a simple statement...

folks,i have talked a great deal about my time "on the road" lately... people may not understand why??? that time "on the road" really changed me in so many ways that i can not tell you without getting very sad,and,yet,it made me grow up in ways that no one will ever understand... folks,you can make jokes,and honestly,i do laugh,but the time(a decade)that i spent "on the road" did really change my life... i am honestly a little more nasty,when provoked,and,yet,i deeply understand what the person who i see on the streets is going through every day,and like the old saying says,unless you have walked a mile in my shoes,you have no idea what i have been through... in my case,that is never more true... people have asked me if i would change anything about that decade "on the road",if i could go back to do it... honestly,a very few small things would be changed,but the vast majority of what i went through i would not change a thing,because i learned so very much,while "on the road"... i mention hitchhiking 50,000 miles "on my thumb",and to tell you the absolute truth,i wish i would have done more miles,because seeing scenery that people have truly forgotten about,like walking down U.S. 66,in Kingman,Arizona,stopping at a hotel that people have forgotten about,and staying in a room that actually goes back to the 1930's;nothing changed,but,perhaps,the mattress,and the television,but it is like stepping back decades,and living simply,for a day... actually,what a rush...  i did that many times in a decade,because i traveled to places that people simply have forgotten about... i drank enough coffee to float a battleship,in that decade,been cursed at,tossed out of many places,but i never lost my dignity,and never forgot who i was... people gave me much grief,i lost many a friend,and some people hated me,but to me,those people do not matter one bit,because it is their loss,not mine... for those people,i simply say:who honestly cares who you are,what you think about,and believe about me??? i survived,i am stronger,tougher than you ever could be,"tougher than iron",and that is what is most important to me...