only the types that make bad decisions regarding chemicals and finances. never the type that would hurt people or anything like that. watched a lot of people drink/smoke their way into a miserable existence.

my jewish stepfather loved the idea of fell off the truck merchandise/getting deals/fixed horse races/knowing a guy. claimed the jewish neighborhoods he grew up in had jewish mob type guys on the rooftops with machine guns just like the Italians did. for whatever reason it turned me off to seeing any romance in that sort of thing.

I am surprised no one has dredged up this:
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"I am not the one in danger. I am the danger"

Nope, not really. When I was in HS and college, I knew folks that smoked dope or dropped acid. Another guy told me about doing "whip its". I never tried any of that or even cigarettes. I didn't really drink much in HS either. In college, I drank more, and knew a few folks that smoked dope, but never tried it myself. Many years later, I had a job bartending at topless bars where there was lots of cocaine and probably plenty of other stuff as well. I never tried it. I also know that one regular that was really close to one of the long time employees was asked to stop coming to the bar because the DEA was watching him.

As a kid, the worst that I did was probably the occasional stupid driving, but even then, that was probably pretty tame compared to some.

I had some friends that were drug dealers and enforcers. I wasn't in the business and had no discussions of such. Friends were friends. I also had friends that were CEOs and LEOs. Some of the "bad" friends passed or went to jail. Some of the "good" friends experienced the same fate.

Ironically, I was engaged many years ago to the sweetest girl I have met from Japan. Her father turned out to be an oyabun. lol Some Japanese friends told me this because they knew her family.

As a musician in the 70s I was involved with a lotta players doing heavy drugs. These guys were shooting up in the green room before a gig to "loosen up". All non-violent though. Later I got involved with the Black Sheep HD Club. Most of the guys in our local chapter were reformed Hell's Angels, murderers, and various felons who did their prison time and were turning over a new leaf and life. It got very real.

I think sometimes people who tend to take wrong paths aren't overly stable in their personalities. I usually veered away from people who seemed that way, because they just caused too much havoc. I did have one friend from the early '60s who I ran around with and remained in contact with who always seemed to make wrong & lot of times impulsive choices. He got into a physical fight with his father at 16, quit school, & went to Hawaii for a few years working in restaurants. He was fairly big - 6'4"/225 lb. and was one of the town toughs. I could tell lots of stories involving him. One example is a time he, I, & another friend were in a department store looking at clothes. He put on a jacket & didn't take it off. After a while he told us he was leaving and walked out. When he hit the door somebody started yelling, "Stop thief!" He took off running ahead of two security guys in plain clothes. The other guy & I looked at each other with WTF looks on our faces & left. After driving around looking for him, we went to his house about three miles away where he answered the door. He wanted to enlist in the Army when I got drafted, but had a record, flat feet, and fainted when the tried to stick a needle in him for a blood sample. He later got married & moved to New Orleans. He really never changed his style. In the end his son got a restraining order against him, he got divorced, remarried, and moved to Ohio. After an argument with his then wife, he went into the back yard, put a pistol muzzle in his mouth & pulled the trigger.

^ not much else to add.

I was a good boy. Freshly ironed white shirts etc.

But used to beat the chit out of the bad guys. So slightly clockwork orange although (obviously) not that extreme. I worked it out a while back, I've been involved in about 75 street/pub/beach fights since I left school but have been innocent of starting anything - self defence :rolleyes:

I used to hang out with Archie, Reggie, Veronica and Betty.

Elizabeth ? ..... same class as J Barnes ?

Gilles Plains. I was rough back in the 70s. Not so much now ;)

So you’re real name is Jughead?

Who knew?

Yes - I was attracted to that.........................after all..........I grew up in a rural area where 'sex/drugs/rock-n-roll' was the norm. If there wasn't some trouble brewing, someone would make sure to start it.

I had a great home life, parents of The Greatest Generation...............but as a adolescent and teenager I craved adrenaline.............in whatever form.

As a kid and young man, like Fred, had a work ethic instilled in me. Except I and a group of like minded young guys - worked hard and played harder.

Car culture here could not have been larger anywhere else. Illegal street racing, betting money, trash talking before and after, drinking, etc was just awesome......

There were some guys I grew up with where that wasn't enough. A lot of them started climbing the underworld ladder by working for 1 of the largest cocaine distributors with-in the state of Virginia who lived in this area. His empire was huge. Eventually the fed's caught up to him, he's now doing life w/o parole. All of the guys that worked for him either are in jail as well, committed suicide, or just faded away........
Fast forward a few decades and rediscovered my passion for motorcycles and again, racing, drugs, danger, fighting and for a while hung on the fringes with 2 guys that were members of the Warlocks club.............................................. ...................1%er's. I'm the least proud of that statement

I'll tell you ..................after some of things I've seen with those dudes........organized crime is very ugly. By no coincidence, my personal life and 'professional life' was in chaos........no surprise.

I'm different now.............. 59 in a few months...............in good health and blessed. I'm one of the very, very few that made something of themselves; albeit later in life, avoided incarceration.

I'm not constantly chasing that 'rush' anymore............

My Great Auntie used to play cards with a guy she called Jimmy Blue Eyes..looked him up and sure enough he was THE Heroin guy in Detroit. From there the trail also leads to Jimmy Hoffa the Teamsters Union, Robert Kennedy and Vegas.

Now I never met none of those people except that once when I was fresh behind the ears I was introduced to a big business guy with Teamster Union connections from Detroit at the Stardust..That was just after Glick bought the joint with a 60m loan from the Teamsters Union Pension Fund. You can read all about that in the book.

None of this is a sur..prise...another of my relatives took the 5th when she was called to testify before Congress about the Teamsters Union.

nope...

Or you could watch the movie.

Can you imagine my surprise seeing my great uncles caddy with the NV plates in the background of Dan Rather reporting from Detroit about Hoffa's disappearence.

Only one of my friends actually ended up in state prison (after the stolen auto parts ring he was in got busted). They were stripping cars in Buffalo and Niagara Falls and sending truckloads of parts to Canada. Something related to a local family enterprise (along with drugs, girls, untaxed cigarettes, etc).

In high school the gym lockers were assigned alphabetically by last name. From about 9th to 11th grade my locker neighbor was a kid who was in my school because he moved in with relatives after being released from juvenile detention for burning down his previous school. It was a brand new, multi-million dollar suburban monstrosity. He thought if he burned down the school he'd destroy his permanent record, which wasn't good even before the whole school burning down thing. He was one of those kids who looked like he was 20 and was born benching 300 pounds. I had never seen someone drink vodka right in the school building, but he kept a thermos of it in his gym locker. If I recall correctly, he offered me some once. I declined. I don't think I've ever been as afraid of someone as I was of him, but fortunately nothing about me offended him and he left me alone.

Another classmate who I did have some fights with in high school turned up at the small town roadhouse where we were having the after party for our 25th year class reunion - after just being released for armed robbery. I gingerly tried to avoid coming into contact with him, but when he heard I was there he came over and sat next to me. Turned out that he genuinely wanted to shoot the breeze with me and see what I had been up to. Had a pleasant, if somewhat stilted conversation with him.