Julio

i guess now is as good a time as any to talk about Julio, my friend who passed away last week as the result of a car accident.  the funeral will be wednesday.   he and i met when we both worked at albertsons in lubbock.  he was just a part time grocery clerk, his full time job was prison guard.   i was full time - in charge of the frozen food.  quickly i learned that Julio and the grocery manager mike were friends.  in fact they were great friends.  mike and Julio met in high school.  they both went into the marines, did basic training together, and went to war together.  they were like brothers.  i always knew it was going to be a good day at work if Julio was there.  with mike and Julio together there was always more talking and story telling to be done than work.  eventually, i began to feel a part of the group.  i’ve never felt so privileged to be accepted, and i’ve never had more fun at a job.  the group was mike, Julio, kevin aka “coach”, jeremy, and myself.  we were the grocery department, and we specialized in having fun.

on more than one occasion, Julio would be upstairs in the men’s room and mike would say “check it out.  i’m gonna get him.” then mike would grab a can of the girliest smelling air freshener off the shelf (you know, the aerosol ones) and go running upstairs to the restroom door.  once there mike would take the top off the can and remove the little spray pointer leaving only the tip of the plastic straw.  mike would give it a good shake and barge into the bathroom.  with Julio helpless in the stall, mike smashed the can on the ground forcing the straw into the can thus releasing all of the foul petunia/orchid/vanilla musk in one unstoppable stream that sends the can skipping and rolling all over the floor.  i could only vaguely hear what Julio was screaming as mike came running out.  those were good times.

so yes, there were pranks played.  there were also:  impressions, eating contests, arguments, various versions of bowling, overnight shifts, near fatal safety violations, rumors of liquor consumption on Christmas Eve, contests to see who could chop the most ice out of the back of the freezer, “quick” trips to buy Texas Tech football tickets, breakfast burritos, Freebird burritos with too many scoops of jalapenos on them, copious energy drinks, and laughs.  lots and lots of laughs.

He was only 27 years old, but he lived those 27 right from what I could tell.  He did right by his friends, his family, and his country.

I completely forgot to mention all the times we played golf and watched football together as a group.  Those are the times I will never ever be able to forget.

Try

What if I could hear myself think?
Would it make a sound?
Would it make any sense,
out of everything?
Everything that I’ve put up, shut up, hidden,
and lit up,
Showed and been shown,
Had and had taken,
Took and then gave away?
What about the things I caught, and saved
or those I let fall, destroyed, and fade away?

Will anyone catch me?
Because I’ll be falling trying to hear myself think.
Trying to bring it back from the brink.
Trying to think it through the future and back to the past and bury it with ink.