After college, I moved for a summer to live with some friends in Tennessee. Chattanooga to be precise, which is a lovely city, if I do say so myself. This was back when we were getting ready for the Atlanta Olympics and it just so happened that the kayaking competition […]
In ninth grade, I took Algebra from Mr. Shreckengost. This was right at the time when I discovered that all the cool kids in school thought things like studying and good grades were for losers. Given the fact that I wanted to be cool, I figured I needed to tank […]
In the last five years, I have left two well-paying, relatively secure jobs, opting instead to launch out into the world and see where I landed. Both times, it was scary. I didn’t know where my income was going to come from and I have a daughter, a mortgage, and […]
In grade school, I think it was, I learned in science class that animals, when faced with difficult situation like getting eaten by a bear, or rising home costs in the forest, have one of two responses: fight or flight. In other words, when the going gets rough animals either […]
When I was in junior high and high school, like most kids that age, I had pimples. On my face. On my back. On my arms. I won’t lie; it was gross. I hated looking at myself in the mirror, those little pockets of pus and gunk mocking me. So […]
I was the oldest of four boys in my family–well, I still am–and while that had its perks, it also came with a certain amount of dread. Namely, my parents expected more of me: they expected me to include my brothers in stuff I was doing with my friends, they […]
I am not sure where he heard it, but my father used to like to remind us boys, from time to time, of one simple fact: he brought us into this world, and he could just as easily take us out. That’s probably not as true today as it was […]
When I was about ten or eleven, I was a bit of a con. I got in serious trouble giving my younger brother Jon sunflower seeds to amuse me by kissing the neighbor girl. And I didn’t fare much better better when I tried to con my dad. I remember […]
I had a friend tell me many years ago that his goal in life was to be so good at his job, that he could pay people to do the things he didn’t want to do. He meant things like mowing the lawn, painting his house, massaging his wife’s back […]
When I was a kid, my dad spent a lot of time trying to convince us that he was a world-class concert pianist. The main problem with his argument is that he couldn’t play the piano. Of course, he had an explanation: many years before we were born he had […]