Please pass the dentu-cream

Ok... Yes, I'm having a mini-crisis. On Tuesday I will celebrate the one year anniversay of my 29th birthday. Alright fine, I'll be 30. Now I have many friends who have already passed this particular milestone of life, and I honestly don't consider any of you "old". But to be turning 30 certainly makes me FEEL old. In order to help cope with this quite horrible of events and put a much more pleasant aura upon it, I have decided to partake in an act of self-indulgence and reminisce over my 30 years upon this planet. Obviously, this is mostly for my benefit, but feel free to read along. For sake of length I will break this up into 4 categories and post each separately. Those categories will be: Birth through High school (since I am old, much of the memories of this time period have become fuzzy or forgotten), Pre-Missouri College, Living in Missouri, and Back in Arthur. And I should warn you, a number of these will only be understood by a select few (if any), that just how it is. So on with the show...



BIRTH THROUGH HIGH SCHOOL: (in no particular order)

* Digging snow tunnels in the church parking lot

* going to my first cubs-cards game

* winning the grade school spelling bee as a fourth grader, and then making it to the regional bee

* trying to see how many times Amy and I could get on tv at the science olympiad

* Show Choir/Marching Band trips

* Prank calling the freshman at Onalaska my Senior year

* PRINGLE!!!!

* Dad, Kevin, Nick and I pretending like we don't know Mom at the Calgary Airport, embarrassing her and making the people around us laugh

* watching kevin learn to ride bike and ride right into the hydrant at a speed slightly above standing still... the best live-action slow-motion crash I've ever seen

* Summer camp at Menno Haven

* Ozzie's Nature game

* Playing Buck Buck at youth convention

* Getting saved when I was 5

* Playing Bari sax in marching band

* Pep band

* Learning the art of "not playing what is written, but what sounds AWESOME!" for pep band from Adam Johnson

* Show Choir practices with Travis Fleming

* Plays/Musicals (especially the Odd Couple with Ed Coller)

* All of my Mr. Jones classes (say what you want about him as a teacher, I had fun in there)

* Having the opening solo for our show choir show my junior year and getting to perform it on the main stage at Epcot at Nationals

* Being the first (and last that I know of) actual knight mascot for one playoff football game against Arcola (in which victory was stolen by the referees... grrr)

* Being one of the original 3 members of the Amish Mafia

* Doing really well on my ACTs

* playing one on one football with kevin

* hitting fireflies with a big red plastic bat

* having parents who love to travel

* understanding how to have fun when your family is dirt poor

* being the official "horn" for amy's vw bug... since it didn't have one

* summer baseball

* junior high youth trips to Yoder's Cabin

* flicking puzzle pieces at people in Mrs. Owens 6th grade class

* Mr. Corum's junior high history class... it was the best ever. I remember more from that class than any other I think

* Our basketball/show choir rivalry with Sullivan

* Playing football in the backyard with Kevin and creating the "Grandma" passing route

* G.I. Joes

* Legos

* Kicking butt at Scholastic Bowl my senior year with Ed and I being the best 1-2 punch in the conference

* Mutilating the cat Amy was supposed to be dissecting, but not getting in trouble because we could make Mrs. Weissing laugh every time

* Lifesavers weekends at Allerton Park

* Parties at Amy's house

* Trips to the Wisconsin Dells and Noah's Ark, the greatest waterpark anywhere.

* Scoring 1000 points in a season on Madden on the sega genesis. Kevin + Me + the Cowboys = Unstoppable

* Going out for a pizza with Dad and coming home with a new TV

* Travel toys

* Down In Front mens acapella group

* Playing a dead body in the High school play as an 8th grader

* Velcro ball


Ok, I'll stop there. There are a lot more things I could write, especially the trials and low points that helped shape who I became. But these are simply some of my favorite memories. Tomorrow I'll post the next installment "Pre-Missouri College" God bless.

-The Old Man