To Young Adults: 'Please Don't Do It' — Nos. 2 & 3

A second of four parts.

My second “Please don’t do it” is drugs. There is a third tied into this. I was 16 or 17 and we had a ball game going in the late 1960s on a hot summer Detroit day. I remember a young man of similar age took his shirt off and how I was appalled at the numerous gross needle marks that crisscrossed each other and gave his body the look of an 80-year-old. He admitted to having a serious heroin problem and that he did a lot of stealing and lying to support his habit.

In my opinion, it’s really bad when someone repeatedly lies and steals from the people that are trying to help them, the ones that love them the most. I never saw the young man after that day and I’m convinced that unless he got some serious help, he either didn’t make age 20 or he wound up in jail. I told myself: “If this is what drugs will do for you, I don’t ever want anything to do with it.”

My third “Please don’t do it” happened when I was in my late 20s, about 30 years ago. I’m 59, now. My friend John was driving me west on 12 Mile Road about a mile east of Beck Road in the Novi area. A railroad still crosses there, but at that time there were only flashing lights, no gate that comes down like today.

I remember the loud sound of a diesel coming from the south side of 12 Mile Road. The lights were flashing and John decided to put the gas to the floor. Everything would have been fine if it were a slow moving train, but this was a fast moving one. I remember when we hit the track that this fast-moving huge mass of steel was right on top of use. It was like paint on paint when he blew his horn and again I thought he had us as I turned my body away from the expected impact that didn’t happen.

I am certain it was in the thousandth of a second.

When I realized we were still going in a straight line and that I was still on the north side of the dirt, I was pretty hard on my friend for about the next 10 minutes. The chewing out ended with me telling him, “You will take me home and that for now on, whenever we go anywhere together, I will drive.”

Other than an apology, he didn’t say a word. On occasions, we got together after that I drove and we never talked about the incident. While we both lived, I never mentioned it to anyone else, either. It was between us and we remained good friends, but his time was short.

The last time I saw Johnny, he talked about his 2-year-old son, Scott, and how he was learning new things every day. He told me he had a job to do down south and that he would miss his son. John did undercover narcotics work and never talked about his job much. He was murdered trying to make the world a better place.

There are those in this world that don’t care about your body or soul. They don’t care about the addict’s lies and stealing from family, friends, neighbors and anyone else they can rip off to support their habit. The only thing they care about is this — $.

Editor's note: This is the second of four parts that publish a speech Harley made May 9 during public comment before the Hartland Board of Education. He has since decided to share it here in a series of blog posts. You can hear Harley in his own words by clicking on the video.

For part one, click here.

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