Hey-o Retrospect nation I am here, back from the era of dial-up phone calls and disco dancing to drop some cautionary wisdom on any younger minds out there. Some might think their generation invented the whole “safety first” ideas with kale smoothies and mindfulness apps, but let me tell you, boomers like me had that sh*t on lock down long before yoga pants became a universal fashion statement.

Sure, back in our day, safety wasn’t just about chia seeds and chakra alignments. It was about knee pads on every playground, helmets that could double as soup bowls, and enough dusk time reflective vests to make a disco ball jealous.

When we weren’t hugging trees, we were building tree houses with enough structural integrity to withstand a Category 5 hurricane (because, in the 70s, every weatherman sounded like they were narrating the apocalypse).

Now, don’t get me wrong, I get the whole “YOYO” thing. I was young once too, hell, I once did a tequila shot off a female dancer’s stiletto and I still have the scar to prove it. But somewhere between the acid rain scares and the Challenger explosion, my inner daredevil got replaced with a walking encyclopedia of safety regulations. Maybe it was watching my dad chain-smoke his way through three packs a day while lecturing me about not putting forks in outlets. It was good advice though maybe it was me realizing that adulthood is basically a series of near-death experiences masquerading as bills due and other responsibilities.

Whatever the reason, I became the MacGyver of mishap prevention. For a while I stockpiled enough canned goods to feed a small village. My first-aid kit was basically a mobile pharmacy that could patch up Frankenstein’s monster. And I had an emergency plan for every conceivable disaster, from rogue lawnmower rebellions to spontaneous furniture combustion.

Some might have call me paranoid, but I call it, then and now, informed skepticism combined with wariness. It’s about respecting the universe’s tendency to throw banana peels at my feet and me being ready to tango with those bananas like a drunken tap-dancing bear. It’s about knowing that a little duct tape and a well-placed fire extinguisher can be the difference between a mildly singed eyebrow and a Reverse Darwin Award nomination.

So, yeah, I’m a safety-first boomer with a helmet hairdo and a penchant for hoarding emergency blankets. But hey, at least I’ll be the one laughing when the AI robot uprising comes and everyone else starts scrambling away from their iPhones. I’ll be the guy building a fort out of my stockpile, sipping lentil soup from a mug fashioned from a repurposed bike helmet, and watching all the chaos unfold on my solar-powered tablet.

So take my advice folks and embrace the safety net; Keep your helmet nearby, stock your pantry, and learn how to build a fire with nothing but a magnifying glass and a granola bar wrapper. Because, let’s be honest, the world’s a wild place, and a little caution can go a long way.

Besides, who knows, maybe one day our safety-first ways will save us from a rogue sentient Roomba rebellion and then we will be the ones with the smug grins and the emergency burritos. Meanwhile remember, stay safe, stay weird, and never underestimate the power of a well-placed roll of duct tape.

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I Yam What I Yam

By

Kevin J. W. Driscoll

(c) 2023

So, ya wanna know if where I’m from defines me? Well buckle up, cuz here comes a geography lesson straight outta Beantown.

First off, let’s get this straight: I ain’t some Hallmark movie character where my hometown paints a quaint mural on my soul. My neck of the woods wasn’t paved with maple syrup and populated by cocker spaniels wearing sensible sweaters. It was a place where potholes doubled as swimming pools, streetlights blinked like epileptic fireflies, and the aroma of stale green beer and regret hung thicker than the fog on Halloween.

Sure, you could say the place shaped me. The chipped brick walls echoed the cracks in my own upbringing. The cacophony of sirens lulled me to sleep, and the symphony of arguments woke me up. I learned to navigate life like I dodged potholes on my pogo stick – pure instinct and a whole lot of swearing.

But here’s the rub, ya see? Just because I was born in a place where the air was thick with desperation and the saloons doubled as therapy sessions, doesn’t mean it’s my whole damn identity. I ain’t some walking cliché, a breathing stereotype with a chipped tooth and a flannel shirt collection that rivals the lumber industry.

My hometown was the canvas, but I’m the gall-dang artist, splattering my own messy masterpiece across it. Sure, the streets might have taught me how to fight, but the library showed me how to think. The broken windows might have let in the cold, but the broken hearts I saw through them taught me empathy.

I ain’t denying the roots, mind you. They burrow deep, anchor me to that patch of asphalt jungle. But those roots ain’t chains, they’re vines. They let me climb, reach for the sun, claw my way outta the shadows.

So, is where I’m from who I am? Hell no. It’s a part of me, sure, a dusty chapter in the autobiography of my soul. But it ain’t the whole damn book. I’m the author, the editor, the mother-effin Hemingway of my own existence. I took the raw materials of my upbringing and built something different, something messy sometimes beautiful and always undeniably me.

And here’s the kicker: you can too. You can be more than the zip code you were hatched in. You can be a symphony composed of a thousand dissonant chords, a painting splashed with a million conflicting colors. You can be the phoenix that rose from the ashes of your own damn neighborhood.

So, the next time someone tries to define you by the street you grew up on, tell them to go shove a map where the sun don’t shine. You’re a walking, talking testament to the fact that where you’re from is just the starting point, not the finish line. You’re the author of your own story, and the only plot twist that matters is the one you write with your own two proverbial fists.

Now, if you’ll excuse me, I gotta go hug a tree. Not because I’m some nature-loving hippie, but because that tree grew up in the same damn pothole-infested wasteland I did, and somehow, it managed to bloom like a god-darn miracle. And if a tree can do it, so can the rest of us. So go forth, misfits and mavericks, and paint your own damn masterpiece on the canvas of your lives. Just remember, keep the swearing to a minimum in public. Nobody wants that on their Hallmark movie night.

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