Misadventures of a Misspent Youth, Part III

Here’s yet another installment of shameful things I did as a kid. Except in this one, I really wasn’t a kid. I was 19 years old. Which by some definitions of the law made me a legal adult. (Meaning I could vote or join the military, but I couldn’t pick up a case of Cuervo at the store. Not that I ever tried. I don’t even know what Cuervo is. Really.)

It was the fall of 1990. My sophomore year in college was well underway. Then something notable happened. A dating relationship I was in ended rather badly. I don’t mean “badly” as in having an unpleasant conversation and deciding to part ways. The kind of “badly” I mean is more like the way WWII ended badly for Japan. Or the way that little volcanic eruption ended badly for the people of Pompeii. Or the way a few dishonest business decisions ended badly for Ken Lay. The way this relationship ended badly was of biblical proportions. Ask anyone who knew me then. It’s true.

What made this situation worse than it had to be was that after it ended badly, it kept ending badly. The guy (let’s call him… oh, I don’t know. Wait, I’ve got it.) Dick Cheney started being mean. Just plain mean. He talked smack about me to people I was friends with. He folded up my photos and sent them back to me through campus mail with an ugly note attached. Once, when my bff Carol and I walked past him, he yelled the “b” word at me. (OK, there is a little more to that story, but that’s the version I like to tell.) All of this silliness was BUGGING me. I just wanted to get on with my life. But I also wanted to get him back for all the harassment.

One weekend, I came up with a plan. Something that wasn’t illegal or even that big of a deal, but something I knew would annoy Dick Cheney and give me a nice sense of satisfaction. Dick Cheney happened to be what we then called a “metalhead” or “headbanger.” If music didn’t have people screaming and farm animals being slaughtered in it, he didn’t like it. On this weekend, I knew Dick Cheney was going to be out of town. So all day Saturday, I kept calling his phone and playing Debbie Gibson (someone he found particularly annoying, but didn’t we all?) on his answering machine until I filled up the entire tape. When I called one last time and only heard a “click,” I knew the tape was full and my work was done.

But you know, this still didn’t quite do it for me. He had been SO MEAN to me. I had to do something else. I thought long and hard about sugar in his gas tank. Oh yes, I did. But rational thought prevailed and I decided to do something less destructive. One night, my friend and I saw Dick Cheney’s car in a campus parking lot. (Once again, I must emphatically declare that this friend was not my bff Carol. Carol would never dream of participating in something so juvenile and… well, illegal as what my other friend and I did that night.) Let’s call my friend Marilyn Monroe. Just for fun.

So Marilyn Monroe and I spotted Dick Cheney’s car. I said, “Hey, let’s steal his gas cap. In a few days we’ll put it back. Just to mess with him.” So we did. Stole his gas cap. A few nights later, we spotted his car again. We opened the gas tank cover to put the gas cap back, and wouldn’t you know it, he had bought a new one. So we took that one, too.

Marilyn Monroe put the two gas caps in a box and they moved around with us from dorm to apartment to apartment over the next couple of years. Then we graduated and Marilyn Monroe took them home to her parents’ house in Missouri. (Where her perplexed mother discovered them one day.) Marilyn Monroe and I had talked about waiting 20 years or so and then mailing them to Dick Cheney from some random address in a random state. I’ve stayed in touch with Marilyn Monroe and just about every time we talk, she says, “You know I still have those gas caps.” And now it’s been 19 years. So I have a year to figure out if I should mail them to Dick Cheney or not. I’m not the type to hold a grudge, especially over a relationship that ended so long ago. But I am just obnoxious enough to think that mailing the gas caps to Dick Cheney would still be pretty funny.

Betting on Alice and the freedom of the press

Yes, the long-awaited Twilight movie opens tonight. I'm hoping to go Sunday afternoon with friends from church. Yes, it will probably be cheesy. But we're going, anyway. And we're gonna like it.

Over the weekend, I traveled to Austin for Patsy Partin's memorial service. It was very nice and I got to see some old friends. Here I am with Patrick, Patsy's youngest, and Robert Duren. I went to junior high and high school with both those guys and then Patrick and I went to the same college. I thought so much of Patrick that I found him a wife. I guess I thought he couldn't do it on his own. Anyway, Patsy would have loved that her service brought together so many people who hadn't seen each other in a long time. It was especially great seeing Patrick's wife, my bff Carol, for the first time in three years.

Now on to our latest adventures with Jenna. Last Monday, she got our church office staff thrown out of a bar. Really. One of our ministers (WHO SHALL REMAIN NAMELESS) is a barbecue fan and makes a hobby of seeking out hole-in-the-wall BBQ joints in search of great barbecue. Being from Texas, I get this. Sometimes the best BBQ you will ever eat is sold in establishments you might otherwise want to avoid. Like the Rib Cage in Baytown.

(For those of you tracking my vegetarian progress, don't panic. I was going along with everyone on Monday to seek out some potato salad. I've been meat-free for over two years now.)

Anyway, Mr. Nameless Minister thought we should try a certain "restaurant" out here in Saline County. I felt a little funny about going to this place, because I thought it was a bar. But the sign said barbecue, and Rev. Nameless was paying, so who was I to complain? Anyway, we go in there and sit down -- with 4-year-old Jenna -- and the waitress comes up and says, "I'm sorry, but according to Arkansas law, no one under 21 can be in here." Why? Because it's a BAR. So we all left.

For those of you who live around here, it was "The Pit" by the race track. The race track where the hillbillies race their hillbilly cars every Saturday night. Yes, I took my child in there.

The whole thing reminded me of Reese Witherspoon's line in "Sweet Home Alabama": "You have a baby! ...in a bar!"

Then this morning, Jenna kept yelling "MOVE, LADY!" at the woman giving the forecast on the Weather Channel. Apparently the poor woman was blocking Jenna's view of the U.S. map. I guess we need to work on Jenna's manners. Keeping her out of bars might be a good place to start.

Finally, I'm so, SO proud of the staff of the Optimist, ACU's campus newspaper. (Where I was managing editor for one year and senior staff writer for two years in college.) They made a candidate endorsement that they had to know would not be well-received in the ACU/Abilene community, but stood by it anyway. They have taken all kinds of flak as a result, which was to be expected. I just remember making a difficult endorsement while on the Optimist staff (for student body executive offices, that time) and going to press knowing we were going to make a lot of people unhappy, but knowing we had to stick by our convictions. (And one of the guys we weren't endorsing was Chad's friend and scheduled to be in our wedding that summer. Ugh -- still not fun to think about. He got elected, anyway.) That was rough at the time, and I can only imagine what the current situation is like for the Optimist staff, especially since this controversy has made news beyond the campus. Part of learning to be a journalist is accepting the fact that in doing your job, you will make people upset. I think this experience will serve to prepare the current staff for their future jobs, and I also chalk it up to a victory for freedom of the press.

Here's an article about the controversy in the Abilene Reporter-News, and another article at the College Media Matters web site.

20 Years Ago...

I stole this off Jacinda's blog. I could REALLY confuse everyone and just use her answers, but I decided to come up with my own. Here's what I was doing...

20 years ago (1988)

I was a senior at Beaumont Christian High School in Beaumont, TX. I was thinking about breaking up with the guy I had been dating since 10th grade, and I finally did in December. What else was going on in October? Let's see -- at school, we seniors were probably getting ready for the senior spook house at the annual fall fest. I had big hair, and not just at Halloween. And I was a brunette. But not for long.

10 years ago (1998)

In October 1998, Chad and I were living in Abilene and I was gradually coming out of my bout with hyperemesis during my pregnancy with Julia. What a NIGHTMARE. I was also fighting to get my strength back up to pull off ACU's Homecoming, which I was in charge of. It all came together with the help of Kelly and all the other wonderful students on my steering committee. Oh, and after a summer of me staying in the hospital way beyond my sick leave, Chad (who was in grad school) and I were completely BROKE. No savings and sometimes, no income. We made it through somehow and welcomed a sweet baby girl into our family a few months later.

5 years ago (2003)

We had been in Baytown, TX for three years. Chad was a youth minister and I was taking Julia to preschool and writing for The Baytown Sun. That was a rough year -- by October, I had had two miscarriages and was about to have a third. What was up with my reproductive system? Soon Jenna would be on her way, though, and then I would get out of the baby-making business FOR GOOD. Despite that difficult year, I still have sweet memories of Julia as a four-year-old and of our family being active with our church and community.

1 year ago (2007)

Now we're in Arkansas! Julia was in third grade and Jenna was in preschool. I was writing for magazines by then, which, guess what? Pay a WHOLE LOT BETTER than newspapers. So goodbye, newspaper writing... nice knowin' ya! We were also busy with church/youth group stuff and enjoying fall in Arkansas, which is always lovely. The girls were gearing up for Halloween (Julia was Hannah Montana...someone she wouldn't be caught dead dressing up as now).

yesterday (October 8, 2008)

I weeded out clothes to donate to charity, went to my weekly Bible study, went to lunch with friends, managed to lose our cat, and went to Refuge where I spoke to the teens about finding value in others.

today (October 9, 2008)

Secured the cell phone number of our neighbor, who is in Florida, because I could hear a cat meowing in her garage and I was convinced it was ours. She gave me her garage code and when I opened the door, it was ANOTHER cat. Not ours, not the neighbor's, just some random cat. Weird. Chad and I took Jenna to preschool and I'm lining up interviews and doing research for my next deadline.

tomorrow (October 10, 2008)

Friday. I really have NO CLUE what we're doing tomorrow. I guess finding the cat would be good.

Twilight

The Twilight series is all the rage, and since I manage to steer clear of things that are "all the rage" (except for that Hannah Montana concert I went to last winter), the Twilight series nearly passed me by.

Then I got sucked in.

Bella Swan is a new girl to the town of Forks, Washington. At the town's tiny high school, she meets a guy and falls in love. But there's a minor problem: He's a vampire.

I've never been into vampire fiction. I've known people who are into it, and they're kinda...well, you know, weird. But, even though it concerns vampires, Twilight is a sweet love story about two teenagers who have no real hope of a future together, but fall deeply in love anyway.

So what challenges do Bella and Edward face? Let's see. He constantly fights the urge to kill her and suck all the blood out of her body. Hey, it's a vampire thing. But he also deeply loves her and does everything he can to protect her from anything that could hurt her -- including himself.

Another problem is that Edward does not age. But Bella, as a human, will. In 50 years, she'll look like an old lady who scored herself a young hot guy. It's one of the weird aspects of having a mortal/immortal relationship.

Edward does not eat, sleep or have a beating heart. But I'm telling you, I don't know when I've had such a crush on a fictional character. Stephenie Meyer's description of him makes me think having a vampire boyfriend wouldn't be so bad. (If I weren't already married. And if vampires even EXISTED.)

There are three books in the series with the fourth, "Breaking Dawn," due out on Aug.2. (Happy birthday to me!) I've just finished the second, "New Moon." Both are gripping and have unexpected twists and turns throughout. (Although "New Moon" will completely rip your heart out a couple of chapters in.)

And I'm not the only one with a crush on Edward. Some women at church my age and older are pretty much loopy over him.

If you feel silly reading about teenage vampire love, consider this conversation I had with one of our elders' wives at church tonight.

K: (Asking if I have heard of a book she had heard about somewhere, which I hadn't.)

Me: I'm too embarrassed to tell you what I'm reading right now.

K: (rolling her eyes) Oh, well, I'm reading Twilight.

Me: That's what I'm reading!

Ha ha!

On another note, ACU camps were GREAT last week. I was asked what we do with Jenna during that time. ACU camps provide excellent childcare, free of charge, for children of camp volunteers. She got to play with babysitters all day. Julia did this for years until she was old enough for the youngest camp. During Kadesh, which has a more hectic schedule than the middle-school camp we did last week, the babysitters will even bathe your kids and put them to bed for you. This is really the only summer youth group activity I can participate in 100%, and it's because ACU camps provide top-notch childcare so I don't have to worry about my kids. It's another reason we love ACU camps!

Abilene update

I don't have much computer time this week because we are busy with a week of ACU Leadership Camps. This is the first year Julia is old enough for Learning to Lead, so she is staying in a different dorm than ours for the first time. We see her in the Campus Center every once in a while and she seems to be having a great time. We usually work Kadesh, the high school camp (which we LOVE), but it's not the same week as Learning to Lead. So this week we are working MPulse, which is the middle school camp. We've been having so much fun and I'm reminded again of how much I hate that middle schoolers tend to get a bad rap, because they are actually a lot of fun to hang out with.

There's also a day camp for the younger ones called KidQuest, which Julia graduated from last summer.

Just a plug for ACU camps -- the are the most highly organized camps we've ever been a part of (and we've experienced quite a few camps). The curriculum is outstanding and the staff has such an incredible heart for teaching kids of all ages (there are camps from entering first grade to entering college) how to be like Christ. So if any of you ever wonder whe we disappear to Abilene every summer, this is why!

On another note, I bought the raved-about "Twilight" to read on the way here. Julia stole it from me and before I knew it, she was 100 pages ahead of me in the book. We've both finished it, and now she wants to read the rest of the books in the series. My question for you Twilight fans is this: Are the next two books appropriate for a 9-year-old to read? The first one got a tad scary and violent at the end, but she didn't seem bothered by it. (She's also read the Harry Potter and Inkheart series, which have a little violence in them. She says violence in fantasy books doesn't scare her because she knows it could never happen. When I tried giving her "Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry" last year, however, she brought it back to me after a few days and said "No, thanks." I had forgotten about the graphic lynching scene. I still feel bad about that one.)

I'll review Twilight when we get home and I have time to think. :)

Cow huggers unite

A while back, Sarah, a fellow non-meat-eater, asked me how I let the world know that I went veggie and how I have handled people's reactions to my decision. I've been gathering my thoughts on this and I'll blog about it soon.

Well, we are all done traveling for the summer and school starts in just a few weeks. I've had a ton of work lately, which is always fun with both kids are home every day. Our last tiny little trip is this Saturday. We are going to Magic Springs, a theme park about 40 minutes from here, to play around and then hear Third Day in concert. I don't like much Christian music, to be honest, but I really, really like Third Day. And I sort of love Mac Powell, their lead singer.

Here's a quote from Jenna when we were coming home from Texas last week. She took her shoes off and said, "Hey! I found my feet!"

Speaking of Texas, I got to spend some time on Friday with Dr. Charlie Marler and his wife, Peggy. "Doc" was the chairman of the Journalism-Mass Communication Dept. while I was at ACU and he is still a hero to me. Any time my name appears in a byline in some publication, his name should be right next to it because he is the reason my writing is worthy to be printed. Some professors teach you how to do something, but professors like Doc teach you how to become something. He was never satisfied if his students were good at writing; he wanted us to be better than good. He taught us the power of words and to uphold truth above all else. Yes, they do actually teach that in journalism school.

Back to ACU

Tomorrow we are leaving for a week of ACU Leadership Camps. Chad and I will be group leaders at Kadesh and Julia will be attending her last year of KidQuest. We love doing Kadesh and it's always great to be back on ACU's campus. After we get back, we're all done traveling for the summer. Which is great especially for Chad, who was only home six days in July!