A tribute to a brother.

Way back when my special needs brother saved my life.  Not in actuality but in effect.  Shortly before I graduated high school I was looking for a career.  I was a bit limited because I couldn't afford college and I wasn't really thrilled with the F&B industry (I still stayed in it for over 20 plus years).

I started really looking around for inspiration.  I saw two opportunities:  lingerie and drugs.  At the time lingerie in this town was only available at department stores (JC Penny, Dillards, Foleys, and Sears), nowadays you can go to Victoria's Secret or Frederick's of Hollywood or some smaller local places.  I was 17 and didn't know a thing about finance so I contacted some wholesalers and got their catalogs.  I checked into rent on properties, utilities, taxes and then I did the math and realized that I couldn't beg, borrow, or steal that kind of cash.  A few years later Victoria's Secret and Frederick's of Hollywood opened up.  I still think I was right in the opportunity part.

The other option was drugs.  At the time I didn't know much about drugs because I've never done any illegal drugs.  If you saw a picture of me back then you would have thought I was a major drug junkie; nope, I couldn't justify doing mind altering drugs when I had an older brother who was mentally retarded.  This is the mid to late '80's and drugs were very popular.  On the street that I grew up on we had three guys growing marijuana plants (roof and two closets); they figured to make a little profit and to save a little cash by growing their own.  Various drugs other than pot were being bought in my neighborhood and high school but from my research pot was the easiest to produce.

I did the research about pot.  I learned a lot from the dealers that I grew up with.  Did I tell them that I was thinking about being a manufacturer?  Hell, no.  Some of the things I learned from them I've transferred to the normal business world with success.  I had numerous ideas to make money, fairly safely, and not get shot or arrested (no, I'm not going to tell you how to break the law and make a profit on it).  Then I realized something that my first martial arts instructor told my class:  "There is always someone better than you", he meant than in regards to fighting so don't go looking for a fight.  I carried that thought farther out, no matter how smart and cautious I was I would eventually get caught.

My mother would bring my special needs brother to the prison to visit me.  I couldn't let him see me in jail.  That's how he saved me.  I went on with the F&B industry.