LifeStory | Mike

Mike DeRosa | A Funny Story from Your Youth?

"Do You Have a Favorite Story from Your Youth?"

"We had a whole bunch of real characters hanging out in the woods. One of the poignant ones was after playing a game of touch football in a little meadow in the woods, same woods that I walked through with my parents, with my mother. I mean, when I was five years old. That's mostly gone now, but one of the real sweethearts. I had two best friends: Austin and Tupper. And Tupper was a vibrant six foot two basketball player who was the sweetest guy in the world and very sharp. And I just remember after, you know, playing for a couple of hours, hot sun in the summer, and we had a spot in the woods where we had a rug and, you know, a couple of chairs and stuff like that. And we were all just laying there. It was real lazy. It was hot as hell. And I just remember Tupper saying, you know, we don't know how good we have it. We're going to remember this day, you know, and it's this, this is as good as it gets in which you, with your buds, you're nice and tired. You did, you know you had you had some good, honest fun having a nice cold beer. This is it. You know, it doesn't get any better than this. And he died at 22 from leukemia! And I just I, I don't think a week goes by still that I don't think of him. You know and that he was such a, he was such an upbeat guy and the part that kills me is that he wore braces, you know, for like five years and it's like, Oh My God, if you had known you were going to die when you were 22, you didn't have to wear those goddamn braces! And I know that he would love that joke. The joke isn't exactly the right word, but because. Because he was such a humorous guy. But wasn’t really a hilarious story, but we, we with him, you know, we spent so much time laughing. And I do believe that that's why so many of us grew up okay, because, you know, it's like that stupid thing on the back of Reader's Digest, you know, laughter is the best medicine. There's so much truth to that, you know, and there's so many people that are so dour and miserable. And it's, you know, it's a choice you may not be consciously making it, but you're making a choice."