During the course of our lifetimes, there are things that stick with us forever. For me, that’s always been music. I was a quiet kid growing up, but that’s a whole different story. The lyrics from the bands I listened to taught me more about life than any school ever could. There are some things you can’t learn in school and there was a lot I experienced that school did not prepare me for and I needed an outlet to help me cope. Around my pre-teens, I discovered punk rock, but there was one band that really stuck out in my memory and still a huge fan of to this day, from Hermosa Beach, California, punk legends Pennywise.

I discovered these guys back when MTV actually played music videos, well 2AM videos, but still videos to find some metal and punk bands that were out at the time and the internet still ran on dial up. The year was 2001 and they released a video for the song Fuck Authority. From there, I was hooked and went down a rabbit hole, discovering more and more bands and buying their CD’s to build my collection that I still have to this day.

When I was 15 or 16, back when record stores were around and actually made some money, I grabbed my skateboard and went downtown to a warehouse music store in Santa Cruz, California, and they were having a sale on the punk section in the store, 2 for 10 bucks so I jumped on it with the money I had that weekend hanging sheetrock. 50 bucks isn’t much money, but when you’re a 15 year old kid in the early 2000s, 50 bucks can go a long way. So instantly, I picked up 2 albums from Pennywise. Live @ The Key Club from 2000 and Straight Ahead from 1999.

Straight Ahead was the album that I played the most, and I loved it from top to bottom. 17 tracks of pure punk energy. I loved the live record also, but Straight Ahead really spoke to me. Where I grew up, I felt like an outcast. I grew up in a small town in Northern California where, at the time, a white punk rock kid was the minority in a Hispanic majority town where Spanish was very fluent. I picked up on Spanish as I got older because in life, you have to adapt to any situation, so I got by pretty well.

One song in particular really stuck out for me, the song My Own Way. I started thinking about this when I was driving home from work a few days ago. This song really stuck out for me because of the energy and the lyrics, and it just overall made me feel good about being myself. Where I grew up, the social circle made you feel obligated that you had to be part of something. A gang, a crew, etc. That wasn’t me, although, gangsters and bikers were friends of mine, I did not try and be like them because I found if you try too hard to fit in it causes the opposite result of being accepted and the fact that I did not try too hard to be like them and just be myself I was accepted by these people who I grew up with. This is why the lyrics really stood out for me.

The song “My Own Way” to me felt like freedom. Freedom of speech, freedom of thought, and freedom from the rules and restrictions from any political, religious, or social label, and that’s why it really resonated with me, because I believe just being a “person”, and individual, was enough. Just overall being your fucking self! I didn’t want to chose a side, be apart of a crew, choose a religious faith or a political belief because to me that defeated the purpose of any real thought because those labels were bound by rules and restrictions and I did not agree with that concept. I did not agree with the “just follow” mentality because you’re “one of us” now, and I still dont. That may work for some people, but that didn’t work for me.

So I chose to go, as some would say, nomad or lone wolf. I was very much an introvert. Don’t get me wrong, I had some great friends growing up that I have still to this day, but what I found that worked for me personally was to stay mutual, my own way. I saw dependency as a type of addiction, and it defeated the purpose of independence, which was most important to me, other than stability. I’d do favors and helped out when I was able to help someone, but when it came to whenever I needed something, I handled it my own way.

All of us have different journeys and chapters that shape us to become the people that we are today, and this is one of mine. There are many more to be told in the future. Thanks for reading. Below is a link to the song.