My Top Ten All-Time Best Life Experiences
August 30, 2010
This is my list of my Top Ten Coolest Life Experiences (not counting stuff like getting married, having babies, etc.; it goes without saying that they top the list), at least until I remember something else that displaces one of these. Again, they are listed in no particular order:
- Being on Scrabble, with Chuck Woolery, and winning $13,500. This took place in 1989 (air date of January, 1990).
- Being cast as Harold Hill in “The Music Man” – Given the fact that I had only taken up acting again in December of last year, to be cast in that role still astonishes me to this day. It was an incredible amount of fun.
- Snorkeling at Xel-Ha, Yucatan Peninsula, Mexico – Actually, this wasn’t the only, or even the first, time I’d snorkeled; we went snorkeling off Grand Cayman as part of our 20th anniversary cruise. But I mention Xel-Ha in the event any of my readers ever get the chance to go to Cancun, Cozumel, or Playa Del Carmen. If so, you must, must carve out a day to get to Xel-Ha. It’s like an all-natural water park, and it’ll blow your mind. Promise.
- Sunset on Sugarloaf Mountain, Rio – Indescribably beautiful.
- Our 20th Anniversary Western Caribbean cruise – Everything about it was great.
- 1-2-3 – Long before I was on Scrabble with Chuck Woolery, I was on a local PBS game show as a 6th-grader called “1-2-3”, which basically involved teams of elementary school kids answer complex math questions. Fairview Elementary made the playoffs, but alas, we were defeated before the championship. Scintillating television; I’m sure at least a couple dozen sets were tuned in..I’m just a game-show vet, I guess…
- When I was in 9th grade, I made All-City in Roanoke at second base. My proudest individual sports accomplishment, bar none (not that there were a whole passel of ‘em, mind you…).
- Parasailing and Wave-running - I put these two water sports together, because they both were an incredible amount of fun. I was afraid to parasail, but once I saw a little girl go up and giggle with glee, I was determined that I could do the same. Magnificent, and not at all scary, actually, even for a guy who “doesn’t do heights”. As to wave-running, I’ve done that a half-dozen times, I guess, and it ranks as one of those things that is as much fun as you imagine it being.
- Coaching AWANA state champs at age 16. When I was a junior in high school, the Commander of our church’s AWANA program asked me to be the head coach for the Pals Olympic team. If you’ve never been to an AWANA Olympics, I promise you that it’s a really cool event…anyway, our team brought home our church’s first-ever Virginia state championship. I had an incredible amount of fun doing that.
- Teaching Walk Thru the Bible’s Old Testament Experience – I’m in my element. Need to do it more. Plan to do it more. Can I come to your church? I guarantee you’ll benefit from it!
10 Days Left…and 30 Posts to Go…
August 30, 2010
And I will make it, I promise, though it will mean that I have a lot of writing to do over the next week and a half before the final vestiges of my youth wither away like a fallen leaf in autumn. Let’s start, as I reminisce over my life (and it’s my life, so if you find it dull, or stupid, deal with it…funny story. I posted something on YouTube a year and a half ago, primarily for a friend, and no one had ever commented on it, ’til this weekend, when some random, nameless, gutless person simply wrote, “Stupid”. My response? Dude, you signed your name, but left no comment!). So…in no particular order,
My Ten Favorite Places I’ve Ever Been
- Rio
- Asheville, NC
- Santa Barbara, CA
- Newport, RI
- Roanoke, VA – Home!
- Colorado Springs
- Zion/Bryce/Grand Canyons
- Niagara Falls
- Cancun
- Outer Banks, NC
50 Years of Life, a Retrospective: Part II B.1
August 14, 2010
Oops…it dawned on me that there was one other sports moment that had to make the list: Phil Mickelson winning the 2004 Masters. If you could watch that event unfold and say that golf on TV is always boring, well, I got nothing for ya.
Phil Finally Wins a Major
Honorable Mention in my little excursion into my favorite sports moments I watched live:
Carlton Fisk’s Homer in the ’76 World Series
Ozzie Smith’s Homer in the ’85 NLCS
Bjorn Borg/John McEnroe Going 5 Sets in the Wimbledon Final, 1980
UVa Snapping Florida State’s ACC Unbeaten Streak with a Goal-Line Stand, 1996
St. Louis Cardinals Winning the 1982 World Series
Lorenzo Charles’ Game-Winning Shot in the NCAA Tournament
Jim O’Brien Winning Super Bowl V for the Colts over Dallas
50 Years of Life, a Retrospective, Part IIB
August 14, 2010
Continuing the ten coolest sporting moments I’ve witnessed live:
Kerri Strug’s Gold Medal Vault, 1996 Atlanta
Weird that three of my top ten involve Olympics, which I’m not a huge fan of, but they all were feats of tremendous courage and fortitude.
The Epic in Miami – This was possibly the greatest football game I’ve ever seen, and Kellen Winslow gave one of the great all-time performances in NFL history.
Kirk Gibson Wins Game One in Dramatic Fashion
Christian Laettner Sends Duke to the Final Four
Steelers Win Super Bowl 43
50 Years of Life, A Retrospective: Part II
August 14, 2010
The Top Ten Sporting Events I Have Seen Live (no, not in person, but on TV…silly). They are listed in no particular order, and they are my list, meaning that some of them may have no meaning to others. Deal with it. Since I’m adding video for all of these I can, this is the first five:
Derrick Cope Swoops by Dale Earnhardt to Win the 1990 Daytona 500
Hank Aaron Hits Home Run #715
Derek Redmond at the Olympics
Broncos Beat Packers in Super Bowl XXXII
The Miracle on Ice
50 Years of Life, a Retrospective: Part 1
August 13, 2010
As I head toward that benchmark, arriving four weeks from yesterday, I’m going to have a little bit of fun making some lists. You may think my lists funny, stupid, ridiculous; I don’t care, it’s my life, hence my lists. Some will be more serious, and others will be very light fare. I commence with two lists of lighter fare:
My Ten Favorite TV Shows of All Time (In No Particular Order)
- Sanford & Son
- China Beach
- Hill Street Blues
- Seinfeld
- The Office
- M*A*S*H*
- The Rockford Files
- ER
- Hawaii Five-O
- Jeopardy
Ten TV Shows of Which I’ve Never Seen an Entire Episode (and in Some Cases, Not Even an Entire Minute)
- Friends
- Cheers
- American Idol (not counting the first episode of a given season, where the doofuses who can’t sing but think they can make for some genuinely funny television)
- Lost
- The X-Files
- 24
- The Simpsons
- CSI Anywhere
- The West Wing
- Survivor Anywhere
Giving it Away
August 8, 2010
The Giving Pledge is a new movement founded by mega-billionaires to give away sizeable chunks of their fortunes to charity.
Good for them. It is a little funny—and sad—that in the AJC article, Ted Turner feels compelled to state the exact amount of his contributions, and to call the giving of them “one of (his) proudest accomplishments”…visions of the publican on the street corner…and didn’t he give a massive chunk of it to the United Nations? Might as well-a stuck that money in Jane’s hand and let her blow it…
But back to topic: good for them; while none of them ought to feel obligated to give, it’s certainly a good thing to see them giving of their own freewill. And I especially applaud Warren Buffett, who pledged some time back to give away 99% of his income; that is truly impressive. So good for them, and this is impressive—to a point. Question: is it any more impressive than the widow who put the mite into the offering box? Than the family who makes $40K a year and nonetheless gives 10% to its church? Than the millions who give quietly, anonymously, to the point of “hurt”, a point none of these well-meaning billionaire philanthropists will ever reach or understand?
No.
But good for them, anyway. And may their example—and the joy they get from giving—be “catching”.
This phrase comes from the 1978 "Jonestown massacre" in which most members of the Peoples Temple cult, blindly following their leader Jim Jones, committed suicide by drinking cyanide-laced Kool-Aid.
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