6th grade history class

So... hi.  It's been a while. I keep thinking I'll blog way more than I have, so I'll just admit, I have no idea when another blog is coming.  No clue. So enjoy this one.

Did you know that I just celebrated 25 years being a high school graduate?  (In March I also crossed the 20 year mark as a college grad -- GO TROY STATE -- but I kinda forgot about it until... well, like, just now.)

So last week, I took pictures of, then posted onto Instagram (@davedollar) and onto Facebook my 7th grade class.  I thought this summer might be a good time to spend uploading a few pictures, with my ultimate goal being to scan my yearbooks in their entirety and put them in Facebook albums... kind of a "Summer of The Class of 1993" of sorts, without the official title, and the official committment... because if I forget to upload (which is why I'm doing this now and not yesterday--Thursday), then no loss.

You may wonder why I didn't post the 6th grade class last week, but instead doing them out of order... some of you OCD folk may be all like "7th than 6th??  What kind of monster is he??"

I did this for two specific reasons, neither of which are that I forgot. No, I did it because of those black marks you see above Stephanie Phillips, Misty Kimble's, Jennifer Lambert's and Nicki Vann's heads. 

Not too long after we got the yearbook, whenever that was, myself and four of my buddies wrote our names above the girl we thought was the prettiest.  Not an ownership, mind you (Settle down, #MeToo), but more of a "This is who I want to go with".  A year later, I was petrified someone would find it, so I blacked them out with marker.

SIDEBAR: How many iterations of "dating" have there been?  "They are an item" and "Going steady" were before my time... in my day, it was "Go with".  Soon after, it apparently became "Going out with".  Unsure what it might be today.  Probably something to do with being on fleek or making rhymes like "hey hey my bae" or some such nonsense. 

Considering it's been 31 years at this point, I don't mind saying that I wrote my name over Misty Kimble's picture.  She was my first real crush, and I think I spent 4th through 7th grade moving between "kinda liked" and "loved". She actually knows this (but not in 1987 -- I would have been mortified), and thinks its funny.  As for Stephanie, Jennifer and Nicki... well, those names will remain with me.  Mostly because I've forgotten one, I'm not positive on one and sometimes mysteries are fun... because they probably don't remember either.

For the record, Greg Avant, who spent his later years pining for Jennifer Lambert, was none of guys who played this game in my yearbook.  Just to clear that up.

Moving beyond that, I did something in my 6th grade yearbook that for some reason, I didn't do in any others... I documented the 1986 to 1987 school year.

So here, in its unedited form, is what I wrote... the history of the class of 93, from September 1986 to May 1987... with a few notes in the brackets, italicized:

Shannon Williamson joined us in our 6th grade class this year. She's crazy, weird, but really likeable. She'll really clear you up when you're down.  I went to the junior high building for the first time as we entered the junior high years. Ms Whittle was my favorite teacher over Coach Champion, Coach Weeks, Mrs Rials, and Mr White. My favorite subject was Social Studies. Michael Knowles, Greg Avant, and me became ketchup brothers (we were chicken to use real blood).

Marianne Harvey, who me and Greg used to tease, moved [note--For what it's worth, Marianne, I'm really sorry I was a jerk].  I met Allen Wise. Aka needle-nose, who was teachers aid in PE.  The Tigers had their first winning season in a long, long time. This was the last year at good ol' SHS. I was conducted (note--what??) as the 4-H reporter beating out Stephanie Phillips.  This was also the last year for Terry Ferris.

There was a lot of going steady. Lee and Stephanie. Jason and Nicki. Daniel and Felicia. Auburn had a lot of controversy over Bama 21-17. Not many people liked it alot. Lee Futch and Michael Creech entered the crazy, wild, never calmed class of '93. I exempted from my semester exam 7th period on the last day of school, so I didn't have to go. Tonya [Windham] threatened to kill me, and Jason [Smith] said "I hate you"

I won 3 tigers (awards) for Social Studies. But Stan won the trophy, and he didn't win one tiger for Social Studies!

[let me clarify -- every six weeks, the highest average got a little poofy tiger award, and the fact that I won 3 out of the 6 that year, but Stan took home the year end trophy really bugged me.  Stan, I was robbed.]

Only 6 more years until "Seniors!" We had gone halfway and we think we can go the other half. I thin at sometime, everybody thinks about their senior year. Daniel [Stephenson] started listening to heavy metal, Clay and Monty will soon become a black belt, Greg, well he's my best friend so I could fill a whole page about him, Michael [Knowles] and Johnny [Knowles], well you know how they are! Come '93, I'm really gonna miss em.

But I can always look back in this book and find the wild times in 6th grade! This was also the year that people who didn't grow out of toys in 5th, they did in 6th. Thanks to Greg, Michael, Johnny, Daniel, Monty, Clay, Tonya, Stan, Jason, Allen Wise, Chris, Lee, Stephanie, Misty and Victor for making this one of the best year for a while to come. I wish I could write 100 more pages, but I don't have enough room. So I'll see you in the next yearbook to write about 7th!

Aaaand I'm back. So there ya go, 6th grade in a nutshell.  I guess next week we'll skip ahead to 8th grade.

the geneva walmart

So, the Wal-Mart in Geneva, AL, turns 30 today, this the last day of August.

Here you see Birmingham, Troy, Samson,
and Geneva. The pink dots are bigger than
the actual towns themselves.

Let me set the geography for the many of you that have no clue where I'm talking about. I'm from a little town called Samson, population 2100, with 2 red lights and a caution light, and 40ish members of the graduation class of 1993.  Our family moved to 201 N. Johnson Street in 1984, then across the side street to 211 North Johnson Street in 1985, and finally, 208 N. Johnson Street in 1986... yes, we moved one house over, across a street, then moved across N. Johnson to another house, and that would be the home I lived in until I moved off to college in the fall of 1993.

Samson has two main roads - the aforementioned N. Johnson, which runs north to south, and Hwy 52, which runs east to west, and essentially is the "downtown" part of Samson, Alabama.  So if you left my house, took a left once you hit town at Hwy 52, and then drove 8 miles... past the Subway/Dollar General (is that still there?) and the old peanut mill, past the log cabin house, past the pipe plant thing, past the McInnis' veterinarian office, past the caution light, past the cutoff road to go to Joey Stephens' old house and where Forrest & Charlotte Wright live (and Sandy and Cristie too), and yes, past the Sunny Meadows Cemetery (rest in peace, Jennifer W-B) you'll come to the Geneva County seat, a small city called Geneva, Alabama.

And if you did all of these things on August 31st, 1987, you'd see the brand spankin' new Walmart. To my 12 year old self, this was amazing.  I had only heard tale of such discount stores, but to have a Walmart here?  Eight miles from my house??  I mean... that was even cooler than the McDonald's in Geneva (which would be about 9 miles from my house), or the movie theaters in Enterprise (around 20 miles from my house), or even the brand new Wiregrass Commons Mall in Dothan (I lived 45 miles from a mall... those were the days).

This Walmart was amazing!  It had records and tapes, and clothes, and cool things and other cool things and it was HUGE.  I mean, not as big as that new Walmart Supercenter that opened in Enterprise in what, 1989?  But still.  A Walmart was 8 miles from me.  So awesome.

And I frequented that Walmart.  Frequently.

As a matter of fact, I can tell you with certainty that in the time it opened until I moved to Troy in 1993, I purchased the following:

The majesty of the Walmart in Geneva. To 12 year old me, it was a castle.
To 42 year old me, its a quaint reminder of childhood. 

• Debbie Gibson's "Out of the Blue" album on vinyl, and considering it just turned 30 itself, this might be the first thing I ever purchased from a Walmart.  
• The soundtrack to the movie "Cocktail", also on vinyl
• A Valentine's gift for my high school girlfriend Cindy H, which I believe was pajamas
• A birthday gift for my friend Stephanie Phillips, who said after her birthday that I didn't even get her a card. She was kidding, but I bought her a shirt.  Nowadays, a "shirt from Walmart" doesn't sound as nice as "a shirt from Target" or "a shirt from Macys", but to me, it was an awesome gift. It was white with pink stripes. It had shoulder pads. Yes, looking back, it was probably not very fashionable, and to Stephanie's credit, she wore it at least once.  But I bought it with my own money, so it's the thought that counts, right? Right.
• Tons of paper and notebooks for the stories I wrote in junior high and high school, and I wrote a ton. By hand. I wore mechanical pencils slap out (of which I also bought at Walmart)
• Starship's "Knee Deep in the Hoopla" and The Jets' self titled album, both on cassette. I loved The Jets
• A pair of silk boxer shorts, just because I wanted to find out what silk boxers felt like. They ride. Bad.
• My first tennis racket. I was inspired by Jennifer Capriati and Wimbledon back in the day, and I played tennis regularly for the next 15 to 20 years. 
• Amy Grant's "That's What Love is For" on cassette single. I still have it.  Love that song.
• Cathy King's baby shower gift, which was a carseat.  She was a classmate of mine, and to be fair, High School Girlfriend Cindy H and I bought it together.
• Angie Jay's homecoming gift, because she was my date in October 1992. Until Bradley Miller screwed that up.  Don't remember the gift, but I never gave it.  There's a high school story for you. 
• A ficus tree for Ms Peterson, my civics teacher, because her kindness saved my Troy scholarship. I left after my last final as a high school student, sped down to the Geneva Walmart, bought it and sped back, putting it in her classroom before her planning period was over.   

This Walmart holds a ton of memories for me, and I'm glad it's still open. And I'm actually glad it's not 24 hours -- its hours are something like 7a to 9p or maybe even 10p on the weekends.  And whereas the Walmart (formerly a "Supercenter", but now just called "Walmart") that is about 4 minutes from my home through traffic is a behemoth of a building, the Geneva Walmart is less than 150 paces from one side to the other.  I know because I've counted it.  150 paces would get you out of the grocery department and maybe past the self service checkout at the Walmart on Hwy 280, close to me.

And when I have a few extra minutes as I'm coming through Samson (with my old house being sold, there isn't a lot of "coming to" Samson now), I'll drive down Hwy 52, stop at Sunny Meadows and see my friend Jennifer for a minute, then stop in the Geneva Walmart. Sometimes just to walk around, though that doesn't take long. Sometimes to remember where I used to purchase records, then cassettes, then the Plexiglas case that had CD long boxes -- CD players were too fancy for my blood in 1992, I tell you.

So, happy 30th birthday, Geneva Walmart. May you be around another 30, and I'll see you soon, I'm sure.

(Many thanks to my friend Amy Warr for retweeting the WTVY-TV link that alerted me to this great holiday -- you can read their story here, though mine is better)

write up to now

So, a month and some change later, here is the end of this story... 
The Story of My Write, the 1000th post is Here...
Write On Through High School (Part Two) is Here...
Write On Through the Dry Spell (Part Three) is here...

May was so uber busy for me, much of it is a blur.  Not only did I finish up and send off about 9 families to Disney World and Universal Studios, but in the last week, I've helped 5 more families get out the door to the magic that awaits. Hence, not a single word on this blog since the end of April, which makes me sad because now May 2015 will have nothing in the "published" tab in the archives over there --->

And that's how life is, huh? 

So, at the end of the last blog published, I was finishing up the "Story of My Write", which is a history of my writing... not really for you, honestly, but for me, so when I'm 77, sitting in a wheelchair in the Sunny Meadows Nursing Home and can't remember when I last took a poopy--which will probably be while I'm thinking "when did I last take a poopy?"--Campbell, 41 years old by then, can come for his monthly visit and read to me my own life stories.  Then he can tell me my name and where I am, because I likely won't remember that either.

Let's finish this entire thing up by taking you back to spring 2005.  I had been married for just over a year, I had been involved with Valleydale Baptist Church for about 6 years, The Lovely Steph Leann and I had really become close to our new Sunday School Life Connection Life Group Sunday School class (the "NearlyWed/Newlywed Class") and our church was going to New York City for a week to do some mission work in Queens and Brooklyn.  I was all in, because having been to NYC a few years previous, I fell in love with the city and had a heart for it's people. 

In a "trip meeting", where everyone comes together for cheap pizza and Milo's sweet tea in a classroom after service to watch a video about what we'll be doing, they were looking for "online journaling people"... that is, people who will be willing to write up a daily summary to share with the group back home in Birmingham.  I raised my hand because no one else did, and my name was put down.   I was told to just write up a few paragraphs at the end of each day and email it to someone in the church, and they would post it on the church website.

Challenge accepted.

But also, I wanted more than just people in our church to know what was going on, so after Star Wars Celebration (mentioned in the previous post) and that slight experience in writing, I decided I would go to Blogger.com and set up an account... I did.  And when it came to a name, I thought "Well, this is only for my NYC trip, so... New York Dave?  Nah... um... Mission Trip... Nope... Broadway... I love Broadway stuff... how about...

BroadwayDave. That works."

Now, in hindsight, I would have come up with something that would make sense beyond just this trip, but I also remember not thinking much would come of this blog after the trip.  I'd write about the trip and be done with it.  Maybe save the posts into a word document onto a floppy disk for safe keeping (remember... this is 1995, and "flash drives" were not affordable and many computers didn't have USB ports anyway).

My first post was called "Less than 30 Days", and it was a quick little blurb on who was actually going on the trip, back when my audience barely eclipsed those people.  I then decided I would practice a little writing by doing another post, this time about my love of Kelly Clarkson and her new (then) song "Behind These Hazel Eyes"...

I followed it up with a few more, including the sadness of finishing a Harry Potter book, picking up "Harry Potter & the Half-Blood Prince at 1201a on release day, a take on MC Hammer and a few more random notes... then the trip began, and my first trip blog came out on July 27th, 2005, introducing everyone going on the trip--remember, I'm still writing on the premise that when this trip is over, so will my blogpage.

We were staying in Manhattan at a hostel, basically... each tiny room had a thin mattressed bunk bed, a window that barely opened, and down the hall a small bathroom with a shower--one that you had to essentially duck into, as there was a frame that held the shower door... a short frame.

And it was hot.  I mean, freakin' hot.  Like, walk outside and the cold shower you just had in the tiny community bathroom upstairs a little bit ago was now negated by the hot, humid temperature at 5am.   Ick.

The sole computer in the building was downstairs and cost $5 an hour, and was old... when you typed a sentence, the cursor wouldn't move.  Then about 20 seconds later, the cursor would fly across the screen leaving in it's wake all the letters you just typed, only missing some words, misspelling words, skipping letters, forgetting punctuation and more.  So a post that would normally take me 25 minutes took over an hour.  Still, I did it.  I posted the day's events every night.

I would also send it back to the church email address and they would post it as well... only on day three, I wrote this about my roommate Larry:

So, it was hot. It still is. Anyone who knows me knows I sweat when I think too much, so last night wasn't great... though with the fan, it wasn't that bad, honestly. Larry, sleeping in the bunk under me, had a bigger problem. Apparently his fitted sheet came off, and he stuck to the plastic mattress cover in his sleep, creating that "sscchhllllleeeepppp" sound when he moved.

Someone sent me an email a few days later (I could only check my email during this hot, late night computer time) asking for the blog address, as the church stopped posting what I had written.  I found out later they thought the idea of a "shirtless Larry" was inappropriate for publishing... to me, it was the best way to explain the heat.   Oh, there was also the story of the naked French guy...

Apparently, there is a naked french guy roaming the halls. He approached Paula in a towel, but Tim only saw him wearing the Star of David on a chain on his neck. I think his name is Jon.

That probably didn't help either.

By the 11th NYC trip blog, I had made the decision that I wanted to keep blogging, because I enjoyed it.   So I did just that.

I started writing about anything and everything... I posted recaps about American Idol episodes... I talked about my marriage and fun with The Lovely Steph Leann... reviewed movies... discussed Disney... talked about friends and family... delved into politics... pop culture and more pop culture... I even did a 100 Coolest Things of the Year for a few years running...

I go back and read some of the stuff I wrote--especially about politics--and will sometimes even wince, thinking "I could have worded that better... eh, I probably shouldn't have said that at all... yikes, that was a d-bag thing to write..."

Then again, I read some of the early posts and think, "Wow... that was really funny... could I write that kind of funny stuff again?"

Evolution of a writer, I guess you would say.  Somewhere along the way I realized that yes, people do actually read what I write, especially since I had random people at church, at work and in life just tell me, "Hey, I enjoyed your blog the other day..."  People that make you say, "You read that?"

So at the end of June, Clouds is My Coffee celebrates 10 years of existence. Not nearly as old as some online journals and blogs... but way, way older than most.

And here I am, at 250,000+ page views over the lifetime of the blog... not bad, I think.  I'd probably say 100K of them came in the last two years, so I'm on my way to a million hits.  Think about that... 1,000,000 individual page views.  Holy crap. 

I can't promise you I'll blog every week, but I will try.  I have no plans to change the content... it will still be about movies, music, pop culture, life, family, Disney, random Amy Adams (whom I'm in love with) references, random Julie Wise references (because I think its funny at this point), random Troy and Samson stories, maybe the final season of American Idol, and maybe just a little bit of politics...

Obama is a tool, incompetent, and the worst president this country has ever known.

Well, maybe not too much politics, at least until after the 2016 election.

So, thanks for reading.  Thanks for visiting the page.  Don't be afraid to check out some of the blog links I have over there ---> and give them a spin as well. 

And that... is the story of my write.

write on through high school

(The beginning of this post can be found here, chronicling my writing history and where I sort of figured out that I liked writing)

As mentioned before, I had a good time writing stories that involved my friends, putting us in various ridiculous situations, but began to stick my foot in the pool of real fiction with my fairytale "Dayton's Quest".

I began to churn out stories every few weeks from there, and my friends wanted to read them, friends that went beyond just the guys I shared paper adventures with (though I did write a story called "1967" putting myself and friends in Vietnam... only Johnny Knowles and I survived the attack by the Vietcong, according to my tale--Jason Smith died a most honorable death, as did Clay Fulford #namedrop).  They would actually pass around a sheet of paper, signing up to the be the first to read whatever I wrote. 

In particular, Tammy Thomas was one of my biggest fans--to the extent I actually had fans--and that which always warmed my heart... I'll never forget her coming to me, more than once, and saying "Are you finished with the new story?  You know I'm on the list first, you know I get it first".   It's one of those small compliments probably forgotten about by everyone but me.  And she's still pretty awesome to the day (thank you Facebook!)

And just for fun, here are a few of the stories I put on paper and released:

**A story called "Tophet", which was, according to my Roget's Thesaurus, another word for "hell" or the "underworld", and it was about a man who buys a video game on Christmas Eve in a back alley from a shady dude, and then gives it to his son for Christmas the next day--and when you play the game, people die in real life, and the end of the game opens up a portal... to Hell.  Boom.  Maybe a little Poltergeisty, but I dug the concept.

**"Reach Out and Touch Someone", a play on the slogan of the old slogan from Bell Telephone (which in 1992 wasn't that far removed from being a real thing), was a divorcee with a young daughter trapped in a house with a crazy sociopath who has, somehow, nailed all the windows shut and boarded all the doors up.  At that time, it made sense. The sequel, called "Hunted", got as far as the first chapter, but was then abandoned... and it was just as well.

**"The Long & Winding Road" was a Hallmark worthy tale of a snotty rich chick who is on a hayride while visiting her country bumpkin cousin, and after a stop, is accidentally left behind with said cousin.  The two barely know each other, despite being family and live worlds-apart, but are forced to walk together, and look out for another, along the five mile long dirt road back to the church... and along the way, she learns a little of what it's like to be kind and generous.  (this is one of my favorites, by the way)

**"Radio Talk", a conversation between an overnight DJ and a caller who seems to be a little off the edge.  The entire story was written all in quotes, which at the time I thought was a pretty cool angle.  Oh, okay, fine, I still think its a cool angle. 

**And one of my favorites of all time, "Out of Time", the story of a teenager who is gravely injured in the 1930s, is given an experimental drug that puts him into a coma, and doesn't age a bit, until he wakes up in 1994 under the name John Doe.  He befriends a pretty nursing student, who helps him escape the clutches of a cruel doctor who wants our John Doe (I cannot remember his name, but this was written in 1992, so forgive me) for more experimentation--thus begins a comical chase story where John Doe and Pretty Student Nurse are trying to find an antidote for the 1930s drug, a drug that is now causing him to age rapidly.

SIDEBAR: Some years later, I came across a movie called "Late for Dinner", which actually has some of the same plotlines... remember, this was a time when there was no iTunes or Netflix or any kind of streaming service.  You had to rent this movie, and it wasn't all that popular, so our local video stores may have had one copy somewhere... but I say it now before the world--mine was an original idea, not borrowed from this film.  I still haven't seen it, by the way.   

I did a couple of more "friend" stories too, mostly as something fun to do... I wrote one called "Witness for the Prosecution" which at the time didn't sound like a lame legal cliche, about a lawyer (my friend Jennifer Lambert took that role) trying to figure out if her client is actually guilty or not (turns out Michael Creech was in fact, guilty), and another story with an equally bad cliched name I can't remember, this one a cat-and-mouse game story about two cops (my friends Stan McDuffie and Jason Smith) trying to track down a serial killer. The premise of the first one was actually pretty good, it just needed more details than my 16 year old mind could produce, while the latter was actually a little silly--but Stan's death scene was actually pretty cool.

And I even did a few stupid stories that included my friends in band, almost parodies full of inside jokes and cliches, one being a western and one being a space adventure.  And no, I didn't get the girl in either, because how am I going to write about ending up with Julie Wise (or Stephanie Phillips, who I crushed on for about six months in 10th grade) and not be completely humiliated at that concept? 

I even had an attempt at poetry, and I still have a yellow folder entitled "d$'s Real Dumb Poetry"--and the title isn't an attempt at humility. Not at all. It's so bad.  Keep in mind that though I did some stuff on a typewriter, I couldn't afford to buy ribbon over and over, so 90% of this was done with a mechanical pencil and paper. 

I loved writing.   And for a kid who is 15, 16, going on 17, I was pretty good at it.  That's not bragging, that's just saying that I know I had a knack for it. 



I scanned the Senior Superlative picture in question,
but because it was out of a yearbook, it was really
grainy.  Anyway, this is Christy and I, paired up
again, this time voted as March (April?) 93's
Calendar Couple in Home Ec.  Strangly enough, we
were never actually a couple of any kind, other than
being good friends. 

And to this day, I still don't know what the purpose
of a "calendar couple" is.  Go SHS!

I was voted Most Creative as a senior for our Senior Superlatives, alongside Christy Mock and her incredible singing voice...

ANOTHER SIDEBAR... So, to take the Senior Superlative picture, it was decided that I, who was in the band, and Christy, who was not, needed to meet in the bandroom, because we could set up a keyboard for her to use as a prop.  The prop that I needed would be a typewriter.  And while the keyboard was in a closet in the bandroom, the typewriter--a huge honk of a machine that was pretty dated even in 1993--was across the entire school in Mrs. Rials' classroom.  Those of you from Samson will know what a haul that is.  So on a warm late April midday, in the south Alabama humidity, I had to go to Mrs. Rials class, borrow a typewriter, haul that sucker across the entire school--why did I not ask for a handcart or trolley of some sort?  where were you to tell me these things?--to the bandroom, wipe off the pouring sweat, take a picture, then haul it all the way back to Mrs. Rials class.  Great picture, beautiful companion in the shot, terrible set up methods.  And if you look in the yearbook, you can't see the keyboard, and you can only see the edge of the typewriter.  Such is.  Back to the story.

...and my plans were to start drafting a book soon, maybe during high school.  I pulled out my electric typewriter, and began to type a story that was rolling around in my head, one with a guy named Peter and a girl named Julianne Frye, and a third wheel named Daily, and a best friend named Barrow, and a mean girl named Piper Huffin and a janitor named Ezekial and a couple named Troy and Suzy and...

...and it was going to be great.  Or, at least the first few pages I typed were great.  Or good.  Or terrible, who knows.  I started the story about four times and never got past page 5.  Oh, and then I graduated and went to college, which is great, because in college, I can sit up late and write, right?

And my first night at Troy State University began what essentially was a five year long case of writer's block.  More on that tomorrow.

post 1,001

the story of my write (the 1000th cloud)

What to do for a post that marks your 1000th time you've hit "publish"?  After tossing around a few ideas, starting a few posts and then tossing a few more ideas, I decided I wanted to go back and remember how all of this got started... no, not in 2005, when the blog started--I mean, back to 1982, when I first realized I liked writing.  This post is broken up into two parts for easier reading, because I'm always too wordy.  Oh, and thanks for coming back here day after day...

How did you start writing?  I mean, if you are a writer, and I know a lot of you are.  Since I started this blog in 2005, oh, you know, ONE THOUSAND posts ago, I think another thousand people that I know have started a blog of their own... some have kept going and make for a good read, and others have done one, two, maybe five posts and it sits forgotten in the graveyard of good intentions--the blogsite edition.

Writing is a funny thing... not everyone can do it, though there are far more people who think they can (and thereby do) than actually can (and shouldn't).  I lost a bet on our podcast, The Deucecast Movie Show, and was forced to watch a Paris Hilton film called "The Hillz" (yes, with a Z).  The screenwriter is a fella named Saran Barnun, and if this film's script is to be used as evidence, Saran is someone who thinks he can write... but probably shouldn't.  Then again, I should never sing nor act, but I attempt both, so there's that...

I'm not saying I'm the end all be all, please don't get me wrong.  At no point will I wave this blog in front of anyone and say "see this!  look what I wrote!  I'm the Grisham/King/Rowling heir apparent!!" or anything of the kind, but... but I think I'm not bad at it.  Ten years later, I've got over 230K views on this site, so that's gotta count for something, right?  Maybe?  Humblebrag, indeed.

My first writing venture was when I was in 2nd grade... I decided I wanted to write a play for some strange reason, and had titled it "The Prince & the Princess", because at 7, I was striving for originality.  Once I revealed my plan to do so, several of my classmates were pretty excited about being it it.  Melissa Gonzalez and Tony Sanchez wanted to be the leads, though I cannot remember if I casted them or Melissa just insisted... doesn't matter, especially when you see how this ended. 

Becky Rocha was my villain, my evil witch... now this was a part she wanted because she was all into the bad guys in stuff.  I don't think she grew up to be Marilyn Manson (we all know that it was Paul from The Wonder Years that turned into Marilyn Manson!  Wait... what?) or anything, she was just 7 and thought the witch part would be cool.

I remember writing this bit of dialogue...

The Prince:  Hello, my princess.  You are very pretty!
The Princess:  Thank you!  I think you are cute too!
The Witch, over in the bushes:  I don't like you or you, and I'll get you!

That's it. 

In my mind I had this vision of a princess in some sort of mortal danger, and a dashing prince from a far away land had come to rescue her from the clutches of the evil, and green (because when you are 7, witches look like the Wicked Witch of the West, not all cutesy and patootsie like Hermione Granger).  Also, I'm really not sure where I was going to get the means to produce such a stage play that at the least, would require a battle scene between the good guy and bad chick, but I figured I would think of something.  And honestly, I think I would have.  

SIDEBAR:  It's important to note that I had never seen Sleeping Beauty, Snow White & the Seven Dwarfs, Cinderella or any of those movies that would have likely inspired me to such ideas.

So the script wasn't much to go on, but didn't stop me from calling a practice at recess.  Separate 2nd graders from their recess time and the response is never favorable.  So 7 year old d$ calls Melissa, Tony, Becky and Brian Bruner (my 2nd grade best friend who wanted to help) over by the school wall, where there is some open space for practice--with no script beyond three lines--and they grumble and mumble and complain.  

Sometimes I cannot remember what I had for lunch the day before, but I vividly remember that 32 years ago, Melissa said to me, "What are we doing here?  This is stupid!!" and I replied, "I made you come over here so... you could go play!"  And they did.  Thus ended "The Prince & the Princess".

Somewhere in the middle of 2nd grade, I also created a cast of comic characters.  Now, for some reason, I decided to take Gonzo from The Muppets, make him taller, sharpen his beak a little, make him not as silly and use him as a character, and yet, still call him Gonzo... I didn't really know what "plagiarism" was back then, so grant me that, if ya don't mind...

This was a drawing I did this morning, and I think I'm
pretty dead on as to what they looked like

Anyway, rather than model the rest of the gang after The Muppets, I actually drew from the Archie comics gang, and so in 2nd grade, I began to draw and write a series of short comics featuring Chip the Bird, Freddie the Alligator, Debbie the Rabbit, I Can't Remember His Name the Cat and a few others that I also cannot possibly remember at this time... I think I actually copied some stories from Archie Comics (even at a young age, I had a pretty good sized collection--now I think I have about 50 various digests, comics and trade paperbacks... but that's another blog...)

Smashcut to three years later, I've left Ridgetop Elementary School in Austin, Texas, and am now residing in Mrs Wikel's 5th grade class at Samson Elementary School (I moved in the middle of my 4th grade year), and am still writing random things.  I think I wrote a poem to Misty Kimble, my first ever crush that wasn't Jo from Facts of Life, and I always was ready in Mrs Wikel's writing assignments that forced us to use vocabulary words from the week.  I even wrote a two page story in ten minutes once because I had procrastinated the assignment until literally the last minute, and as I got up to read it, I had to sorta make up the last sentence or two, then go back to my desk and scribble it down before turning it in.  #HumbleBrag indeed.

Transformers were all the rage when it came to being a kid, as was a book entitled "How to Eat Fried Worms".  So, I decided to write a take off of it called "How to Eat Fried Transformers".  Same concept, except the kids are different, and they are eating... you guessed it, Transformers.  And it was a complete story.  A terrible, stupid, ridiculous story, but still a story.

I also started getting into comic books, so naturally, I wanted to draw my own... so, I created... wait for it... wait for it... The Foodformers.  And yes, this is just like it sounds... food that turned into robots. 

Read that again. 

Food. 

That turned into robots.

I think I'll talk about the war between the Fruitibots and the Veggiecons on Dinnertrion in a different post, for the sake of not making this post 15K words...

Back in the day, networks would
make and air TV movies that
featured stars from the most popular
shows of the day... this was always
my favorite, mostly because of
the Nancy McKeon angle.

In junior high, I had a group of friends that I wrote about--specifically, I wrote them into stories, usually based on a movie I had seen recently... using my buddies Daniel, Clay, Greg, Jason, Monty and sometimes Chad, Michael & Johnny, through the glory of "Borrowed Fiction", we had a Goonies type adventure, a Commando mission where we rescued Monty from a bad guy (and I flew a plane!), a cruise caper and my favorite, a summer camp story with some elements (re: a heavy majority) borrowed from the movie "Poison Ivy".  No, not that one, I mean this one.  In that one, Daniel made out with a chick, Clay and Monty got into a karate battle with a bully, some chick named Lisa kissed me on the cheek and Greg met Millicent, and they ate cake.  I'm not making any of this up--this is directly from my memory.  Promise. 

And then, one night in 1990, I was spending the night at the aforementioned Greg's house.  He had a computer in his room, with this black screen and orange letters, which was all well and good--he also had this new thing called "Prodigy", which allowed me to get on this "on the line" thing through the telephone... but more impressive to me was the ability to type--not handwrite--things. 

SIDEBAR:  I had learned to type for the most part using the electric typewriter my parents had given me for my birthday some years before... I would end up taking typing classes in Mrs. Rials class a year or two later, but for now, it was a slower type and even some finger pecking.

Late in the evening, maybe 11p, or midnight, Greg was long asleep, and I sat down at his computer.  With the orange cursor blinking, I typed the words, "Dayton's Quest". 

I titled it "Dayton's Quest" before I even had a story, though like some writers, I knew what the story was before I typed a single letter. Heck, I had an ending, and even most of a middle, I just had to start and get the reader there.

So for the next three hours, I told the story of a villager named Dayton Petrydish, and his adventures with his best friend Flessa, as they attempted to rescue the fair Princess from the evil clutches of a bad guy who's name escapes me--and somewhere along the way, there was a wizard named Vernjox, a special sword and a wedding at the end where Vernjox turned into a condor and flew away.

It was hokey, and silly and cheesy.  And when I realized about 4am that I had no way of taking this story home, because he didn't have a printer... like a plunger, I didn't realize I needed it until I needed it.  I fell asleep exhausted, and when Greg and I awoke the next morning, he agreed to let me come back the next week so I could write the story down. And that's what I did the next weekend, over the course of 2 hours on a Saturday, I transcribed the story from the screen to 24 pieces of regular lined loose leaf paper.

"Dayton's Quest" was important, because it was my first real, true piece of fiction, fiction that didn't involve anyone I knew, fiction that required me to discuss the characters, describe them, build them for the reader...  this wasn't like writing little one and two page stories in 5th grade using vocabulary words, this was a real short story.  It helped me understand, even if I didn't realize it then, that I had a knack for it. 

A year or two later, in December of '92, I believe, Mrs. Daniels asked us to set a goal for the new year.   Some people wrote down "Lose 10 pounds" and someone else wrote "Save up for (whatever they were saving for)" and another jotted down, "Learn guitar".  I was hoping that Julie Wise would write down "Go out with d$" because that would have been the easiest A she'd ever earned, but alas.  For me, I wrote down my goal to say "Write a 150 page story". 

Turns out, Mrs. Daniels took these very seriously, and gave us three weeks to finish the assignment.  After much protest by everyone in the class--especially those who wrote down unrealistic goals of learning to tap dance or hiking some mountainous trail--we were told we had to show the effort.  So, I took "Dayton's Quest" from 24 pages to 138 pages.  

The battle scenes got a little longer, the climax was a little longer and more tense, the romantic build up between the Princess CannotRememberHerName and Dayton was a little sweeter, I think I threw in a subplot with best friend Flessa and more... I was still 12 pages short, so I then tacked on another short story, "The Long and Winding Road" (more on that one later) to the end of it, making it a total of 152 pages long... and I got an A.  Woot. 

So there's the first part of my writing story.  The second part will be here in a few days, so I hope you come back to see me again... and let me know--are you a writer?  And how did you get started?

top ten blogging in 2014

At the risk of being one of those blog sites who says "Hey, everyone come see how good I look!" or maybe "Hey, everyone come be moved by my brilliant words and the amazing way I put thoughts into verbal emotions!"... I thought this year's end might be a good idea to do something different.

For the first several years of the blogsite, maybe 2005 to 2011, I did a "Coolest 100 Things of the Year", and they were a collection of people, music, movies, events, life happenstances, books and more that I experienced or discovered for the first time in that particular year... and I'll honestly say, sometimes it was met with controversy over who/what got in, who/what got out, and a lighthearted look back for me turned into a little drama here and there, which made it not worth it. Oh, and I got lazy (what's new?) and even finished my favorite 100 things of 2011 IN the year 2013. I decided that was that for that segment.

But now, I look back at the year on the blog, and see that I've managed 85 posts (not counting this one). That number seems a bit inflated, as I participated in--and succeeded--in a challenge that had me blogging 33 straight days from late September to early November. Considering that is more blogging than I did from March thru September in total, "85" is a deceptive number, but here we are anyway.

January set forth my first writing challenge of the year, where I attempted to write an average of 500 words per day for the month. Then I set my goals for the year 2014, in Part One and then Part Two... and will probably give a post next week to let you know how I did (batting .300 is great in baseball right? Why can't it be okay for real life?).
As I mentioned before, October brought a 31 Day writing challenge, which I #humblebrag in saying that I more than completed. There are other challenges I failed to meet, like my attempt to take on the 100 Happy Days phase that is/was all over Instagram and Facebook, and what I was to call "My Summer of Happy", with 100 posts about things I enjoy. But I've come to learn that I can't give myself a topic, such as "Happy things", and expect myself to blog about that same topic for post upon post upon post... mostly because I'm all over the map, as anyone who has been here more than a few times will see.

So, for anyone new to the blog, or if you just want the good stuff, here are the ten posts this year that I really, really liked. And that's not including my homage to the late, great Casey Kasem... thoughts on Clint Eastwood's "Any Which Way You Can"... thoughts on Pitbull both here and here (yes--TWO posts about Pitbull. What.)... and writing with and without a filter.

2014's Top Ten, as chosen by me, based not only on popularity but also how much pride I had in it when re-reading it..

10... We decided to start (or, start again for the 10,000th time) on our spring cleaning. And when you have a pile of junk in the garage, it's worth documenting some of the strange things you come across. My friend Writer Chris Holmes said this was one of his favorite posts I've ever written... for pictures of not only rubber chickens and Microsoft 2003, but also the General Lee, here's "Things We Found In the Garage" from January 5th.

9... Sometimes as a writer, you just have to write, and sometimes it doesn't make any sense at all. Sometimes it's just a bunch of random words late at night that for whatever reason, a bunch of people tell they read and laughed at and enjoyed. What did I write? Nothing but the "Things Carly Simon Made Me Say Late at Night" from January 27th.

8... The fervor of the "Washington Redskins is a racist nickname" hit a fever pitch this past summer and I sat back and watched carefully, deciding where I fell on the issue (which is, that "Redskins" is not racist, or if it is, it's suspect to suddenly come after it now, after all this time). However, when a select few members of the University of Mississippi release a report saying how they are offended by the school's "Rebel" mascot... well, I just had to join in and declare "Ole Miss is Racist!". From August 9th.

7... I think one of my favorite posts from the last several years was actually one written in 2013, all about inclusion, which I'm passionate about (and likely fail miserably at doing). Another story was brought up in my mind this past spring, as I noticed on Facebook a high school friend of mine was having a birthday. I hadn't thought about him in years, and yet, the story of "Kenny Weeks & Wall Street Football" came rushing back--and had to be shared. From March 5th.

6... I love discussing pop culture, and I love making lists. So when I can do the two of them together, and talk about OutKast, Garth Brooks, Expose, Bob Seger, Janet Jackson, Taylor Swift, Fergie and more, I do it. All are including in my "Playlist for Hustla's", from January 17th.

5... With recent events in my own life (that I cannot share right here on this site, but you are welcome to ask about it), the words "leap of faith' stand out strong in my heart and mind. So re-reading this one made me smile. Because sometimes, you just have to get on that skateboard of life and ride... worried about safety? Remember that "You Can't Be Safe on a Skateboard". From February 4th.

4... Sometimes its the memories we have from our childhood that resonate with us 30 years later, much like this story from Samson Elementary, involving GI Joe, Wonder Woman and an unnamed kid who's spoils fuel the creativity of an unpopular 5th grader. It's all about getting "Clarity from an Invisible Jet", from February 10th.

3... Every year on his birthday, I make a note to Campbell, something I hope he will read when he gets older. This year's letter was popular with readers. From November 30th, "To Campbell, on Your 3rd Birthday" (his b'day is December 1st, it just got published literally 20 minutes from midnight, giving it a 11/30 publish date instead of a 12/1 date. Details, details.)

2... Ah, marriage. And pride. And pride in marriage can be a bad thing sometimes. It's a little story about butting heads as a husband and wife, and a lesson that "Pride Goeth Before the Squeeze" from February 24th.

And my favorite post of the year that I've written...

1... Autism is tough. It's a hard thing to push through, and it's tempting to wallow in parental misery about all the things you are missing. But one thing we are learning, re-learning and telling ourselves over and over is that The Lovely Steph Leann and I have to remember to "Don't Mourn the Can't, Instead Love the Can"

So there ya go... if you like one or more of those posts, then you'll enjoy the blog. If you clicked on a couple and decided "this guys sucks!", then I have a feeling this blogsite won't be for you. But you should come anyway, in case I write something that you do like! 

Thanks for reading.

i have seen the future, lil d$

I opened up the blog page as normal, then clicked on "new post", then sat back for a second. See, I've written for 21 straight days. The ideas are there... but they are longer ideas, and I don't want to write something that will be overlooked by afternoon tomorrow.

And then my friend Debra Hennessy put a simple post on Facebook, one that said:

If you could go back in time and say something to yourself in middle school, what would you say?

So then, I managed to reply in a quick comment... and realized that this is my blog post for the evening. 

So, allow me to give you the ten things that 39 Year Old d$ would tell Lil d$ in 1988, right between 7th and 8th grade..

1. "Lil d$... I know you have a crush on (name withheld). It's fine. You probably won't have this same crush in a few weeks, but you should stop now. I've seen the future, and she's not a very pleasant person. You can stop wasting your time now.

2. "Lil d$... you are actually going to marry someone who is in a grade below you right now, who is living in Jasper at this very moment. Wait, maybe it's somewhere in Mississippi. I've seen the future, and you'll do just fine."

3. "Lil d$... be nicer to those kids over there. You are poking fun now really just to make some others laugh. Not cool. They are going to be somebody. You'll want them in your corner."

4. "Lil d$... survive French Class. It sucks. You'll never need it. You might get a laugh out of a word here or there in a Sonic commercial that you'll see when... Sonic? It's a fast food place that... that's not important. My point is, I've seen the future, and you won't need French."

5. "Lil d$... conversely, find somewhere to learn Spanish. Right now. Go to a class, take a correspondence course, do whatever you need to do, but learn it. I've seen the future, it will come in handy bigtime."

6. "Lil d$... join the band now. You'll join in a year or two, but don't wait. You'll find out some of the best times you had in high school were being part of the marching band, so don't wait. I've seen the future, and you'll wish you played saxophone longer."

7. "Lil d$... you'll be getting your first job in a year or two. Sure, you'll blow some of your earnings, and that's fine. But save some. Give 10%, save 10%, and do what you will with the rest. And if you even think of opening up a credit card when you get to college, I don't care what Rebecca Miller says, I will come back here and punch me in the face. I've seen the future, and credit cards own you for a decade."

8. "Lil d$... I know you write now. You like to write. And that's cool. But don't stop in college. Keep writing. Keep doing it. And when it comes about 1995, when you get on AOL for the first time, you'll want to open up a Blog Site. B-L-O-G... yeah, rhymes with LOG. Blog. You'll know it. I have seen the future, and you'll want to start this early."

9. "Lil d$... Mom and Dad. They love you. So very much. A lot will happen between now and when they pass. Cherish the time you have. Even when it gets tough to cherish... cherish it. I've seen the future, and don't lose time."

10. "Read more. Get copies of 'Uncle Tom's Cabin' and 'The Great Gatsby' and 'Pride & Prejudice' and 'Wuthering Heights' and others, and read them. Love Samson High, but they aren't the most pressing when it comes to the classics... I have seen the future, and you'll wish you had read them already."

And here's a bonus, Lil d$...

"You need to write a story. I'll give you an idea... okay, a boy named Harry Potter. Yes, just like the main character from that movie Troll. But this Harry is a wizard. He goes to a school called... write this down... Hogwarts. HOG-W-A-R-T-S... and he has these two friends, named Ron and Hermione. Yes, 'Her-My-Ah-Nee'. Trust me. Oh, and when you are taking a break from writing, here's a business you need to start.. open up a teddy bear store where families come to YOU and pay YOU to make their own toys. Build A Bear. I have seen the future, and this is a good idea."

Oh yeah, one more thing...

"Lil d$... it doesn't matter. I know it seems like your world is ending when so and so said this, and so and so didn't do that... but I've seen the future. And It.Doesnt.Matter..."

What would you tell Lil You?

nothing to blog about

I sat down, laptop open, earbuds in, at a few minutes before midnight, trying to decide what to write about tonight. I've got several ideas brewing, but all will take longer than a few minutes, so while Toni Braxton's "You Mean the World to Me" plays, I am thinking...

...Toni. I loved Toni Braxton in the 90s. Well, I mean, I guess I love her now too, but back in the day, she had this perfection trifecta, this trio of amazing songs that went 1-2-3... "Another Sad Love Song"... then "You Mean the World To Me"... then "Breathe Again". If you add in "Love Shoulda Brought You Home" from the "Boomerang" soundtrack to the beginning of that list, it gets even better. She was amazing.

What you have to know about me is sometimes I revel in nostalgia. More than I should, but it's true. I think I'm like most people in saying that music... more than movies, more that TV shows, more than books... but music, takes me back.

I hear Toni Braxton and one of the aforementioned songs, suddenly I'm sitting in the Adams Student Center, talking to Ginny Kochan over cold pizza during lunch, or I'm sitting on the couch by Bobby Black, playing Mike Tyson's Punch Out on my Nintendo in my dorm room...

...so back to my ideas for a blog. Heck, it's already after midnight, and I still have no idea what to blog about. I wrote a comment on my friend Writer Chris Holmes' blog, and it was a pretty good stream of thought, so maybe I'll type that out. But that's too deep for tonight. Maybe tomorrow night...

...right now, Vertical Horizon's "Everything You Want" is on. I mean, that song? Just cool. I don't know anything else the band has ever done, not sure I want to know, but this one song is so good. It's one of The Lovely Steph Leann's favorite songs, like, ever. It's also fun to sing too--and that's important. A song has to be fun to sing to really make it enjoyable.

Come on, sing it with me... "I am everything you want! I am everything you need! I am everything inside of you that you wish you could be! I say all the right things at exactly the right time, but I mean nothing to you and I don't know why!" ...

...back to the blog. Just read an article that a house was built on the wrong lot. A dream home for a couple, to the tune of $680,000, on a lot that cost 135K when they bought it, but now appraises for 355K in the neighborhood... and it's not on that lot, it's one lot over. Cause the builders messed it all up...

...there's this movie called "Mo Money", starring Damon Wayans, Marlon Wayans, a pre-Clueless but still just as fine Stacey Dash, and a few other people you may not know. Circa 1993, it's silly and stupid, but I freakin' love that movie. My friend Tonya Windham and I traveled to Panama City Beach for the day (my hometown was 1 hour and 10 minutes from the beach, so this wasn't a long trip) during my senior year of high school... it rained some during the day, so during the rain delay, we caught a flick... and yes, it was this one. We laughed quite a bit, and for whatever reason, it stuck with me.

The only reason I bring up? The soundtrack is absolutely incredible... Janet Jackson, Luther Vandross, Ralph Tresvant, Color Me Badd and the song I'm listening to now, MC Lyte's "Ice Cream Dream." Yep, I just said "MC Lyte" and "Ice Cream Dream". Now that I'm older, I listen to the lyrics, and realize it's a little racy. Or a lot racy. But I still love it...




...

...

...




..

...oh, sorry about that. OutKast's "BOB" video just came on. It's done now. Next up on the random playlist, Extreme's "Hole Hearted", which is one of my favorite 90s tunes. That takes me back to 10th grade, hanging out with my few friends back then. Of course, I had just joined the band, so I had just become a band geek.

I wasn't a popular kid in junior and high school. I mean, I wasn't un-popular, but I think I was like, second tier. You know, you had the more popular kids on top, the cheerleaders like Stephanie Phillips and the beauties of the class like Jennifer Lambert and the athletes like Michael Creech and Daniel Stephenson and even that one guy that just everyone likes, like Chris McCall.

And one level below that, you have the... the popular runner-ups, where if the popular kids can't fulfill their duties, those of us on the 2nd tier would step right in. If we are all going to a party together, I'm the guy that would get picked over some of the lesser bottom feeders in the serf group, but I'd easily get left in favor of Rodney Hornsby or Jason Smith.

By the way, Kid Rock's "Cowboy" is on right now.

Anyway, I'm okay with where I ended up in the hierarchy. It allowed me to make more friends, because I wasn't just sticking with one single group. And I still consider my closest friends, at least in my grade, to be Tonya, Chris and my buddy Greg... I was also good friends with two different Ryans in a different grade, and Jason Howell a few grades back.

"Light My Candle" from the Rent Soundtrack. Spike Lee is shooting down the street.

Then, of course, there was Julie Wise, or as I should call her, The Clouds In My Coffee Official High School Crush Julie Wise. I would imagine there are more and more newer readers to the blog, and are seeing the name "Julie Wise" for the first time here... nearly everyone has that one person that they kinda like, or kinda love for the better part of their high school years. Julie Wise was mine. More on that later...

...since I have nothing to blog about tonight, I guess I can start talking about #40forForty... or maybe it's #Fortyfor40? No, #40for40? #40440? No, that last one is just confusing.


Anyway, as Old Crow Medicine Show strums along to "Wagon Wheel", I'll just tell you that #40forForty is coming very soon. In one month.

...and I'm sorry I have nothing to blog about tonight. I failed in my writing challenge. Off to bed, I'll try again tomorrow.

casey, will you please play...

Record stores sell 'em, radio stations play 'em, and Billboard count's 'em down...

Casey Kasem died a few weeks ago, and I started this the day after his death, only to finish it a few days ago... sorry it's late.  While I will admit it doesn't leave a hole in my being at this stage in my life, it does strike me as kinda sad.  He died of a form of dementia, but his death was somewhat quickened by the way his family jockeyed him back and forth in his final years... his second wife, the current one, forbade his children (with his first wife) to even see Casey, to which they turned around and sued.  At one point, Jean Kasem hid her husband, telling the court that Casey was "no longer in the United States".  He was found in Washington state soon after.  His kids finally got the injunction they wanted, and took over his care, getting a court order to allow Kasem to be taken off ventilators and food machines. 

As a lifelong fan of music, there are three main individuals that had an impact on my musical knowledge... in no particular order:

John Garabedian, the host of Open House Party.  I was never all that popular in school, especially middle school... I didn't go to many parties, mostly because I wasn't invited, and I didn't get asked to hang out a lot on the weekends.  I listened to Open House Party on WKMX 106.7, and understood all the new stuff coming up.  (I wrote another two paragraphs on this just now, and realized this should be it's own blogpost)

Dave "Doc" Kirby, the program director for WTBF 94.7 in Troy Alabama.  First, he hired on my best mate Wookiee as a part time DJ, then he hired me on in 1997, where I ran the mid-morning show for two hours, then some talk radio programs.  But in those morning two hours, I got my education on 60s and 70s rock, everything from Firefall to The Doobie Brothers. 

and finally...

Casey Kasem.  Every Sunday, on the aforementioned WKMX Maximum Music 106.7, Casey Kasem's American Top 40 would play, starting at noon, and ending around 4pm.  And every Sunday, right after church, I would go to my room and spend the afternoon doing whatever, including writing, LEGOs, drawing, creating whatever my 10 year old mind would create... all the while, Casey would tell us "Record stores sell 'em, radio stations play 'em and Radio & Records counts them down!", then he'd get onto the countdown. 

I would write down each song as it was ranked...

I would wait anxiously for how many songs debuted, keeping track of the new music that would end up being huge, like if Lionel Richie's new song "Dancing on the Ceiling" premiered at #35, or this new band, New Kids on the Block, and their first song, which debuts at #37... and how many dropped out, using the dropping out as a benchmark for the end of a song's run, like when "Beat It" finally fell out of the Top 40 after a bajillionty weeks on the countdown.

Then I'd listen as the songs came one by one...

"...at number 34 for a second week in a row is the British band Tears for Fears, with their latest hit, 'Head Over Heels'"
or
"...it peaked at number 5 on the AT40 charts, but Belinda Carlisle falls three notches to number 25 with her latest smash, 'Heaven is a Place on Earth'"
or
"...that was Boston, dropping down to number 2 after spending two weeks at the top spot with 'Amanda'... and now, our new number one song in the land (insert story here about the band) is... 'Human' by The Human League!!!"

Several times, there'd be a listener question that would be teased in one segment ("Coming up, a listener wants to know, what song had the longest title to hit #1 in the rock era?  The answer features a beach and swimwear... we'll have that answer coming up!") and then the commercials, and then the familiar voices of the chicks, singing "American... Top Foooorty...."

Then Casey would play a song, and then answer the question... "John from Des Moines wants to know, what song had the longest title to hit #1 in the rock era?  Well, you have to look all the way back to 1958 when..." and then he'd explain.  By the way, the answer is, in fact, "Itsy Bitsy Teeny Weeny Yellow Polka Dot Bikini"--I used that example because it actually is the right answer.

I always wondered if these were actual letters from fans across the country, or if every Tuesday Casey stuck his head in the writers room and said, "Okay guys, I need questions.  You come up with three each, plus the answer, and I'll pick my favorites.  Go!"

Then later in the broadcast, several times, we'd have the infamous Request and Dedication... again it would be teased right before a break ("Up next, a request and dedication from a man in Florida who seeks to find the one that got away... I'll have details coming up...") and then commercial, and then, of course, a song. 

"And now, a request and dedication from a man in Florida who wants to reconnect with his soulmate.  It reads: 

Dear Casey, I made a terrible mistake.  I let the one girl I loved get away.  I lived next door to my best friend, Judy, for over ten years, starting when we were in 7th grade.  We grew up together, side by side, walking to school together, learning to drive together, even going to prom together, though we were always just friends.  Then, when we graduated, she went out of state to college, and I went to a local junior college.  She wrote me a letter before she left, and it told me how she had always loved me, and wanted to know if I felt the same.  I didn't know how I felt, because Judy had always been just my friend, so I wrote back and told her that I didn't and that I loved someone else who I was dating at the time.  But I then realized that I did love Judy.  I broke it off with the other girl, and tried to find Judy, but I know that I've broken her heart.  She won't return my phone calls and all of my other letters have been returned unopened, and I don't know how to find her.  I miss her every day, and wish I had a chance to tell her that I love her too.  Casey, would you please play REO Speedwagon's "Keep on Loving You", to let Judy know that I'll wait for her to come back.  Signed, Robert.

Robert, here's your long distance dedication."

I made this up... but it certainly fits the narrative.  By the way, the R&D was the source of Casey's infamous "Snuggles" cursing rant, when in September of 1985, he had just finished playing an upbeat Pointer Sisters song, and then took several takes because he couldn't find the right amount of somberness to properly read a sad dedication about a woman who's dog had just died.  He then went into a saucy, profanity filled tirade at his producer for putting the dedication right after such a happy song.  I've heard it, it's glorious.  Mental Floss actually has a link to it, plus some other Casey facts, including mistakes he's made, and the one song title he wouldn't say during the song's entire chart run.

Anyway, I'd be on my bottom bunk of my bunk beds, listening, soaking up every word Casey said, learning about the singers and bands--like, the band Simply Red was at first just called "Red", but when someone was introducing them, they were called something else by accident... the lead singer whispered to the guy "NO!  Not that!  It's just RED!  It's simply... Red!" and the announcer said, "Oh, I'm sorry... here comes SIMPLY RED!"

And how .38 Special got it's name, something about an incident with a gun that almost killed someone... and every now and then, he'd do a special report on a trend in the music industry, like one in particular that told me how .45s were beginning to fade away, and the newest thing was "...the cassingle... it's a cassette tape with a song on each side, and they are gaining in popularity!"  (Obviously so, I still have over 200 of them in a box)

Casey would get to the Top Five, and nothing would tear me away from my stereo... of course, since I listened so regularly, by the time he got to #3, I had an idea of how it would play out, but still... I'd hear that drumroll, and I'd be ready, not daring to write down what I already knew would be the top song... "For the second week in a row, the number one song in the nation is... 'Shake You Down' by Gregory Abbott!"

And of course, after he reads all the credits, he'd remind us to "keep our feet on the ground and keep reaching for the stars!"  They should put that on an inspirational poster.

That was a typical Sunday for me... but then, the big countdowns would be even better... he'd take the last week of December and the first week of January, and do the TOP ONE HUNDRED of the year--fifty songs on one show, fifty songs on the next... and even if I had several of these countdowns written down, I'd still write down all 100, song by song as it's played.  I was at my friend Greg Avant's house one New Year's Eve, and I made him listen to the countdown as WKMX was playing it where the #1 song would coincide with midnight... we railed against the fact the #1 song was Elton John, Dionne Warwick and Stevie Wonder's "That's What Friends Are For".  The following year, it was much better, with The Bangles "Walk Like an Egyptian", and I was pleased that Debbie Gibson, my Hollywood Girlfriend in 1987, ranked in the Top 10 for the year with "Lost in Your Eyes".

All in all, I was a huge fan.  A local radio station in Birmingham, WMJJ Magic 96.5, plays old countdowns on Sunday morning, starting at 9am.  As we are racing to church, we usually can hear the first couple of songs, and by the time we get out of church, it's usually in the Top 6 or 7.  I've actually sat in the car before going in a restaurant because it was on #2, and I had to know what #1 was (that particular week it was "What's Love Got to Do with It?" by Tina Turner).

And it irritated the heck out of me when last November, they went wall-to-wall Christmas Music, meaning no Casey for two months.   Sidenote:  One thing I have learned in listening to this countdown on Magic 96.5 as we go to church is that the early 80s really sucked when it came to music.  The Lovely Steph Leann and I like about one in every five songs we hear, many of them have never been heard before by our own ears.

So there ya go... I enjoyed him as Shaggy in Scooby Doo cartoons... I really liked him in Battle of the Planets, my favorite cartoon as a kid... but American Top 40 was were it was at for me when it came to Casey Kasem. 

Thanks Casey, for decades of enjoyment.  My feet will stay on the ground, and I'll reach those stars one day, I promise. 

the beginning of happy days

Considering this is my #SummerofHappy, or #100HappyDays, as most are calling it, it's a mention of happiness every day between Memorial Day thru Labor Day this year. Here's my first 13 days...

Here's a recap of the first ten days thusfar...

First, The Lovely Steph Leann did a guest post on her very first 5K run, and I was so proud of her...

Day 2... my love of notebooks came to the forefront.

Day 3... brought us X-Men: Days of Future Past. I loved this movie more than you could possibly know... brilliant take on the comic book story.

Day 4... was this fun little nugget from my friend Lauren, who has heard me use the term "Crap it all" many, many times as an exasperation...

 

Day 5... was meeting Tattooed Tinkerbell

Day 6... was having family come over in the middle of the night... So, the keepers of the kid are out of town this week... So as a result, The Lovely Steph Leann's sister Angie came to town, bring with her her 16 going on Diva Madeleine and her 12 year old son Benjamin. The West family (the three I just mentioned) agreed to keep Campbell during the day. They arrived in the evening, headed to stay in Big Ron and Mama Ruthless' home (Steph and Angie's parents)... But when they got there, they found a towel, still damp. A bed, unmade. An attic very dark and lights that don't work. And a mother and daughter freaked out and a son who is like "whatever." My theory was that the brother, Tyler, and his wife Brynndolynn, came through town, stayed there and didn't tell anyone.

Nonetheless, The West family showed up at our door at midnight, just to sleep easy. Yes, my theory was exactly what happened, with Tyler saying, "Forgot to tell y'all..." It was still fun to have them for the night...

Day 7... sitting on a Star Wars/Disney Panel with my friend and comic book shop owner, Stan Daniel

Day 8... was Maleficent, the movie, on a date night with The Lovely Steph Leann

Day 9... was my popsicle from Steel City Pops

Day 10... is a 21st anniversary throwback to my high school graduation, in some of these pictures I stumbled across in stalking glancing at my friend Tonya's Facebook pictures.





Pictures of myself, Tonya and Chris at graduation... then me and Greg, sitting on the bus on our class trip to the Bahamas.... then myself, Greg, Chris (looking like Richard Grieco) and Jason at prom... and finally, my mom with myself, Chris and Tonya, again at graduation.

Day 11... poop jokes. Need I say more.

Day 12... "Mr. Mercedes" by Stephen King.... such a great read, like always. Most of King's books are of the fantasy, the supernatural or even the horror kind, but sometimes he does put forth a novel like this, one that has nothing to do with supernatural forces--its just a psychological story of a retired cop being taunted by the "one that got away", a crazy killer who ran a Mercedes Benz through a crowd of people at a job fair... and he's still on the loose, and looking to end the game with a "bang". Great read, great story, especially for fans of crime fiction.

Day 13... My Waffle House Table... ever get a good seat at the Waffle House? You know, that table at the end of the bar that is sometimes there, that only seats 2 people? Getting that all to yourself is the equivalent of getting an airplane seat empty next to you. And I had the table to myself yesterday morning... it was awesome!


So there's the first 13 days. Follow me on Instagram for pictures of everything... superdave310 is what to look for.

kenny weeks & wall street football

One of my tasks this year is to be more encouraging to people, part of my PIKE way of life that I've created, owned and adopted... and in that, I made it a point to go onto Facebook and anyone having a birthday on the little birthday calendar thing, I put a personal note on their page to say Happy Birthday.  And I seldom just say "Happy Birthday", I try to add something to it, to make it a little more personal so people know I'm not just copying and pasting that phrase over and over. 

Sometimes, a name will pop up that I am very good friends with, and I'll add a few lines, make a joke or whatever.  Other times, it might be someone I haven't spoken to in a long, long time, and so I'll say something about the time its been, or that I hope they are well and so on.  Just to make it personal.

Tonight, I came across the name "Kenny Weeks".  Kenny is turning 44 today... I had to dig into my high school yearbook to verify, but that puts him in the Class of 1988.  And that puts me in 7th grade when he was a senior.  For those reading this from Samson, its the yearbook that says "Just the Right Year" on it, with the painted tiger, the corner pic of the high school, and the words "SAMSONIAN" emblazoned across the front.  In this book that is no more than a 125 pages max, you'll see student pics from the seniors all the way to the kindergarten. 

What's fun about flipping through a yearbook like this is you kinda recognize a few names on Facebook, with a "Oh... THAT is who that is... geez... woulda never gotten that."  The senior class included names like Missy Ausley... Lydia Phillips (lovely girl, but has a total 1988 hair do with a complete Simba mane)... Shane Bowdoin... this was a class heavy on attractive people, I gotta tell ya.  I was always a Lisa Bradshaw fan myself, but I honestly do not believe I was the one who wrote the word "FINE" over her yearbook pic... for starters, its not my handwriting, plus, I would be way too afraid she would see it.  I guess its safe now, though.

Back to Kenny.

Kenny was a stocky guy, kind of a soft voice, seemed like a good guy... as a matter of fact, something happened in 6th grade that made me always think he was a good guy. 

One of those random acts of kindness, kind of like the one that my schoolmate Shanna Nowling did for me, as chronicled here.  (if you haven't read that post, go ahead and read it. its one of my favorites in the last year or so)

Our high school was small, and in 1987, it was kind of run down... at that time, we had a high school in a larger building, and the junior high (back then, it was "junior high", not "middle school", in the same way it was "junior college" not "community college".  it was a simpler time) was a smaller building kinda off to the side.  It had classrooms that were not even used, and in complete disarray... a set of steep steps coming up to the center hall, and a dilapidated auxiliary building that I eventually took 8th grade civics class in with Mr. Weeks.  That's Danny Weeks, not Kenny Weeks, though I'm unsure of any relation.

My thinking was I was in 6th grade for this story, but I actually think I was in 7th... anyway, you come out of the junior high building in the back, and it opens up to a huge courtyard area--a pleasant way of saying a big dirt road.  Across that area you get to the baseball field, and during PE class on a hot 1987 fall day, the boys were sent out to the baseball field to do whatever it is we did during PE. 

Let me stop here and explain something... I was a scrawny, tiny little runt of a dude.  I was chased around in 6th grade by Shane Gillis and Drew Snell, and in 7th, was scared to death of Sambo Cade... that's not a racist remark, people actually called him "Sambo".  Like, I probably developed my sense of humor, good or bad, as a defense.  If you were going to chase me, I'd at least get a good zinger in. Years later, much of this hasn't changed, which is probably a bad thing.

Anyway, it goes without saying, sports were not my thing.  I was still about 4 years away from learning tennis, I had no understanding of football or baseball or basketball other than the sportscards I collected--and still have--and so every day, PE was torture for me.  Cause I couldn't do anything, and I literally was the last person picked in team sports just about every day.

My friend Greg was a big dude, so he was slower, but in games like dodgeball or even tackle football, he was picked ahead of me. 

Do they even do team lineups and picking teams and such now?  I mean, it seems like a mean thing to do to a kid, but looking back, so what?  I did just fine.  Anyway.

So, on this day,  the guys get out there, myself included.  I'm already sweating, cause its south Alabama in the early fall, the baseball field, not really needed until January for ball practice, wasn't mowed well, so there were weeds everywhere and I had bugs on me and maybe chiggers...

(do we think that "chiggers" is a racist term in the bug world?  like, chiggers can say "chigger" but other bugs like ants or grasshoppers can't dare say it?  just curious.)

...and it was miserable.  That day, there was a group of guys on the Samson High football team out there running a scrimmage... I say that, but they actually were just tossing the ball, running some plays, who knows why they were there.  Kenny Weeks was one of them. 

For whatever reason, I cannot tell you why and it really doesn't matter for the purposes of this story, the seven or eight football players asked 7th grade us to join them in playing some ball.  Now, I was truly one of the littlest guys out there, but there were some guys with some size to them, guys that went on to play in high school themselves... not me, though.

Of course, I was one of the last guys to be assigned a side, though if I remember it correctly, we didn't actually play a game, the high school guys just kind of directed us young folk where to go and what to do, to help them run plays and all...

And in my sweat and misery, I remember making the comment of, and this is paraphrasing, but this is almost perfectly right, "this is about as fun as eating a bowl of Fruity Pebbles and reading the Wall Street Journal." (note: I misquoted myself when I first posted this column--as I lay in bed an hour later, it came to be exactly what I said, which is what you read now, as I corrected it)  I said this because I felt so out of place and stupid for not knowing what a fullback was, or what an end tackle was supposed to do.  I mean, where were we supposed to learn this stuff?

When I said that, a few of the guys laughed, older and younger.  My friend Chris McCall was just like me, not a sportsy guy, but he was a lot more popular than I was, so he could coast on that.  Not so for me.  So when I made all of them laugh, it kinda made me feel good and all...

So Kenny Weeks called me "Wall Street" while we were out there.  He would say "Hey Wall Street, make sure you cover Jason" or "Ok, Wall Street, when I hike the ball..." or whatever.  I actually thought it was a badge of honor... I mean, Kenny was a popular cat, so it was really cool to be recognized like such.

A little while later, the game broke up, guys started walking away, our grade's PE was almost over, and Kenny asked me, "So, Wall Street, you don't like football, huh?"  I just shrugged and said, "I don't really know how to play it.  So its hard, cause I don't know what I'm doing."

Now, he could have been condescending and made a joke.  He could have said, "That's too bad, man," and walked away.  Kenny could have even said, "Its not hard.  You should learn it."


But no.  Here's what he actually did...

"Heads up," he said, tossing me the ball lightly, so I could--and did--catch it.  He asked me to throw it back to him, and I kinda sorta did in a haphazard way, as it flopped through the air.

"Come here, let me show you this," he motioned.  I walked over, and Kenny Weeks, high school senior, guy who not only was popular but actually probably talked to Lisa Bradshaw on a regular basis, gave me a 2 minute lesson on how to toss a football.  Fingers on laces, let it roll off the hand, release like this, here you try it, not bad, try it again, that's pretty good, here catch...

I know it was only a few minutes, nothing more, as time was winding down and we all had places to be... but I remember that.  I remember that act of kindness... that act of someone much older, in a much higher position in my eyes taking the time to not just talk to me, but talk to me in a way that I wasn't beneath him, that I wasn't behind him in age, but that I was his peer.  He talked to me as if we were both buddies in the same class.

So, happy 44th birthday, Kenny Weeks. 

And another lesson in kindness to you all... the big stuff usually gets remembered, sometimes.  But there are so many little things that mean more, because they are so little, yet so impactful.  You don't know when your little act of kindness will still be talked about 27 years later. 

(7182 words written for #20KWords in March... 12,818 words to go)

clarity from an invisible jet

(I originally titled this post "Jumping Sticks", and was going to be a lesson from the Samson playground... and somehow, it went a different direction.  So I'll still write "Jumping Sticks" later... but for now, enjoy this "Lesson From Home")

When I moved to Alabama in October of 1984, they had just built Samson Elementary School.  I left Mrs. Underwood's 4th grade class Ridgetop Elementary in Austin, Texas, to join Mrs. Smith's 4th grade class in Samson...

...twas a good thing, too, because about three weeks before we moved, or before I even knew we were going to move, we were given the task of going to the library, picking out a book and doing a book report on it.  For whatever reason, even 29 years later, I still do not understand why I chose the 306 page behemoth-to-a-4th-grader book, "National Velvet" by Enid Bangnold.  Maybe I liked horses that week, and it had a horse on it.  Maybe I liked Elizabeth Taylor or something (I hadn't yet discovered Jo from "Facts of Life", much less real girls yet) or maybe I just thought it would be a challenge.  Either way, five days before the book report was due, I had only finished part of the book.

And then we moved like, a day or two before it was due.  So, Brian Bruner, Becky Roacha and Melissa Gonzalez, hope you did well.  You know, in early October 1984.

Where was I?  Oh yes...

...Samson Elementary was brand new, so new that they didn't even want the students leaning on the walls, cause they might get all dirty and stuff.  And with a new school, a new playground, which was also fun... jungle gyms (do they still even allow those?)... one of those fort type things with a wooden suspension bridge (that I think it collapsed with someone on it, so later it became a straight bridge)... a real life tire swing (which Leslie Whigham punched me in the stomach so hard that I lost my breath because I cut in front of her in line)... and other odds and ends of things to climb on. 

Of course, as a 4th grader, soon a 5th grader, you didn't really want to play on the "kiddie" things, so we tended to make our own fun... many times, we played "V" on the school courtyard.  One guy would be Donovan, one girl would be Julie, another chick would be Diana, and the rest would be just minions.  We would form fake guns with our hands, crouch behind planters and posts, and just yell "Pew! Pew! Pew!" for 20 minutes until it was time to go inside. 

There really wasn't any rhyme or reason as to whether you lived or died... there wasn't a laser pointer on my hand nor did any paintballs shoot out of my fingers, so I couldn't really tell you if I had truly shot Wade Fulford or Monty Powell with my ray gun, but if they chose to die--which was really them wanting to be dramatic and act out a death scene more than them building my confidence--then hey, that's lucky for me.  Another notch on my kill list. 

I do hope Campbell Isaiah will be allowed to play "V" when he gets to be in 4th grade.  Probably not.  He'll be forced to act out Downton Abbey or something, because we all know if a little boy fakes shooting an alien wearing human skin hellbent on world domination with a hand formed into a laser gun, then of course, he's going to grow up and shoot up the local community college. 

Besides "V", we also did versions of The A-Team, sometimes Knight Rider, and of course, GI Joe...

And for GI Joe, there was this one kid who had like EVERYTHING.  Well, he said he did, and who was I to doubt him?  Sometimes, The Kid in Question (I'm going to call him that, lest he actually read this and think I'm poking fun at him... well, I mean, I am, but that's besides around the point), would bring a bunch of his GI Joe figures and vehicles with him to school sometimes, and at recess, he would pass out the figures and the vehicles, like Jeeps and tanks and cool helicopters and other awesome war machines that we would see on the show that everyone watched after Transformers came on...

See, though, I was never all that popular.  I talked about this a little bit in a previous post, but please do not think I'm complaining... the more time goes by, the more I can reflect on those daily ventures of my childhood that were both meaningless and completely meaningful all at once. 

Looking back, I'm glad I never got this
guy.  Though honestly, I would LOVE to
own this dude now.  I mean, Ice Cream
Soldier?  Really?  REALLY?

So, in not being that popular, I would be towards the last of the kids to get whatever toys The Kid in Question was passing out.  I'd set my sights on a Rapid Fire Motorcycle (RAM) that I could put Roadblock in... and it would get handed off to Jason Smith.  Well, then I'd peer into the bag and see a Cobra Flight Pod, complete with Destro sitting inside... and Chad Ward would claim that one.  Finally, I would see a brilliant Cobra Rattler ground attack jet, with Wild Weasel in the cockpit, and think, "That's still in there!"  I'd stick my hand out and say, "Oh, oh!  Can I have th..." and would be cut off immediately with Daniel Stephenson already running away with it, flying it through the air, "Pew! Pew!ing" all the way down the sidewalk.

Dejected, finally, The Kid in Question would hand out the remaining figures.  I remember once, I got Bar-B-Que.  Like, really?  Bar-B-Que?  An orange guy who didn't even have a flame thrower attached? 

What to do, what to do... everyone else is flying around, playing war with their GI Joes, and I have Bar-B-Que. 

This actually happened a few times, with me getting lame figures like Chuckles, the Joe in the Hawaiian shirt, or maybe Raptor, not named for the cool dinosaur that would become popular in Jurassic Park 7 years later, no... named because he was a bird trainer, code name "Cobra Falconer"...

One day, I did get a lame figure.  And no jet to fly him in, no ATV to wheel him around in.  Just a figure.  Well, it was time to stop complaining, and start solving my problem...


So I took Bar-B-Que, bent his legs a bit and put him in a seated position.  I then declared he was "in an invisible jet", which I then, placing my thumb and index fingers on Bar-B-Que's tiny plastic waist, I zoomed him through the air to simulate flight.

"You can't do that!" came the cry of The Kid in Question...

"Yeah, yeah I can," I replied, Pew Pew'ing someone in their tangible ATV.  "My lasers are invisible too!  I just blew you up, The Kid in Question!"  Of course, rather than fighting the fact that invisible jets that just came into existence actually existed, he then contested the point that I shouldn't have blown him up, and that wasn't fair.

Of course, I didn't take any lasers. Bobbing and weaving in and out of enemy fire, I discovered the great thing about an invisible jet, especially one that is made up, is that you can kind of also make up your own rules.

Sometimes you can't just make up the rules to solve your problem.  But sometimes you can.  And perhaps the reason you are told that you can't make up the rules is because the person telling you is someone who never tried, or perhaps were beaten because they didn't try to solve their own problem.

I could have cried.  I could have complained, and for a few days, I did.  But when I got tired of complaining, got tired of crying, I figured I could keep doing that, or I could make it work.  And I made it work.

Sure, there is a big difference in problems of a 5th grader and problems of a 25 year old... 35 year old... 45 year old... and beyond.  But at its root, many times the problem is just that you dont have a solution. 

Have you tried making one up?

Try that before you declare its impossible.

Make your own invisible jet and finally fly above those things you can't seem to get past.  Your jet might be hard to make, it might take more work that wrapping two fingers around a lame GI Joe character, but you won't know until you try.

(6940 words written in #15KWordsInFeb, 13060 to go)