When I Was a Younger Man

There’s no choice. You have to be in love with women. But I was pissed, man. I said “I’m gonna use women like Shake 'n Bake bags.” They come up to me and want to get involved, I wanted to get right in their face and go “I dare you to care.”— Sam Kinison in Have You Seen Me Lately?

Before I turned 21, I had a turbulent relationship with a young woman that definitely soured me for a time on romantic love. Now don’t get it twisted. I didn’t swear an oath to the He-Man Woman-Haters Club (https://ourgang.fandom.com/wiki/He-Man_Woman-Haters_Club) to forsake female companionship and to embrace celibacy. I was still positively enchanted by women. I just wasn’t interested in much beyond the physical aspects of a relationship. I wasn’t deliberately cruel and I wasn’t deliberately cold. I was perhaps at times honest to a fault about what I wanted and my intentions.

Sam Kinison’s Have You Seen Me Lately? album arguably marked his professional breakout as a comedian. The quote above was in relation to his own turbulent experiences with women that he referenced throughout the album and his comedy sets. They say that, “Laughter is the best medicine.” Well, in addition to laughter, I used copious amounts of alcohol, casual relationships, and the companionship of friends to get through that time in my life. But Sam’s comedy definitely helped. My mind went back to that earlier period in my life and the quote about Shake ‘n Bake bags had me laughing out loud as I drove through the darkness towards Milwaukee early this morning.

In time, I recovered from my own turbulent relationship and met a young woman that I dated for a number of years. In many ways she saved me. Fortunately for me, when she came along I was ready for something more than what I had been settling for in the relationship department.

I also had a pretty good chuckle this morning thinking about the exchange below in the movie Gone With the Wind.

Scarlett O’Hara (Vivien Leigh): “No! I only know that I love you.”

Rhett Butler (Clark Gable): “That's your misfortune.”

🚛💨😄