I almost blew it today

KSBY - Salisbury MD - Given an airport with 2 nice runways 5/23 and
14/32, I took off on 5 with the wind:
METAR KSBY 231454Z 32013G20KT 10SM CLR 03/M04 A2997 RMK AO2 SLP150
T00281039 51016

What the hell was I thinking?

Distractions are tricky. The key one here was the fact that we had been
trapped for 2 days by weather. The weather was fine now and everything
was set but there was a certain amount of distracting relief tied up in
*finally* getting out of there.

Why did I go to Runway 5? Because that's where the tower told me to go.
But as any tailwheel pilot knows ( and all other pilots should know
too), you are PIC and always decide what runway is acceptable. I've
refused such clearances before, even with the threat of "we may not be
able to clear you for takeoff for quite some time (KRDU 32025G..)"
Stoooopid!

What happened? Well, I was well aware of the xwind and held almost full
corrective aileron. I also had to fight the weathervaning during the
start of the roll. The upwind wing went up and we weathervaned anyway -
only by the grace of the gust, max controls and some braking did we get
it back down and off the ground.

I can land and takeoff in such a xwind but it is a maximum effort
operation requiring full xwind controls. Furthermore, when faced with
such a takeoff on such a wide runway, I start on the downwind side and
roll towards the upwind just to knock some angle off. This time I had
it centered and remember trying to remain centered instead of being
focused on surviving the xwind.

Focus, Focus, Focus. Thanks for letting me share.