A few short years later, we'd steal Uncle Sam's beers and go out to the barn to smoke and drink. That old barn was my life's school of learnin. My half cousin, she taught me how to smoke cigarettes, smoke pot...she even taught me how to kiss and drink beer. All along these learning years of my young life, I dreamed of learning how to play guitar, but most of all I wanted to sing and write my own kind of songs like Hank Williams, George Jones, Woody Gutherie and all the rest of them old school hillbilly singers. My mom had six or seven nervious breakdowns in my younger years. Her and dad faced low income and poverty on top of all the stress of wanting and dreaming of giving all six of us kids a better way of life. As the years flew past, I pushed myself hard to learn the songs and instruments of my roots, raising and heritage. By the time I was 12 years old, I had a strong taste for beer, and hard liquer, and pot. At 13 or 14, I was a party harty drunk and had begun my new adiction for cocaine, crank and chrystalmeth. At first I'd just smoke or snort these heavy drugs. Then my best childhood friend introduced me to the needle and the spoon. I battled a hard core booze and dope addiction.
I had already been breaking the law for years. I was just a two-bit petty thief. I did some neighborhood burglerys with some childhood friends. We'd cut school and break-in and burglerize houses, garages, cars and then me and my party buddys, we done a few strong armed robberys and the next thing I knew, we were stealing motorcycles and cars, just racing around from town to town, partying and chasing the young horny girls around from house partys to field partys. We even had bond fires and fat caiger partys out at Folsom Lake in the 70's and 80's. By then I had pulled a few small time armed robberys. I was totally wild and out of control.
At this point in my life. I was lonely, under weight and had no future ahead of me whatsoever. From the time I was about 14, I didn't really live anywhere. I had a home at my folks house, but half the time I never found the time to come home less I needed some hot food and a safe place to come down off the dope, booze and pills. I loved acid, mushrooms, mescalein. I smoked all kinds of pot in those early years. I experimented with all kinds of drugs. It didn't matter if they were street drugs or prescription drugs. I had too much fun with them all. From 1984, I'd spend from 22 years of age till I was 28 in the California Department of Corrections. I gave up on the installment plan in prisons, such as Old Folsom, Solidad, Quentin, and Tracy. All of my 20's lost between a prison cell, a dope and booze addiction and homelessness. Between all this hell, lockup and poverty, I somehow managed to stay alive, keep my health and sanity and I got better and better at playing the guitar and singing cover tunes. Then I continued to break the law as well as my parol conditions, and I lost most of my 30s in prisons such as Corcran, Vacaville and Pelican Bay. I spent a good chunk of time in the hole for bad behavior.
THE DREAM . .
Now I'm in my early 40s, I remain to be clean and sober and parole free. I got since 1997 clean off shooting dope. I got since 1998 clean off any kind of booze with no more ties and bondages on me. Now I can truely chase my life long dream and try to make a good solid living at making music off the life I've lived and the places and things I've seen...women I loved and people who done me totally wrong. I pray for us all. THE OUTLAW, Terry Lee. P.S. I still miss a good ole frait train ride now and then. God Bless.
I grew up around the Sacramento switch yards of the Southern Pacific Railroad lines. As a young boy of about 9 or 10, I played on the trains and around the train tracks. Me and my friends used to pretend that we were ridin the rails to far away places where we'd all never been before. We'd talk to an actual tramp, hobo or bum. They'd tell us of how far thay had traveled and where thay were trying to get to. Some had winter time homes, others just loved to stay drunk and travel and live a life of being free. As I grew older and became bolder and bolder, I began hopping in box cars riding for a mile or two, then I'd jump off before the train got to goin too fast. I took my very first unwilling train ride when I was 13 years old. I was with some unruely friends of my childhood, thay were a few years older than me and well, one day in the winter time we were hopping on and in boxcars and before we knew it, that train was moven way too fast for any of us to bail off. We wound up somewhere in Bakersfeild, California. I was scared. But it was quit the adventure. We all eventually hopped another train with some bums and that helped us get back to the Roseville switchyards, and we found our way back to our home in Sacramento. At 13, I had been partying for a few years. I smoked pot, drank wine, beer, whisky. I'd take off from home for days and weeks at a time. Just staying drunk and high, sleeping outside. I was a free spirit and well, that was that. Between the ages of 14 and 23, I became more and more independent and more and more out of control. With crimes and heavy street drugs. My choice of liquor was 101 wild turkey and lots of ice and mountain dew. I rode the rails to places like Oregon, Washington, San Burnidino,Cal. I did robberys, strong armed robberys. I did residential burglerys, stole a few cars and motorcycles. By the time I hit my young-adult years, I had been in and out of jails from Sacto to Auburn Cal. In my later 20's, I had been to more jails and more prisons up and down this state of California north to south. I've always dreamed of being a big time famous musician, so in my many travels I thought about how I could make this life long dream come true. I thought a lot about staying at least one step ahead of the law cause nobody likes to be caught and put away in a cell for years at a time. For the most part I prayed that God would continue to love, protect me and take care of me where ever my free spirit life style took me. Some of my thoughts while I was in prison were of sadness, heartbreak, lonelyness and bound up hatred. I thought about taking myself out the box, killing myself in my cell. Somehow I tried playing Rushin Ruelett once when I was 31, but the little 38 special I was using landed on the only empty cylinder, so I just did another fat shot of speed and made me a strong hard liquor mixed drink and forgot about all my pain and lonelyness and suffering. I've lived a hard cold lifestyle, emotions I still hate to have to deal with cause I truely don't know how MY LIFE AND MY SONG WRITINGS AND MUSIC ALL HAVE GOTTIN SO MUCH BETTER. It took a lot of prayer and Gods love to bring me where I am today. I'm fairly happy and somewhat content with what I got at this point and time in my life.
I got a lot of cool true life stories to write and sing about and I still strongly beleive God will Bless my dreams and my deepest hearts desires when his time is right. In my travels, I have met some cool, crazy and very interesting characters, like freight train Red. He was a wealthy man who delt in Texas oil; owned a huge cattle ranch out in Tylor Texas. His wife sued him for devorce, took a butt load of his money, took the kids and a ton of material things and left. He drank heavy and was gone on bizzness trips all the time after his devorce. He spent fat money, stayed drunk, rode the rails and said to hell with everything, lawyers and his bank took all his money and bizzness deals together.
