It’s that “25 Things” thing again—you’ve probably seen it elsewhere on the blogosphere. A friend tagged me on Facebook, so now it’s my turn:
1. Back in college, when I handed a note to my marching band director to tell him I was going to see a surgeon that evening for a probable appendectomy, he said, “You’re not planning to miss band practice, though, are you?” (The appendectomy happened, and yes, I did miss band practice.)
2. The year after I finished college, having had that same director for four years, I had a nightmare seven nights in a row that I was late for rehearsal. He had that effect on you.
3. Still he was one of the best teachers I’ve ever had; his initials—KGB—notwithstanding.
4. My trombone teacher in college was later named the International Trombone Association Teacher of the Year. He deserved it.
5. My summer and winter job when I was a teenager was pumping gas. Man, it could get cold doing that in the winter in Michigan!
6. My first published work was a design I made with Tinkertoys of a “Supercar.” (Does anybody remember watching “Supercar” on Saturday mornings? Probably not.) I was around 4, 5, maybe 6 years old. They put it in their next book of designs.
7. Some of my best memories were of my dad helping me build Tinkertoy towers that were taller than me.
8. Some of my other best memories are of sailing with him and the whole family on the Great Lakes.
9. Some of my other best memories are of the way Mom made holidays so terrific.
10. Mom had a recipe for a “tea ring,” a kind of specially shaped and seasoned sweet roll treat for Easter, Thanksgiving, and Christmas, that I still bake for holidays. The tradition lives!
11. I swim at the Y for exercise, usually a couple miles a week when I’m healthy and not traveling.
12. I’ve been an Upward (youth church league) basketball coach and/or referee every year the past 9 years.
13. That builds on my triumphant history of being the last man on my 7th grade basketball team—a team that went 0 and 10 for the season.
14. Still, the teams I coached from around 2001 to 2006 won every one of their games, except for one loss and one tie. Great talent, not great coaching. Great fun, at any rate! (And besides, you’re not supposed to pay attention to those things in Upward.)
15. My wife and I met in 1979 and got married a short 8 years later, after 3 different breakups and reunions. She was worth the wait!
16. I studied recording engineering at the Grove School of Music in Studio City, California, and became an associate faculty member there, helping with electronics and acoustics classes, and doing some engineering around L.A. and Hollywood.
17. I used to teach communications skills for musicians, including seminars I delivered at the Christian Artists Music Seminar in the Rockies.
18. I’ve been to Russia twice. On one of those trips our group saw Boris Yeltsin at the Moscow domestic airport, and I shook hands with him. Ten days later the Russian coup happened, and he was holed up in the Russian White House surrounded by tanks.
19. One member of our group gave him (or it might have been one of his aides) a copy of Josh McDowell’s book More Than A Carpenter. I’ve often wondered if he read it while he was stuck there during the coup. I wish I could say there was more evidence that he had.
20. My wife, my son, and I used to live in Big Bear City, California. It’s a quarter mile higher there than Denver. When it snowed, if less than 12 inches fell we thought it was kind of boring.
21. On June 28, 1992, there in Big Bear, we experienced the strongest earthquake to hit the continental U.S. in the last 100 years, the Landers quake, just 20 miles or so from our home. Depending on your source, it was 7.4 to 7.6 on the Richter scale. Four hours later a 6.5 (maybe 6.7, depending on your source) quake hit pretty much straight below our house. We were homeless for a week until major damage could be repaired and cleaned up.
22. If you can’t trust the ground you walk on, what can you trust? I think there was a lesson I was supposed to learn during those earthquakes and all the aftershocks. See number 25.
23. For ten or so years now I’ve been telling my daughter over and over again, “Daddies are never silly.” She still doesn’t believe me.
24. I tried to be a Christian when I was growing up, since it seemed like the right thing to do. I failed miserably at it. I gave up.
25. When I was a freshman in college, I let God come into my life and make me one of his own, not because it “seemed like the right thing to do” but because I had studied further, learned more, and was convinced God was true and trustworthy. God did not fail, and he has never given up!
I’m not going to tag others with this—I’m still weeks behind on another tagging that David Heddle did on me. (I’ll get there, David!)
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Like your other writings, even your 25 random things list follows a logical progression!
#7 encourages me to continue building block towers with my baby boy!