When my daughter was set to start her new high school here in Florida, we had to have all of her shot records "transferred" to some other format. Apparently her California shot card wasn't good enough for the new school.
So, we went to this local yocal county services building "in town," as they say in these here parts. And we sat and waited...and waited.
As we were sitting in the waiting area, I saw this 30-something year old "kid" that was a spitting image of a scrappy kid I had met in the mid-80s at the Bay County Library in Panama City.
Flashback to 1985 when we moved to Panama City for the second time (the first time was in 1983) from Chicago after living with my grandparents for more than a year.
My brother and I were in the Bay County Library in Panama City when I noticed this scrawny-looking kid circling through the book shelves, kind of exuding shy stalking-like behavior, picking up books here and there and pretending as if he was interested in reading. It was clear what he was doing. He was following me.
Imagine Tom Petty as a scrawny scrappy middle-schooler except skinnier, with more pronounced buck teeth, dirty, and without the hat.
THAT is what this kid looked like.
He was trying to hold a book with one hand and holding up his too-big britches with the other, pinching at least 6 inches of cloth at the waist and clearly in need of a rope belt or something.
This would be my first introduction of what a true "hillbilly" looked like. (Is that politically incorrect? Oh well. Who cares?!)
Anyway, I felt him clearly following me around so I purposefully dodged him from one bookshelf to the next.
Just when I thought I lost him, this plump shorter girl popped up from nowhere and asked me a question: "Hal wants to know if you'd go with him." All said with the thickest southern accent you could imagine.
Who the f*** is Hal? I assumed it was the creepoid who was following me.
"Go where?" I asked her.
Evidently, in the south, they would say, "Will you go with me?" Redneck definition: will you go steady with me? Except the question was missing the most relevant keyword in the sentence.
However, at that time I had no idea what this Frick and Frack wanted because it sounded ridiculous to me. So, I said, "No." And then, "I gotta go." And I quickly left.
When I started the 6th grade shortly thereafter, I saw this lanky skinny kid here and there. Thankfully all his classes were on the opposite side of the campus so I almost never saw him after that brief exchange in the library.
But strangely, over the years, I often wondered what happened to him. I'm not sure why him in particular. Maybe because he was so freaking pitiful, ugly, and poor. And during my life in California (starting in October 1987), I cultivated a completely different mindset -- a wealth mindset -- which every so often prompted me to think about people on the "other side of the tracks." And no one could be more of a poster boy of poverty than that kid I saw in the library that day.
So, when I knew I was moving back to the Panama City area, I thought... "I wonder if I'll bump into that guy again. I wonder what ever became of him." I imagined that he'd be living in a trailer, probably just as skinny as he ever was (due to not eating much or being a meth addict...or both), smoking two packs of cigarettes a day, and likely on welfare. I had hoped better for him. I had hoped that maybe he would have gotten a "wake up call" by a teacher in school perhaps or was dragged to a Tony Robbins seminar. And maybe he started some kind of highly successful roofing company or something. But I doubted it somehow.
Fast forward to 2023. My daughter and I are sitting in this county services building lobby and I'm watching this kid -- a spitting image of the impoverished hillbilly kid from the library -- walk past us. He was bitching at his mom as he was walking away from her and then exited out the door, pissed off. Incredibly disrespectful. This 30-something kid was wearing top-of-the-line designer brand clothes and shoes, holding a top-shelf iPhone model in his hand. There is no way this kid could NOT be the spawn of the dude stalking me in the library in 1985. No way. There's no possible way two people could look exactly the same...like...that...hillbilly kid.
It was his son, no doubt.
I looked toward what I assumed was...his grandma? I didn't know at first. It was an obese woman sitting in a seat sucking off an oxygen mask. As I looked more closely at her, I realized that this was likely NOT his grandma but probably his mom.
The pudgy girl from the library.
The one who asked if I'd "go" with Hal.
That was her.
She was MY AGE. And yet she easily looked at least 20 years older than me. AT LEAST. And there she was...obese, sucking on oxygen, looking like death-warmed-over, and getting yelled at by her self-entitled Millennial kid who spent all his money on designer brands while standing in an office that also served as the welfare department as well. They were probably there for food stamps or something. Yuck.
Then it hit me...
Holy sh**.
What would have happened if I would have said YES to her ridiculous question in the library that day? Would THAT kid be MY kid?
I shuddered at the thought and wanted to throw up. (I will tell you this: if he talked to ME that way, I would have punched him into next week.)
Those are the questions you have to ask yourself when you make one small decision at any point in your life. Many times, without you realizing it, you've dodged the bullet.
And many times, unfortunately, because of one poor decision, you have NOT dodged the bullet.
Have you ever thought about that ONE DECISION you could have made that would have made all the difference, good or bad?
I have one for you right now. That ONE DECISION that can make a huge difference...or not...and something you'll be kicking yourself later over if you DON'T do this.
CLICK HERE right now to find out what I'm talking about.
Too bad "Hal" didn't read any of those books in that library. Especially about business-building and investing. He and his spawn would be much further along in life.
What a difference a generation makes...for ONE DECISION. One FOOLISH decision. Don't be like Hal.
CLICK HERE right now to find out what I'm talking about.
See you at the top!
Your mentor,
Monica Main
