Another list of 30 things - this one things that I think I will never forget. There are many, many more things that I could have listed, but this was a good start.
1. My wedding day. Well, kind of…I honestly don’t remember that much about the service, other than the fact that my face was sore from smiling so much.
2. The birth of my son. Michelle was in labor for what seemed like eternity. The first of many sleepless nights. I remember calling everyone when we got to the hospital thinking that it would be any minute now. It was about 18 hours later when Dalton finally decided to show up.
3. The birth of my daughter. This one was really interesting, as the doctor who delivered Maggie didn’t know that we didn’t know whether we were having a boy or a girl. It seemed like an eternity before he actually told us, although I’m sure it was only a few seconds.
4. Walking into the hotel room on our honeymoon. We had arranged for a “honeymoon suite” at our resort, so imagine our surprise when we walked into the room and found two twin beds…on opposite sides of the room. The lady showing us to our room must have sensed our surprise since she asked if we wanted a room with a queen bed. We answered in the affirmative, and she started pushing the beds together. We did eventually get our suite, though.
5. Spinning in a 360 on the Galleria Ring Road. This one is probably more memorable for the fact that Michelle was in the car with me. The road was wet, my tires were mostly bald, and sure enough, I was speeding through there like you used to be able to do. The rear end went sliding, and as I felt it go, I just let off the gas – there was a car in front of me, and a car behind, so braking would have just gotten us killed. The car went all the way round, and as it came round again, I hit the gas, pulling out a perfect 360 and moving on. I’m not sure Michelle was able to speak for the next 30 minutes. I was laughing hysterically.
6. The Galleria 10. How could I forget? I worked there longer than any other pre-college job, working as a projectionist (mostly) for the last year or so that I was there. Besides the quirky and fun people that I got to meet and work with, there were also the free movies.
7. “People have grown about an inch every hundred years.” Among the many misstatements that have been made in our family (and subsequently ridiculed without mercy), this was one made by my dad. We figured that made all the Biblical characters extremely small.
8. “I got a grit.” While we’re on great statements, this one comes from my sister. It was a family vacation and we had all been playing “Life”, and she was paying out because somebody had another baby (please see “Life” instructions if you’re confused at this point). Her complaint is recorded forever in the annals of our family history. If it’s not funny, that’s okay, you probably just had to be there.
9. Sanford & Son/The Twilight Zone. Okay, these don’t seem to go together, but hang with me for a moment. When I was a teenager, the local station (WTTO 21) ran basically a bunch of old non-syndicated programs all day long. At night, after coming home from work, I’d frequently cook up a Totino’s pizza and watch these two shows, which came on back to back.
10. My first (and only) car wreck.
11. Michelle wrecking her Geo Prism. We were out at Ruby Tuesday’s on Southside with friends celebrating the fact that I had passed the CPA exam, and she pulled out of the parking lot and got blindsided by another driver.
12. Passing the CPA exam. I was out of town at the time, and I was talking to Michelle on the phone who told me that the results had come in. She read them out to me and I was jumping up and down on the hotel room bed.
13. Seeing the Colosseum for the first time. The way it just loomed up out of the darkness, larger than life, ancient, reminding me of all the history inside, and so beautiful.
14. Margaritas in Key West. While there were many things that were memorable about our trip to Key West, one of them was my brother’s margaritas…which included a fair amount of chopped up plastic, thanks to the fact that the lid had fallen into the blender, but the blender just kept going. I’m not sure what it says about us that we just strained it and drank it anyway.
15. THE boat ride in Key West. Even if I wanted to forget this one, I’m not sure if Michelle would let me. We rented a boat during the week, and finally decided to try for a reef where we could go snorkelling. The water was choppy, to say the least. Dalton got sick, Michelle got sick, and my mom and dad and I snorkelled. And while we’re talking beaches…
16. Sanibel. Our first trip to Sanibel was, for whatever reason, everything that I thought a vacation should be. Sanibel remains as probably my favourite beach, if only for the shells. Maybe I shouldn’t recommend it, as I would really prefer to keep it all to myself.
17. Buying our first house. I don’t know if most people are excited when they buy their first house or not, but I was on the verge of eternal depression because I hated the idea of being in so much debt.
18. The Zhangs. Former owners of our (current) house, I suspect that the Zhangs made normal frugality seem like extravagance. They were quite the interesting couple, and we found out even more about them when we started working on the house.
19. My former boss. To say that we didn’t get along would be an understatement. I honestly am not sure how I lasted as long as I did. Life was miserable for a solid six months or more before I finally left.
20. Travelling the Southeast. My first job after college involved about, oh, 95% travel. Seriously. Still, while we didn’t get to go to big cities very often, it was quite interesting travelling around and seeing the different places and people. From Red Bay, Alabama to Bolivar, Tennessee, to Lutcher, Louisiana and Vicksburg, Mississippi, woo hoo!!
21. Maggie’s mysterious disappearance. One afternoon, I sat out on our back porch in Helena while Maggie went to play in the back yard. There was one corner of the yard which couldn’t be seen from the back porch, and, unsurprisingly, I guess, Maggie went there to play. After a quiet ten minutes or so, I wandered around to check on her, only to find that she was gone. I ran out of the back yard and found Maggie standing in the middle of the road in front of a car. One of the fence slats was loose, and she had just pushed it aside and headed on out.
22. The first night with Chloe. I picked Chloe out from the Galleria Pet Store and brought her home while Michelle was at work. Chloe has always been skittish, and she very quickly jumped out of my arms and ran under the couch. I figured that I could just pull her out when Michelle got home. Unfortunately, when Michelle got home, I couldn’t find her. We ended up tearing up the apartment before discovering her hiding in the couch.
23. The sleepless night with Chloe. Not long after we got Chloe, she had developed the bad habit of wanting to play in the middle of the night. I decided that I would break the habit by closing the bedroom door. I ended up putting double stick tape on the bottom of the door to keep her from scratching it, and she started scratching the carpet instead. So, she would come to the door, scratch the carpet, I would open the door, pop her on the butt, and close the door back. After a bit, she wised up, and she would come, scratch the carpet, I would open the door and she would run off. After doing this all night long, I was chasing the cat around the apartment, and trying to poke her with the broom when she scampered under the couch. At about 5 am, Michelle wakes up to this scene, and tells me to “leave the poor cat alone”. My relationship with Chloe has never been the same.
24. Our Christmas with Guinness (the dog). Santa brought Guinness for our kids, and we thought they would be incredibly excited. We video taped their reaction, which was nothing like what we had expected. As I recall, Dalton said, “Look, someone else’s puppy got into our house.”
25. The night Clark came to visit. Clark decided to come out to our house to see me. Unfortunately, he didn’t call, and so I was in bed when he arrived. He came around to the back of the house and flicked his lighter to try to see in. I figured someone was trying to get in the house, so woke my brother, and after he saw the lighter, we went and got my dad – who got the shotgun. We went, popped on the light, and my dad jumped out with the shotgun…and there stood Clark. Truly, an unforgettable experience. We still talk about this one in my family.
26. Vacation in Hot Springs, Arkansas. One year, my family went on vacation at a little cabin in Hot Springs, Arkansas that was owned by my great-grandfather. It was not air conditioned, and that summer it was hitting triple digits daily, and wasn’t cooling off until 10 or 11 o’clock at night. Even going swimming in the lake was like taking a warm bath. We would dive to the bottom where it was cool, and hold our breath as long as we could to cool off. It was absolutely miserable.
27. September 11, 2001. I imagine that this is one of those things where every American will remember what they were doing when they first heard of the attacks.
28. Dalton’s first set of tubes. Dalton was less than a year old, and even though it was just a routine operation, it was still an operation on our son. It was just one of those moments where you realised that you would do anything for your child.
29. Misspelling "barbarian" in the county spelling bee. In my defense, the caller (none other than the famous Mike Royer) pronounced it "bar-bur-ee-un", rather than "bar-bear-ee-un". I don't think I have ever forgiven Mike Royer for this.
30. Midnight walks. From the time I was about 17 until I moved out of the house, my brother and I used to take "midnight" walks, where we would just go and talk. The actual timing of the walks was questionable, ranging from 11 pm to around 3 am in the morning, depending on our schedules. Still, we did this a couple of times a week for years. I can still remember one particularly dark night when I couldn't see anything, and remarked so to my brother, who replied, "Oh, really? I can see pretty good, now," about half a second before he stepped solidly in the middle of a mud puddle.
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