Some Really Personal, Yet Entertaining Stories From My Life That You Will Enjoy And May Even Find Inspiring

I have thought long and hard as to why money was so important to me as a child. I think it comes down to three reasons. One, I simply wanted a lot of things and money was needed to buy those things. Two, as a self-employed inventor, my father would go through cycles of having lots of money, then having very little money. I got a taste of the good life, only to have it ripped away from me. And three, money was important to my parents and therefore it became important to me. Since I was under the . . . See the complete description at <![CDATA[<a href="http://www.hostingauthors.com/tools/bg/author/bobennett">Archieboy Holdings LLC</a>]]>

For most kids, fishing with their dad was something they looked forward to—a fairly rare event that occurred when their mom began suspending Dad’s sexual privileges because of too much time at work and not enough quality time with the kids. Do you know the bumper stickers that reads, “A bad day of fishing is better than a good day at work”? For me, any day in Hell would be better than a good day of fishing. It wasn’t the murder of our scaly aquatic friends that both. . . See the complete description at <![CDATA[<a href="http://www.hostingauthors.com/tools/bg/author/bobennett">Archieboy Holdings LLC</a>]]>

We lived on a cul-de-sac where each house was on a sizable three plus acre lot surrounded by trees. Our house was set back quite a bit from the road connected by a driveway that could easily fit over a dozen cars. We had a family room with a pool table and a large screen TV, a spacious deck in the back of the house, and an actual roller rink in our basement that doubled as a dance/party floor, complete with colored fluorescent lights and a jukebox that played everything from Buddy Holly to Micha. . . See the complete description at <![CDATA[<a href="http://www.hostingauthors.com/tools/bg/author/bobennett">Archieboy Holdings LLC</a>]]>

Halzack’s Country Store was the hangout for Easton kids and one of the two stores in town owned and run by Pete and George Halzack, two politically incorrect, completely inappropriate, yet lovable characters who were a part of my childhood. Going into Halzack’s was like traveling through time. It was hard to tell what was older, Pete and George, the store itself, or the moon pies on the shelf, priced reasonably—for the year 1935—at about 10 cents each. The smell of the st. . . See the complete description at <![CDATA[<a href="http://www.hostingauthors.com/tools/bg/author/bobennett">Archieboy Holdings LLC</a>]]>

Many people use the expression that their childhood was a blur, but my childhood was literally a blur since I often found myself in a cloud of cigarette smoke. If there is anything worse than living with a chain smoker, it is being raised by two of them. Both my mother and father smoked 3–4 packs of Marlboros a day. That’s an average of one cigarette every 20 minutes. If you factor in time sleeping, it’s more like a cigarette every 14 minutes. Considering it takes about 7 minut. . . See the complete description at <![CDATA[<a href="http://www.hostingauthors.com/tools/bg/author/bobennett">Archieboy Holdings LLC</a>]]>

I was six years old when I involuntarily chased my first alien spaceship. Wait, perhaps you need a little context to this story before I jump right into it. So let me start with my mom.My mom was a wonderfully interesting person with a passion for the fantastical, magical, and mystical. Her favorite books included the 33 volume set of the Time Life series Mysteries of the Unknown, which my mom called “shit the government is covering up.” One of her favorite shows that I used to watch. . . See the complete description at <![CDATA[<a href="http://www.hostingauthors.com/tools/bg/author/bobennett">Archieboy Holdings LLC</a>]]>

My reputation for making things up wasn’t completely unwarranted. In the second grade, I wore a lime-green plastic ring that I got from a gumball machine and pretended that it gave me magical powers. In the third grade, I told my friends that my dad invented a time machine that was confiscated by the government. And in the fourth grade, I told my music teacher that my sister was the drummer for the Go-Go’s. However, like my genuine monkey-sighting experience, sometimes my fantastic s. . . See the complete description at <![CDATA[<a href="http://www.hostingauthors.com/tools/bg/author/bobennett">Archieboy Holdings LLC</a>]]>

At age six, I had quite an imagination. I had a passion for making up stories, but because I often attempted to pass these stories off as truth (i.e., I lied), I was labeled a “liar.” Damn labels. I credit this skill set to my father. Nature might have equipped me with a creative personality, but it was the nurturing of my loving father, or more specifically, his inability to speak the truth that he inadvertently passed on to me by his example. To this day, I have no idea which of my. . . See the complete description at <![CDATA[<a href="http://www.hostingauthors.com/tools/bg/author/bobennett">Archieboy Holdings LLC</a>]]>

My mother had a unique talent. She could make use of vulgarities in such a way that, if she were a character in the movie The Wolf of Wall Street, they would have had to change the rating from “R” to “X”. Her creative and vulgar insults often included commands involving a mixture of sexual acts and dead mothers (directed at my father). If there were a way to track such a metric, I believe my mom would hold the record for the most uses of the “F-word” in a life. . . See the complete description at <![CDATA[<a href="http://www.hostingauthors.com/tools/bg/author/bobennett">Archieboy Holdings LLC</a>]]>

One of my father’s many talents included woodworking. In our basement, my father had a large workshop with machines and tools one might find in a high school industrial arts class. Shortly after I was born, my dad designed and built an oak cradle for me. He was proud of all his work, but he was particularly proud of this cradle.One day, for some unknown reason, my dad had enough of my sister Debbie’s obsession with her doll. Debbie, at the time, was eight years old and well beyond th. . . See the complete description at <![CDATA[<a href="http://www.hostingauthors.com/tools/bg/author/bobennett">Archieboy Holdings LLC</a>]]>

The day of my birth, February 16, 1972, is a day that was often “discussed” in our house. When my parents were engaged in their nightly ritual of drinking and mutual, verbal sparring, and I stepped in with my feeble attempt to make the peace, my mom would inevitably bring up the events that may or may not have transpired on this historic day.“Why don’t you ask your father where he was when I was in the hospital giving birth to you?” asked my mom with a noticeable sl. . . See the complete description at <![CDATA[<a href="http://www.hostingauthors.com/tools/bg/author/bobennett">Archieboy Holdings LLC</a>]]>

I responded to many terms of endearment lavishly dished out by my mother, whose vocabulary was otherwise generally limited to an array of profanities. I was called all the usual terms including “Sweetheart,” “Baby,” “Babe,” “My Dear,” “Honey”, and “Angel.” But I was best known in the family as my mom’s “little baby Jesus.” This title, so I thought, was bestowed upon me because, as annoyingly observed by my . . . See the complete description at <![CDATA[<a href="http://www.hostingauthors.com/tools/bg/author/bobennett">Archieboy Holdings LLC</a>]]>

My dad smoked four packs of cigarettes per day since he was fourteen years old. Eventually, in 2008 at age 69, lung cancer got  the best of him. My father, in his usual style, made it seem as if nothing was wrong until he was rushed to the hospital for breathing problems, where he would die just two days later. I made it to the hospital to see him while he was still alive, but he was so medicated that I don’t think he understood or even heard anything I said to him. I had a good relat. . . See the complete description at <![CDATA[<a href="http://www.hostingauthors.com/tools/bg/author/bobennett">Archieboy Holdings LLC</a>]]>