I stupidly asked.

No, he’s not. I could barely hear her cracking voice, and she started to cry.

Please just let me talk to him for a minute, I pleaded.

Sure, Frank, she replied, regaining her composure.

Hello, his voice was soft and fading. I wanted to cry.

How ya doing, Ma, it’s Frank.

I’m gonna be just fine, kid, and how are you? His voice was coming back to life.

Well, Ma, I did it, I told him. I’m the boss now, and today’s my first day.

I knew you could do it, kid. I just knew it, and you could hear the pride in his voice. I wish I could be there to see the look on all the old goats’ faces.

Well, Ma, I told him in a way you are. I’m wearing your Hawaiian shirt.

And I could almost see the smile on his face as he replied, Thanks, kid.

We only talked for a few more minutes before he was too weak to continue and we said our final goodbye. Ma died later that afternoon. I wore that red shirt until it was a rag, and it broke my heart the day my wife tossed it out.

So to make a long story short, thirteen years, three owners, two recessions, uncounted hours, and lots of Friday golf later, I was given, you heard that right, given half of the company. A young salesman named George was handed the opportunity of a lifetime when his best friend committed suicide. Sad but true. So with the backing of his buddy’s grieving father, a great guy named Bob, they stole the nearly bankrupt company right out from underneath the greedy new owners and took me along for the ride. Bob never liked the business; he was a computer whiz and had money to burn, and one day, he just walked from it.

They say nobody gives you anything, but that’s not true. George had always said that Bob wasn’t in it for the long haul, and that if I stuck it out, someday I’d own part of the company. True to his word, when Bob left, George gave me his share. George is a wonderful person and the perfect business partner once I taught him about Friday afternoon golf.

I think that’s what I miss most when I’m traveling. Sure, I miss my wife and kids, but something just doesn’t seem right on a Friday afternoon if I’m not teeing it up with my buddy Roy. We’ve been playing together for so long that anything else, even glassy three-foot point waves in Baja, just doesn’t feel right.

The company reached for the brass ring and almost lost it all trying to get rich. So we reorganized, downsized, and made the company in our wandering heart, Friday afternoon golf lifestyle and the rest is history. It’s not like I’m wealthy or anything like that, I’m not. I work for a paycheck, a nice one no doubt, but just a paycheck. Still it pays the bills and then some. Barbara doesn’t have to work anymore and tells anyone who’ll listen that she’s retired at forty-two. We own the house we live in, and when the company caught a break a few years back, I returned to my old stomping grounds and bought a little condo with an ocean view just minutes from my favorite surf break in the whole world, Cardiff Reef.

I used to own a nice 30’ Coronado sailboat, but Patrick sunk it. That’s another story altogether and one I don’t like to talk about much, but the remnants of my once fine boat are still clearly visible at a surf spot called Ralph’s Out on Point Loma. Suffice it to say, drugs were involved, and he’d let the boat’s insurance lapse only a few days earlier. Patrick’s a dick. He sunk our boat, but it wasn’t the first boat we’ve sunk.

The beach house brought me full circle in life as I had finally returned to the scene of the crime. Cardiff was where Nikki and I had spent the best part of our relationship. Not to mention the condo’s the nicest doghouse you’ve ever seen for those times when Barbara and I don’t see eye to eye, which isn’t very often but does happen, it happens to everybody. That’s not to say it’s ever empty, it’s usually not, especially when Del Mar Racetrack runs its horse races during the summer. Between Uncle Joe’s family, mine, and the other assorted deadbeats I know, there’s usually not even any sleeping room on the floor. You never know how many friends you have till you own a beach house.

Yea, the whole family drives nice cars and trucks and there are lots of other perks, but that’s not what owning my own business has given me. It wasn’t riches. It was time. Time to do what makes life worth living. Time to fly to the Caribbean when Captain Bob calls and says, Meet me in the Virgin Islands.

Time to surf, fish, and play afternoon golf. For that, I can’t thank George enough. He gave me the time of my life and should be justly rewarded in heaven.

Anyway, like I was saying, some people think I’m a lucky guy and others think I’m a total asshole. Which is really just love from a different point of point of view and I’ve never purposely screwed anybody.

Of course, minor crimes are a way of life and we’re all sinners; there are no saints and only one Jesus. He knows that I’ve sinned way more than my fair share, but he also knows I try. I don’t think there’s anything a human being can do that’s a worthier goal in life than to try.

The old Bible quote says, Do unto others as you would have them do unto you, and that’s a great way to live your life, but the greatest quote I ever heard about how to live your life was by the father of our country, George Washington. I read it way back when I was in college studying history. That’s right. I was a history major and always wanted to be a high school history teacher. Still do when I grow up. The real George W. said something like this way back when.

How far you get in life depends on your being tender with the young, compassionate with the aged, sympathetic with the striving and tolerant of the weak and strong because someday you will have been all of these. Like I said, we’re all sinners by nature, but if you just try to do the right thing when you have the chance, I think it’s gonna pull a lot of weight with Saint Peter at the pearly gates. At least I hope so because we all know God isn’t always fair.

Sometimes, it seems he doesn’t even try very hard. You’d think he might even it out just a little bit, but he doesn’t. I’m not talking about the big stuff like life or death ’cause there’s absolutely no rhyme or reason to his madness there. I’m just talking about the little stuff. The stuff that makes the day-to-day grind of living just a little more bearable. Take luck for example. I’ve got two brothers and a sister, but when God handed out luck to the Gilbertson kids, he screwed up and gave it all to me. I didn’t do anything to deserve it nor did I ask for it, but I got it and I got all of it.

Let’s start with my sister Cory. She’s as pretty as a picture and has a heart the size of Texas. The day I turned sixteen, she let me drive her brand-new little Toyota Corolla to high school. I drove that car everywhere for the next two years, and Cory rarely saw it. But that’s just one of the myriad of things my sister did for me when I was young. Even let me borrow her apartment the first night I slept with Nikki. But after four failed marriages, the death of our mother, and failing in health, luck’s about the last thing on Cory’s side.

Still, the true test of a life well lived is how much you are loved by others and everybody loves Cory.

My older brother Jr. has fought more demons in his lifetime than is humanly possible. Lost his job, house, and family in that order to a nasty freebase cocaine habit that forced him to the brink of suicide.

Jr.’s no quitter; he may not be very lucky but he’s no quitter. He pulled himself up from the edge fighting every step of the way. He graduated from college when he was forty-two and today has a nice house, beautiful wife, and nice new family. Did I mention he’s been sober for over fifteen years? He still fights his demons though, and it’s a fight he can’t afford to lose. Jr. wasn’t lucky to get what he’s got in life today, he deserves it.

It’s my little brother Scott’s plight that weighs on my mind the most. We grew up in the same twelve by twelve bedroom for the first fifteen years of my life, and he’s my best friend in the whole world. He knows me better than anyone and he’s dying. Not a quick painless death but a long, slow, and very painful death and I couldn’t be any sadder. A huge hole will be viciously ripped out of my heart that day.

So I guess you could say Scotty hasn’t been that lucky either. His first wife killed herself and left him with a little baby girl. She wasn’t very lucky herself and passed away before her twenty-eight birthday, leaving behind her a husband and three young boys. Scotty’s second marriage didn’t go much better and ended in a messy divorce. There were two more young children by now, and when his ex-wife moved them across the country to upstate New York, Scott made the most important decision of his life. He’d seen too many children of divorce grow up without a father, and it never turned out very good for the kids. Leaving everything he’d ever known and loved, he moved to a place where he had nothing and didn’t know a soul just to remain a factor in his children’s lives. I thought he was insane at the time, but it turned out pretty well for everyone involved.

You wouldn’t know it to look at them, but his kids are a couple of the most well-adjusted young people I know. You could say they owe it all to a good fatherly influence. His daughter is a real live flower child who just happened to graduate from NYU. She smokes pot like a chimney, has dreadlocks down to the middle of her back, doesn’t shave her legs, and has never met a deodorant she liked. But she’s a sweetheart and smart as a whip. Last I heard, she was working with the FBI ecoterrorist division in Washington, DC.

His son, little Scotty, looks like there isn’t a drug known to man he hasn’t abused. Nothing could be farther from the truth, but the spiked haircut, twenty or so facial piercings, and tattoos that cover every visible part of his body tells a different story to the uninitiated. He’s never touched drugs of any kind in his life and has the sweetest little debutant girlfriend you’ve ever met. He has his own college radio program with quite the little following, plays bass in a hot local band, and traveled across the country twice before he was nineteen years old with a rock-and-roll memorabilia tour. I guess everybody’s happy Scott moved to New York.

With the kids grown and moved on, Scotty followed his heart. He found a new love, moved to Virginia, and at the ripe old age of forty-two had a brand-new baby boy. God may not be fair, but he usually gives you what you need, and since his disease struck, he says that baby Lenny’s the only thing that he lives for. I saw him just last year when I was in DC for just one day, and true to form, he got arrested. But that’s another story.

I remember the first time he told me he was sick. He still lived at the time in a house on a river in upstate New York.

The doctors weren’t sure, but it’s pretty serious, he said. Won’t kill me right away, but it’s gonna make life hard.

The kid wouldn’t say shit if he had a mouthful. I knew it was serious, and it was time to keep a couple promises I’d made. Always said I’d come see him when he’d moved and that had been quite a few years now. Plus, it was time to fulfill that promise I’d made Barbara when she’d married me. I was gonna take her to see a play on Broadway. Barbara has a bit more class than I do and loves a good musical. Than we were gonna go to Niagara Falls for that honeymoon we never had. In between, we were going to stop at Scott’s place for that long overdue reunion.

Well, Barbara fit like a glove in the hustle and bustle of Manhattan where I was more like a cowboy in the jungle. The city that never sleeps is great for a few days and is really an amazing place, but even though I’m from LA, the big city isn’t really my style. It costs money just to breathe in Manhattan, so after four days, I was more than ready to say Adios, amigo and hit the road. Barbara, on the other hand, wanted to go home, sell our house, and move there. Not in this lifetime.

It’s a nice place to visit, but I wouldn’t want to live there, so after four days, I was more than ready to split. A Buick Skylark and a bag of weed from Jimmy the doorman, and we were off to Niagara Falls via Scotty’s place. It was late fall, and once you left the city, the scenery and the colors were spectacular. It might have had something to do with the weed, but we were in Binghamton before you knew it.

Scotty lived with a guy named Uncle David, and they had a barbecue and cold beer ready on the front porch overlooking a deep pool in a magnificent-looking river when we got there. It broke my heart when my little brother could barely get out of his chair and needed a cane to walk over and greet us, but damn was I glad to see him. We caught up as much as we could over dinner, and with neighbors and friends filtering slowly in, the party was just getting started.

The pain in his eyes and the hurt in his walk told the story, but he never complained a bit. Despite the struggle, Scotty and Uncle David played guitars while we all sang Jimmy Buffett and Ray Davies songs until the sun came up. It was quite the bash. Needless to say, we slept way too late the next day, and there was nothing else to do the next day but to do it all over again.

Suffice it to say, we never made it to Niagara Falls. We will someday but not today. As we were getting ready to leave on the afternoon of the third day, Scott grabbed me by the hand, and with a gleam in his eyes I hadn’t seen since I’d arrived, he said he had something he wanted me to see and led me into the garage.

He walked straight to his golf clubs and pulled out a brand-spanking-new Calloway ERC II driver. Top of the line technology at the time. Leaning on his crutch, he handed it to me and said, What do you think?

Stunned, I asked him if he could still swing a club? A wicked smile spread across his face as he replied, They’re gonna have to pry it from my cold dead hands, and with that, we went out back and hit a dozen or so balls into the river. The kids still got a pretty good swing. I maybe a lucky guy, but if I’d faced the adversity my brothers and sister have fought their way through in life, I might be telling you a different story.

Okay, so I guess I’m feeling a little better about things after that little bit of soul-searching even though I’ve only answered two of the five journalistic Ws. You know, who, what, when, where and why. Who was easy, I’m Frank. What has been identified as a potential midlife crisis. When is obvious, it’s now, and where is right here at Point Joe’s deep down south in Baja. The why isn’t going to be that simple. Like I said before, it was basically a couple of totally unrelated incidents by people that have absolutely no connection to each other that got this whole moping over Nikki Harms thing started, and I think I need another beer before I delve too far into that subject. Need to stoke the fire too.

Getting out of this beach chair isn’t going to be easy. I may be a lifelong surf Nazi, but this rickety old beach chair seems to be more than my match. The surf was good today, three foot plus, which is my forte.

They call me three foot and under Frank and I ripped all day long, but now I’m paying the price. Good waves, lots of sun, and beers on the beach. That’s a good day in anybody’s book. Still I’m old, at least I’m feeling old, and my body aches from the pounding of a couple good surf sessions. And if the swell we’re chasing materializes tomorrow, I need to be ready, so I’d better make this my last beer, fat chance of that.

Still getting out of this chair isn’t going to be easy. If I just steady myself, I think I can make it. Success comes to those who plan, and I’m standing with just a groan or two. There’s no moaning and groaning at home. Barbara says if I wanna play, I gotta pay, and I gotta do it in silence. Boy if Nikki could just see this aging, balding, overweight old man trying desperately to re-claim his wasted youth, I’m sure it would impress her so much, she’d jump my bones in a heartbeat. You’d have to be the village idiot to believe that. Move over, George W.

I’m back in my chair now, and the cold Corona tastes wonderful and goes down so smoothly, I have serious doubts this will be my last beer tonight. Forget the swell. The flames from the fire are roaring up to the heavens, and I even stopped by the tent and rolled