[P95Carry]

Very hard to know quite where to put this. More musings tho from the ol' phart!

Some say - per schizophrenia - there are ''bad genes'' - I wonder tho whether BG's have any bad genes. I of course like most have read of BG's parents saying the inevitable - ''But he was such a gentle boy/girl''. We know that all too well. Yeah right!!

But - I do wonder sometimes and leaving aside upbringing and early environmental factors just how often the BG's have ''followed the family tradition''.

Often it can seem not - they are just punks gone off the rails - either drugs, greed, you name it. They tho would find excuse by saying they had had a raw deal - well, tough dodo - that does not excuse not knowing right from wrong.

Some families do indeed tho seem to have a pattern of crime and recidivism - so - are crooks born or are they aquired? Both I suspect.

Either way - I hope they steer well clear of the likes of us, so we do not have to put them down and face all the sequele afterwards.

Apologies - late night rambling - I am off to the marital bed soon!!

 

[Euclidean]

My late father, God bless him, often said to me: "Every tub sits on its own bottom."

Years ago in a different lifetime when my biggest concern was making sure I ate enough, I knew a fresh faced young man named Shawn. Shawn was a little rough around the edges.

His mother was a cocaine addict, his father was never in the picture, and his older sister and younger brother were perfect examples of human scavengers. They weren't brave enough to actually stick a knife in a man's face and ask for his wallet unless they felt they were at a terrible advantage.

His sister was arrested a multitude of times mostly for drug and prostituition charges. It seems when she had no dope to sell she sold her body. Once for assault she was arrested but I never got the details of that. She was however the magical age of 18 and soon dissappeared from my frame of reference. When one is convicted as an adult, one goes away for a number of years rather than serving 6 months of worthless juvenile probation.

The younger brother at the age of 14 had already robbed somebody with a knife he'd stolen from a store. He was the more violent one, prone to vandalism, theft, etc.

I honestly don't know how those people survived. None of them worked, except for Shawn, and that was at the crap jobs teenage kids get.

Shawn was in trouble a lot too, and got on probation quite often. And he smoked a pack a day at the age of 15. Straight D- student. Dumb as a sack of hammers.

But deep down, Shawn didn't want to be like everyone else that lived in the world he knew, and somehow even as stupid kids we knew that. I wasn't one of his good friends, but a number of us used to help Shawn out. He often needed a place to crash for a night or a weekend because his mom would kick him out of their house.

The last time I saw him, we were both 18 years old and recently graduated from high school. Shawn had come to an early summer gathering of the lot of us to say goodbye. He told us that he needed something that would give him some sort of meaning and sanity to his life, and that more than anything he just wanted to leave it all behind him. He had joined the Army and was leaving in less than a week. I shook his hand and he drove off in that POS car of his and I haven't seen him sense.

I think about him sometimes, like now, over 6 years later. I guess I'll never know what happened to him. But I do remember him for being remarkable not in that he was particularly talented at any one thing (he wasn't), but that he overcame tremendous odds to not be like the rest of his degenerate family. Looking back on it now, I realize that must have hurt a lot. Worthless though they may have been, that was the only family he'll ever have and I'm sure they've forgotten he ever existed by now, if they're not all dead of overdoses.

We make our own decisions in life... It's 10% what happens to you that you have no control over, and 90% how you react to it. You decide the kind of person you are going to be.

Every tub sits on its own bottom.

 

[Rob72]

Two thoughts:

1) Chronic drug/alcohol abuse will affect your "transferrable DNA". But. Whatever your parents did, you still are responsible for rowing your own boat.

2) The train of thought I expected was "What if the BG's family comes looking for you....?":embarassed: Speaking of paranoia.....

 

[cmidkiff]

Euc, the military provides an 'out' for lots of people, I hope your friend found his way.

you still are responsible for rowing your own boat

Truer words were never spoken.

On the other side of this... My parents were divorced when I was 9. My father remarried and is happy, fairly well off, and retired. My mother remarried and is happy, fairly well off, and retired. Even with the divorce, I consider my parents (including the step parents) very stable, upstanding citizens.

I've got a good job, happliy married, and am doing my best to raise my children to be good citizens.

My sister, 5 years my senior, is a train wreck. I don't think she's ever done anything violent, but she's long been into drugs, living off of welfare, been married 4 times (now divorced), and her kids had to raise themselves.

While being raised in a bad environment may tend to make you think that such activity is acceptable, being raised in a good environment doesn't ensure that you'll follow the right path!

 

[P95Carry]

Euc - excellent post.

I expect there are and have been quite a few Shawns. In fact I can think of one guy in my local model plane club who was into everything when young. Not crime as per hurting people but very drug oriented along with petty crime. I guess he still knew right from wrong, up to a point, but did not implement it fully.

Anyways he did turn his life around, eventually, and has done a good job of it - I would trust him totally. He told me his long story a coupla years ago when we drove out east to visit an exhibition. It shows tho that from some bad starts good people can still emerge. One of his biggest regrets is that he cannot own guns.

In contrast - my sister-in-law's son, now I guess mid 20's has simply got a self-destruct criminal nature. Not from his mother or father. He recently was down in NC, doing I know not what - and had an outstanding warrant. He calls his sister, who is a girl trying to make her way and go thru college and she drives to get him. Brings him back trying to help but what does he do - breaks into her apartment, steals goods and her heating money!!! Yeah - from his own sister!! She turned him in - good for her. He made a coupla collect calls to us from jail - my wife would not accept - nor would I. He has burned his boats, his choice.

"What if the BG's family comes looking for you....?"

Rob - that's a whole 'nother can'o'worms!!!

 

[Sheldon J]

And I was going to say "BG family's can always find some sleaze bag lawyer to sue anyone who end's the existance of a BG" 'He was such a good Kid SOB" so much for my 2 cents worth.