Guerrilla Redecorating
I was probably around nine or ten years old. It had been a normal day at school, so normal that I don’t remember anything about it. But when I came home, my world turned...
Category: Growing Up
The Railroad Crossing From Hell
For a while my family lived in a small town named East Carondelet, Illinois. We lived in a little farmhouse several miles out of town, and we had to drive on a scary levee road...
The Peanut Barrel
Like most college students, I spent a lot of time at the bar. There were a bunch of bars all along Grand River Avenue, some better than others. There were frat bars and douchy...
College Parties and Riots
Back when I was freshman at Michigan State University, the Princeton Review ranked my school as the number three party school in the country. It was all the talk around campus, as people debated...
The Mystery Bottle
Many years ago, my dad and I were walking along a sandbar in the Mississippi River. The river was unusually low, and there was quite a bit of detritus washed upon the sandy shoals....
My Favorite Birthdays
Today I turn 20, at least in hexadecimal numbers. And to celebrate my 0x20 birthday, I’d like to take a look back. Like Christmas, birthdays provide a landmark in the memories of life. I...
Gifted and Talented
Back in grade school, I got admitted to the “gifted and talented” class. Once a week, I went off to the school library for an enrichment session. It was supposed to give us a...
Penmanship and the Palmer Method
The Palmer Method still strikes fear in my heart. No other curriculum ever did so much to stifle my interest in a topic I found fascinating. I spent a good chunk of the third...
Playground Nazis
In the fifth and sixth grade, I went to school in East Carondelet, Illinois. It was a small town of 600 sandwiched between the Mississippi Levee and the MoPac Railroad. I loved my teachers...
Graduation Ceremonies
My little sister recently graduated from college. As I sat through the ceremony in a campus gymnasium, a few different thoughts crossed my mind. Pomp & Circumstance It’s funny how the same song is...
