Monday, August 20, 2007

Myself

A little info on who I am. I just turned 38. I have been married for getting close to 11 years. We have 3 kids, Rose age 8, Thomas age 6 and Angela age 2. I live in St Louis County, in an inner suburb called Overland.

I grew up on a farm near Wisner, NE. My parents are still there and still farming. Growing up we raised cattle for a few years, I think my dad got out of feeding cattle somewhere around when I was 7 or 8. Hogs was the main animal that we raised, but we also had chickens and also got into raising sheep for a few years. We did have some horses, Ginger & she had Princess & King. Ginger was scared of a saddle and would run off whenever she seen one, as you can guess we didn't ride her much at all. King was a good & friendly horse that died young--maybe 1 year old. I think it was from the anastesia(sp?) the vet gave him when making him a gelding, at least that is how I remember it. Princess was never broken and it was shortly after her that dad gave the horses away. We had a pet dog, Tippy and also many cats.

I am the 3rd of 4 kids, 2 older brothers & 1 younger sister. We all went to a 1 room school house for grade school--k-6th. The school was in the middle of farmland. It has been closed down for 20 some years now--they moved the building to the West Point, NE fairgrounds for a museum and the kids in the area now go to grade school in town. The memories of this school are kind of flooding back now, it is almost enough to put a book about it--I am not a writer but sometimes dream/think I could be. My first teacher was Mrs Hornbeck, who was a teacher in these small schools her whole working life I think--I think she is still living in Wisner, but not sure, my mom would know for sure. She had been a long time teacher at Dist 34--probably over 20 years, but just before I went into 2nd grade, she left or the school board forced her out. My next teacher was Mr. Eisenach(sp?), just graduated from UNL and in 1978 probably as close to a hippy as Wisner would allow. He was not into textbook teaching, instead we were always taking field trips along the country roads or playing/learning outside. He was only our teacher for one year before the school board ran him out, his teaching style certainly didn't fit with conservative small town way. He joined the Peace Corps and went to Ghana for quite a few years I believe. When he returned to NE, he & his wife moved to a group house in Boys Town, I think he also taught there as well. Mrs. Wilson from nearby Stanton was hired as the new teacher. I remember getting A's in K & 1st, no idea if grades were even given in 2nd and I think from 3rd to 6th I probably got C & Bs. I know she took away things like playing baseball because we didn't have the proper equipment and generally took a safe route to recess altogether. I know I didn't really like school then and I can't really tell you why.

Wow, if I keep up with this detail, this post will never end. Anyway from 7th to 12th, we went into town for school. I played sports(football, wrestling & track) in school & baseball in the summers. I did 2 musicals, Anything Goes & Oklahoma, I really cannot sing, but being small town & small school they needed boys in the chorus/small parts. I detasseled corn for 3 or 4 summers, easily the worst job that I have ever done. I religously lifted weights--had to be strong for football & wrestling. I was pretty good at football even though I was small, I weighed around 130 and was 5'5" and started at linebacker as a Jr & Sr, making all conference my senior year. Our football team made state playoffs all 4 years. I was a varsity wrestler for all 4 years, freshman year at 112(Iweighed around 105 but a good senior wrestler already had that weight class), 119 as a soph & 126 as a Jr & Sr. I qualified for state my Jr & Sr years and placed 3rd as a senior. There are a lot of good memories/stories from my wrestling days, far too many to even attempt to put here. Track, for me, was mostly a stay in shape & avoid chores at home sport. I never really took it seriously enough to get good at it. I was about 4th best in many events which kept me on JV most of the time unless someone was injured or switched events for a meet. I remember mostly focusing on distance 1& 2 mile events, also long jump, relays, and hurdles 300 & 110 high. Baseball I was a good defensive outfielder, could hit enough and had enough speed to be decent. My team won state one year in legion ball, I scored the winning run in another long story for another time. I do remember eating a very good steak at a restaurant on the way home also--I had it rare & it was good.

I went to college at SLU. How I ended up there is something I am not really sure about. My oldest brother went to Creighton, Jesuit school in Omaha. My other brother went to Univ of Chicago. It was kind of expected that I should go away. I really didn't want to even consider a large state school. I guess SLU sent something in the mail and I liked what I saw. SLU is very similar to Creighton, but of course without my brother being there. It would be somewhere new & it was. Also, I can't forget that SLU gave me more money/financial aid than Creighton--this was probably the deciding factor after all.

I am getting pretty long winded here so I will call it enough for now. If anyone has happened to read this or any of the other posts here, please feel free to leave a comment. I am mostly writing this as a journal/thoughts blog so probably not the most interesting read.

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