A quick story

“Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things you didn’t do than by the ones you did do…Explore. Dream. Discover” Mark Twain
Where do I start? I come from very humble beginnings. We were a family of 5 growing up on the East side of Joliet. I have 3 brothers and one sister. This changes over time so follow closely. Growing up on the East side wasn’t easy. Access to drugs was though. I smoked my first joint before some kids learned to read, although I learned to read before smoking the joint. My dad used to make me sit down with the Joliet Herald News and read the comics to him. This was from the age of 3 onward. Anytime I would ask him a question, one that readily comes to mind is “why is Australia called the land down under?” He would tell me to look it up. I WAS FIVE! This was before the days of Google. We actually had to go to someone’s house (Terri Graves) of someone that had the old set of encyclopedia Brittanica. I learned the answer from somewhere in that stack. My dad would always say that he was doing it to make me learn, but I don’t think he actually knew the answer and was taking the easy way out. If you knew my dad, he’s never at a loss for saying what’s on his mind.
I smoked my first joint at 5. Before I got hit by a car on Clay street, which is another good story that I will get to. Marijuana was so easy to come by on the East side. Hell, we were growing it in the backyard. (When I say we, I mostly mean my brothers). I am the youngest of the bunch…the runt of the litter you could say. Wasn’t planned, but i’ve come to accept that over time. Drugs were commonplace, and access to guns was even less restricted. At one point growing up there were guns in almost every room, but that because of a Hatfield-McCoy quarrel that my family had with one of the gangs on the East side in the 1990’s.
How does a kid from that environment go on to become a Doctor of Physical Therapy? How does one get out of that mindset of drugs, gangs, teenage pregnancy, and high school dropout to go on to study under some of the best minds regarding back pain and dizziness that our country has to offer? Why would that same kid go “straight edge” for over 20 years?
Finally, why would that kid ever want to come back to the streets and city that started it all?