BOY VS NATURE
When I was let’s say 13, my mother and I were walking on the beach, where I would later wreck a car on the cliffs above. We were walking and enjoying the sand, the sounds, and shooting the shit when I lock eyes on a 250-pound piece of pole: drift wood. It looked like someone had cut three feet off a big telephone pole and thrown it in the water. Stupid right? Well to the craziest, most imaginative boy in the world, this wasn’t a huge pain in the ass, getting it up the hill, and a mile or two down the road to the house. It was the greatest chopping block in the world. It was the perfect height, width, circumference, yet it was white because it was driftwood. I thought I had found gold and damn the cost I will get this 250-pound pain in the ass home, which already had a perfectly good chopping block.
The quest begins. Now, cliffs flank the beach we are on and the only way up it was a path through the woods that went up a thirty to forty-foot hill. So mom and I turn back and continue to talk about what ever the hell and while we are walking back, I’m kicking and pushing the log along the beach. When I was 13, or really all my life, I have been a small dude. At the time, I probably weighed 80 pounds soaking wet. So this log is wearing me out after rolling it over five hundred yards of sandy beach.
We enter the path through the woods. In my hometown, we have poison ivy and briers, not woods. Remember the poor guy in Saw surrounded by barbed wire. Yeah, it brought back memories but I had to push a log through my self-inflicted hell. So after a hundred feet of natural acupuncture, I reached the hill. I knew this would be the culmination of my quest. I had heard the story of Sisyphus and knew he spent eternity pushing a boulder up a hill over and over again and I would not repeat history. I was better than the log and smarter than Sisyphus.
I sink my flip-flops (poor choice of foot wear) into the dirt, and put my shoulder to the log. I could put my shoulder to the log, which was probably two feet off the ground because I was three feet tall at the time. You know just before you get your growth spurt? Well, imagine it never hit.
So runt, log, hill. This is not a perfect geometrical 45-degree angle hill; the beginning is easier and as you get to the top it gets steeper and steeper. The first third of the hill I get past pretty easily. When I get to the middle, I rest for the big push to the top and my inevitable victory over nature. This path is dirt and a little damp underfoot so my flip-flops are not working well. I finish my rest, give myself the you’re better than the log, gravity, hill, poor foot wear, and genetics pep talk and push. I’m 75% of the way there and slipping my ass off. This log is three times my body weight and it’s winning. Have a midget try to push a football Coliseum. Looked the same but on a hill and in flops. I say, “Fuck” and roll the log back down the path.
I pace, swear, pace, swear, and the whole time my mother is watching, coaching, and trying to control her laughter as her tiny part-Serb son is bested by a log. I’m sure she was torn between feeling pride for my tenacity, pity for being small, and laughing her ass off at the sight of her tiny son fighting nature.
I regain my vigor; remind myself I’m a Serb, English, Scottish, Irish mutt. I’m the crazy, rule the world, fight like hell, and fight like hell while drunk product of shoddy breeding. I put my shoulder to the object of my rage and roll that mother like a fine joint. I’m halfway there and I’m not stopping. My Serb forefathers started World War One. I don’t even need a break. I will bend the world and nature to my will like my English forefathers shouting “Make the world England.” I’m 75% there and the Scott comes out. I see the green hills of my forefathers and the dirty rainy crap hole they lived in and kept pushing as if I am a participant in the Highland Games. Scenes of Brave Heart flash before me and I think Freedom! I get to the final feet and see the top. My mother is jumping up and down shouting you got this, you can do it, come on, make me proud. The Irishman kicks in and the fight is on. But wait, I’m 13. I have no liquid courage, AKA Irish fuel. And the machine runs out of steam. I slip; the log rolls over my 80-pound body, down the hill, off the path, and into a brier patch. I roll down the hill, flip-flops flying everywhere. It was like a B-52 strike in Nam. I get to the bottom of the hill, resting comfortably on my face.
I snap back to Serb. I’m nuts, I’m enraged, I erupt with profanity, obscenity, and disgust at how this piece of shit log will not heed my will. Why won’t you go home? Are you to good for your home? Answer me, log! I rush up the hill to my waiting mother who wants to say watch your language, but is probably just happy I didn’t break every bone in my body when the huge damn log rolled over my face. I tell my mom we are going home and start down the road. She starts to console me with its OK you’ll get bigger, it was a big hill, that was a huge log, the honor is in the attempt, and that’s when I cut her off. I say, “Hell no. I’m not done yet. I need shit. I need pants for briers, boots for the mud, gloves to protect my hands…
Does my new plan work? Who will win when I return the Boy or Nature? Buy my book Playing Your Hand Right: Showing America How to Live. Self Published only three months ago and available on Amazon and Kindle. 4.8 out of 5 rating on Amazon so buy this puppy and spread the word of Taylor Oceans. My book is 200 pages of my funny tales, my sexy tales, my insane tales, and my other tales you wont believe are true. And don’t think its all on the blog either. Bonus chapters only in the book. Got to get you guys to buy the book somehow right? So put down your bongs, pause the porn and click on the link below to get your hands on a page turner.
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Long live the writers
Taylor Oceans
Playing Your Hand Right 