I don’t think I was ever this good, though. And certainly not at 4 years old.

Really, what made it so great was that A2 went the extra mile all day long to just make the day special for me.  She bought me donuts for breakfast, arranged for a haircut for me, and even finished the mowing and edging for me so I could go enjoy the 90 minute massage she gave me!

Then, we went to dinner at the Silver Fox Steakhouse (…soooo good…) and then… the big event of the evening… We went and saw Ira Glass!  (more on Ira later)

Sunday night, the celebration continued with friends and family who came over for cake and ice cream.  It was great to share the evening with such great friends, talking, catching up, and stress testing the child-enjoyability of our house.  (We have a LOOOOOONG way to go, but somehow the 10 kiddos made it through.)

(Sadie made it through my teething on the chair’s foot rest…)

We bought one of those seven pound chocolate cakes from Costco, and made homemade ice cream!  Yum!  Thanks A2 and Trav!

Anyways… back to my birthday highlight: Ira Glass!

Yes, Ira Glass!

No, for reals… Ira Glass!

Oh, you don’t know who Ira Glass is?

I could show you a picture:

But you still don’t know him, do you?

Ira Glass hosts the weekly radio program, This American Life, one of the greatest shows on air right now.  At this live event he played interviews, told stories, and joked with us about some of the circumstances he’d found himself in and some of the strange people he’d met.  He walked us through how they find the stories, create the shows, and how they make them so appealing to such a wide range of people.

And a wide range of people it was!  Everyone from beatnik hippies to Dallas socialites to country farmers showed up for the one-night-only event.  A2 and I both noticed (out loud) the eclectic-ness of the gathering as we walked back to our car.

One of the more memorable stories he told was of a guy who came to them with a story about his father who, upon his wife’s death, went to deliver her ashes to the Veteran’s cemetery for a free veteran’s burial.  Upon finding out there was a $16 “handling fee” for the burial application, the father became so enraged that he exited the front door and defiantly began to scatter his wife’s ashes all over the parking lot of the cemetery.  He came home and told his children of the debacle, which then became something of a family legend.

As the story’s producers were preparing this story to go air in a program they had titled “Fine Print,” they began to do their final fact checking.  When they called the Veteran’s cemetery to check about the $16 fee, they were surprised to find out there was no fee.  There never had been a fee.  They went on to ask about the story of a man scattering his wife’s ashes in the parking lot, and the office staff laughed saying that if something that crazy had ever happened it would be a legend around the office.  (Apparently, nothing much happens around cemeteries.)

The producer then had the gall to ask, “well, can you go to the crypt” (where now the husband had been dead and buried for 2 years) “and check to see if she’s in there.”  They obliged.  She took another step: “Well, can you check to see if her ashes are in there?”

They replied, “No.  We can’t do that.  But we can pick up both urns and tell you whether or not they feel more or less the same weight.”

They did. — And they did.

After the producers broke the news to the son who had originally reported the story he resolved that, as best the family could tell, one day their dad just went on a drive and came back with this hilarious story about a $16 fee, a mad man, and an impromptu parking lot burial service.

The program had to quickly substitute the story for another they had been working on, but ended up with this great anecdote about storytelling itself which worked wonderfully for a live event like this.

I think we underestimate how pervasive storytelling is in our lives, and how regularly we do it ourselves.  Getting together with good friends or family always results in some good, suspenseful stories with an every-day quality to them.  Blogging has taken off as a result of the desire we have to tell each other stories.  The funny thing is, they are all stories we’ve heard before: children’s blunders, parent’s worries, difficulty at work or between friends, worries and doubts, cute bows, shopping trips, and travel – the stories only become more interesting because we know and care about the people involved in them.

And that’s just it – the story Ira shared about the ashes and a parking lot wasn’t about the ashes or a parking lot – nor was it about the originally anticipated them of “fine print”.  It was about story telling itself.

As it turns out, our life’s story really happens only the first time when we live it it, but can happen again and again, an infinite number of times, in the telling of it.

Ira’s show has a strange ability to get us to care about stories and strangers which we don’t know at all.  They are mostly just run-of-the-mill, every-day-life stories, but told in a way that engages the audience and keeps us on the edge of our seats wondering what we will most enjoy from listening to them talk.

All-in-all, it was definitely worth hanging around a bunch of hippies to see this guy.  Thanks, Ira and crew, for a great show.

Friday arrived.  We watched the clock with anticipation for our 5 o’clock departure to DFW airport.  We hopped in the car and were halfway to the airport when A2 remembered we needed to look up the terminal and gate for our flight.  Out came the iPhone and the txt message from American Airlines:

Gate 3

“Gate 3,” I wondered?  There are 6 terminals and about 40 gates per terminal, and we have “Gate 3″…

To make a long story short, I booked our flights backwards, CRP > DFW.  ARGH!

After an hour of wrangling our money back from the greedy airline and hotel, we were back to square one.  Now what do we do?

Luckily we had already discussed a “Plan B” earlier in the week (without really knowing it was our plan B).  We had talked about how fun it would be to go up to Oklahoma City to see our BYU Cougars play in the NCAA tournament.  Of course, this was before they broke the 17 year first-round losing streak, so we had discussed it as more of a pipe-dream.  But with the Cougars winning game one on Thursday, the opportunity to see them in the Big Dance was now alive and well.

We quickly made a hotel reservation outside of Oklahoma City (in little Yukon, OK), and quickly booked some tickets on StubHub to the game.  Then we got back into the car and started the drive northward.  We had won the battle against the planning problems, now we had to win the battle against the weather.

Why we would embark northward at a time when the weirdest mid-March snow storm was headed into Oklahoma, I’ll never know.  Men do strange things to show their love to their wives, I guess.  I felt better when we arrived and saw the even-crazier people who had driven from Kansas and elsewhere to see their team play in the tournament.

Luckily, we beat the weather and arrived at our hotel safely.  The wind howled quite loudly that night, and we awoke to some pretty wet, icy, sloppy, slippery conditions.  We made our way to downtown OKC, where we got our tickets and enjoyed some really awesome bball.  (Yeah, we saw UNI upset the tournament favorites, KU)  (More on the games in another post, maybe…)

The best part of our vacation, though, was the time we got to spend in the car together (albeit white knuckling it all day on Saturday and Sunday around OKC).  I have the awesomest wife on the face of the whole planet.  We laughed together, we teased each other, we talked about serious subjects and we talked about joyful subjects.

I decided that our honeymoon vacation was a great indication of how our first year of marriage went: perfect.  Flawless.  Without a hitch.  Adventurous.  Unpredictable.  Awesome.

I am now wondering if our first anniversary trip will be an indication of how this next year will go… not exactly what we planned, and with great need for flexibility and adjustment, but still full of fun, laughter, happiness, pleasure, joy, kindness, and comfort – just because I’m spending it with her.

2009 will be a hard year to beat, but we seem to be off on the right foot.  I mean, nothing bad has happened and we’re only 3 days into the year, right?

Each year, I (and now my wife and I) compile a list of “Stuff I Want To Do in 20xx.”  Rather than making a few “resolutions” (read: goals made with the express purpose of forgetting them by February), we make a laundry list of everything we wanted to see happen in the coming year.

So far we haven’t done our “Stuff I Want To Do In 2010″ list, so I can’t really get into our goals for this year.  I can, however, review some of the goals from last year.  (Granted, this is a detailed two page list, so I’ll just hit on a few high points)

• Go somewhere really cool. I think we did this on our honeymoon, Costa Rica was absolutely amazing!!!  We can’t wait to go back someday, but are also looking forward to a really interesting vacation this year.  Not sure where yet, but we’re already auditioning ideas.  This is one we are definitely moving forward as a yearly goal.  There is just so much of the country and world to see!  We might not get to stay in a Marriott every time (Audrey loves staying in hostels… go figure… I’m the Marriott guy in the relationship), but going out and experiencing the world is what we want to do.
• Go to the gym. This one was an epic failure.  We did go while we were engaged, but when June rolled around, my desire for an iPhone trumped my desire to go to the gym.  I can justify $70/mo on a phone I use every day, but I can’t justify $110/mo on a gym membership I use less than once a month.
• Pray every night and morning together. We are doing pretty good here.  Sometimes I’m not totally awake when Audrey prays in the morning, and sometimes she’s not totally awake when I pray at night, but we do it — and the couple who prays together stays together!
• Learn to play a song on the guitar. Fail.  Mrs Brows gave me a guitar last Christmas, but I have picked it up a total of 3 times this whole year.  In fact, visitors and children have played my guitar more than I have.  Granted, I have improved my piano skills this year, but the guitar has been an epic failure.

Well, there are a lot of other things we accomplished this year, and I’m feeling good about our “Stuff” list.  I think we were about 80% on the list.

Another program we religiously watched was Shelley Duvall’s “Faerie Tale Theatre”, short remakes of classic fairie tales with up-and-coming stars.  The Duvall family must have had a LOT of luck, or a LOT of dirt on Hollywood, or maybe it was just a good eye for talent – because the star studded list is pretty impressive: Liza Minelli, Billy Crystal, and Jeff Goldblum were among the stars who appeared in wierd costumes reciting some pretty craftily prepared lines.  My favorite Faerie Tale Theatre was “The Princess and the Pea,” starring Liza Minelli.

We wore out these tapes.

Wore.  Them.  Out.

A few years ago I ran across the entire Faerie Tale Theatre collection at Costco on DVD!  It was like finding a hidden treasure.  I skipped up and down the aisles, excitedly waving two copies above my head, pretending like I had won the super bowl.

The other night, I sat my wife down to show her the treasure of my youth: The Princess and the Pea…

… and she fell asleep.

For reals — dead asleep.

Maybe she just didn’t understand the importance of this moment.  I mean, she might as well have fell asleep during our first date, or during our engagement night.

But that’s OK.  I understand.  Some day, my love, you’ll understand the beauty and importance of this program.

Here it is Wednesday, and I feel like it’s barely Monday.  I’m just started to get going on the many things I need to do this week (blogging being one of them), and soon the week will be over.

So, this post is going to be a mish-mash, catch-you-up.  Sorry if it’s a little underdeveloped and hit-and-miss – it’s what you’re getting, so you’d better just be grateful!

The Jonah Curse is Broken.

During college, I worked for BYU Athletic Communications.  I was at every single BYU sporting event for three years.  This included: Football, Men’s and Women’s Basketball, Soccer, Gymnastics, Baseball, Softball, Volleyball (Men’s and Women’s), and even a tennis match once.

The ironic thing is, I was NOT a sports fan.  I had the best job in the world, coveted by most male BYU coeds, with sideline passes to everything, and I was completely ambivalent about it.

Now, part of it wasn’t my fault.  There is a rule in college sports that there is to be no cheering on “press row”, which includes the press box in Football.  These guys were there to do a job, and although most of them were BYU fans, they all had the “rah-rah-rah” beaten out of them by years of writing about sports.  (Read: telling the same stories over and over again)

So I was trained wrong.  I wasn’t trained correctly like most college sports fans were: in the stands chanting and waving my arms like a goofball.  And anyone who has a husband will attest, men are hard to re-train.

What’s worse is that my 3 years of unfettered access to all things BYU are the ONLY three years in BYU history where we had losing football seasons.  It was a rare treat to see players and coaches coming into the post-game interview room looking cheerful.  In fact, I saw more eyes on the floor during that time than I did in all my years in the middle school locker room.

Then I graduated and moved to Texas.  I have been to two football games since (Tulsa and TCU last year) and both were the most frustrating butt-whoopings we’ve received in the last three years.

I swear, I am Jonah… throw me overboard, because I have been jinxing BYU Football for the last 6 years…

UNTIL LAST WEEKEND!

Holy crap!  Did you see BYU beat OU?  No, I mean did you see them BEAT them?

They didn’t get a lucky break.  They weren’t just tricksy little hobbits out there against the large ogres of middle Oklahoma.  No, they went toe to toe, play after play, and slugged it out for the win.

Sure, maybe if Sam Bradford would have been there for that final OU drive, they might have scored.  But he wasn’t there, and we won.

Niener niener niener!

I will say that unlike BYU fans, OU fans have class.  I got hugs and high fives from several drunk people.  Some said “see you at the rose bowl” in between sobs over losing their Heisman winner for the next month.  Classy bunch.  They know how to lose.

Maybe my Jonah curse has finally been broken!

Jerry World

I do have a few notes for Jerry Jones on my experience in Cowboys Stadium.

1. Get a real scoreboard, Jerry.  Having a little score readout on the ends of the video strips isn’t good enough.  With all the video real estate you have in there, I want some stats.  I want some real info.
2. Dude, your video board rocks.  There’s  just nothing else to say.  High Def, baby.  Bring it!
3. The stadium feels great.  Pretty intimate and open for 80k seats.
4. The a/c sucks, especially when you and the other 80k people are generating more body heat than normal by screaming and jumping up and down.
5. The glass openings on the ends of the stadium are awesome.

The stadium was completely a HOME game for OU.  Everything about the game was OU OU OU.  The videos, the advertisement strips, the band, etc.  It was not a neutral court by any means, despite the 15-20k Cougar fans that showed up.

Yard Update

Yesterday I got an epiphany for my back yard, and we are ready to move ahead.  We are going to have a long stream/water feature running down the length of the patio/yard.

Now I just need a cheap concrete subcontractor.  Ben, are you available?

Really, all I want is for some HGTV or DIY host to knock on my door with an army of interns to transform my back yard.  Is that possible?

My Wife Rocks

My wife just got a new responsibility at church: she is 1st counselor to the Young Women’s program.  She is in charge of the 14 & 15 year olds.  She is going to be sooooo good at this.  The bad part is, she is now gone every Wednesday. For the past two weeks this has meant that I get to do 1) the yardwork and 2) my own church work while she is gone.  I’m not loving this whole apart-for-an-evening-every-week thing, but I suppose it was bound to happen sooner or later.

We are almost to our 6 month anniversary, people.

Life is awesome.

This is all.

When I got home, I laughed at her and asked, “where is my gizmo?”  Then she got this look on her face like, “go find it, suckah!”

Oh great!

So I’ve been cautiously treading around the house, waiting for the Chipmunks to strike at any moment at the opening of a door…

Then… it came!  (Naturally, it came just as I had forgotten about it!)

You might not be able to tell, but i was stuck up under my underwear drawer!

All I can say is: it’s ON!

A few weeks ago, though, I did not miss trash day, and I watched the giant garbage truck lumber up the street, stopping at each home and picking up the trash.  Watching the large arm grab the plastic bins at our curb sent me back many years to a visit I had at Grandma’s house.

I must have been around 8 or 10 years old.  We were visiting Grandma’s house, and she had a large picture window at the front of their home.  Though we spent most of the time playing in the basement or out back, once in a while we would be in the front yard or living room on trash day at just the right time to see the garbage truck come by.

I distinctly remember perching on the back of the couch and watching as the large, city garbage truck came up to the curb.  The garbage worker placed the garbage can on a lift and the lift then tossed the contents into the side of the truck.  The worker also threw any other bags or bins of garbage into the truck.  The worker then reached for a large knob which engaed the hydraulic compactor that came down and compressed each house’s trash contents into the truck.

Watching this process was pretty much the best part of the day.  How cool is that?  We have a big machine that comes around and takes everyone’s garbage!  Awesome!  Amazing!  Wonderful!  The world is full of greatness!

As I watched the (even more advanced) garbage truck at my own curb the other day, a little bit of that sense of wonder and amazement returned, if only for an instant.  For a moment, in my mind’s eye, I was back perched back on the back of Grandma’s couch watching something amazing and wonderful.

*Sigh* … I think I’ll go get some Shasta, Otter Pops, and maybe even a push-up from the Schwan’s man.

In kindergarten, you knew when it was a special day when the teacher retrieved a special jar from the high cabinet and opened the lid.  The euphoric smell of freshly manufactured rubber filled their air as she dipped her hand into the jar and produced a single, fresh bouncy ball and bestowed it on the lucky birthday child.

I waited with great anticipation for my bouncy ball.  When was my birthday going to be?  What color ball would I choose?  Would everyone sing extra-loudly for me?

Then we had the unit on learning your birthday and I was crushed to find out that I wouldn’t be in school for my birthday!  I had a summer birthday!

Rats!

The world came crashing down.  What was I going to do?  Were my chances of cradling that sweet rubber  ball on my birthday gone?  Just because I had a summer birthday?

For the first time I felt the stinging pangs of birthday discrimination.

Then, the last week of school, a miracle!  Our teacher gave out bouncy balls to all the summer birthday kids!  I still felt shortchanged, though, because I had to share my special moment with 3 other kids who also had summer birthdays.  Arg!

In first grade, the story was different.  Now that I was attending school for the full day, I was introduced to the phenomenon of school lunch, and quickly found out that birthdays for first graders were infinitely more cool than in Kindergarten — because you got a cupcake!

(This gives you an idea how small the school was, that the lunch ladies knew everyone’s birthday and make cupcakes for each birthday in the whole school.)

I was first introduced to this cupcake phenomenon (and the accompanying covetous feelings) when my brother (just a grade older than me) had his November birthday.  There it sat, the beautiful, fresh, handmade chocolate cupcake with a single candle standing erect in the middle.  I’m not sure if we sang, but for this story’s sake – we sang.  Ben blew out the candle.  The children cheered, and life was grand.

I wanted a cupcake really badly.

Then I realized, my June birthday might preclude me from having a birthday cupcake!!

Panic!

I wondered outloud, “would they give cupcakes to all the summer birthdays during the last week of school?”  “Would I get my chocolatey moment in the spotlight?”  “Would I be the envy of children around the lunchroom?”  “How could they in good conscience give chocolate cupcakes to only some of the children?”

Heartbreak.

The answer came in a resounding – NO!  No cupcakes for summer birthday kids.

I was devastated.  (Kid devastated – lasts for about five minutes, until you blog about it 23 years later.)

So this post is dedicated to all those kids with summer birthdays out there.  May your birthday never be forgotten by your singing school peers, bouncy ball giving teachers, and cupcake making lunch ladies!

During our wedding planning, we had decided several key things that we wanted to do a little differently.  In the planning phase, some of our ideas were met with praise, while others were kind of panned.

For example, we didn’t want to be stuck (or stick our family) in a receiving line, wanted a non-traditional guest book (something we’d actually look at in the future), moved the typical day-of family wedding dinner to the night before, gave a few suggestions for non-traditional gift giving, and more.

In practice, some of these things went better than others.  We had to give up a few of the ideas, modify others, but some of them actually went even better than planned!

One of the most memorable moments of the wedding reception came from one of these ideas.  My wife decided that rather than throwing the bouquet, we would give it to the person at the reception who had been married the longest.

It turned out that person was my Aunt Alcea.  She had been married 52 years!

What made it special, though, was the fact that she is the nicest, quietest, most unassuming of little ladies anyone will ever meet, and she was just delighted to be honored like that, tearing up a bit, too.

Seeing the true surprise and delight in her face was a beautifully touching moment I won’t soon forget!

If you answered yes, then… awwwww….. I missed you too!

If you answered no, then… HA HA.. I didn’t miss you either suckah! (Yup… that one was the real answer…)

Yes, dear readers, I am back from over 8 days of digital silence (a record for me!), and am here to say that I survived my fall off the face of the earth!  No, I didn’t send an email, comment on a blog, log in to facebook or myfamily, TXT, work, or in any other way interact with the wider world of people.  Amazing, huh?!

Yup.  It was just me, my new wife, and a game of Scramble on her new iPod Touch… (Right now she is sitting with the top score of 78, but she’d better watch it… I’m coming up on her!)

We spent the last 8 days… … … here:

Yes, Costa Rica was absolutely lovely.  I’ll have to post a ‘travel tips’ blog later this week about all the ins-and-outs for those who might want more info on our travel there.  On the whole, I will use these words to describe it: untouched, un-tourist-y, beautiful, warm, and secluded.

But before I get into all of that… let me go back a bit.

First I have to talk about the Wedding.  Yes, it happened.  WhiteEyebrows actually got married.  After all this time, working his mojo to the very best he could, he finally found someone who he could trick into saying yes.

But seriously… the wedding went amazingly!  We have the best set of family and friends we could ask for.  To think that everyone would go to so much trouble and expense to come together for our little event still kind of astounds me.  I only wish that we could have had more time with each person; more time to tell them how much we love and appreciate the part that they play in our lives.

Thanks to everyone for being patient when we were 45 minutes late to dinner, which was really the only major derailment to the schedule that we had all weekend… (but with good reason)

Oh, yeah… oops.  There was more.  I forgot the rings until about 5 minutes before we were to go in for the ceremony… but thank goodness for a father-in-law with fleet feet who went running after my Dad who had already gone back to retrieve another piece of wedding clothing I had forgotten as well.

Yup… Other than that, everything went well.

…Except for the decorator not being able to find our guest book and the signs we’d printed until 10 minutes into the reception.

Other than that, everything went awesome…

…Except for when my stupid brothers took one of the spark plug wires off of the car… then our ‘quick getaway’ turned into a very slow getaway.

Other than that, it was all perfect!

In other words, there is no such thing as a perfect wedding.  You can always find stuff that went wrong.  We just did all the planning and fore-thinking we could, and then let the day run its course.  And it all turned out amazingly!

The honeymoon, on the other hand, was perfect… but then I doubt you’ll read much blogging about that. 

PS… just to set the record straight, I didn’t actually write my last blog entry the day after I got married.  I had written it a week before and just wanted it to appear on a Sunday (given its religious theme)… so sorry for the false alarm if you were looking for marital details, and sorry to throw you off if you wondered why in the world I would be blogging like that the day after my wedding. 

PPS… Stay tuned for a few more details to be spilled over the coming week.  And feel free to ask me questions about stuff you’d like me to elaborate more on…

Rip ‘Em
As you left the house in the morning for school, this phrase was meant to encourage you to do your best and get good grades in school. (eg RIP ‘EM today at school!)  If you did well on a particular assignment or project, that might also be a “rip ‘em.”  (eg That math test sure was a rip ‘em.)  It has to be said loudly with a certain tearing quality in the voice.

No Flies on You
This means, I guess, that you’re not dead.  The basic meaning being:  “Well, you’re no idiot” or  “Can’t get anything past you.”

Slower than Cold Tar
This one’s pretty obvious.  It’s someone who’s really, really slow.

Off Like a Dirty Shirt
Dad would say this one when we were about to leave somewhere in the car.  It also goes with…

__ Minutes ‘Til Blastoff
This is what Dad used to say every Sunday morning to get everyone into the car on time to get to church.  I wonder how often it actually worked…

Keep the Rubber Side Down and the Sunny Side Up
This one has come about more recently.  This is what Dad now says to any of us when we’re about to embark on a road trip.  “Stay safe and happy” is basically what it means.

If you work at it hard, it’ll be easy – and if you work at it easy, it’ll be hard.
An eternal truth… self-explanatory.  Hard work and discipline makes everything easier.

Any others you can think of from your father or mine?

…But…

There are certain events in a man’s life that completely change everything – that deserve to be blogged about – and this is one of them…

I’m engaged!

I picked that ring all by myself! (…OK… TLS helped too)
My fiance didn’t want anything to do with the ring picking.
How’d I do?  I’ll be honest… I’m pretty proud of myself!

Yup. I’ve been dating a girl for a good while now, and we’ve gotten to that point.

Whaddya mean you can’t believe it? … I can’t believe it!! Here I was just minding my own business, enjoying my singleness, and then this amazing woman just pops into my life! (Ok… it was a little more involved than that.) But really, what was I supposed to do?!

Let me take you back a few months… remember that couple of weeks about 4 months ago when people started asking me if I was OK, because the blog was really suffering, and I was sounding like an idiot every day?  I just wasn’t performing to my usual blogging standard. Well, that’s why. That’s when the relationship started. I’ve since recovered and brought the blog level back up somewhat, but I fully expect the same dip in blog performance to happen over the next few months.

Anyway, dear readers. Let’s not belabor this point, nor dwell on all this wedding madness. I will make a pact with you. I will not be gushing and/or complaining and/or bragging and/or spilling every detail about my impending wedding here on the blog. This blog will be a mostly wedding-talk-free zone. Please note, however, that this is going on in my life, and I just might get a little distracted.

If you would like to be thoroughly sapped out, here is our wedding website: http://www.samandaudrey.com/. Check back often for updates as we get closer to the date!

I just can’t leave a dirty house.

Growing up, I never understood this phrase.  Sure you could!  I left my room dirty every morning (and it often miraculously cleaned itself after I was gone) and no one seemed to bat an eyelash.  No cleanliness god punished me for shirking my duty.  No strangers ever came in for a house tour and wanted to specifically walk into my room.  What was the big deal?

Well, I’ll tell you.  I know now.  It’s totally a psychological thing that happens after you own your own home.

Every time I return home after I’ve been away for any long period of time (overnight seems to be enough), I always think to myself, “I wonder if the house burned down.”  Not that I expect it to have burned down, but it always adds a bit of wonder, excitement, and mystery to the return home.  Maybe it’s just that we always expect something bad to have happened in our absence.  After all, we weren’t there to be the super hero and prevent it, right?

You know how they say we all become our parents?  Well, I think I’ve become my mother in needing a bit of order before I leave the house… especially if I’m leaving for any extended period of time.  I think it’s because I want my house in good working order if a fire crew or SWAT team ever have to break in while I’m gone.  I mean, who would want to have left your roller skates in the hallway and cause the fireman to trip on the way to putting out the fire in your network/server closet?  Come on.  I just couldn’t live with that guilt!

OK… I’m sick.  I know.

And yet, I have not reached the level where I will actually delay my departure just to straighten that last shelf or wipe the counter one more time like my mom so often does.  (Which is what really, really used to annoy me growing up.)

Then again, in her words… “I’m just a little anal.”

Enjoy!

Did you date someone from your school?

Not really.  I went on dates, but never had a serious girlfriend in high school.

What kind of car did you drive?

1984 Oldsmobile Cutlass Supreme.  I think every high school student should have to drive a car that is as old or older than they are.

Were you a party animal?

If by party animal, you mean that I stayed after school every day for an extra two hours, even when there was no reason to stay, and that I was involved in every aspect of the arts I could get my hands into, then yes, I was a party animal.  No, actually I was a pretty big nerd.

Were you considered a flirt?

I didn’t think so until I read my yearbook a few years ago.  Dan B called me a bad word because I had flirted with a friend of his and led her on… but I never knew it… So if being nice to girls qualifies as “flirting”, then yes… I was a total flirt.  I pretended like I was a womanizer, but was really still afraid of girls.

Were you a nerd?

Again, yes.  Thanks for rubbing it in.  But being a nerd opened doors.  I was the head technician of our theater my senior year, which scored me a faculty parking pass and a set of keys to the school, so I could get in whenever I wanted.  This made for awesome late night Mario-Kart-on-the-big-screen parties.

Were you on any varsity teams?

No.  I am not athletic.  I was in band, choir, drama, and had a p/t job some of the time.

Did you ever get suspended or expelled?

No.  The worst that ever happened was when Mr Palmer (vice-principal) got mad at me for taking some friends up through the secret hatch onto the roof of the auditorium (the highest peak of the school).  Apparently some parents saw us up there and freaked out.  They thought we were going to jump.

Who were your favorite teachers?

Mr Eaton (Drama) – Countless hours of private counseling and tutoring.  He trusted and empowered me.  He wisely let students do the work, even if it resulted in a slightly worse product.  “Love the art in yourself, not yourself in the art.”

Mr Lister (Choir) – Dedication and total commitment.  The man gave up his lunch hour to start a men’s chorus.  He inspired me to be the best I could, and not settle for mediocrity. He never did. Dedication, commitment, and hard work can beat lazy talent any day.

Mr Holt (Band) – A true patriot.  And never afraid to drop a 4 letter word if it would get us to shut up.

Mr “C” (Christensen) (Math – all 3 years) – “Good luck, have fun, it’s just a test.”

Mrs Jacobson (English) – Let me be the class clown and attention hog I always wanted to be.

Mrs Hazen (AP English) – First class where showing up and putting in average work got me only average grades.  The only truly college prepratory class I had.

Could you still sing the fight song?

No.  I had to reuse those brain cells for learning my college’s fight song.

Where did you sit during lunch?

Out in the hallway by the auditorium.  Lots of good memories here… especially when Heather stole the blanket I started bringing to school at the end of my sophomore year.  She still claims it is her blanket, and she still has it, I think.

What was your school’s full name?

Pine View High School

Did you go to Homecoming?

Yes.  I went to all the dances.  But the worst part was that you had to elaborately ask and answer, too.  This was dating in High School, and it was so exhausting that I never went out on ‘regular’ dates.  I didn’t discover how fun that could be until much later, unfortunately.

What do you remember most about graduation?

I remember walking through the big PV.  I remember that Mr Eaton was the faculty speaker at our ceremony.

The better memory, though, was that for Senior Honor’s Evening (the big brag session on the night before graduation).  They decided to call us up in reverse alphabetical order, which put me 2nd to last to go through the line.  Because I was the head technician in the theater, I got all of my minions to rig up some fog machines, thunder sounds, and lighting effects to all go off as I walked through the PV.  It really surprised everyone, especially the ones in charge of such an event.

Where did you go senior skip day?

I think there was a big controversy because they weren’t going to let us have one.  And I can’t remember if they did or not… which goes to show that I must not have done anything exciting for it.

Were you in any clubs?

Not really.  We had a drama club just to say we had one, but we never did anything.  I think I was the president of it my senior year.

Have you gained some weight since then?

Yeah.  I thought I was fat in High School, but now I’d give an arm and a leg to go back to that size. (and that’s what it would probably take)

Do you plan on going to your 10 year reunion?

Hoping to make it.  It will be next summer.  Wow.  Ten years goes by fast!  I have noticed, though, that only those students who actually moved away are the ones who even care to come back for these things.  The ones who stuck around my hometown… not so much.