Letter to Myself

 Dear October, 1972 Rick,

It’s me – October 2018 Rick…you!  I know you don’t believe me, but please read on a little and I’ll try to convince you.

You’re alive and well here in ’18. That’s the good news. While we haven’t (and never will) achieved a means to transport living creatures back into time, we have developed a way to send inanimate objects, like this letter. So, this is me…you…giving you…me…a heads-up on what the future holds in store.

No. This isn’t Chris Magouyrk pulling a gag on you. Would he know that back in 1958 you got in trouble while staying at your babysitter’s (Mrs. Sullivan) house when you threw that stick up in the air and her own grandson was dumb enough to just stand there and watch it until it came down and stuck into his eye?  Would he know that, in 1965, you got in trouble again for beating up that kid who pushed the swing that hit you in the mouth and chipped your front tooth?  Would he know you haven’t been able to get into your locker for the last two years, because you forgot the combination, and you have a Liv Lindeland Playboy poster taped up in there and three bottles of Bali Hai wine?  OK. Maybe he knows that one.  But how could he possibly know about that other stuff?  How could anybody … but you?

Did you ever tell anybody you had a crush on Leslie Gore?

Convinced?

So, if you’re still with me, let me give you some advice. 

With Halloween coming up, I’d like to have gone back to 1969 to advise you to not get in Hester Benedict’s Scout, and thereby avoid your unfortunate participation in the Great Tommy’s Kingburger Egging Incident – but I don’t want to take a chance on you forgetting about this next one. Next Halloween (1974), when that cop stops you guys near Sulphur Rock and you jump out of the car to “discuss” it with him – leave the part out about his mother. That’s unnecessary. The cold barrel of a .357 pressed against your temple is not a good feeling, and the clicking of the hammer being pulled back may cause you to soil your jeans a little. Oh, you’ll still get married the next day; and I can report that, miraculously, you’ve still got her to control you 1n 2018.

Don’t worry about that “IceCapades” thing last year. It’ll make a pretty good story someday, and the whole “Permanent Records” deal turns out to have been a scam to keep kids in line.

Learn to play the piano. And maybe the saxophone. And when Becky buys you that guitar in a few years because you’re going stir crazy since your band broke up, take some time to practice with it. It’s ridiculous that 43 years after you got it you still can’t make a B chord and you cheat on your Gs.

Pay attention in Jane & Dan Fagg’s history classes at Arkansas College next year. You’ve just lived through the beginning of a pretty big political scandal in Washington DC. By next year, they’ll be trying to teach you about it. I know you don’t care about political stuff, but humor me. It’ll come in handy in 2018, when every day seems to bring a scandal that dwarfs that one by comparison.

All that silver you’ll collect in the late 1970’s: sell it on January 18, 1980. Buy stock in WalMart with the money.

When the March, 1990 Playboy Magazine comes out, buy several copies and keep them in a safe place. 

Realize that the social changes you see and hear about daily are not written in stone. In 2008, you’ll think it’s a new world, and all of that hippie stuff really meant something.  Then, in 2016, you’ll see that new world crash and burn, leaving what you thought were bygone days standing in the ashes, with Confederate Flags flying above neon rooftops. A billionaire trust fund baby will be elected President, just two days after an audio tape of him saying this is plastered all over the news: “Yeah, that’s her. With the gold. I better use some Tic Tacs just in case I start kissing her. You know, I’m automatically attracted to beautiful — I just start kissing them. It’s like a magnet. Just kiss. I don’t even wait. And when you’re a star, they let you do it. You can do anything. Grab ’em by the pussy. You can do anything.”

Later, after he’s in office, he’ll mock a physically disabled reporter on national TV. He’ll later deny that he did it, and even though his supporters saw him do it, they’ll believe his denial. He tells his supporters to not believe what they see and hear.  And there’s lots of them! Many consider themselves to be the “Holier than thou” religious types, despite his long and storied history of debauchery.  That magazine I told you to get? That’s him on the cover!  He’s been married three times. He left each of his first two wives for the next one, who was a Russian adult model. Nude pictures of her all over this thing we call the Internet, for everybody, world-wide to see. Oh, by the way, if you have any money left by the end of 1980, buy stock in a company called “Apple” (no, not the Beatles’ label.)  It won’t take much.

This guy says and does crazy stuff, like the above, daily.  Two years into his term he appointed a guy to the Supreme Court who, back when he was your age, used to consume high volumes of beer through a tube stuck up his butt! Crazy, right?  The guy was accused of accosting women, but the Congress just rubber-stamped his approval after a hilarious, televised, sham of an “investigation.”

The President is real tight with the “Presidents” of Russia and North Korea.  Some of his biggest fans are leaders of the KKK and other neo-Nazi extremist groups. They love him! And so will many of those guys you’re playing music with and even more out there on the parking lot at Kingburger, getting high in their cars, right at this very minute.

This week, one of his big fans got busted for sending mail bombs to people the President doesn’t like – because they don’t like him.  And, get this: the President blamed the guys actions on the media! Is that a hoot?

So, what I’m trying to tell you, Rick, is don’t think you have ruined your life through your past or future antics.  No stunt you could ever conceive, no matter how wild & crazy, could possibly disqualify you for the job of President of the United States.  And if you’re eligible for that job, how could you not do anything else you’d ever want to do?

BTW, you are not going to be your class Valedictorian … especially after only attending school about 1/3 of the time … so you won’t be able to use this letter as an inspirational speech to your classmates.

Party on. The future is wide open.

Your friend,

aka You,
Rick

(c) Rick Baber, 2018