I Come From a Winning Family

Yesterday, Michelle at Michelle's Spell mentioned having mostly received participation ribbons when she was growing up.

And I got to thinking about all the things that I have won in my life, and it's really a pretty short list, despite the title of today's post.

When I was a kid and lived in Vidalia, Louisiana, I played baseball on the Sherriff's Department Angels little league team. I always thought that was a cool name, even as a kid. Sherriff's deputies mostly deal with anything but angels; know what I mean?

Anyhoo, I think I played two years, and sucked bad enough that both years at the season ending award ceremonies I received a tiny participation trophy. I understood even back then that they were lame, but I sure as heck took them home anyway. Lord only knows whatever happened to them.

I was always a whiz as a kid at memorizing Bible verses, and I won just about every church contest I was ever in. So, although this resulted in no trophies, I won an assortment of candies and whatnot for those wins. I was kind of a Bible nerd as a kid. I liked memorizing verses and had whole chapters of Psalms and various crucial New Testament verses memorized. I just never knew when I was going to have to "commence to convertin'" someone, as my Mamaw Eunice used to say. And as a kid in Baptist churches, the verses in The Roman Road to Salvation were the most important to memorize.

And thanks to the Holy Spirit, whenever I've needed to call up those scriptures, they still roll off my tongue like I'd been studying for a test on them. Of course, reading the Bible helps; I read over them all from time to time.

In around tenth grade, a good friend and I, who attended the same church, went for a week at a summer youth camp way out in the woods and swamps near Shreveport, Louisiana. All of the buildings were built on stilts about ten feet up because it flooded so often. Well, to make a long story short, I won the "best camper" trophy for that week. Which is a laugh. The best camper was the winner of most of the Bible related games, and that's where my memory skills paid off big time. That is if you count being named "best camper" at an obscure Baptist church camp hitting the big time.

Then, in the summer before my senior year of high school (12th), I attended a photography / yearbook staff workshop held at Northeast Louisiana University (now University of Louisiana at Monroe). I won a nice trophy for having taken the "best candid photograph" of the workshop. It was of a campus cop writing a ticket to put on some poor person's VW Beetle. The cop looked up as I had the camera pointed at him and just grinned really big. Like he was so proud to be writing that ticket. I don't know if I still have a copy of that anywhere. I haven't seen the photo in years, but I can still picture him in my mind.

I also won a small trophy at that same workshop for coming in second in the "best overall photographer" category. I was much more proud of the candid photograph trophy than I would have been to win best overall. I knew as soon as I pushed the shutter button on that cop's smile, that was a good photo. Sometimes you know a photograph is really good the instant you take the shot. I couldn't have cared less about the rest of what I did. I was addicted to finding "the shot" every time I had my camera. I guess looking for "the shot" is what still has me out wandering around with my camera all of these years later.

Then years later, this would have been around 1985, Lovely Wife and I were living in Bossier City, Louisiana. We were in our apartment one day when the phone rang. It was the day after Father's Day, and this strange man tells me all excited-like how I'd won the drawing for the rod and reel at the drawing they had had on Father's Day.

I remember being dumbfounded. I told the man that I had never in my life been in that particular sporting goods store before and I certainly hadn't entered the contest.

I asked him to hold on, and asked Lovely Wife if she had entered my name in any drawings for Father's Day and at first she seemed as flummoxed as I was, then I saw her face change as she remembered doing just that. I told the guy I'd come get my rod and reel as soon as I could.

I kept that rod and reel for years, and it moved from apartment to apartment to house, etc., with us for years until, well, I don't know what ever happened to that major award. All I know is I never once fished with it.

I guess we kept moving it with us as some sort of symbol; that it was indeed possible that sometimes good things can happen to us out of the blue.

I know what you're thinking, "Man! This Dude should be playin' the lottery. He'd be a squillionaire by now."

Oh contrare, mon ami.

Years after winning that rod and reel, I took a discrete math course at La. Tech, which is a jumble of maths from different areas that are directly applicable to computer programming and digital logic. Mostly binary math, logic, probability and things like that.

One day in the discrete math class, we all got in there and the professor looked around and noticed that many students were absent. She was a young Computer Science PhD, and immediately recognized that it was a case of Friday-itis that had swept the class, leaving it half full.

She had us pull out paper for a pop quiz. All we had to do was calculate the odds of winning the Powerball Lottery, which is available in Louisiana. At the time, the way the game was played, I came up with a number of 1 in 155Million and something something chance of winning by buying one ticket.

I got the answer right, which was good for my grade, but has been a great incentive for me to NOT play the lottery. Every time the Powerball would get up to one of those $100Million jackpots, and folks were buying tickets like crazy, I would remember that pop quiz in my discrete math class and it was easy to not buy a ticket.

Which brings me to the "family" part of today's title.

Sainted Mother once won an electric ice cream freezer. You know, the kind our forefathers used to have to sit and crank and crank to make homemade ice cream with. Only the one Sainted Mother won was electric. It turned all by it's little ol' self as soon as you plugged that baby into an electrical socket.

Big Brother once "volunteered" Sainted Mother to make homemade ice cream for a team he was on, and said that she would make them chocolate ice cream. Well, it ended up becoming chocolate chips in vanilla by accident, and everybody raved over how wonderful her "accidental" ice cream tasted.

Another true-blue winner in our family is Big Sis.

Big Sis is a member of some Keith Urban Obsessed Stalker Fan Club or something and this year already has planned out four, count 'em four, Keith Urban concert trips all over the country. Well, as a member of this Keith Urban Obsessed Stalker Fan Club, Big Sis's name was entered into a drawing. The people whose names are drawn for whichever concerts they are attending get to go back stage before the concert and meet with Keith Urban. There are only eight Stalker Fan Club members that get to do this before each concert.

Well, Big Sis won herself one of the coveted eight spots before one of the four concerts she's planning to go to, so she'll be able to meet Mr. Talented yet again.

I actually kinda feel sorry for Mr. Urban. He just doesn't know Big Sis like I do. He has no idea what he's in for.

(It's been a while, but I've written about Big Sis's obsession with Keith Urban if y'all care to read them. A Day of Mourning, and Me and Accents and She's All A-Twitter.)

I just thought I'd share the amazing good fortune that myself and relatives have had over the years.

What with fishing rods, electric ice cream makers, and meeting Keith Urban, people should rub out heads for good luck every day.

She's All A-Twitter

I've talked about Big Sis's, ahem, infatuation with country crooner Keith Urban.

But right now, she's in a state of suspended anticipation. (Hey, not bad. I just made that up.)

Ever since Big Sis got to go down to the stage this past spring and rub her hands in Keith Urban's scruff at one of his concerts in Waco, she's been, well, wacko.

A couple of weeks ago, Big Sis and another Urbanite buddy, the sweet urbanite "L." went to Atlanta, Georgia to see ol' Keith kick off the tour in support of his upcoming new CD. (I have not actually met the sweet Urbanite "L.", but as a man, I have learned to always assume that any woman I've never met is ALWAYS sweet. It's just safer that way.)

Anyhoo, so Big Sis and "L." went off to Atlanta and shook their groove thangs, no doubt, and that's got 'em all fired up and ready for the 'official' release of his new CD in early November. That's what I mean by "all a-twitter." It's kinda like just shaking with anticipation, 24/7.

It must be hard though, to come down from riding the high of two concerts in two days. Of seeing one of the two concerts from close enough to catch a few drops of sweat from ol' Keith's sweaty hair. And then have to come back to her mild mannered job as a public junior high school office worker. Where the highlight of her day is probably changing her computer background photo to a different Keith Urban picture than yesterday's. Trying to sneak in some internet time while at work to look up news on Keith's whereabouts and to hang out in Urbanite chat rooms slingin' gossip and the like, but thwarted in her efforts by the old, slow computer that is all the school board could afford for her.

Oh, the humanity!

Oh, the crushing blows of a dull and dreary life, when her mind is filled with the memory of two concerts in two days, and being so close she could probably smell the tuna salad sandwich he had for lunch, on his breath as he belted out his new songs!

Tuna never smelled that good before now!

It must be hard to have been born beautiful instead of rich, otherwise she'd be following him like the deadheads of old. Forever on the road, following him, but ever living under the dark cloud of knowing that Keith takes every opportunity to visit with that stupid, gorgeous movie star wife of his, when he has all of these adoring fans following him around like lost puppies.

Life's not fair I say!

It must be hard to live in the middle of Nowheresville, Louisiana. Hours and hours of driving to get to the closest Keith Urban concert cities.

It must be hard to work so hard and be paid such a pittance, that you can only muster the cash for only one or two concert trips per calendar year.

It must be depressing to try and try and try to come up with ways to get more money for more trips to Keith Urban concerts all around the fruited plain, and the best you can come up with is selling your plasma for like ten bucks a pop, twice a week. But that's both too painful and not enough money.

It must be hard to know that your own husband and Sainted Mother and brothers won't throw thousand dollar bills at you every time you speak the name Keith Urban. Because, if they really, really loved you, they would do exactly that. They don't do that, so therefore they must not.

Poor, poor put upon, hard working Big Sis. All that hard work, all that scheming and clawing and reaching, and all she has to show for it are a few blurry memories, a few blurry pictures, and a vague memory of the smell of Keith's cologne (and tuna salad breath).

But it just may be enough. It just may be. Because she keeps hoping and scheming and clawing.

All those years of Mel Gibson fanaticism weren't for naught. They were just boot camp for being an Urbanite! All of that mental energy, all the hours of thought and planning and scheming, and Mel just turns out to be a drunken anti-Semite.

But that's OK! Keith is on the horizon now. Big Sis'll just bide her time, and if she can't have a money tree, well she'll just make do with the twice a year concert trips.

Then one day, Keith will look out in the audience, and he'll KNOW! Yes! He'll just KNOW that Big Sis is the one for him.

He'll dump that brazen hussy of a movie star he's married to, and finally be united with his one true love!

Well. Probably not.

But it won't be for a lack of Big Sis trying.

So, she'll just have to wait for the new CD to come out in a few more days, and listen to the songs she's probably already heard bootleg copies of a thousand times.

That booklet with the CD will be new though, and she'll devour every word.

Though of course she'll shed a tear when she reads where he mentions his beautiful, movie star wife by name.

But 'til that new Keith Urban CD is in her hot little hand, Big Sis'll be all a-twitter with memories and anticipation.