Top Summer Memories

 I almost just wrote blog post that I already wrote last year.  I was just going to write a list off the top of my head about what I "believed". Wow, I'm more redundant than I thought. Well, here's something else.

Top Summer Memories Off The Top of My Head

1. When I was 14, my friend Doug was over at my house and we walked about a mile to the nearest basketball court. It was July and hot as hell. We played one game and then sat in the shade and realized how stupid it was to play at 3:00 in the afternoon in July in San Antonio.

2. The summer after my freshman year in college, there was a week where my friend Eric's parents were out of town and we hung out there every day. It was so much fun, so many different people and friends came over, (only good clean fun, I'm sad to report)  - late nights, video games, movies, personal drama, cute girls came over, cruises for junk food, I stole part of Taco Cabana sign, just lots of fun.

3. My 21st birthday (not clean fun, but fun nonetheless).

4. Waking up the first day of the summer and feeling so good.

5. Lots of grill cheese sandwiches at home with my sister. 

6. Lots of TBS and WGN re-runs - Little House on the Prairie, Matlock, Leave it Beaver, I Love Lucy, The Brady Bunch, The Monkees, I was a little TV fiend at age 10.

7. My first two summers of college, almost every other day, we'd play basketball with a ton of guys after work. Good stuff. 

8. Dancing with my friends at Midnight Rodeo on Thursday nights.

9. Eating at a hole-in-wall Taco place at 2:00 AM after going out with the guys. The place had like five tables...really.  Reading the menu, I felt something on me. It was a roach crawling up my leg onto my crotch area.  I yelled, "Oh Shit" (sorry kids) and stood up and swiped it away. It scurried somewhere towards the kitchen. We still ordered and ate there. What can I say? We were hungry and drunk.


10. The Wondrous Adventures of Blueguy - the summer after my senior year I created my TV show with my old toys. My friends loved it, they are mainly terrible (I still have them) but that's what made them so good at the time. The next summer I made a few sequels but the magic was gone. 10 total episodes were made. I think two of them were halfway decent.

11. On a church camping trip around 13,  I asked for a sip of my friend Doug's newly opened 20 oz. Big Red, and proceeded to chug the whole thing. I have no idea how I did that or why he just watched in horror (all he had to do is just take it from me). 

Poem Post: I Groove

Written in the mid-2000's about an event in 1999 or 2000. Edited and published on my blog in 2012.
That's about it. 

I Groove
I begin my strut to the dance floor covered in plastic tarp
the party crowd circles around me with their plastic cups.
As the strobe lights flash 
everything's slowed  down - 
my name is chanted
and I feel good.
She lingers towards me and starts to dance
the crowd roars with approval. 
I'd seen her on campus before
and I always stared.  
She never once returned the favor even with a glance. 
But here she is now - dancing with me. 
The crowd, the chanting,(her beer?) brought her towards me. 
We dance, and I groove like never before.
The song ends
and we part
as if it never happened .
But my groove
is still there.

Frumpy Fragments

Awhile back I saw this bumper sticker driving home from work:  "The King James' Bible IS GOD'S WORD". I wondered if I should follow him and break it to him that the New Testament was written in Greek.

What is it with people naming their children after dead presidents? It's gotten so bad, we were at a children's fundraiser today and there was a boy named....get this... NIXON. I mean, the flat out, worst president of the last century. I just can't even fathom it. I mean, even if I liked the name, I wouldn't do it. To top it off (I know, what else can top that off??) - a child was named Cheney. So, we were at a party with a child named with the same last name as the worst president and easily the most villainous of vice presidents of all-time. Wow.

Here are names I have personally heard being used by new parents, some of which are from close friends or family.

Reagan
Carter
Ford
Nixon (today)
Kennedy
Grant
Jackson
Madison
Harrison
Taylor
Pierce

Waiting just waiting for a child to be named Bush. I hope it comes true.

Thinking about presidents we are just too presidentally-centered. I am all for re-thinking US money (including offing the penny altogether). We need to display more social reformers, artists, inventors, scientists, athletes, judges, senators, astronauts and other heroes. We need to honor Native Americans and our scenic landscape more than just the same dead white guys and the same white statues and buildings that honor the same dead white guys.  There are creative ways of getting this done, I hope it happens at some point. I liked the Lewis & Clark stuff and 50 state quarter thing...so there is a little hope after all.

I was thinking tonight about what the percent of the population sing in their cars. I don't mean hum along or sing quietly - I mean, really belting out songs at the top of their lungs singing. I would be one of those people, although I get a little braver at night.