Brand new to British Columbia, and feeling good about my choices, I was ready for a fresh new start.  I was driving my sexy 1983 Chevy pickup which was one of the fastest vehicles I had ever driven.  I got a lot of attention in that truck, being 19 years old, and knowing how to do most of the work on it myself.  I was proud of it. 

Our family decided to meet up for breakfast at a local restaurant one morning.  Driving into the parking lot, I couldn’t find a decent place to park and began to get frustrated. 

I had so much road rage at that age and was full of anger and frustration. 

Not being able to park at a restaurant was a big deal and I felt the rage beginning to rise up in my chest.  I quickly threw the truck in reverse, and without looking around me, punched it to back up and find another spot.  

At that moment, everything changed, as I smashed the rear end of my beautiful truck into a cement post. 

There was a brief moment of hesitation as my brain processed whether or not this situation was real.  And then reality sunk in.  I had damaged my baby, and a $7000 paint job on my most prized possession.  If I thought I had rage before that, now I saw red. 

I jumped out of my truck to find out how bad the damage was and a tirade of bad language began to pour out of my mouth.  It was pretty bad.  I had smashed in the rear taillight, and part of the side of the box.  Not having a rear bumper had been a good idea until this moment.  I was devastated, and needless to say, breakfast with the family was ruined.  I crumpled to the ground in a pile of tears and swear words, certain that my life was over.

I didn’t have a lot of funding back then and was borrowing money from the bank of Mom all the time. 

After all, she had received a huge insurance payout and sold her shares of the farm after Dad died, so I felt I was entitled to some of that money.  I wanted to get my truck fixed, but I wasn’t willing to pay the extortionate amount that most body shops quoted me.  And that’s when someone suggested I go to Alley Auto Works.  

The decision to go to this particular shop was going to point my life in a direction that I never thought possible.  I stopped in at the shop to talk to the owner, and find out what he was going to gouge me for in order to fix my truck.  He wasn’t there at the time, as he was out golfing, but his son was there.  His son decided that I looked like a fun time, and he first said, ‘you’ll need to come back later to talk to my Dad, but do you smoke weed?’  Of course, I did!  And so, I ended up in the back of the shop, surrounded by grease, muscle cars, and a lot of smoke, both weed, and cigarettes. 

I had found my new friends! 

I knew from that moment that I would often come by this shop.  They were so cool!  I wanted to hang out with them, and party with them.  They were older, and more ‘sophisticated’, and I wanted to be included in their circle.  I was new to town, lonely, and looking for trouble, and I had just found it.  

Little was I to know that this particular moment in time would be a pivotal moment in my life, and was to change my life forever.  At this time in my life, I was still pretty naive and had it in my head that smoking weed and drinking was fine, but I would never take it any further.  Six months later, I was about to learn a lesson in life that would jump me onto a completely different track.