Recollections: First Day at Yavapai College

My Recollections are instances in my life that I fondly recall for any number of reasons and I've written all of them down on or after June 2009, although the events take place over a very wide time span in my lifetime. Everything below is an account of my memory, which can be fickle and unreliable, yet often yields the most important life lessons and records those crucial formative instances in one's life story.

My first day at Yavapai College. I showed up early for my English Composition class. Wouldn't want to be late! Who else is there? A very attractive Hispanic girl about my age from the nearby town of Chino Valley, an agrarian community that lay to the North of Prescott.

If most of my coeds would be this pretty, I was liking it here already! I introduced myself, asked her questions and generally made awkward attempts at flirting, although thinking back, they would have been quite benign and more friendly, even just idle chit-chat. What other classes are you taking? Where are you from? What do you do for fun? Studying to be a legal secretary? Boyfriend? Yes on the last question. Shoot. Oh well, I guess it always happens that way.

I would see her from time to time, as she and I were often the earliest to arrive. I enjoyed talking with her, but had hoped for more. I suppose it made things easier that she was taken: I knew inside I wouldn't have had the guts to ask her out at that point in my life anyways.

Recollections: Hectic Week Before Arizona

My Recollections are instances in my life that I fondly recall for any number of reasons and I've written all of them down on or after June 2009, although the events take place over a very wide time span in my lifetime. Everything below is an account of my memory, which can be fickle and unreliable, yet often yields the most important life lessons and records those crucial formative instances in one's life story.

The week before I move to Arizona, I'm thinking and planning a hundred different things. I'm cleaning my room, I'm packing stuff and seeing what fits in my car, I'm budgeting a trip, and I'm closing bank accounts and quitting my job with Charles Farenkompf. I'm dealing with the Saturn Dealership as they drag their feet fixing a fender bender I was unfortunate enough to be involved in several weeks before. Long, awkward, melancholy conversations about coming of age and life choices with my parents fill my evenings on the patio by the pool and I spend my evenings renting movies, occupied by my odd new hobby: coin collecting.

That's right, of all the things on my mind before making my first big move across the country and starting higher education, coin collecting makes the top 5. Several factors play into this: I was originally drawn in by the 50 State Quarters program: A 10 year, US Mint celebration of the diversity, culture, heritage, and wonders of the United States of America. Also, I was cleaning out my room, and taking care of a big, heavy piggy bank. What better time to start than with a pile to sort through.

I started collecting the 50 state quarters, bought some coin folders, then went through pennies and dimes searching for different years and mint marks. Even the evening before my departure, I couldn't be bothered with the details of my trip, only sorting through new rolls of quarters and dimes acquired at the bank. Was I engaging in some kind of escapist activity, distracting myself from the changes about to happen?

I learned and realized much later that coin collecting, and collecting in general has a psychological component to it: someone mentioned that it was an unconsious attempt to turn order into chaos. Thinking back now in 2009, on times when my urge to collect was strongest, this makes perfect sense: I always collect the most coins at periods in my life where I'm in a serious transition. Will this always be the case?

Recollections: Final Taekwondo Black Belt Test

My Recollections are instances in my life that I fondly recall for any number of reasons and I've written all of them down on or after June 2009, although the events take place over a very wide time span in my lifetime. Everything you see below is an account of my memory, which can be fickle and unreliable, yet often yields the most important life lessons and records those crucial formative instances in one's life story.

My parents were meeting with longtime family friend Mark Whaley, who they dragged along on a special Friday night occasion: I would be testing for my black belt.

Until this test, I hadn't realized how important Taekwondo had been to me and how important it was in my life, as I would now be done with it for the forseable future as I would head off to Arizona in about a month. It distracted and occupied my time in a healthy way, whereas I might otherwise be watching television at home, wallowing in teenage angst and complaining that I wasn't in a better place

I had initially come to Mark Mett's Cordova Martial Arts Studio to get some badly needeed exersize, learn a martial art, and generally be more productive with my time than many of my peers. Taekwondo gave me a set of goals, a productive routine, and filled a void. It turned me from a whiny, pasty, immature, high school freshman into a fit, scrappy fighter, an amateur athlete, and a disciplined, goal oriented go-getter.

I'd made some friends there. Taekwondo had filled an important void in my life while I was in Memphis: a social/physical activity to replace the outdoorsy activities no longer available to me after I moved to Tennessee from Colorado.

As he awarded me my blackbelt, Mark Metts told everyone to look around and see how many folks my age were accomplishing this task. And he was right. All the other black belt candidates that day were either much older, or much younger than I was. I'd managed to accomplish a formidable task at a time when so many other things could have easily distracted me.

Cordova Martial Arts

Recollections: Climbing in "Booger Hollow"

My Recollections are instances in my life that I fondly recall for any number of reasons and I've written all of them down on or after June 2009, although the events take place over a very wide time span in my lifetime. Everything you see below is an account of my memory, which can be fickle and unreliable, yet often yields the most important life lessons and records those crucial formative instances in one's life story.

Scott and I took off with Chris sometime after 7 PM for Arkansas, where Chris and I planned to initiate Scott Fiddler into the fine sport of rock climbing in a steep gorge in Arkansas' Ozark mountains near a little hamlet called Booger Hollow (yes, a town actually exists with that name). Scott drove his Jeep SUV, while Chris and I brought the gear and chipped in for gas. After 4-5 hours, we arrived after midnight and camped out in a dark little forest not far from the bluffs we'd climb on the next day.

Here's an album of the event below. As you can see, we had a great time. Scott had a blast learning, and Chris and I both found teaching him rewarding.

For me, it was a coming of age. I was months away from graduating high school, and then becoming legally unentangled from my parents. Its the first instance where I took such a long trip that was completely unsupervised and unstructured except for what we made it. I'd climbed bigger climbs, and I'd been to Booger Hollow before without parents (with Chris previously), but doing so on the brink of adulthood made it different somehow.

Scott & I had a bunch of great tales to tell in school the following day, while we'd bonded better and had more fun at work with Chris.

Recollections: My Friend Scott Fiddler

My Recollections are instances in my life that I fondly recall for any number of reasons and I've written all of them down on or after June 2009, although the events take place over a very wide time span in my lifetime. Everything you see below is an account of my memory, which can be fickle and unreliable, yet often yields the most important life lessons and records those crucial formative instances in one's life story.

I met my friend Scott Fiddler my senior year of High School and consider forming this friendship a turning point in my life socially. During most of Middle and High School, I was a social pariah, finding it difficult to form friendships even in the marching band, a place many socially awkward people often make refuge for their awkward, nerdy selves. Before my senior year, I was known more for an outrageous temper and a love of napalm than my ability to make friends and fit in with a peer group.

Scott played tennis and ran track at Houston High School, and was therefore several orders of magnitude cooler than I was (or so I thought). He was a friend who in many ways raised my standing in the school (again, so I thought). And while I hardly reached this conclusion back then, I know it now for sure: Scott and his friends helped me realize the way one acts affects their ability to make friendships and get along with a group. Even in High School.

I met him in a mathmetics class senior year, and while I probably thought then my cool stories about rock climbing and river rafting helped me get along with that bunch, I realize now that it wasn't that at all, but my interest in those people and my efforts to make friends and fit in.

They'd heard my story about the Baskin Robbins burning down, and Scott told me his landscaping boss was looking for a helping hand part time and full time this summer. So he let me tag along, and we headed out to work together every afternoon that spring to rake pine needles, lay mulch, trim trees, lay stone pavers and build garden retaining walls for Charles Farenkompf (spelling)?

I was grateful for the job, I was grateful for the frienship, and I was always grateful for his generosity. It wasn't till much later I realized he wasn't popular because he was all that cool, he was cool and popular because he was a great friend.