Tell me about a time when...

I don't get to see my closest friends all that much anymore. Large bodies of land tend to keep us apart. After high school, everyone except me moved out of Minneapolis on to bigger, better things. San Francisco, Jacksonville, Rio de Janeiro, La Crosse and New York. So needless to say my face to face time with them has been somewhat scarce the past few years.
But the modern invention of the phone (we don't really Facebook, text or skype - we keep it old school) allows us to chat every so often. And every so often, we may catch each other in a particular mood. 
As for last night, we were in a mood. A random call to say "what up" turned into a half hour call about times we ducked from the police in our more....rambunctious days. As most know, I wasn't exactly the model citizen between 15 - 22. I thought that late night graffiti sessions were the epitome of my existence. 
The trading of back and forth stories about getting caught in a train yard or climbing down from a billboard always makes me happy. For the most part, none of us ever really got locked up. A few humble trespassing and lurking charges was about all we ever got. Some friends actually got felony charges, but they were much more big time than I was. 
This morning when I got up, I had to call my mom to tell her how sorry I was for being a delinquent. I know she put up with a lot of things that most parents would never had. There came a time when anytime she saw me with my backpack she used to say "jump" to see if any spray cans would clank around in there. We laugh about it now, but sneaking paint in and out of your house when you're 16 is a full time job! 
I loved those late night painting missions we all used to go on. So many of my best life stories start out with "So Mike and I were out piecing...". But I'm more thankful that I never got fully caught up in it. So many of the people I used to run with back in the day are still up to those old tricks. Because of their records, they can't get jobs, they never went to college, they're barely making it by in life. A few more bad decisions in my youth would have probably led me down that path as well... 
I still get texts from a couple of those guys today. "wanna hit some spots"? But as much as that gets me excited (and mostly makes me wonder "do I still got it"?), I have no interest in climbing under fences, getting chased by dogs, possibly falling off a structure or jumping into the river to avoid capture, like I used to. In the infamous words of Roger Murtaugh "I'm too old for this shit". 

Sidenotes:
- I need to get out to San Francisco to see Mike. I've been a lousy friend 
- I need to get to Florida to see Drew. I've been a lousy friend (congrats on the wedding BTW)
- I actually got to spend 2 hours reading today. It was glorious 
- The best thing to pair a glass of red wine with, is another glass of red wine