A pleasant little surprise.

In the late 80s, I was a freshly divorced "free spirit." I felt creative and alive! I was hanging around with the downtown crowd: gays, artists, musicians, drag queens, interesting street people and poor little rich kids, who slummed with us and then went home to their parent's historic mansions. My little group were sort of post punk/goth/glamsters - ready to wreak havoc on the dance floor at the drop of a pill box hat (black, of course). The downtown scene was the closest thing to an accepting, liberal experience one could find in my area. Which is not to say it was without its risks. Even there, we stood out - and were sometimes accosted.
Around this time, my nephew told me about a friend of his who was looking for musicians to start a band. I went down to the beach to meet him. Not one of the nearby beaches, but one that was further away, and a good deal more rural. We started playing and I began to spend my weekends down there. This particular beach crowd was really removed from the crowd I had been hanging with. This was a whole nuther scene. Imagine hard drinking, pool shooting locals, who loved their "Skynert." Ok, I'm gonna go ahead and say it: rednecks. The thing is, I brought my freakiness with me. When my band-mates and I first hit the bars together, there was really no way to know how I was going to be treated. But I was very confident, in those days, and oddly enough, most people were cool. At first they seemed to be perplexed, then fascinated by me - staring and smiling. Soon, they began talking to me and buying me drinks. One guy dubbed me "Freedom." I ended up making a lot of great friends on the beach, played some rock-n-roll, partied like crazy and had lots of sex. Those were some of the best days of my life.
Recently, I ran into an old friend of mine from that era. I hadn't seen him in almost 20 years. We exchanged email addresses. I sent him some pics of us, taken by my (at the time) girlfriend, in a bar that no longer exists. This is an email he sent back:

So how are you doing brother i was just looking at the pics of us all those years ago wow good times. i am now realizing that i have always been a free spirit who lives in his own world and from time to time I run into people who are the same way. Just so you know you had a big part in me being the person that i am today. you showed me that it was ok to be you no matter what so thank you.

A.

I can't tell you how touched I was to get that. What a nice thing to say. I guess you never know how your life affects others.