I think I was a daring teenager, but then again, isn't that just part of being a teenager? Taking dares?
Maybe that's a behavior most characteristic of male adolescence (or maybe that's just my Gen X sexism talking). Who will climb to the top of that flagpole? Who can walk across the top of all the cars in line at McDonald's after the football game? Who dares to hop out of the back of the pickup and steal that highway sign?
Yeah, that was me. I dared to do all of that and more.
There are plenty of ways I wasn't daring though. I went to prom by myself, after all, because I wasn't daring enough to ask any of my classmates to go. And I was a bit dense too: when the German foreign exchange hottie spoke to me for the first time all year in history class, bringing up that she didn't have a date for prom completely out of the blue, I didn't get that she was hinting that I should ask her. Thirty years on and I'm still kicking myself over that one.
But physical exploits that tested or pushed the boundaries? I was down for that. Going no hands on the back of my buddy's motorcycle. Running my '77 Mustang at 130 mph down a narrow country road in the dead of night. Cutting the lights before running through the intersection with the highway (in theory, if you cut the lights, you can see the headlights coming on the other road, so maybe that's not so daring).
Dangerous, daring, risky behavior. A behavioral trait that got serious after high school.
When I was 19, I joined the army. (That's not the daring part.) I freaked out in boot camp. Went AWOL. Went back. Told the drill sergeant I wanted to be processed out of his army. He told me I had to stay until the end of boot camp, which was not at all what I wanted to hear. Boot camp is what was messing with my head; boot camp is what I felt I couldn't go through.
I felt myself changing in boot camp. They were changing the way that I thought, right down to the words I used to think (calling a bathroom the latrine, for example). That's the point of boot camp, to break you down and change you into a soldier. But I couldn't dare to trust them. Couldn't allow them to get in there and change my brain.
A few days after I talked to my drill sergeant, we were going to the firing range to qualify with the M16 rifle. That morning, waking up in the dark, I knew I was going to do something: I was going to get out of training, one way or another.
I got assigned to the detail setting up the firing range. Hauling the target stands out on the range. Loading the magazines with bullets. When we carried the target stands out (two men on each broad wooden stand led by the drill sergeant), I kept deliberately bumping into the drill sergeant with the 4x4 post. Trying to start a fight. Until he turned around and looked at me, and I balked.
When we were loading the magazines, I joked that I was going to shoot myself and get out of that army.
I was part of the first group to shoot. Standing in the concrete foxhole, gun at chest level on the green sandbags, I listened to the orders coming from the tower. When they gave the order to fire, I thought to myself, “Just do it.” (Remember that Nike slogan from the '90s?) I pulled the gun down and shot myself in the calf.
Physically daring. But daring it because I was afraid to change mentally.
And like all the other risks I took as a teenager, it all worked out. The bullet passed neatly in between the two bones in my calf without hitting either of them. Just took out some muscle. I still have my leg; I can still walk and run.
I gave myself a nice scar to show off ... and I didn't do a lick more military training.
**Cliff's Creative Journey – GoFundMe**
Speaking of daring acts...
I'm turning 50 years old this year (yikes, it's true!). In December, I decided to quit working jobs for a living and simply purse the dream: I'm following the path of my passion for writing and photography and trusting that the universe will support me.
One way to allow the universe to support me is to open avenues for the funds I need. To that end, along with playing the lottery and posting more regularly on Hive, I've created a GoFundMe campaign to raise between $1,600 and $50,000.
If you'd like to become an agent of abundance and support my journey, you can make a cash donation by following the link below.
Thank you!