A Simple Man With Simpler Thoughts

       When you hear the world salvation 99.9% of the time your in some sort of church.  For myself, this is also true.  However, I find a different type of salvation more often than one would normally think is possible.  A true personal cleansing, which if you ask Merriam or Webster, is the basic definition of the word.  At any rate though, I find myself best down a familiar back road in my hometown.  An East-Tennessean born and bread, I've always had a simpler view on things than most (hence the page title).  Somehow and for some reason I can't explain, nature (more specifically the Lake that surrounds my home town (Watts Bar Lake)) has always played a large roll in who I am as a person.  So, naturally where I've always best dealt with myself and times, when they've gotten hard, is largely on the shores of Watts Bar.  A small road, that runs down the very back of my hometown, leads to where I took the picture you see above.  It's at the end of a road of a small upstart neighborhood that basically almost runs into the lake.  Not many people know of this place, but those who do hold it near and dear to their heart (so far as I can tell) just as I do.  Before high school football games and after heartbreaks alike, I've always found my self sitting there and watching the gentle movements of the lake, the rain splash against the water, the evening sun caress the subtle hills on the banks, or getting the clearest view of the stars few have ever seen.  Now granted, I know this isn't one of the seven wonders of the world, but at the end of the day, it's more than close enough for me.  Something about sitting in the solitude of this outdoor sanctuary lets my mind and soul rest enough for me to concentrate on just who I really am and what I really want out of this crooked "back road" we all call life.  I know that I'm not going to be the man to figure out all the mysteries of life, but i feel like the cool waters of Watts Bar may grant me enough peace of mind to figure out the mysteries of Garrison Nuckols.  That itself, is good enough for me.   I probably don't really have the right words to describe the outlook I get on life from this, but strangely enough I think Forrest Gump might.  He once famously said, " I don't know if we each have a destiny, or if we're all just floating around accidental-like on a breeze, but I, I think maybe it's both. Maybe both is happening at the same time."  For me, anything that gives me that sense of calmness, in a sense saves me.

       When you want to go get some food from a restaurant, how would you go about doing it?  First and foremost, you would have to decide what you wanted and where you could go to get it.  In summary, you must first choose your destination.  Life is not so different.  Surprisingly enough, when I talked to a few of my friends about things of this sort, they don't really know what they want or where they want to go in life to a definitive point.  Realizing this, I thought it might be helpful provide a hypothetical situation I use on myself quite often.  If I were to tell you today that you were leaving on a train, and that it was taking you to a place far far away.  Deep down, you would know exactly where you wanted to go.  For myself, this place is more of a state of mind than a set of longitudinal and latitudinal coordinates.  Actually, the place I long to be is somewhere I've already been, a state of mind and heart that I've never come close to replicating since I left it. For me, a place is only as good as the people you know in it, so of course, where I would like to be taken by that proverbial train has a lot to do with the person(s) I was close to at this time.  It wasn't actually all that long ago in the grand scheme of things, and I wasn't always very happy or content with everything that went on in this time believe it or not.  However, what causes me to .ay awake at night and yearn for a way to return is the passion I felt as a person.  I knew exactly what I wanted and literally did anything I could to get it.  I lived a life of pure passion.  My creativity, understanding, and knowledge of who I am as a person were at an unprecedented high.  Now don't get me wrong, I enjoy my life today as much as anyone can, and I've still got plenty of wild seeds to sow.  However, when the day is done, I've gone to bed alone, and lay aimlessly starring at the ceiling as my heart beat hastens and slows as I recap old memories, all my mind can do is attempt to plot a way to take me back to where I was.  So for me, it's never really been a question of where I want to go.  Rather, it's been me on one of those sleepless nights wondering where the damn train was so I could be on my way.

Great Tuesday night musician at Spankies, come see him if you get the chance and let me buy you a dollar draft.

Garrison

As everyone can see, my roommate "clearly" got the last laugh.

       So, approximately an hour and a half ago I had my first Exam in Mechanics of Materials (which sounds more complex than what it actually is).  However, the test was far from the most exciting/interesting this that's happened in the past twelve hours I've been breathing.  For the purpose of this story you'll need a little more insight about me.  1) I'm a Mechanical Engineering student at Tennessee Tech 2) You have to study your ass off to get a D on most Engineering exams 3) I'm Intelligent 4) I have the worlds worst roommate (there will be a post dedicated to him entirely in the near future) 5) My shitty roommate is the worlds worst beer bum (Beer bum- (n) one that will always drink beer if it's around and promise to pay the initial owner back but never does so) 6) If I were to keep tally of money in beer my roommate owed me it would be between $200-$700 dollars (literally) 7)I'm a southern gentleman, so what a lady wants...she gets....giggity, and that should have you up to date for me to start my tale.  So, it's approximately 7pm yesterday (day before my exam) and I'm studying when I get a phone call.  It's a good friend who's drinking with a few more friends (some of which are very attractive females) accross town and asks me if I will drive them to a night club since they all are "tore up from the floor up".  Of course being the scholar I am, I shut my textbook immediately and say yes (even though I'm thundering my way through a six pack while I study math....try it sometime).  Actually, to be honest the big selling point was that I would get to drive them in my buddy's new truck (2012 full cab 1500 Silverado loaded....yeah it drove fucking awesome).  At any rate though, I leave to go over to the house to pick them up. Long story short the girls drank to much and I had to wait for them to get done puking and take them back home...this put me getting back to my apartment around 11:30pm or 12:30am EST if your OCD about specifics.  When I got there though, my roommate is outside making out with this girl in front of my apartment (obviously a card carrying member of the gutter slut community).  He keeps kissing her and pretends not to see me and as I'm 10ft past them of course he says, "Oh, hey brah (<-- tool lingo for friend or buddy) I totally didn't see you there."  As any educated individual would do, I pretended not to hear him and walked in.  When I walk in, all of my neighbors (from each side (I live in a tri-plex style town home apartment (can you parenthesize inside parenthesis?))) and a few buddies (the normal crew) are on my back porch conversation with two attractive young ladies I've never seen before.  Long story short, BB (beer bum aka my roommate) invited them over to hang out (and somehow talked them into it) but ditched them to catch oral herpes from skanky sally's esophagus.  So after talking with them for a bit they decide they hate my roommate almost as much as I do (which is currently at the level of loathe), and opens up the option of me asking for one of their hands in marriage (or both if I ever go Amish).  Anyway, they're drinking and want to play beer pong and the only beer in the fridge is a twelve pack I bought for BB (because I let one of my friends drink his cheap vodka while he wasn't there...not like it's a big deal but I hold myself accountable for shit).  Of course, I tell them they can use it to play beer pong.  Time goes by, and now it's 2am (haven't studied yet) and the "party" has dwindled down to everyone sitting in my living room watching USA's edited rendition of Borat.  At this point BB gets back from where ever the hell he was and walks into the kitchen (after annoyingly trying to talk to everyone during the movie).  First he sees the note on our dry-erase board on our fridge that the girls (future wives) I met left reading,"Josh is an Ass, We <3 Garrison".  After seeing all the love I got from the hoes (I do use that term affectionately) he promptly tells everyone to fuck themselves and then he opens the fridge and see's the beer is gone.  At this point, he ask where his Alah damn beer went to (actually he said God but I don't really play games with big guns upstairs) which I replied very smart-assly, "our stomachs." After a few minutes of verbal bickering and being embarrassed by my wit he simply tells the girls, and the rest of our guests they can fucking leave if they want to....which almost made me come unglued (but I didn't because the girls didn't want me to...imagine that) so everyone goes next door to finish the movie,I go to study, and my roommate stays in my place and jacks off to bestiality, sends money to Al-Queda, or another one of his personal hobbies.  So, as I sit here on the toilet after pulling an all-nighter, acing a test, and regretting the steak and shake I ate yesterday, I'm filled with joy not only for my success in the classroom, but the fact the just one more person thinks that my roommate is a jackass.  Oh Happy day.

Alright, well, everyone needs an introduction right?  At least that's what everyone tells me.  So I suppose I'll just list a few abstract facts about myself, and let who ever is bored enough to read this piece them together to form a slight understanding of me.  I sort've like to make my own contractions.  I genuinely enjoy the taste of beer (I'm drinking one now).  My dating history has, for lack of a better term, been very "hit and miss".  I go through spurts of being extremely in shape and extremely out of shape.  My name is Rod, and I like to party (not really, that was just a hot rod reference so that you would know I like watching comedies...but I do like to party I guess).  Football is one of the many passions that drives my life.  I love West "By God" Virginia my the entirety of being (the state, coalmines, and especially the WVU athletics teams).  (I tend to use parenthesis a lot (for side thoughts)).  I love the lake (Watts Bar more precisely).  I get tired of listing facts usually after about 10-12 items so I'll stop typing in this format now.  Anyway you should know my name is Garrison and for now that should be good enough.