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.
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