Chapter 12: High School: The Early Years.

At last I’m in high school. My Freshman, Sophomore, and Junior years were probably some of the best years of my school career. I started to make straight A’s. My favorite teacher was Coach Griffin because he actually challenged us. I spent most of the time hanging out with James, Patrick, David, Ethan, and Codi. We started our awesome band, Rushin’ Roulette, and got several gigs. Unfortunately, this was also the time that I started dating. The girls cause nothing but trouble and distractions. But I think I have done a good job of keeping my head straight. I became better and more involved in sports. Although we never got as far as I wanted to in football, I had a lot of fun playing it and learned more about it. Basketball and baseball slowly came along also.

Chapter 11: Let’s Take A Vacation.

Our family would always take a vacation to Orange Beach on Labor Day weekend. My parents, grandmother, aunts, and cousins would get a condo and stay for 3-5 days. I don’t remember too much about the trips. I remember my Aunt Jackie taking my out deep in the ocean on a blow-up raft and crying when I got salt water in my nose and mouth. We would also go on business trips with our mom and dad to Destin or Gulfport. Once we even got to go to Disney World. I had a lot of fun there. I made friends with Chip and Dale, they were cool. I was only too scared to ride one ride. But James was scared of the 3-D movies.

Chapter 10: I’m Really In Love This Time.

My first serious mistake, I mean girlfriend, showed up in the 10th grade. Her name was Stephani Hodge. She was in the 9th grade at the time. I met her through Callie, which was the first sign of the mistake. We dated for ten months kind of off and on. I wasted much time and money on her. Thankfully God took her away from me after ten months. He sent her to Eutaw Alabama. Although we tried to make it work, it really wasn’t worth it. We broke it off and I was upset for a while, probably more because of the $130 ring that got thrown out of a car window than losing her. This made me a little smarter and a lot cheaper for future relationships.

Chapter 9: My Interests.

Now during all of this, what did I do for fun? I’ve always enjoyed fishing and hunting. I would always beg my brothers and dad to take me fishing. It would usually work, but not all the time. In about the 8th or 9th grade I started playing guitar. I eventually learned myself how to play it and the bass pretty decently. We started having band practice pretty regularly for fun. We’d waste our time at night by either walking around town aimlessly with a video camera or watching a movie somewhere. But now that we have cars, we ride around, go to the movies, or bowl.

Chapter 8: Middle School.

I’m finally in junior high. This is when I started to turn into an athlete. Although I was still kind of awkward, I was able to make a couple more friends. But this is also when I had a bad temper. I got in several fights with Henry, Stephen, and Landon. These were my first years to play football, and I began to love it. I still didn’t have much interest in the ladies. I was slightly struggling with my schoolwork. I had A’s and B’s instead of my usual straight A’s. I finally grew out of my fat though.

Chapter 7: I Wish I Could See Jeannie Again.

The only person I’ve ever really lost is Jeannie Grisham. It seems like James and I would go hang out with her every afternoon. She actually didn’t seem to mind us coming over too much either. We’d always sit on the porch and talk, mostly about music. She enjoyed collecting guitars and would sometimes play them. It was the night of a Catfish Festival about 6 years ago that she died I think. Her husband, friend, and she were on their way home one night when the friend fell asleep driving. Her husband was slung out of the truck and ran over. He died instantly. Jeannie died in the hospital several days later. The driver survived. I don’t know what my life would be like if this hadn’t happened, but I did lose a good friend.

Chapter 6: My First Girlfriend.

I was a fortunate one. I never had a girlfriend in elementary. I guess my handsomeness had not quite yet reached the extremely high level that it is at today. But I did have a secret admirer in the sixth grade. It was Lindsey Smith. But I was a smart one from the get-go. I knew better than to get caught up in girls. I slipped up in about the seventh grade, when I met a girl in Cleveland. I think we dated for a week and have been pretty good friends ever since.