Jesse a.k.a TRiP!

July 06, 2011

Jesse a.k.a TRiP!

"There he goes. One of God's own prototypes. A high-powered mutant of some kind never even considered for mass production. Too weird to live, and too rare to die" -Hunter S. Thompson

I met Jesse Sorensen sometime during our 7th grade year at Roy JR. High. This was during a time when for some reason, I thought I was one bad mother trucker. We had only really been acquaintances during this time having had been at a couple of parties of mutual friends. We also smoked a couple of times, had a few conversations in passing but seemingly nothing deep that solidified our friendship until we started going to High School.

I am pretty sure we really started clicking and getting to know each other more during 10th grade. We both had "Child Development" class with Mrs. Gullbranson. We always sat in the back together being the odd guys in class along with Chris Striffles and a couple of girls I can't recall at this time. While we both took class with some seriousness when it came to assignments we still often talked when we should have been listening and always had some smart mouth comments. It was around this time that my anxiety and panic attacks turned severe for some times and it got to the point that I couldn't even make it to school.

After the first semester, maybe even half way through the school year I decided to go to night school because it ran a whole lot shorter and it helped me not only get my anxiety in check, but it also helped me make up credits I should have been earning earlier in the year. Around this time Jesse decided to say screw school during most days and always had an open invite to come over. He and Linc would come over early in the morning after my parents left and wake me up by knocking on my window effectively giving me a heart attack each time.

The three of us would just sit and chill while I would force them to watch "Teletubbies" because for some strange reason I just got a kick off of doing it. My mom always left me doughnuts for breakfast and as I am looking back, I am realizing that I never shared with Linc or Jesse...sorry guys I should have shared!

In 11th grade I decided to go back to day school and made up credits in the evening by doing credit makeup packets. Jesse on the other hand was getting into trouble and learning how to survive in the wilderness thanks to our local judicial system. We would lose contact with each other until our senior year after I suffered from a very nasty breakup with a girl I should have put a lot less focus on in my life.

Jesse and I both suffered from rejection and pain caused by people we loved and it was at this time when we bonded and we had each other’s back. If it wasn't for him and Cooper I can honestly say that I would have probably done something stupid, we were like the three amigos at this point and had some great times and some not so great times

At this point in my life I hadn’t smoked weed in a couple of years because that girl I had dated didn’t want me to and I promised not to (all while she was behind my back). Jesse on the other hand was practically married to “Mary Jane” and he would always try to get me to smoke with him and to be honest, I gave in once during those couple of years. I still remember it because we were at “Pinky’s” house with Kristine and a few other people I can’t recall. Everyone got pretty baked in the garage and went inside the house after they were done. Jesse and I on the other hand stayed in the garage finishing the rest of it off because we wasn’t feeling anything and never did for some strange reason.

Fast forward back to senior year at Jesse’s house we were watching “Top Gun”. During one of the commercial breaks Jesse wanted to go out to the garage to smoke as we couldn’t smoke inside. While out there he turned on the radio and wouldn’t you know it, the theme song for “Top Gun” was playing. I should quickly mention that we were both pretty involved in smoking weed on the regular and we took this as a sign to toke up and toke up we did. From that day on we would have to stop whatever either one of us was doing and smoke anytime we saw “Top Gun” on TV.

As summer was approaching I was preparing for graduating while Jesse took the opportunity to head out to Minnesota to see family. Before he left however he got a really fat ounce and had a going away party which involved trying to smoke as much of it as possible before the morning. Between us, and other friends we got pretty close but we eventually had to get him to the airport for an early morning flight. We stayed up all night and by the time we left to take him all I could do is sit in the back of Cooper’s car and laugh, I was toast.

As summer was ending Jesse had a major dilemma, he had nowhere to live once he got back to Utah as his parents didn’t want him back in their house. My parents however wouldn’t just sit back and let that happen so he moved in with us. From there it was one big party, because most of the time all we did was smoke, search for more smoke, play Tony Hawk Pro Skater, or WWE Smackdown on the Playstation. We did so much walking during this time and while we walked, we would talk through our issues together in hopes to help bring each other peace and reassurance. In hindsight I wonder if we wasn’t feeding into each other pain but at least we had each other and took care of each other like only brothers can. During this time we got close with A.J. and added him to our little three man crew as Cooper was gone a lot serving our country in the National Guard.

Jesse and I lived together for a year and in that year we had a lot of good times, too many to list but some I would like to share some of my favorites.

Every morning I woke up to find Jesse already up and playing Nintendo by himself. He had a specific Baseball game he would play and write down his scores and stats in a notebook. I always enjoyed watching him do this as it was something that I saw gave him some joy.

We smoked a lot of weed at this time and we had a rituals like many stoners do and we did these religiously. Anytime we got a new bag Jesse would take the time to meticulously break up the buds to remove any stems and seeds. One of my favorite rituals was going into my closet and “hot box” it, then jumping out to watch all the smoke bellow out. Even better when we would get someone like A.J. or Krystal in there. Once we got so baked in my closet that one of us who will remain nameless was convinced that we were under attack after hearing a war movie playing in my room.
One time we went with Bruce and James to go smoke under a bridge in the 12th canyon, man that was a trip as I thought I was going fall off and die.

We would spend hours and hours playing trying to outdo each other on Tony Hawk and when we played WWE Smackdown, we had hours long matches because neither one of us was going down for the pin fall. Those were good times!

I remember one night on the way back from a party drunk from tequila, we ended finding a flashing street construction sign. Naturally we took it home, tagged it, and kept it in my closet for years. I wish I still had it!

The first time I ever went to Logan was to spend the weekend over at Jesse's grandparents’ house which was an old church converted into a home. We had a good time and spent a lot of quiet time out walking the streets and smoking weed in an old bus in the backyard. I still remembering smoking with his cousin and he asked "am I going to die" after he got too stoned. When we finally got home from that weekend we watched Courage the Cowardly dog.

Our walks/talks where always deeps debates of life, love, philosophy and religion. We may have come across like a couple of stupid stoners, (and we did that very well) but neither one of us are or was.

I remember one time we fell asleep in my bed and woke up spooning, that was super awkward, mostly because someone had to come wake us up!

Like I said, too many to count, good times.

Eventually Jesse found Krystal and they latched on to each other rather quickly and it was about this time that he had to move out. That was a rough time for me because after he moved out I hardly seen him because he was starting a life Krystal. Cooper was busy, and A.J. was having his own problems so I ended up alone most of the time. It was around this time I ended up becoming more of an introvert and even more depressed then I was before.

Eventually Jesse and Krystal got married and that was a good day. They had a beautiful and humble ceremony in Roy’s City Hall building. Afterwards they moved into an apartment in Roy which was super close to my house so I was over there all the time and from there all three of us were close for the next few years.

Eventually I would join the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, get married, have my own family and go back to college. It has been really hard to stay in constant contact like we had back when we were younger.

No matter what Jesse will always be my family by choice and he is one of my brothers. I love him, I worry about him, and I get frustrated when I see him struggle. I’ve always hated when we fought. He’s helped me out a lot in my life and I hope that I’ve been able to do the same in some regard but I am not sure I have.

Jesse, I love you man and don’t you ever think I don’t.