Atonement and a Plea for Amnesty

Sitting at this screen, night after night, thinking about my life, and my friendship with Aaron, I've concluded two things. 

1. I've had an amazing life.

2. I did a lot of things I shouldn't have done, and some of you might just be lucky to be alive, and not realize it.
Now don't misunderstand me, I never killed anyone or knocked off a bank or voted for a Clinton, but there are a few indiscretions that I would like to request at this time be expunged from the record. In that light, I hereby offer the following apologies/confessions:

To my mom: There are a more things than I could detail in a year of blogs, so we'll just focus on a couple here. Remember ALL those Star Wars figures you bought me? There were dozens of them, and most suffered the same ignominious fate -- Aaron and I buried them up to their shoulders, and golfed their heads off. I'm a parent now and I buy toys. I am REALLY sorry.

And the Relief Society statue on top of the piano -- I'm sorry we played soccer in the living room. (And Aaron, I'm sorry you got grounded for that, and I didn't...but, I'm pretty sure you kicked the ball)

And I'm sorry I was (am) such a know-it-all.

And I'm sorry for breaking into your locked bedroom, just because I could.

And I'm sorry our house had red and green and blue and yellow shag carpeting (this wasn't my fault, but I'm still sorry).

To the owners of the Smith's Food King: I'm sorry we climbed up on your roof, and threw Oreos at your patrons. But, really you shouldn't have left the cookies by the dumpster behind the store. And you shouldn't put a ladder on the outside of store, for easy roof access. And your customers shouldn't drive around your parking lot, with their windows rolled down. Actually, I think this is pretty much your fault, Smith's. 

To my childhood neighbors: I'm sorry we randomly fired sharp arrows over the houses, into neighboring streets. It chills me to write those words. It started with a little target practice in the backyard, with a bow that could really launch the arrows (because we strung it with a string that was a size too small). They weren't blunt arrows, they were razor sharp hunting arrows. We just rained down destruction on the neighborhood. I always wondered what people thought of the arrows in their yards...I'm so glad no one was hurt (or at least no one I ever heard of...) And to the Crapos in particular, I'm sorry I shot an arrow into your roof, and another through your garage door. It was nothing personal, just poor marksmanship.

And the slightly less dangerous activity (but only slightly), of whacking golf balls with an aluminum bat. We just homered them into the stratosphere, giving no thought to where they might land. 

Seriously, was there no parental supervision?! How did any of you get out of the neighborhood alive?

To the little bird at Scout camp: I'm sorry I threw that hatchet high up into the tree, over and over again trying to hit you. And to all the scouts on the ground under the tree, I'm sorry I endangered your lives -- over and over again. Obviously I never made it to Eagle Scout.

To Mrs. Olsen, my sixth grade teacher: It was me. I did it. The Respect Book -- that wonderful experiment in discipline that you tried that year, the book that we miscreants had to write our names in whenever we acted up, gradually progressing in stages of severity, until it climaxed in a meeting with our parents and the principal, THAT BOOK -- you may have noticed that it was missing. I stole it. Not only did I steal it, but I ritualistically burned it on our back patio, on the last day of school. The little yellow blob of melted plastic -- the stain of my sin -- remained fused to the cement for many years afterward.

It was my one great act of defiance, and I do not apologize, but I do confess. I did it for sixth graders everywhere.

To all of you that I snowed into thinking I was a good kid: Forgive me.