2017 Part One - New Job

For most of the 11 years my wife has known me, I've been a student.  We met when I had just started working on a business degree part-time in 2006.  It took 5 years of hard work and sacrifice to earn that degree, but the result was worth it.  My wife took on more than her share of housework and parenting while I studied.  She never complained and was a constant source of encouragement for me.  After graduation, I was blessed with a series of promotions that allowed us to buy our first home and pay for the birth of our first child.  We were amazed by what God had helped us to accomplish as the sun set on our twenties.  In 2013, we decided that our long-term goals would be easier to achieve if I went on to earn my MBA.  My best friend, Scott, had the same idea, so we decided to apply to graduate school together.  It was amazing to have him as my classmate, and surreal when we attended graduation together just 2 short years later.

A year before earning my MBA, I applied for another promotion.  It seemed as though it could be my dream job.  I thought it was the opportunity that would finally allow us to live on my income and allow my wife to become a full-time mom.  I also thought it would be the type of job that would challenge me in many exciting ways.  It almost was.  I got the job and, for awhile, it was everything I'd hoped it would be.  I worked for a great leader and learned more in 6 months than I had in the previous 6 years, but it was short-lived.  A few months after earning my MBA, change happened.  Through a bizarre twist of events, my boss was fired, our team was disbanded, and I found myself passively demoted several levels, stripped of 10% of my pay, and working for one of the most awful people I've ever met.  I had taken a chance, but it didn't work out.  I was miserable, but thankfully God had a plan.
Within a year, I was fortunate to get the opportunity to make a lateral move into IT, working for another great leader with a fun team.  It took a lot of the sting out of my daily work life, but the damage had already been done.  My passion for my work and for the company that had gainfully employed me for more than 17 years was gone.  I knew it was time to start looking for a new career outside my company.
Dara and I hoped and prayed that I could find a new career locally so that we didn't have to move.  Our family had really put down roots and we had just welcomed our newest addition, Fletcher, into this world.  We were plugged into an incredible church family and, other than my job, life was absolutely perfect.  I occasionally dropped hints to Dara that we might have to consider relocating in order to find my new career, but she didn't bite.  For months she made it clear that, although we had worked so hard to put me through school, there were more reasons for us to stay put.  She was right.  I didn't know it at the time, but God was working in her heart too.
In December 2016, with no warning at all, she said to me "I think God wants me to stay at home with the kids, and I know we're going to have to move in order to make that happen.  I think we can consider moving."  I was pumped and immediately got to work.  I diligently studied and applied what I learned from Dick Bolle's Flower Exercise and renowned job-hunting and career-changing bible, which gave me precise direction on what my next career should be (I highly recommend his book - it was amazingly helpful).  Dara and I spent some time discussing potential destinations (Orlando, FL and Lancaster, PA were at the top of our list) and I expanded my job search.  That January, Scott started a new job with a building products manufacturer in Lancaster, PA.  From a logistics standpoint, Lancaster was certainly an easier move than Orlando.  It would also be awesome to live so close to my best friend.  The right position at this company would keep me in an industry in which I had nearly two decades of experience.  I asked him to keep me updated on how he liked the company and the people who worked there.  In a very short period of time, his feedback convinced me that it was definitely worth a shot.  I found and applied to three different job openings at his company.  Up to that point, I had applied for 17 jobs in 3 different states, resulting in only a pair of phone screens but not even a single interview.  My expectations were low, but I stayed patient and prayerful.
Two months after applying, I was finally contacted by one of the company's recruiters.  That call began a 3-month process of phone and in-person interviews.  I was blessed to have close friends and former colleagues who had made similar transitions, and were willing give me a lot of incredible advice and support throughout the process.  Everything about the job seemed perfect - it would be immensely challenging, but it would also leverage my strengths and experience in a way that I knew I'd enjoy.  I continued to wait and pray. 
Just as Charlotte finished her last days of the school year, I received an offer.  Now, in "Dave's Plan", the ideal opportunity would help us to relocate and would pay enough to replace Dara's income so that she could be a full-time mom.  An offer like that would have made the decision very easy for us.  Their offer was reasonable, but was much less than what we were hoping for.  They wouldn't budge on my counter.  We prayed hard about this, asking God to make it clear to us if we could make this huge transition.  We thought back to December when we started this process.  We reminded ourselves that we weren't making this change for the money, but primarily to spend more time with our children. When we took a harder look at our budget and trimmed it down to just our necessities, it almost exactly matched their offer.  I realized that this was God making it clear to us that he would provide what we needed.  Of course it wouldn't be an easy decision; it would require faith and sacrifice.  We decided to be faithful enough to take this opportunity as the blessing that it truly was  I got an amazing new job, our family found a new town, and our children get to be with at least one of us every day.  As I walk into work each day, I thank God for this amazing life and trust Him with whatever comes next. 

Hit Me!

Special thanks to my pal and gifted artist, Anwar Hanano
for recreating this epic moment for me.

I've said before that my dad was a really smart dude.  Genius at times.  But his plans didn't always work out as planned.  This is one of my all-time favorites, so I hope you enjoy it too.

When we moved up to PA in 1994, we had arranged to rent a trailer in Sunbury under the premise that the landlord would build a ramp or provide a lift to help my father get in and out of the trailer safely.  For as long as I can remember, my dad's primary means of getting in and out of elevated spaces (especially our van) was a pair of 6' long aluminum ramps.  Prior to moving to Pennsylvania, we had gotten used to the fact that they would become a bit slippery in the rain.  What we hadn't experienced yet was how impossibly slick they got when exposed to snow.
The process of unloading my dad from the van usually went something like this: Set the ramps up with one end on the ground and the other end in the van.  Walk up the ramps to grab my dad's chair, and guide him backwards while walking back down the ramps.  Once he started down the ramps, he couldn't stop.  Otherwise, his momentum would kick out one or both of the ramps, dropping everyone to the ground backwards and head-first.  Standing on the ramps helped keep them in place, but safety was never guaranteed.  He must have fallen literally dozens of times.  Now, imagine walking up those ramps with snow-covered boots for the first time.  "Slippery" is an understatement.  Fortunately, I planted my chest instead of my face into them when I fell.  Shockingly, this only happened once.  This was the means we used, in the snow, to get in and out of the trailer while waiting for our landlord to follow-through on his promise to build a safe, permanent ramp.

My dad tolerated only one fall from the trailer before he began to threaten our landlord with a lawsuit.  The Americans with Disabilities Act was passed in the early 90's, and my father was keenly aware of its provisions for accessibility requirements.  Our landlord dismissed him with empty promises for weeks.  That's when he took things into his own hands, and his litigious threat became real...

He told my sister and I that he was going to have a bad accident, and that we'd get our payday, get a permanent ramp, or both.  He said it might hurt, but it would be worth it in the end.  I have to admit that at the time, "sticking it to the man" seemed like an exciting idea.  It was easy to villainize our landlord after watching my dad's head bounce off of our concrete sidewalk the first time he fell backwards out of the trailer.  Dad's plan was simple.  We'd stage a fall, call 911, and let the lawyers handle the rest.  Unfortunately, he said our injuries needed to look real...and my dad was an "all-in" kinda' guy!

He said I was going to have to hit him in the face.  We needed it to look like his face hit the ground, hard.  I laughed.  He looked like he was serious.  We had an old heavy dictionary in our living room.  It was about 3" thick and had a coarse canvas cover on it.  He told me to pick up the dictionary and hit him in the face with it.  I laughed again.  Surely he wasn't serious.  He braced himself in his chair and said again "Do it!"  I nervously picked up the dictionary and stood in front of him.  "How hard?", I asked.  He said "Hit me in the face...as hard as you can."  Confused, I gave a reluctant, half-hearted swing that was apparently just enough to make him flip out.  "Damn it Dave, Hit me like you mean it!", he said.  I protested again "No, I don't want to hurt you!".  I started to cry.  He yelled louder.  I refused.  He started slinging insults and profanity.  At some point in the heated exchange, the word "numbnuts" came out of his mouth.  For some reason, being called "numbnuts" always pushed my buttons, and he knew it.  Something inside me snapped.  I lost control.  Everything went silent.  I stepped into it and laid him out.  CRACK!  He went limp and slumped over in his chair.  My eyes widened.  My sister screamed.  Seconds later, life began to return to his body.  As he licked his lips, one of his eyes opened, and he said in a rather subdued tone "Yeah, that...that's what I'm talking about."  Then he looked at my sister, slowly nodded, and said "Now".  I thought "Now?  Now what?"  I turned to my sister, and before I realized she was holding my aluminum baseball bat, she dropped me with a direct hit to the inside of my knee.  I fell to the floor.  For a moment, it was excruciating, but the pain was quickly replaced with numbness and swelling.  The part of his plan that he hadn't told me about was that he and his chair would be falling on top of me.  He must have known I'd never volunteer for that part, so he had his own arrangement with my sister to follow-up with the bat on his command.  There was still one more step we needed to complete to prepare for the fall.  He thought that it would legitimize our plan even more if his wheelchair batteries leaked some of their acid on me while we awaited the ambulance, so he had me loosen the caps on one of them to ensure the leak.  He had me tear one of the legs of my jeans for good measure.  We were a mess!  My knee was now nearly the size of a softball, and my dad had a small open cut above his eye, in the center of a decent goose-egg from the dictionary.  Now, we just needed him to fall on top of me.  Based on past accidents, this should be the easy part.  I backed my dad about halfway down the ramps, and he came to an abrupt stop.  Nothing happened.  Of all the times for the ramps to NOT kick out, of course this had to be one of them.  My dad, being the quick thinker that he is, told me to lift up one side of his chair so that my sister could kick the ramp out from under him.  I gave it everything I had, which apparently was just enough as my sister kicked out the ramp.  My dad and his chair instantly dropped on top of me, trapping my leg underneath the chair.  The fall hurt more than I thought it would.  It took maybe 30 seconds for the acid to reach my leg.  At first, I just felt wetness wicking up my pant leg.  Then it reached a cut that I must've sustained in the fall.  My GOD it burned!  My sister placed the call, and the ambulance was on the way.  It was then, trapped under my dad's chair with a busted knee, soaked in battery acid, that I thought "What if this doesn't work?".

The ambulance showed up and "rescued" us.  I remember having my jeans cut off of me in transit to the hospital.  It was a bit humiliating.  Remember that thing your mom probably told you about clean underwear?  It's good advice.  They asked what happened, and I gave them the rehearsed version of the story: "We were coming out of the trailer, he fell on top of me, blah, blah, blah".  They seemed skeptical, but I was probably just paranoid.  I mean, c'mon...they did just find me buried under this dude's wheelchair.  We spent a few hours getting cleaned up in the ER before they released us both.  After we got home, I spent another few hours cleaning up all of the spilled battery acid in and on my dad's chair.

Here's the best part...We never saw a cent or even went to court.  Apparently, our landlord's lawyer had a bigger bark than ours.  We did, however, convince him to finally put in a wheelchair lift for my dad as a safe way to get in and out of the trailer.  We were evicted within a year.  I suppose we deserved that.

Today, I'm actually glad that we ended up on the losing side of this one.  Even though it was successful in getting the lift that we needed to safely get my dad in and out of the trailer, I think our true goal was really to make some much-needed money.  Had we succeeded in suing the landlord, I may have started to think that this type of scheme was an effective way to make "easy" money later in life.  Instead, we learned the hard way that it was the wrong way.

My dad did eventually learn to trust God with his life.  I did too, and I'm so grateful to know that I don't have to dream up some elaborate scheme in order to get by.  I still have to work hard, pray for guidance, and do the right thing, but trusting the Big Guy is miles better than the consequences of searching for an easier way at the expense of making bad decisions.

Car Trouble Part 2: Get a Rope

If you need to catch up, you can read up on the resurrection of my dad's van here.  That old van carried us around for several years.  She was a workhorse.  She was also a jerk sometimes.  In the Fall of 1994, my dad decided it was time for us to make the move from Mississippi to Pennsylvania.  We had a lot of relatives in PA that we hadn't seen in a very long time, so my Dad thought it would be good for us to get to know them.  We packed as much of our stuff as we could fit into our van and hit the road.

Somewhere in Virginia, our headlights started to go dim and the van started to die.  We were able to take a quick exit before she decided to shut off completely.  We tried to start it up again, but there was no response.  My dad quickly concluded that the battery was dead, but he didn't know why.  We popped the hood and noticed that the alternator belt was really loose.  Ah-ha!  Without the alternator working, it was only a matter of time before the van completely drained the battery.  Now we just needed to figure out why the belt was loose.  On closer inspection, we found that one of the two brackets that held the alternator in place had actually broken.

The bottom alternator adjustment bracket snapped.

So, there we sat with a dead battery and a busted alternator bracket.  It was late at night, so no stores were open.  It was also 1994, so Googling the nearest Wal-Mart wasn't even an idea yet.  One of the advantages of my dad being in a wheelchair was that he always had 2 spare car batteries with him if we needed them.  That might sound funny and unusual, but I can't tell you how many times we ended up pulling one of the batteries out of his chair to use in a vehicle.  The downside of this situation was that, with no alternator, it would only be a short matter of time before his battery died too.  Even if we used both of them, we couldn't make it to PA with no alternator.  We needed to get that alternator fixed.  My dad, being the genius he was, had a great idea to rig up a rope that would pull the alternator tight enough to keep tension on the belt.  It sounded simple enough.  We tried several configurations with the rope, but we couldn't find one that would keep enough tension on the alternator belt when we tied it off.

Plenty of access, but not much room to sit!

One unique feature about these old vans is that you can get to the engine from the interior of the vehicle.  There was a huge engine compartment cover that provided plenty of access for, say, anyone needing to rig a rope to hold tension on the alternator.  We ran the rope to the interior of the van and tied it off to my dad's chair.  It worked at first, but after only a minute or two, we noticed that the alternator wasn't working again.  We just couldn't keep enough tension on the rope.  My dad wanted to make sure this solution at least had potential, so he suggested that I sit in the passenger side floorboard and just try to hold tension on the rope for a few minutes.  I crawled in, wrapped the rope around my arm, and leaned back to pull the rope tight.  We fired up the van again.  It seemed to be working.  We let it run for about 10 minutes to be sure.  It worked perfectly.  We shut the van off and stared at each other silently for a few minutes.  We all knew what had to be done, but nobody wanted to say it.  My dad asked me one last time: "Are you sure we don't have any bungee cords in the van".  Nope.  I looked everywhere.  After a few more minutes of silent contemplation, he finally asked me if I thought I could hold the rope until we got to PA.  It was "only another 6 hours".  Saying "no" meant that we'd sit on the side of the road until morning.  Even then, we'd still still have to find some other solution.  I agreed.  I got as comfortable as I could in the passenger floorboard, my face practically in the dashboard.  My sister closed up the engine compartment as tightly as she could, fired up the van one last time, and off we went.

An hour or so into it, I started to drift off.  I still don't know how I managed to fall asleep, but I did.  My dad realized something was up because the headlights started to go dim.  He shouted "Dave!  The rope!".  I snapped out of it and tugged on the rope again.  The headlights came back to life.  This happened at least another 3 or 4 times over the next several hours.  It was painful pulling that rope tight.  I was shifting positions and switching hands on the rope every 15 minutes.  After a few hours, the pain turned to numbness.  It was probably one of the most difficult things I've ever done - definitely in the top 5.

We did eventually make it to PA without another breakdown.  My dad told me how proud he was, and that I'd be telling my kids someday about that trip.  At the age of 14, having kids wasn't even on my radar, but I took his word for it.  My arms healed, we fixed the alternator bracket, and life went on.  That trip is a simple, yet powerful reminder to me of just how temporary life's challenges are, and how we can overcome situations that seem so insurmountable.  It isn't always easy, but I do believe that anything is possible.  I also think that life's challenges actually seem a bit easier when we've already overcome something more difficult.  I learned later in life that God never puts us through a test without giving us the tools or resources to handle it.  I also learned that those tools might not be what we think we need.  Whatever challenges you face, just know that you can make it...and life will be better.

What It's Like

I recently read a story about a woman who got caught selling her food stamps online.  While I don't endorse or approve of her actions, I was saddened by the number of people who had plenty of unkind things to say about her.  I thought about that old Everlast song, "What it's like", and that most of these people (myself included) probably have no idea what was going on in her life to make her do that, or what it was like to walk in her shoes.  The unfortunate truth is that many people find themselves in desperate situations where they feel they must resort resort to actions that other people might consider extreme and unacceptable.

People have different limits, just like many of us have different definitions of needs and wants.  A philosophy professor once challenged my class with a dilemma: A man's wife is dying and he cannot afford the medicine that will save her life.  Is it ok for him to steal from the drug store to save her life?  Of course, this question was deliberately framed as though there were no alternatives.  Many of my classmates said "no, stealing is never ok", while still others insisted that it would be more wrong to allow her to die.  I think it's impossible for anyone to know for sure unless they're faced with that terrible situation.

I can't remember exactly what our income was when I was a kid, but I think the three of us lived on around $800 a month in SSDI plus another $100 or so in food stamps.  I am tremendously grateful for Government assistance programs, and am extremely empathetic to those who need them.  Unfortunately, many of our elementary and middle-school classmates seemed to have gotten the idea (possibly from their parents) that all welfare recipients are system-abusing, lazy, manipulative people.  Those kids made life suck just a little more.  My dad desperately wanted to work, but he simply couldn't.  We did also benefit from the generosity of other people and family along the way, who gave food, clothing, and other necessities from time to time.

A Trip to Jamaica Helped Me Realize Just How
Grateful I Was for Everything I'd Ever Had

We weren't that bad off, but things definitely got tight from time to time.  The van broke down.  The electric bill spiked.  We had a cold snap and burned through more than our budget of heating oil.  There were times when we felt desperate to just get by, and so we took some desperate measures.  We did some things back then that none of us were proud of, nor would we ever consider doing today - counterfeiting food stamps, writing bad checks, and shoplifting to name a few.  At the time, they seemed like our only options, and they were just a means for us to get by.  My dad knew better.  He taught us better.  He even took the time to explain to us all of the ways that the things we were doing were wrong.  But we did them anyway...because we were desperate.  I regret doing those things.  I'm not proud of what we did in any way, but I can't take any of it back.  I know there are many people who live on much less than we had, but don't resort to such desperate measures.  I think that what they have that we didn't is faith.

Today, I'd like to believe that if my family found ourselves in a similar, jobless, fixed-income situation, that we would be able to survive without taking such extreme measures.  The difference today is that we have strong faith that God will take care of us no matter what happens.  Things might get hard, and times might get tough, but the worst thing that could happen is that we abandon our faith and resort to desperate measures.  I thank God that we are blessed well-beyond what we deserve, and that I haven't had to put this belief to the test.  Yet.  There have been times when I thought I might lose my job, or that tragedy might strike, but our faith gives me great peace that God will meet our needs, and we'll be just fine.

I know it's easy to say "have faith", "God will provide", but I also know what it's like to think that desperate times call for desperate measures.  Having experienced both faithfulness and lack thereof, I'll take faith any day.

That Look

My daughter was recently throwing one of her spunk fits, so I told her to go to her room until she was ready to listen and be kind.  Normally, she'd stop mid-fit to plead with me, I'd insist that she go to her room, and she'd sob her way up the steps.  This time was different.
After telling her to go to her room, she took a deep breath and shot me a terrible glare.  Her face began to glow deeper shades of red, and I could see the veins popping out on her neck.  It was as if she was screaming at me while holding her breath.  Then, her eyebrows went into an angry "V" formation and she started to tremble.  Woah!  What is that look?  What is happening?  My body was frozen still (thank God), but something inside me tried to leap out and tackle her to the ground.  I say that in a bit of jest, but I seriously got a wave of anger so intense that it gave me chills.  I hadn't experienced this with her before, but something about it seemed strangely familiar.

Poker Night at Our Place - Circa 1987
Me, My Dad, and My Sister (Top Right)

A short while later, I made the connection.  I had given my father the same look, but with disastrous consequences some 30 years ago.  It was like I could see my own 6-year-old self going nuclear through my dad's eyes.  This is what it must have been like for him that day.
He and his buddies had been partying one night, and as usual, I was in charge of the music.  He was definitely a vinyl guy through-and-through, which always made changing albums a risky proposition for me.  I was pretty clumsy around the record player, and it didn't help that it was tucked underneath the TV stand.  I had to kneel on the floor to reach it.
His Eagles album had just finished, so he asked me to put on some Skynnrd.  It was late and I was tired, so there were a couple of blips in the changeover.  Dad lost his cool, wheeled around from the poker table, and started yelling at me.  I'm not sure exactly what he said, but I'd bet it included a couple F-bombs and at least one "numbnuts"...there was always a "numbnuts".
That's when it happened - exactly what Charlotte had just done to me.  That look.  I took a deep breath, closed my mouth, and shot him the most hateful stare I could manage.  For a split-second, it felt good.  I could see that he was shocked.  I wanted to hurt him.  In that moment, I was so mad that I wanted to flip his chair over on him.
Suddenly, his eyes got really big.  In fact, it seemed like his whole face doubled in size and became instantly red.  Oh no.  I hadn't thought this through.  He leaned forward in his chair, grabbed his joystick, and started wheeling towards me.  I was frozen.  I couldn't move.  The impact drove me back into the TV stand with such force that it overturned.  He was still coming.  We both crashed into the wall.  I ended up under his chair, and his leg rests hit the wall so hard that he busted the cover off of the electrical outlet.  I remember that part because I got blamed when his girlfriend's 2-year-old son stuck his hand into the exposed socket a few days later.  The record player and TV were toast too - both my fault.  His buddies left.  "Party's over."

The amount of anger that I am capable of feeling scares the crap out of me.  Is anger hereditary?  I wouldn't be surprised if it was.  I've experienced what that anger did to my father, and I just pray that it doesn't happen to me.  I hope my daughter forgets that look she gave me, and I'm grateful that I didn't do or say something that would make it memorable for her.  I suppose I'm also grateful to have experienced just how hurtful this rage can be to others.  I can understand the pain it leaves behind long after the bruises have healed.  It has given me great caution when I get angry.  Sure, it may actually make me a bit more of a softy or pushover than I want to be, but I think it's much better than the alternative.

Car Trouble

This morning, I was driving my daughter to school and I noticed that my clock wasn't working in the car.  Oh well, probably popped a fuse.  I decided to turn the radio on to check the time.  No radio.  Hmm, things are getting interesting.  TWO blown fuses?  What are the chances?  Weird.  Seconds later, it starts to drizzle.  I hit the wipers.  Nothing.  I started to panic.  We're running a bit late for school, and now I know I'm going to be late for work...especially if I can't get these stinking wipers to work.  I dropped Charlie off at school and circled back home instead of heading to the office.   Perhaps it was a simple fix.  I pulled into the garage and left it running while I did a quick Google search.  It turns out that I'm not the first victim of this odd happening.  Fortunately, there's almost always some other people who are kind enough to share their similar experiences and solutions.  It was simple - jiggle the key.  I gave it a shake, I felt the ignition click, and the clock, radio, and wipers came to life like a scene from Christine.  I should probably replace my ignition.  No problem.  My mechanic adventures aren't always this simple, but I almost always meet them with ambition.

My dad was a genius.  He was one of the smartest men I've ever met.  I'm sure his being confined physically to a wheelchair for 30 years helped him develop and adapt some incredible skills, but he was really smart too.  He also loved cars.  He told us stories of him working in Pappy's (his dad's) dirt track pit crew.  I can still remember the dreamy look in his eyes whenever he'd talk about the cars he'd owned or wished he'd owned. He sure knew a lot about cars.

By dave_7 - originally posted to Flickr as Ford Ranchero

We moved to California in '86 in a 1974(ish) Ford Ranchero with a 351 Cleveland V8 that GROWLED.  I remember it was a Cleveland because he and his buddies must have had a million drunken debates over the 351 Windsor v. Cleveland.  He was proud of that car, and I think even more proud of the motor.  Sometime in the early 90's, he decided to transplant that motor into a full-size van to make it easier for him to travel in his chair.  I'm sure it wasn't always fun catching bugs in his teeth in the back of the Ranchero.  I remember the project taking place out in a pasture somewhere in Mississippi.  At times, the project seemed to be mostly just a party.  There was a lot of beer and a lot of shenanigans...some yelling too.  I remember someone spraying ether (starting fluid) on her hand and lighting it on fire.  She danced around for a second, hooting and hollering in excitement, then quickly dashed her hand into a cooler of water to extinguish it.  Stuff like this happened a lot.  The project slowed down and the partying sped up.  At some point, I think his buddies abandoned the project before finishing it.  I'm not sure what happened.  Maybe there were hard feelings.  Maybe my dad ran out of beer money.  Whatever the case, we had a motor in a van that didn't run.  My dad said it was up to us to get her running.

Once, I mustered up the courage to replace the
timing chain on my '94 Saab

This is where my knowledge of cars was born.  He was the brains, and I was his hands.  Try to imagine talking someone through an oil change for the first time over the phone.  Really think about it.  How would you describe the drain plug?  More importantly, how could you be sure that the other person was working on the right part?  My dad couldn't see what I could see, he could only describe things and hope that we were on the same page.  There was some trial and error for sure.
Fortunately, his pals did most of the heavy lifting. I was 11 or 12 and maybe 70 pounds soaking wet.  I'd have enough trouble getting the battery installed.  Oh man, the battery.  My dad had a favorite wrench.  It was a deep-offset boxed-end wrench, 1/2" on one end and 9/16" on the other.  My dad referred to it as "the half and nine".  It was pretty long; long enough to span both terminals on a battery.  Ask me how I know that!  Well, I was trying to loosen the ground cable and there was an incident.  The nut was pretty tight (for my puny arms), so I gave her all I had.  I was standing up on the driver-side tire, literally leaning into it when it broke loose.  My momentum kept the wrench rotating until it slammed down on top of the positive terminal.  BAM!  There was a flash of light and a splash of hot metal as the wrench arced, and within seconds it was glowing red.  My dad was screaming "Get it off!  Get it off!  Quick!".  Couldn't he see it was red hot?  Of course he couldn't.  I didn't have anything to grab the wrench with, so I grabbed a piece of wood that was on the ground and began jamming it into the wrench to dislodge it.  It had literally melted into the battery terminal.  Smoke was pouring off of the battery as it prepared to explode.  I finally managed to break the wrench free before things got more serious.  My dad then explained to me how dangerous things had gotten, and that it could have been really bad.  Ignorance is bliss, right?  This was the first of many mishaps in the adventures of Dave and Dave.

Pappy, Dad, and I - A few years after we got the van running

The second incident I can remember was also the first time we got that old Cleveland fired up.  After a long and arduous battle with the wiring harness (which was brutally complicated), we got things hooked up enough to turn over the motor.  He had me hook up the throttle cable.  My memory is a bit foggy on this part, but I think he wanted the throttle closed, but what I thought was "closed" was actually open.  We gave the carb a shot of starting flud.  I got in, pumped the pedal a few times, and looked for the nod from my dad to turn the ignition.  He wheeled up in front of the van and leaned in as close as he could, I assume to listen and watch for anything that might go wrong.  (By this point, we had fried a lot of wiring as a result of other minor mishaps.  Wiring took forever to troubleshoot, so maybe he was trying to spot any smoke to make it easier to find later.)  Either way, he was as close as he could possibly be to this engine compartment.  He gave me the nod and hollered "Fire that mother up!".  I did, and she roared to life!  It was glorious and deafening.  Something wasn't right.  It's too loud.  My foot wasn't touching the pedal, but the throttle was WIDE OPEN.  Oops.  Still, it was a win.  I celebrated the resurrection of this monster for a second or two, then I remembered my dad.  Holy crap, his head was practically IN the engine compartment.  I looked through the windshield and I could only see a pair of arms flailing frantically.  I quickly turned the key off.  Nope.  She's still running at full throttle.  Oh man, it must be the wiring again.  I got out of the van and ran out to my dad.  He was stuck.  His wheelchair had somehow gotten hooked on the bumper.  He was shouting something and I was shouting back.  We couldn't hear anything but the motor.  I finally pieced together that he was saying something about the battery.  Disconnect the battery.  I did.  The madness ended.

I looked at my dad with a smile to see if he was happy.  He just looked drained and half-terrified.  He then explained to me just how lucky we were that he didn't get plowed over the second the motor started.  At the time, I knew that you couldn't start a vehicle when it was in Park, and the shifter on the column was pointing to "P".  He calmly explained to me that we hadn't hooked the shifter linkage up, and that we really had no idea what gear the transmission was in.  We had also just wired up enough "stuff" to get it started.  The alternator, for example, didn't exist yet.  There were no safety features to prevent the van from starting in gear.  Wow.  I'm not sure if that really could have happened, but he was convinced that we were lucky.

Our van wasn't quite this bad

Soon after that, we managed to get her on the road.  Let's go back to that oil change example.  Now try to imagine the amount of knowledge, creativity, and communication skills my dad needed to talk me through getting that old van, motor, and drivetrain together.  Like I said, my dad was smart.
Over the next several years, my dad and I worked on that van a lot.  He tried to teach me everything he knew, but there was too much knowledge and not enough time.  Most importantly, he gave me the confidence that I could fix just about anything.  He always referred to it as "intestinal fortitude".

I've since applied that confidence and knowledge to fix a lot of things, big and small.  I also remember him telling me that I could one day make enough money to pay someone to fix my car.  He'd typically bring that up when I was really tired of working on the van, or at times when we were screaming at each other out of frustration.  He had to know those memories would be powerful motivation for me later in life.  Today, I fix things on my own as much as I can.  Sometimes I do it because it saves us money.  Most of the time I do it just because I can, and it makes me feel closer to my dad - if even for just a few hours.  I pray that I have the patience and make the time to teach my children what my dad taught me, and that it might be even a fraction of the gift to them as it has been to me.  I also have this experience to reflect back on whenever I am facing a project or challenge that I think is too big to overcome.  I never thought we'd get that motor running.  We did, and life is better today because of it.

I'm a Christian

I had always planned to share my faith here, but a couple of excuses had been holding me back.

First, I was afraid that I might share something that turned someone away.  I have a lot of friends who aren't Christians or just don't like church.  I assumed that some of my friends and visitors wouldn't want to read about God.

Second, my past is what makes my salvation story so astonishing to me.  I thought that I needed to share more about where I've been and what life is like now, before I explained that it is God who turned my life around.

I was moved by an awesome message at church today, and I decided that there was no possible way I could continue on with this blog if I didn't at least write the really short version now.  I'll fill in the details later:

Life was tough.  I did a lot of stuff that I shouldn't have done.  I refused to take responsibility for myself, and life continued in a destructive downward spiral.  God brought Dara and I together at the right time, put the right people in my life, and quickly showed me what life could be like if I let him take the wheel.  There is no secular explanation for the ways in which my life has changed.  It has all been orchestrated by my Father as a result of my faith in His mercy, grace, and guidance.

I still screw up and I still sin, I just don't do it nearly as much or as willingly as I did before.  I actually care about other people today.  I pray when I need help.  I try to rely on God all the time.  Sometimes I try to take the wheel again, and it usually ends in regret.
Getting saved doesn't mean I'm perfect - it means I'm forgiven.  It also doesn't mean I'm uptight or better than anyone else, Christian or not.  We've got a ton of awesome Christian friends who are down-to-earth and know how to have fun without a hangover.

Being a Christian is pretty awesome.  It's also incredibly simple.  Someone once compared getting saved to the short version of the first three steps in AA:

1. I can't.  
2. He can.  
3. I think I'll let him.

If you're interested in learning more, get ahold of me or one of your Christian friends.  If you're not, keep reading...you might change your mind.

Those Darn Pipes

I was recently exchanging messages with a friend of mine and learned that we have more childhood experiences in common than we knew.  I chuckled when I learned that she had weekly run-ins with her pipes as a kid too!

I sleep hard

Until my late 20's, I was hell to wake up in the mornings.  My wife might argue that I still am from time to time.  When we were kids, my sister would literally throw water on me to get me out of bed.  I'd wake up in such a violent fit that she'd throw the water while standing in my doorway and shut the door before the water hit me.  This was a daily routine.  I'd wake up, realize that I wasn't being attacked, and lay my blankets out on the floor to dry.  In the wintertime, if I woke up to my sister yelling and poking me with a broom handle instead of throwing water, it usually meant only one thing: frozen pipes.

From 1995-1997, we lived in a pretty decent trailer just a few miles outside the city of Sunbury, PA.

For those of you who have lived in a mobile home, I'm sure you know the drill.  You probably also agree that I'm being kind by calling these things "pipes".  They were more like long, fragile, super-sized, gray plastic straws.  If the pipes were old enough and it was cold enough, they'd snap like a twig if you weren't careful with them.  

  

Fortunately, I didn't do this

The first challenge of thawing the pipes was getting under the trailer.  Our trailer had vinyl skirting, which was actually nicer than the siding on the trailer itself.  It definitely jazzed up the place. First, I needed to carefully remove a section of the interlocked skirting.  My dad would light me up if I cracked or broke it, so the process was a bit like defusing a bomb.  You know how plastic gets really hard and brittle when it's cold?  This type of skirting was installed like vertical vinyl siding.  Each 18" or so piece locked tightly to the next piece, and it was all held at the top and bottom in a big vinyl track.  It was nothing to end up with a few cuts on my hand from getting pinched trying to pry and bend a piece of the skirting out of place.  "Why not just leave a piece of skirting out to make it easier to access again?" you might ask.  Great question!  You see, my dad had this commitment to making sure things were done right and finished.  The skirting wasn't "finished" if it wasn't all installed...even if it was on the backside of the trailer where nobody would ever see.  He'd know it was out of place, and that wasn't acceptable.  His perfectionism really made me mad as a kid, but I can appreciate some of it today.  One time, I tried to put the piece of skirting back so that it looked like it was installed properly, but it wasn't locked in place so that I could remove it easily next time the pipes froze.  He noticed, I got punished, and I didn't do it again.

Not mine, but still
very dungeon-ish

Now that the skirting was removed, it was time to enter the dungeon.  Underneath the trailer was an awful mix of dirt, dead rodents, wiring, ductwork, steel, and fiberglass insulation that had fallen from the floor.  It was tight under there, with probably no more than 12" of clearance in some spots.  There was 30 feet of pipe from my sister's room (where the well pipe came in) to the kitchen, with the bathroom in between.  There was no telling if some or all of it was frozen.  I'd usually start in the middle.  My tools consisted of some orange camo coveralls, a flashlight, an extension cord, and a hair dryer.  Today, I chuckle every time I see the safety plug at the end of the cord of any modern hair dryer.  We were old-school back then.  No safety plug.  No GFCI outlets.  I'd start heating the pipes with the hair dryer, and my sister would open every faucet in the house so we'd know when the ice broke loose.  It was cold, uncomfortable, and itchy from the fiberglass blowing around.  I could heat up about 4 or 5 feet of pipe from the same spot before I had to crawl to a new location.  I used the hair dryer to warm my face and hands every once in awhile.  It was miserable but simple work.  I needed to hurry if I wanted a shower before the school bus came.  

At some point, the pipes would start to jump around as the ice broke up and water started flowing again.  I'd howl with excitement. You'd have thought Ed McMahon just knocked on our door! 

Of course, there was always the risk that one of the pipes had cracked after it froze.  There was no way to tell until it was too late. Every once in awhile, my excitement would quickly shift to panic mode as I got showered with water from a broken pipe.  Remember the hair dryer?  You know, the one in my hands underneath the water fountain that would soon create a muddy pool beneath me?  Fortunately, my sister could hear me yelling to shut off the water supply before anything serious happened.  After my first broken pipe experience, I learned to just throw the hair dryer out of the way whenever it happened again.

I know without a doubt that if my dad could have done it himself, he would have.  I think the biggest source of frustration throughout his adult life was with not being able to do things himself.  This meant that we learned to do things the way he would have done them.  In some cases, this really gave us an advantage over other kids our age by teaching us things we wouldn't have otherwise learned for another 10 or 15 years.  In other cases, it just sucked that he wouldn't cut us some slack or let us take any shortcuts - the skirting issue, for example.

A few years ago, we had a cold snap here in PA and we ended up with a frozen pipe under the floor in our kitchen.  I was so grateful to be able to climb a ladder in the basement and use my wife's hair dryer for 10 minutes to thaw the pipe.  No skirting, coveralls, or crawling required.  

Life is good, my friends.

Ramblers

[Last Updated Jan. 7, 2017]
According to Webster, a Rambler is "one who moves aimlessly from place to place".  We were definitely ramblers.  I made you all a map to prove it!

My sister and I attended 11 schools in 5 different states and many more towns.  We got used to it, probably like anyone else who moved a lot as a kid.  Two things really sucked about moving: Trying to make friends (duh!) and losing stuff during the moves.  We once lost all of our youth sports trophies in our move from MS to PA because one of us had the brilliant idea to pack them in a trash bag that was left behind.  The same thing happened with most of our toys in another move.  Most of our photo albums and other sentimental stuff were lost in a storage unit that was auctioned off to pay overdue rental fees.  I want to scream at the television every time I see an episode of  Storage Wars.

One of the cool things about moving a lot is that you get to see a lot of different people and different places.  I'm really grateful for those experiences.  I couldn't be where I am today without them.  I also value friendships, family, and roots now more because of my travels as a kid.

Often, when I make new friends and acquaintances, I'm asked "Where are you from?".  Tough question.  My typical response is: "I moved around a lot as a kid, but I've been in Pennsylvania since '94".  The usual reply is some version of "Oh, military brat?", to which I say "Yeah, something like that."  If they look intrigued and/or ask more questions, we roll with the long version.  Here goes...

McDonald's Playland in 1981

Georgia (1980-1981)

My dad broke his neck just before I was born.  At the time, my parents and 13 month-old sister were living in Georgia.  My mother was just 21 and my dad was 22.   I can't imagine what it was like for their lives to change so dramatically at that young age.  We had help from family and friends on and off for many years, which basically explains why we moved so much.  We generally moved where we'd have the most help.

Delaware (1981-1986)

My Sister and I Circa 1982

Not long after my dad's accident, we moved closer to our family in Delaware.  Although I was very young, I still have plenty of memories from our time there.  I'll share them later for the sake of keeping this post to a reasonable length.  Like I said, our parents were really young when my dad had his accident.  They split around the time when I was 6.  I remember my dad asking me if I wanted to "go visit" my aunt in California.  She was in the Army at the time, and was stationed at Fort Ord in Salinas.  She would be able to help take care of us there.  At 6 years old, I had no idea what that meant, but it sounded like an adventure to me!  My dad had a buddy that needed to get away from his girlfriend, so the plan was for him to drive us to California, where we'd meet up with our gracious aunt.  It seemed like the trip took months.  My sister and I were laying in the bed of our Ford Ranchero (it had a truck cap on the bed), hauling a moderate-sized U-Haul trailer for the entire trip.  Somewhere in "Mid-West-Town, USA", the axle snapped on the U-Haul.  I remember spending a few days in a hotel, probably waiting on money from back East, but we managed to get back on the road and make it to sunny California!

Visit with Mom - 1988

California (1986-1989)

As a kid, I hated California people.  Other than the bikers that my dad hooked up with, who were free-spirited and usually fun, the rest of the people there seemed to suck.  It was probably some perception I had as a kid, because I now have quite a few friends out there who are good people and I generally like the people I've met there as an adult.  Some of the highlights from our time in CA include getting kissed by Miss California, going to rodeos, hanging and camping with my dad's biker buddies, visiting Fisherman's Wharf, and getting to see my mom when she came out to visit.  There are a few stories from that saga too.

Louisiana (1989-1990)

My Aunt got re-stationed in Leesville, LA, so we moved with her After my mom came out to visit us in CA, she and my dad agreed to move us closer to her.  She was living in Louisiana with an Army guy who was stationed at Fort Polk (see where the "military brat" shoe kinda' fits?).  My dad and aunt weren't on the best of terms, so we packed up and headed south!  Louisiana was a pretty wild place.  We had really weird friends with even weirder names.  For example, my dad had this one pal named "Scrap Iron".  Ol' Scrap Iron used to go dumpster diving and find the most incredible stuff...and it was all in great condition.  He found so much good stuff that my dad eventually suspected he was stealing it from somewhere and that there was no possible way he was digging it all out of dumpsters.  Louisiana was the strangest place I've lived, but the fishing was out-of-this-world!

Mississippi (1990-1994)

Bagged a pair of rabbits in 1990

My mom split with the dude she was dating, so she and my dad made the decision to move us to MS to be closer to our mother and some of his biker buddies.  My sister and I finally started getting into sports, and they are SERIOUS about ball down south!  If you haven't seen a little league complex in the south, you don't know what you're missing.  I have a lot of fun memories to share from this part of my life, but you're probably going to check out if I don't wrap this up soon.  Aside from learning to play ball, I learned how to plow with a donkey, raise fighting chickens (something I really wish I hadn't learned), how to throw fishing nets, and how to hunt.  Good times.

School's Out - 1998

Pennsylvania (1994-Now)

In 1994, my dad decided it was time for us to move north so that my sister and I could get to know members of our distant family that we had never met.  I can't wait to share that road trip with you all!  After 3 years, my dad had his fill of northern winters and decided it was time to move back to the south.  I was a rebellious teenager, and I parted ways with my dad and sister in 1997.  They moved south and I bounced from a short stint with my Aunt and Cousins into foster care.  Then, "adulting" happened.

Moving On

I hope you enjoyed this summary.  I thought it would be helpful to write before getting into more stories.  Dara warned me that it would probably make for a dry, tough read, but I hope it wasn't.  I promise to follow this up with something a bit more interesting!

Papercut

Damage from a corn stripper - Ouch!

Tonight, I was the unlucky recipient of a papercut.  From a cereal box!  How does that even happen?  Putting the groceries away is a pretty simple job.  I was reaching into the bag and I felt that unmistakable slice.  You know the feeling.  It sucks, especially with heavy paper or cardboard.  They don't always bleed, but they seem to always occur in some knuckle or crease in your hand, so you're reminded of it every time you move.  Any cut (big or small), takes me back to one day at the car wash...

My dad, sister, and I were strolling through Sunbury, PA one day in the mid-1990's.  My sister and I were on our bikes, pedaling along with Dad in his wheelchair.  As we were passing a car wash, my dad thought it would be a good idea for us to wash our bikes.  He figured that if we were quick enough, we could wash both bikes before our initial 3 minutes ($1.75) ran out.  He said that the trick would be whether or not I could hold each bike upright while my sister quickly blasted them with the pressure washer gun.  It sounded like a plan.

My sister dropped our quarters into the machine, grabbed the gun, and started spraying.  I held onto the frame of the first bike.  It was a pretty simple process until she accidentally got carried away and swept the nozzle over my hand. I let out a loud "OUCH!" and let go of the bike for a second to make sure I still had a hand.  The pressure from the gun smashed the bike into the muddy floor of the wash bay.  My sister stopped and asked if I was ok.  I was fine.  It just stung for a second.  My dad was pissed.  Not only did I drop the bike, but we were wasting our precious 3 minutes of washing time.  He started screaming.  I picked up the bike, and my sister started spraying again.  This time, she was a bit more careful.  A few seconds later, I somehow managed to stick my hand in front of the nozzle while changing my grip, and I let out another "OW!".  This time, I didn't drop the bike, but my sister did stop spraying again to make sure I was ok.  Now Dad was really losing it.  We were 2 minutes in on the first bike, with only a minute left!  I figured that if I knelt and held the bike with one hand, I could at least put the other one on the ground and out of the line of fire.  He shouted "Quit being a sissy!  It doesn't hurt, it's all in your head!".  I tried to defend myself because it did hurt.  It stung like hell.

We got about 10 seconds into the second bike when time expired.  Dad was clearly livid, but at least he wasn't yelling anymore.  He said "We're going to finish that other bike", and he told my sister to get another 7 quarters out of his backpack.  I stayed where I was, kneeling in the wash bay, holding onto bike #2.  He and my sister had a brief conversation about something, then she returned to the machine.  She put the quarters in and fired it up.  I closed my eyes in anticipation of the spray (I was pretty soaked from over-spray at this point).  Just then, I felt her step on my hand.  I looked down, then up at her, confused.  I suddenly realized what was happening.  I experienced the next few seconds in slow motion, and there was nothing I could do.  She put the tip of the nozzle down on my fingers and pulled the trigger.  I closed my eyes.  I felt my skin tear.  I screamed.  My hand was on fire.  She stopped and I opened my eyes.  There was no blood, but the web between my ring and middle fingers was parted with surgical precision.  My sister was crying and telling me she was sorry.  "Dad made me do it" she said.  My dad wheeled up close and said "See? I told you it doesn't hurt."  I showed him my hand, tears streaming from my face.  I could see he was surprised, but there was no apology.  I knew he felt terrible, and that was enough for me.  I think he probably wanted to take it back as much as I did, but he couldn't.  We never talked about it again.  Life went on, and my hand healed without a scar.

I learned an important and simple lesson that day: Pressure washers can hurt you.
I'll take a papercut any day.

Tavern on The Green

I have my lovely wife, Dara, to thank for tonight's inspiration.  She recently joked about one of the most important nights of my life.  It's probably more amusing from her perspective, but I've got the keyboard for now!

I have a reputation for being frugal.  I'm also a sucker for (almost) anything free.  [Case in point: I just spent every "free" hour of the day today trying to find the best streaming TV provider based on price, quality, channel lineup, promotions, and yes - free swag!  In case you're wondering, we settled on DirecTV Now because they're giving away an Apple TV (Gen 4) if you prepay 3 months...and they offered everything we wanted.]  Back to frugality...

We weren't dating long before my soon-to-be-wife had a full understanding of my knack for seeking deals.  We went to New York City a lot when we were dating.  She had always dreamt of making a life there, and I loved the food.  Oh, the FOOD!  I ate.  She shopped.  We loved every second of it...every time we went.

Our first Tavern dinner

During one of our trips, we had an amazing dinner at Tavern on The Green.  Of course the food was good.  It wasn't amazing, but it was quite good.  It's a pretty famous place, and I think that's what I liked most about it.  They also had an incredible green chandelier in a room that I believe they referred to as the "Green Room".  You can see it over my left shoulder in this photo that we had taken that night.  She, on the other hand, absolutely lit up when we stepped inside.  I could tell it was a really special place for her.
A short time after that trip, I heard from someone else that people who get engaged at the Tavern are given a complimentary cake and photo to commemorate the evening.  I jokingly told Dara that she should pack one of her rings next time we dined there so that we could stage an engagement and enjoy a free dessert with a picture.  She wasn't amused, and I'm not sure I knew at the time that we might actually get engaged there.

A year later, in March of 2007, I planned an unforgettable dinner at the Tavern during one of our trips to the city.  I had a solid plan with the Maitre D'.  I'd propose right after dinner, then we'd have dessert to celebrate.  Our waiter would keep an eye out for my "signal".  It would be perfect!
We ate dinner.  I think.  I was too nervous to remember the food that night.  As the waiter cleared our plates, I knew it was game time.  I hope I told her how beautiful and amazing she is, but I can't remember exactly what I said.  I was too busy playing every possible scenario (except this one) in my head.  This proposal stuff is tough!  It was time.  I knew the waiter would be back any minute.  I had to pull the trigger now.
Just as I swiveled out of my chair to begin my romantic descent to one knee, the waiter appeared at the side of our table like the creepy butler from Mr. Deeds.  He was invading our personal space, but I couldn't put the brakes on.  I was already committed, and she looked confused.  I slithered out of my chair, trying to fit in the 6" space between him and the table, all while doing my best to keep eye contact with Dara.  The waiter got the message and quickly disapparated.  I popped the question.  Dara looked mortified.  Why?  How is she not excited?  I see clenched teeth, and there seem to be words coming out of them.  It sounds like she's alternating "Get up" with something that ended in "embarrassing me".  Maybe she didn't hear me.  I said the words again: "Will you marry me?"  And then I remembered the ring.  Get the ring out, you moron!  I pulled the ring out and it clearly made things more real for her.  The waiter is back.  For the love of God, why is the waiter here again?  I still don't have an answer.  What's happening right now?  I followed-up with a quasi-desperate "So...will you?".
Finally, she snapped out of it, assessed what was really happening, and said "Yes!".  I think there was applause.  There was definitely kissing.  We were getting married!

That night, Dara learned that my frugality had limits.  She learned that I wouldn't stage a fake engagement for a cake and a free photo.  In fact, we had to settle for taking our own photo when we returned to the hotel that night.  I think I even paid for the cake.
It was PERFECT!

[Jan. 3 Update] Dara added a few things that I thought warranted an update:
"You forgot the 10 trips to the men's room during dinner that left me wondering if you had some kind of UTI, The fact that you never really ate the dinner (I guess due to nerves?), and and the crazy maitre d that brought me a wonderful looking cake all to rip it away from the table because you hadn't returned from your 11th trip to the bathroom yet. After our kiss (once I finally knew what was going on), the words out of your mouth were, (instead of I'm so happy or thank you for loving me) 'was anybody watching?' 'Did anybody clap?' No darling, it's just us. No freebies this time!
Actually, thinking more clearly.... I never said yes. I was too interested in checking out the ring because it wasn't the ring I had picked out.
I left you hanging and you actually had to snap me out of it after I was trying the ring on and ask, "so does this mean yes?"

Shallowford Road

One day, my lovely wife asked me why I keep a framed copy of this photograph around the house.  I told her that it is an important reminder to me that no matter how bad I think things get, they could always get, and have been, worse.

At some point in my childhood (one of my goals will be to piece some dates together, but this was probably around 1990), my father, sister, and I lived in this house.  Aside from the overgrown landscape, it looks in this photograph very much the same as it did then.  It was probably the worst house we lived in during my childhood.  I know my dad wasn't very proud of it, but it was all we could find at the time.  We had just moved from Leesville, LA to be closer to our mother and some of my dad's old biker buddies from our time in California (another chapter).

Interestingly, what got me thinking about this old house on Shallowford Road in Moss Point, MS, was the Nintendo Classic craze that we just experienced this past Christmas, and my recent search for a heater for my garage.  It was in this house that my sister received a shiny new NES for Christmas.  I remember sitting on the floor in front of our television playing Super Mario Bros and Duck Hunt for hours on end.  We also sat in front of an incredibly dangerous but toasty electric space heater.  You know...the kind with the heating element that gets red hot and is just inches away from a super-hot protective metal grille.  The heaters (I think we had 3 of them) were important, though, since the house could get quite cold in the winter.  This was the first time I remember using blankets for doors.  I complain today about a tiny draft that might leak through the edge of a window on a windy night, but you could literally see the dirt foundation through the broken floor boards of this house.  

We had a roommate named Rusty.  I think he was one of my dad's old pals.  Perhaps he helped us move in exchange for a place to stay for awhile.  Rusty worked at Domino's pizza.  One night, for some reason, Rusty brought home a huge bag of sourdough from work.  I wish I knew what he intended to do with it, because our dog, Cutter, had different plans.  The next morning, we found Cutter out on the porch, groaning with a clearly-enlarged abdomen.  He was blowing up like that gal on Willy Wonka.  He had eaten most of the bag of sourdough; it must've been tasty.  Obviously, we didn't have money for a vet (we just blew it all on an NES, remember?), so my dad made a few phone calls and decided that we needed to relieve the gas ourselves.  Over the next several hours, Rusty used the handle of a blush brush and some Vaseline to help the little guy toot his way to safety.  Looking back, we probably should have tried to call a vet instead, but Cutter made it and lived a long, happy life.

I dug my first mailbox hole with a pair of posthole diggers at that house.  Man, does that work suck!  I probably wouldn't remember it if we hadn't cut an underground phone line in the process.  I'm not sure why, but our phone was in my mother's name at the time.  To this day, my mother still can't get a phone line in her name because she hasn't been able to pay the insane amount of money they tried to charge her for repairs.  I've thought about trying to pay for the damages, but it wasn't really my fault (my dad told me where to dig), I have no idea how much money they want, and I definitely don't want them coming after me too if I can't afford it!  I'm sorry Mom.

I'm not sure what God had planned for us at that house, but I do know that the experience from Shallowford Road has given me an incredible appreciation for everything I'm blessed with today...a vivid reminder that my life today is better by a mile.

Finding a Purpose in the New Year

I've been spending a lot of time trying to answer a simple question: What is the purpose of this blog?  Am I trying to make money?  Build my network?  Enrich lives?  Leave my mark?  Share my story?  At some point, all of these possibilities crossed my mind.  Conventional wisdom, at least according to some cursory Google searching, says that it's much easier to gain popularity and monetize a blog that shares something valuable with its audience.  That sounds great, but it's not what sparked my interest.  Ultimately, I've decided that my purpose here will be to share my story with a few hopes:

1. That my children can someday learn from my own journey and experiences.  Sure, I could just tell them, but most of these tales don't make for good bedtime stories or casual conversations.
2. That someone might stumble upon my humble little blog and find something useful for their own lives, be it some encouragement or experience.  After all, there has to be some other folks out there going through similar situations in their own lives who may find comfort in knowing I made it and they can too!
3. That writing might alleviate some of the lingering guilt, resentment, anger, and pain of my past.

I'm not sure yet how I'm going to organize 36 years of experiences, but I'll do my best to keep it interesting and absent of the boring stuff!  

And, without further adieu...I introduce to you: Me!  (I promise, I'm not a narcissist.  At least, I haven't been accused of that yet)