You started in life with your parents' advice. Life was too much for them. You got into messes, one more horrible than the other. You got out of the awful catastrophes as best you could, more or less sideways, a slobbering crab, backwards, missing a couple of paws. You had some good times, got to be fair, even with all the crap, but always anxious, lest the dirty business start all over...and it always did...Let's bear that in mind! They talk about illusions, that they ruin youth. We lost it without illusions!...More trouble!... As I say...It happened from the beginning. You were little, a born dope, with two strikes on you.