First Things First

Day 4 of 30 Things in Thirty Days: This is a list of 30 "firsts" in my life - which gives away some of the answers to the true-false list... but I'll give full disclosure later on.

But before we get to the list, I'll add an extra "bonus" first on the front: Last night was my first rock concert in London. I went to see Roger Waters at the O2 Arena. For those of you who don't know, Roger Waters was the frontman for Pink Floyd until their contentious split-up. He went solo, the band got the name, but if you wonder who was the genius behind "The Wall", that honor goes to Roger. Anyway, I went, had a good time, and then tried to make it home. I say "tried", because the O2 Arena holds 20,000 people. After the show, about 19,000 of us headed to the Tube. I survived that crush and made it to Victoria Station, where I ran up just in time to see my train leave. I did catch the absolute last train of the night to Merstham, getting there around 1 am. So feeling a little tired today.

In other news, Dalton went to a "shout-a-thon" at his Beaver Scout meeting last night, and we discovered that he can squeal at 132 dbs...this concerns me more than might at first be readily apparent, because he's the quiet one....

1. My first date with Michelle: We were both working at the cinema at the time, so dinner and a movie wasn’t an option. We went to dinner, and ended up driving around Birmingham in the “party van”. Michelle ended up getting car sick, and I had to take her home. I thought at the time it was because she didn’t like me. (You do like me, right, babe?)
2. My first car: An old Datsun B-210 2-door station wagon, light baby blue. By the time I got it, it had over 300,000 miles on it, and had an annoying habit of overheating any time it had to sit in traffic for more than about three minutes.
3. My first apartment: The little one bedroom, 750 square foot apartment at 1801-A Arboretum Circle was home for Michelle and me for nearly two years. We’ve taken the kids by to see it from time to time (not the inside obviously). Despite the fact that we had no room, it still seems like an enchanted period of my life.
4. My first house: The townhome in Helena was a love/hate relationship for me, although it tended much more towards the latter at the end. The leak in our plumbing which resulted in our living room being dug up was the last straw. If you haven’t heard that story, you need to – a true home horror story.
5. My (other) first house: My parents moved us into a little house on Alameda Avenue in the West End, where we lived for maybe two years. My main memories are of trying to find my dog so he wouldn’t be scooped up by the dog-catcher, and the neighbor’s son, whose name was May-Mayne. I’m not sure of the spelling, though.
6. My first job: At fifteen, I started working on the carousel at the Galleria. It seemed unbelievably glamorous at the time, especially since I was being paid something like $5.00/hour. (Minimum wage was $3.15 at the time.)
7. My first reading of Lord of the Rings: I don’t remember exactly how old I was – probably eight or nine, but my dad had told me that I didn’t need to read it, as he thought it would be over my head. I ended up waking up very early on Saturday mornings, sneaking into his room and taking the books, reading them, and then returning them before he woke up. I made it into Return of the King before he found me. (He did let me finish.)
8. My first computer: The Commodore 64. I bought it myself and spent way too many hours playing with it. I still reminisce about the old glory days and hours spent playing “Summer Games”, among other things. I purposely exclude the Atari as it wasn’t really a computer – just a game console, although that is also effectively what the Commodore was used for as well.
9. My first computer game: The Bard’s Tale, which, if you’ve heard of it, will reveal even more of my geekiness to you. This was actually the whole reason I bought the Commodore in the first place.
10. My first Guinness: My first thought was something along the lines of “Who would drink this stuff?” Ironic that years later it is among my favourite brews.
11. My first frog: A t-shirt, actually – just a Peacefrog shirt, with a big, green frog on the back, holding up a peace sign. Who knew that it would spawn such huge frogness in the future? (In Helena, our telephone number was even 621-FROG, although by accident, not by request. Frogs were just destined to be, I guess.)
12. My first concert: Mike and the Mechanics and The Outfield at Oak Mountain Amphitheatre, back when the upper area was all grass.
13. My first blind date: Oddly enough, coinciding with my first concert. The fact that we were at a concert ended up being a good thing, as my date was more or less monosyllabic. Through one of the stranger twists of fate, I dated her sister a few years later. (Although I didn’t realise it at the time we started dating – and neither did she.)
14. My first equity: Yeah, this one’s a bit geeky, but oh, well. I got Compass Bancshares stock through my employment there, and ended up holding them until I had to sell them for my current job, so I could remain independent.
15. My first Starbucks: Michelle and I took the kids out to look at Christmas lights and stopped off at a Starbucks to get a couple of coffees. I got a vanilla latte and was hooked. Darn you, Starbucks!!
16. My first movie: Gus. This may not actually be the first thing that I saw in the cinema, but it’s the first thing I remember seeing. As it came out in 1976, there’s a decent chance that it is actually the first cinema film I ever saw. As I recall, we saw it for my birthday.
17. My first video game: Pacman. Duh. A long, long, time ago, in a galaxy far away, when Liberty Supermarket was up on Green Springs, they had a Pacman video game standing in the front of the store. I used to get a couple of quarters from my mom, and would play for my few minutes, maybe making it through the first two screens, before the next kid would come and score 500,000 points.
18. My first camping experience: Winter Jamboree, shortly after I became a Boy Scout. I was the guy that they sent out searching for the “smoke-shifter”. I suppose this happens everywhere, because when I worked at the cinema, we used to send people looking for the “thermopylator”.
19. My first international trip: Jamaica. This also happened to be our honeymoon. Michelle and I had a great time playing around in the resort pool and getting our drinks delivered poolside. Quite relaxing after the wedding stress.
20. My first time as a groomsman: One of my high school friends got married about a year or maybe two after he graduated, and I was a groomsman at his wedding. We had our rehearsal dinner at a little Chinese restaurant on Green Springs, and ended up playing pool for most of the night before the wedding.
21. My first car accident: Actually, I think it’s my only car accident, but it was enough. I had taken a friend home after work, and was driving back through Five Points South. I was hit full on the driver’s side in my little Corona, and the other guys drove off. The car was spun in a 180, and although I was disconcerted, I ultimately emerged unscathed, although the driver’s side dent remained until I killed the car.
22. My first speeding ticket: An early birthday present, you might say – I got it coming down Lakeshore at about 1 o’clock in the morning on the day I turned 17 for going 70 in a 40 zone. It was, however, not my most memorable ticket. That honor goes to the one I got on the way to New Orleans, where I was pegged for going 77 in a 70 – and resulted in Michelle saying, “I told you to slow down.”
23. My first day trip to Atlanta: Back before the internet, if you wanted anything other than Top 40 pop, and especially if you were into obscurities, you had to really look for it. The main reason for going to Atlanta was Tower Records, but Houlihan’s, Wax ‘n Facts, and Silk Cuts still figure prominently in my memories.
24. My first scotch: It happened to be Lagavulin, which is an excellent scotch, but my reaction at the time was similar to when I had my first Guinness. It was a surprise to me, when only weeks later, I found myself craving the stuff. Smoky, peaty goodness in a bottle.
25. My first radio request: Probably my only radio request. I wanted to tape “Thriller” by Michael Jackson, and one morning called the radio station (KIX 106, anyone?) about ten times requesting it. I think they finally played it to get me to stop calling. I then forgot to record it when it came on.
26. My first pet: I’m not really sure that he was intended to be my pet, but Charlie, a little cocker-spaniel/poodle mix, was my companion for years. He got old and senile at the end, but was always loyal and ready to play.
27. My first broken bone: My left middle finger. I broke it playing football during play break one day. I didn’t go to the doctor for a couple of days, because everyone thought it was just jammed. I have also broken my other middle finger, although I can’t remember how, and fractured my wrist falling out of a tree.
28. My first European trip: Ireland, 1999. Michelle and I spent a week and a half driving around the southern half of the island. I think one of my favourite memories is going down to a very small town in south western Ireland for an Irish music festival, and being surrounded by locals in the pub.
29. My first wisdom tooth: I actually still have all my wisdom teeth, and I still remember teething. How babies put up with it, I’ll never know. I was literally chewing on pencils and ended up getting a prescription for the pain.
30. My first record: Cassette tape, actually. She’s So Unusual, Cyndi Lauper. One of the few albums that I bought during that time that I would actually still listen to today.