60 Years In Sixty Days:1997

 1997: She Said Sure 

1997 was a year of great change for me. I started the year miserable and lonely.  Which is a line from the movie Marty.  But I  had not yet seen the movie Marty, which is a pretty good reason to be miserable, but I had others. 

I was living in a different state than I am now.  A state of  habitual sin.  A state of unfulfilled desire. A state of deep regret.  A state of hopelessness.  I mean South Carolinas not the bad, you can play tennis year round but I wasn't nearly the man I wanted to be and I was doing nothing to change.

A friend sought me out and offered me the hope of real change.  As I started to work through my issues and allow God to change me from the inside out.  I discovered something.  I discovered someone.

I had a friend in a different state.  She was in a state of healing.  A state of awareness.  A state of discovery,  She was changing in Illinois while I was changing in South Carolina.

W e had been friend for going on 7 years.  Everyone else noticed that we were meant for each other.  But we were oblivious.  Why would I date her? I would ask, she's my best friend.  Then one Day I said I should court her, she's my best friend.

She flew down for Spring Break and it was clear that courting was like friendship with help.  By the time Spring Break was over I knew and put an emerald engagement ring on layaway.  

In July I moved back to Illinois with marriage on my mind.   .  When I earned enough to pay for the ring I asked her parent for permission to marry their daughter. They said yes and I made reservations at a fancy restaurant for the proposal.

After Spring Break I had written lyrics for a proposal  and gave it to a friend who had written music for other songs I had written.  About the same time I got the ring paid off,  he sent me the  cassette with the song on it.  I asked a H.S. senior from our youth group to accompany me at a fancy restaurant.  On the big night, he chickened out.  So instead of bringing an accompanist  ala Breaking Away.  I brought in a cassette player ala Say Anything.

I was so nervous.  I could hardly eat dinner.  Because I knew I was going to propose. I turned on the tape player and began to sing:

It's A beautiful night

Your a beautiful girl

I thank God for the day 

That you brightened my world

The song continued and when I ended with the title question Will You Marry Me My Darling?, Amy was unsure of what just happened.

/I had a  habit and still do of showing all my poems, songs and writings to Amy to see if they are any good.  She must have thought that's what I was doing.  

"Is that what you are going to sing when you propose?" She inquired.

"This is me, proposing," I replied.

So she said, sure.

After which, she took out a piece of paper from her purse of all the ways she had known that I was going to propose that night.  It turns out that since I had telegraphed my intentions, that she also was very nervous and didn't eat much of her dinner either.  So our first official act as an engaged couple was to go to Denny's and have another dinner.

We got engaged 26 years ago this month.  We have been through many changes since then but I'll always remember 1997 as the year God changed two people and led them to the path of being one couple.
"

                                             

60 Years in 60 Days: 1977

 1977: The Year I Led The Packers in Sacks

I was not always the physical specimen that blogs before you. In Jr. High, I was a 6'1 stick figure of a kid whose social awkwardness was matched only by his lack of physical coordination. I was in Jr. high in the 70's when bullying was not only not frowned upon but was an elective in many school districts.  I was teased quite a bit for many things but in the Fall of 1977 and 1978 I got teased on Monday's for what someone else did on Sunday.  That someone just happened to share my name.

Football in the 1970's was a pretty big thing. The biggest football rivalry in my area was that of the Chicago Bears and the Green Bay Packers.  In 1977 Walter Payton the Bears running Back was having a breakout year and was voted MVP of the league by the Associated Press. Payton led the Bears to a 9-5 record that year and their first playoff appearance in my lifetime. The Pack went 4-10 but had one player with a familiar name who helped lead the defense.

His name was familiar to me at least, as his name was Dave Roller.  And as Robin  might say Holy John Jacob Jingelheimer Schmidt Batman, that's my name too

.  

When some of my fellow students at Elk Grove Jr. High heard my name on their televisions on Sunday afternoons, they would let me know about it on Mondays.  It was always funny to them how different a professional football player and  a gawky kid could be even if they had the same name.  It wasn't  a big deal but it did become a bit of a ritual in the Falls of 78 and 79.  There were always a couple of kids in my math class who would comment about how well I played the day before. 

In reality Roller played pretty well for the Packers.  He led them in 1977 with 8 sacks was once carried off by the fans after a Packer victory and I believe was one of the first players in the NFL to celebrate after a tackle with a sack dance.  

I have never met the former NFL player who shares a name with me and my father.  In Jr. High it was just one of many things to be teased about.  But when I think about it now, it's cool to share with your name with someone who achieved excellence in their field.  Even if it's just Lambeau Field. 

60 Years In 60 Days: 1987

 1987: The Year I reinvented myself  and remained basically the same.

I graduated high school in 1983 and spent most of the next 4 years living at home.  During that time I volunteered about 30 hours a week with my high school youth group, took some classes at the local junior college (dropping a few, and passing most of the rest),  worked some part time jobs, got my first full time job, and after working there a year tried and failed to go on a 2 year short term missions trip to the Philippines.  

As 1986 came to an end, I decided to reinvent myself.  I decided to head off to college at the same time that most of my friends from high school were finishing college. In the Summer of 1987 I enrolled at Western Illinois University. Western was a 4 1/2 hour drive (a Goldilocksonian distance) from my house.  

I packed all my stuff in my van and took one of many trips to Macomb, Illinois.  It may have been on  that trip  that I wrote my first country song, She Drop Kicked my Heart (In the Football Game of Love).  Parentheses were very important in the music of the eighties.  

Except for one friend from high-school (who switched schools the next year) I didn't know a soul on or off campus.  As Billy Crystal would later say in City Slickers, I was given a do over. 

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I did well in my two summer classes and quickly began making friends.  As a youth group leader, I would often meet with graduating seniors to talk about growing spiritually on campus.  One of the best ways I suggested to do that was to join a campus ministry.  After high school I had many friends who were involved in Inter-Varsity Christian Fellowship.  So I decided to join that one.  It was a very small group at that time and I was instantly involved in leadership there. I also got immediately involved in a local church, and started DJing  at the campus radio station, which was a life-long ambition.

So from June to September I managed to become every bit as busy as I was back in the Chicago suburbs, if not busier . And, my undiagnosed ADHD was not a respecter of zip codes, so my lackluster academic career continued to lack luster.  

Following WIU sports was a big part of my campus experience.

Adjustments had to be made along the way, but I survived and thrived in college.   The college adventure ended as it began with me packing up my belongings, but this time traveling not across the  state, not even across the country, but travelling across the globe. A few months after graduation, I utilized the English degree I had struggled to earn while serving a two year term as a missionary in Russia.  In 1986 when I first felt called to the missions field, Russia was not remotely open to most Americans let alone mission minded ones. 

Looking back, 1987 was a year where I began some much needed changes in my life.  In many ways it was my first foray into life on my own.  Many of the experiences I had at WIU shaped who I am now.  But some of those changes didn't start until after I graduated.  Others of those changes didn't start until I got married, or until I became a Dad.  Some changes are still taking place and other changes that I am not even aware of may be just around the bend.

That being true, there is still an awful lot about me that is exactly the same as it was in 1987, making up songs on my way to college life.  For example I still write songs and perform them while alone in my car.  But many of the things true in 1987 and still true today are my character and my compass.  My belief system and my sense of direction is what propelled my trajectory in '87 and still does today.  Although it may be time to admit that Nashville ain't calling any time soon.  

60 Years In 60 Days: 1964

Dick Allen in 1964

 I was born in 1964.  Some people may call that my rookie year, but if you know about baseball you know my birthday on 9/23 was just a late September call up and my Rookie year would be in 1965.

  In a similar fashion, Dick Allen (my first White Sox hero) debuted for the Philadelphia Phillies on 9/3/1963 came back in the spring of 1964 and played his rookie season.  He played all 162  games for the Philadelphia the only Phillie to do that in 1964 and just 1 of 12 in the majors. 

When I was growing up I wanted to be the starting third baseman  for the Chicago White Sox.  In 1964 22 year old Allen was the starting 3rd baseman for Philadelphia. Allen had an amazing season, one of the finest rookie seasons in MLB history. He led all of MLB with 125 runs scored.  His 13 triples were tied for first with Cubs 3rd baseman and fellow hero of my youth, Ron Santo.  He had 201 hits and 29 homeruns (5th overall for both achievements.  

Allen  had many successes but a few bumps in the road that eventually saw him be voted N.L.  Rookie Of the year.  He was an adventure at 3rd base amassing 41 errors at the hot corner.  He also led the national league in strikeouts which is great when your a pitcher but not so good when you have a bat in your hand. Allen struck out 138times  in his rookie year   but still managed  to hit .318 in '64 with a slugging percentage of .557.  

Allen's Phillies spent 135 days in first place that year but lost 10 games in a row from September 21st to the 30th in one of the greatest sports collapses in the 20th century. That most of these 10 losses happened in my first week alive is merely coincidence.  At least I hope it is. 

 Bleacher Report has an excellent article about Allen which talks about how claims that Allen was somehow to blame for the collapse have no basis in fact.  That article can be found  by clicking here.

Dick Allen as I remember him

1964 was a great year to be born and a fine year to play your first full season in the majors.  I discovered Dick Allen for myself in the early 70's and he is one of the main reasons I became a White Sox fan,  

Closing Thoughts: 

The scout that signed Dick Allen to the Phillies also saw Babe Ruth play and said of Allen that he was the only player he had seen that hit harder than Ruth.  

Dick Allen died December 7th 2020 in at the age of 78.

He is considered by many to be the best  baseball player not to be enshrined in Cooperstown.