60 Years In 60 Days 1993

1993 Foreign Soil.

From Late 1992 to Late 1994 I lived in Russia. 1993 was the only year in my life that I was not in the United States at all.  I embraced life in Russia and did not have much culture shock at all,  It wasn't until I got home that I realized the impact of missing an entire year of American culture.  I was able to keep up with the really important things like the Bulls Threepeat.  I heard most of the major developments.  

But even as recently as this week when I was watching Dave with relatives. Someone asked what year it came out and I didn't know.  I can usually recall the year a movie came out by remembering what was going when I saw it.  For example, I remember  Ferris Buellers Day off came out in 1986 because I watched it with fellow camp counselors from Camp Manitoqua and I worked at Camp Manic Toga in the summer of 86.  I remember Ordinary People came out in 1980 because we were reading the book in my sophomore English class and the class took a field trip to go see it.  Dave came out in 1993.  I didn't see it in the theatre so I have no reference point to the year.

The same is true about sports, t.v. and news of that period.  In the 30 years since I've come home from Russia there have been multiple gaps in my shared experiences with others because of the disparity of our 1993s

Don't misunderstand me.  This is not a bad thing,  It's been kind of like found money. On Spotify I am often discovering albums that came out in 1993 or 1994 that I never was aware of and enjoy discovering them 30 years later.

My years in Russia were the best 2 years of my life to that point.  I made lasting friendships, did worthwhile work, and was stretched in many ways.  I may not have been in the U.S. in 1993 but I certainly had found a home.  

60 Years in 60 Days 2013

 

2013: The Beginning of the year of limericks

I turned 49 in the year 2013.  I remember going with my wife and kids to the Cook County forest preserve in Elk Grove where there is actually, wait for it, a grove of elk.  We were hanging out watching elk, climbing trees, and having all kind of birthday fun when an idea came to me.  For the rest of the year, I would write a limerick each day and post it on Facebook for all  to see.  

Eventually the task got a little much for me and I did not write 365 limericks that year, but I wrote well over 200.  While my limericks never quite went viral, I am sure a few of them made a number of  my friends, family and acquaintances sick.

The year of limericks was a bit of a turning point for me in a few ways:

While I have dabbled in poetry along with other kinds of writing and studied poetry while obtaining a degree in English, I never considered myself more than an occasional  poet.  The limerick experimented jump started this part of my writing.

Facebook has become a curator of my limericks.  Thanks to Facebook memories my limericks from 2013-2014 pop up on the anniversary of the day I wrote them.  The November 7th 2013 popped up again today.  It is about knock knock jokes.  

While knock knock who's there jokes are lawful 

A lot of them are just plain awful 

When you knock knock who's there 

You best be aware 

There is such a thing as a doorbell.

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. 

 \

 

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.