100 True Things You Never Wanted to Know About Me, and Were Smart Enough Not to Ask.

1. - I'm officially alive, according to at least three doctors.

2. - I was an accident. Save it, I've heard it before.

3. - I kind of loath these things, and couldn't possibly explain to you why I'm doing this, other than massive boredom. Write more and better articles for me to read, and you wouldn't have to suffer through this, at least not from me.

4. - I breathe oxygen, with carbon dioxide and other trace gases. I cough a lot whenever I travel to polluted cities, yet I lived in Denver for years, and had no problems.

5. - I don't need to drop my drawers to go potty. Onesy or twosey. If you don't know the story, don't ask. You'll probably regret it.

6. - I have chronic pain. I could do a whole article, maybe ten or twelve on that, but considering that glazed look on your face already, I'll leave it at that.

7. - I owned a 1958 356A 1600 super cabriolet that had both tops in the later years of high school. For those that don't know, that's a classic Porsche. A drunk came across the center line, and creamed one whole side. I had it fixed, but they did a lousy job, then the trans-axle went out on it, and the nearest one I could find was in Texas. The shipping alone was more than I could afford, so I sold it. I paid 500 for it, and sold it for 1200, and now, I think they are worth over $16,000, at least.

8. - I have principles that some consider unpopular, but at least they don't change from day to day. I also have a few that do. Try to keep up.

9. - Other than family, I have more friends here on Gather than IRL. That may or may not be by choice, but my own opinion is that it is. I seem to do better with friends I can turn off, and that can turn me off, when times are inopportune.

10 - I'm an official dead end kid, and live at the end of my street, at the very edge of civilization, or what passes for it, here in Kansas. Anyone remember the dead end kids besides me?

11. - I'm allergic to wheat gluten and annoying people. Actually, I'm not so much allergic to boors, I just have a tendency to not only ante up, but raise them an insult, and it never ends well.

12 - I have a twisted sense of humor. For instance I was walking down an aisle in a grocery store one day with my then present girlfriend, let's call her Judy, to protect the innocent, and a little girl came running around the corner full speed, and tripped over her own feet, and fell down. Soon mom and dad followed, and as I helped the crying little girl up, I truly swear I couldn't help it, I turned to my girlfriend, and said " Judy, why the hell did you trip her?" very incredulously. Judy cracked up (she also had a twisted sense of humor,obviously), and the end result was that poor Judy and I almost had to tag team wrestle our way out of the Hinky Dinky. Didn't get to get our groceries, or anything. By that time, Judy wasn't laughing anymore, and I got the riot act read to me. I know, I should have had my ass kicked (and almost did), and I would have deserved it, too. When it comes to humor, I think I may be obsessive compulsive,... sigh.

13. - In my junior year of high school, I actually skipped more days than I went to classes. I still passed. Really.

14. - I'm already getting bored with this. Really, too.

15. - I'm six foot two, and though I've had lots of large dogs, I've ended up a lap dog devotee. Oscar, a miniature poodle with a giant heart, and Buddy, my present curmudgeon Papillion probably had a lot to do with that. I'm obviously a glutton for punishment.

16. - I used to be an avid hunter, and even took a trip to go deer hunting out in the Wasatch mountains in Utah, in 1973. Opening day at seven AM, it sounded like WWIII had broken out. The single bangs were so numerous it sounded like automatic weapons fire, and I determined Kansas might be just a bit safer. I never went back, and never regretted it, either. They give grade school kids the day off from school for the first day of deer season out there, for craps sakes, and the adults are just as dangerous. I hunt with a camera these days, and not during deer season, either.

17. - I once had a rash so bad that the Dermatologist I went to called her whole staff in to see what she termed "the most impressive rash they would ever see". So bad I had blood vessels hemorrhaging just under the skin. I looked like that woman's (Dax?) neck on the Star Trek spin off, "Deep space Nine" or whatever it was. Did I mention I'm allergic to wheat gluten?

18. - January first, in at least two years of my life, I participated in a "Polar Bear Plunge" thing at the lake here. Almost caught pneumonia the last time, and that was the end of that. I was young and stupid, give me a break.

19. - I hopped a freight one time, "to get to where I'd rather be". Dumb, very dumb. Kids don't try this at home dumb. Almost won myself a "Darwin Award" dumb. Lucky to just be bloodied, and not dead dumb. Nuff said.

19. - I can't count to twenty sometimes.

21. - I think Marijuana should be legal, or alcohol should be outlawed, one or the other. Why should my ex-wives be the only ones happy?

22. - In fifty-five years I have never cheated on a partner. Ever. I did break up with a few to pursue other options, but my timing was always respectful. There were a few not interested in affording me that same respect, unfortunately.

22. - I loved football, used to follow the Denver Broncos, back in the Elway era (I lived there, give me a break), but since they now change personnel all the time in the pros, and you don't get to get familiar and identify with the guys on the teams anymore, I find it hard to get excited by any pro team.

23. - I love to read books, but I don't do it much, anymore. I have a tendency, if it is good, to read till I finish. I'll read all night if it takes that, and I have found it detrimental to my sleep, health, and to getting a single damn thing done around here, so I don't even start one, anymore. Gives me more time to read your crap on Gather, don't complain.

24. - I'm a coffee fiend. I liked cappuccino, but not the cost, or the calories, and found French Vanilla coffee with enough low fat creamer and enough Splenda sweetener can come damn close. Now I'm hooked. %#$%^&!

25. - In the fourth grade, I wrote a poem about D day, that my teacher took home and read to her husband that had been on the beach that day, and it made him cry. I know this because she told me, right before she made me read it in front of the whole damn class. Talk about inviting all the bullys to pound me to a pulp, and take my lunch money...

26. - In school, I almost never did homework. Refused. Still passed. Aced all the tests.

27. - When I was in management, I was sent to attend courses we fondly called charm school, in a city far away. One of them was a business writing class. One of our assignments (homework), was to write a brief reply to a letter from a customer complaining about a product they bought that was defective. A shirt, I think. My teacher was looking for respectful, short and concise. The last I knew, she was still using my letter as an example of how to do it in her classes. The rest of the story is that I hadn't done it, I had gone out drinking and dancing the night before, and wrote the damn thing on the elevator on my way up to the class. Hung over as hell, too. Go figure.

28. - I miss Denny's. Ours closed down.

29. - I hate to fly. Well, I don't hate the flying so much, it's the take offs and landings that used to make me seek out two or three Bloody Mary's ahead of time.

30. - Don't drink Bloody Mary's before a flight on a puddle jumper on a clear winter day over the Colorado plains. Thermals and Bloody Marys don't mix well, and you're bound to find out that yours is the only seat that doesn't have a barf bag in the magazine rack on the back of the seat in front of you.

31. - I used to drink Jack Daniels Black label, and at my favorite watering hole in the city where I used to work, the owner had to double his weekly order to accommodate me when I first started frequenting the place.

33. - I once had a bartender bet me she could drink more tequila than I could at closing time, when I had already drank Jack Black all night long, and she hadn't drank a thing. I helped her husband carry her out to their car...

34. - I wouldn't say I drank a lot at one time, but I ran a tab at the watering hole I already mentioned. One payday (two week pay periods) I went in to settle my account there, and left with twelve dollars and forty-five cents. Hey, I bought a few rounds, too, give me a break.

35. - I don't drink, these days. Not that I was an alchy or anything, I had no problem just not drinking anymore, but the older you get, the "worser" the hangovers get. It gets to be the law of diminishing returns, you know? You'll understand, someday, youngsters. You oldsters, I am sure, need no explanation.

36. - I was once "Mr. Goodwrench" for an Oldsmobile, Chevy, GMC dealer.

37. - I once drove a trash truck.

38. - I once was a lifeguard.

39. - I once flipped burgers and bused tables.

40. - I once cut down and trimmed trees for a living.

41. - I once was a bar bouncer.

42. - I once was a boat dock rental guy.

43. - I once was a railroader.

44. - I once was a certified welder.

45. - I've done a lot of woodworking in my life.

46. - Hell, I was a lot of things, once, but I'm disabled, now.

47. - I build computers from components, and until I got my first notebook, that was what all of my computers were, except the first one. Guilty - Geek.

48. - I was on the Internet back when there was no world wide web. I used Archie and Veronica, and if you don't know what those were, besides comic book characters, you weren't on the Internet before there was a WWW.

49. - I love diet Dr. Pepper.

50. - I loved lasagna. Did I mention I'm now allergic to wheat gluten?

5. - My one key sticks a lot.

52. - I once built a 55 Chevy Pro/Stocker that would pull the front wheels off the ground. I was a gearhead, and into drag racing for years. I drove that beast on the road, too. Tunnel Ram, two six sixty center squirters, 6 miles to the gallon...Gas was about fifty-four nine then..... Speeding tickets were considerably more...

53. - I feed the birds in the Winter, and in the summer, I have hummers all over the place. The birds, control yourself.

54. - In grade school, I once found baby bats in a bush and tried to raise them. Not successfully.

55. In grade school, I had a friend that had a pet squirrel. She found him in a bush...that's where I got the stoopid idea about the bats..

56. - My older brother and I used to fish a lot. Catfish and largemouth bass were my favorites, mostly.

57. - My older brother has ALS now. Can't fish anymore...sigh.

58 - My other older brother has congestive heart disease and was supposed to die six or seven years ago. Still kicking, and just moved out of the rest home that kept him kicking this long....sigh.

57. - I quit breathing a few months ago. Just thought I'd try it once, don't you know, but the doctors put me on a respirator, so I'm still here to write this.

58. - Wracked up 250,000 in medical bills in that attempt to humor the medical profession. No insurance, no one will give me insurance, I'm diabetic. Need I say I'm fooked?

59. - Doctors should have let me die. From my point of view, it sure would have been cheaper.

60. - My little brother is a born again Christian. I'm a Deist. It's interesting, sometimes.

6. - My one key still sticks.

62. - My father was a professor of Agronomy at KSU.

63. - My mother retired from The McCall Pattern factory as a supervisor. I worked there too, for a while, strapping bundles of patterns and stacking them on pallets to ship. Borrriiiing.

64. - I once won a "bump" contest at a local disco. I was good, Travolta had nothing on me.

65. - Later, my favorite dance was the three step. Travolta had nothing on me there, either.

66. - I haven't danced in years. I kind of miss it.

67. - I should be paying bills right now.

65. - I had Chili for supper. So.....I have gas for breakfast.

60. - I cook for myself, and often, several family members. Everyone says I should open a restaurant. I cooked the pot of chili that gave me gas, though....

61. -  My one key worked this time.

62. - I got tissue removed from my tushy from the gangrene infection I had, and now I have to sit on a memory foam pad to stand it at all. Still can't sit for long periods.

63. - I'm cooking truck stops right now in between items...

64. - I lost sixty pounds while in the hospital a couple months back. I've had my ups and downs a little since, but I've only regained three pounds, so far. That's just having something in my stomach, though, I think.

65. - I have to go back in to reverse the colostomy they had to give me to save my life, real soon. Will be nice not to have to deal with that anymore, but I kind of balk at letting them have another shot at me...haven't made the reservation yet, as a result.

66. - Apparently I'm a genius. I took an online IQ test a couple years ago, and received an invitation from MENSA to join them. Who'd a thunk it, huh? Not a joiner, though...

67. - I had saved my pocket change for several years, every since I moved in here, in coffee cans, and when I got out of the hospital, and needed money for medical things, my little brother took it all in to the bank. It amounted to over three hundred bucks. Kept me in meds for a while.

68. - I have eleven nieces and nephews...by one little brother. Took the pressure off the rest of us.

69. - I have no children of my own. Except Buddy, of course.

70. - I generally sleep in two hour cycles. Sometimes I manage several a night, sometimes just one. Yeah, I'm tired right now.

71. - I once had a 1967 Rally Sport Comaro. I wouldn't even want to guess what that's worth, these days. Very rare.

72. - I used to be a Republican. Reagan showed me the light, and I found the door for myself, and didn't let it hit me in the ass.

73. - I live on three acres in a nice two and a half car garage with shack attached, and garden and grow flowers, etc. Unfortunately, I mow them off as fast as I plant them, every since I got the zero turn radius mower I fondly call the death trap.

74. - These days, I drive a 2004 Honda Civic coupe.

75. - I have an extensive vinyl record collection. Mostly classic rock, though it wasn't classic when I bought them, a little country, and a mix of classical favorites, Jazz, and even some big band and boogey woogy.

76. - Using the computer and a very old but expensive turntable, I'm slowly converting them all to CDs.

77. - I watch the History Channel more than any other. Next to that, it runs something like the Discovery, Science, SciFi, and Military channels, as well as PBS. I do enjoy a few sitcoms, and Lost, and Battlestar Galactica (the new one), though.

78. - I always wanted to get a pilots license. I took a few lessons once, back when I could afford it, never finished - got transferred.

79. - When I was a kid, we had like four changes of clothes, and our good clothes were usually a hand me down suit. The rest were all white tees, blue jeans, and tennis shoes. Keds, if they weren't lame Sears or JC Penny's crap.

80. - Blue jeans will always mean Levi's to me.

81. - Mom used to cut our hair. Can you say buzz cut?

82. - I wear Docker's casual slacks mostly, these days. Comfortable.

83. - I had hair down to the middle of my back when I was a teen. Couldn't stand that now. When it gets down on my ears, it drives me nuts.

84. - I did enough acid when I was young to turn on a middle sized Midwestern town.

85. - I haven't smoked grass for years, but I would if I knew someone to get it from that wouldn't run away screaming "Narc!, Narc!" when they saw this old codger coming. I hear I couldn't afford it, anymore, anyway, though...

86. - I voted for Ross Perot,.... twice.

87. - I still believe he had these evil bastards figured out. Heard a lot of that sucking sound the past few years, you know?

88. When I was a kid, I could knock down a bird on the wing, almost every time....with my .22. I'm still an excellent shot, though these days it's usually with a pellet gun shooting at varmints eating my garden. Still haven't hit one of those masky faced varmints, though, they're fast and tricky little bastards.

89. - I sponsor a little girl in Latin America through Christian Children's Fund. Have for years.

90. - I'm a slob, my house looks like crap, and I'm too lazy to clean it up. Oh, I could claim being too busy, and I'd be justified, of late, but I know I wouldn't anyway.

91. - I believe in UFOs. I was walking with my father one morning to keep him active after he started declining from Parkinson's, and we saw one going from cloud to cloud, till it dissappeared, heading East. The next day in the papers was an article about one causing a security alert in Washington DC the previous afternoon. Same description. Washington's definitely East from here...

92. - I often don't know what day it is, sometimes can't remember what I had for breakfast, by lunch time, but I can remember political facts from the Revolution on.

93, - I have always suspected Nixon of being involved in Kennedy's assassination. Hell, who had a bigger axe to grind?

94. - I'm a non-practicing Mason - again, started, and then got transferred.

95. - This is getting hard. My favorite color is blue.

96. - I moved eight times for my career.

97. - When my mother is gone, Buddy and I are going walkabout. Well, maybe RV about.

98. - I played bass in a rock band in high school. I was lousy at it.

99. - I played violin in grade and middle school. I was lousy at that, too. never learned to read music, I faked it.

00. My one key is still sticking....sigh. Oh, I suppose I've used that too much already. OK, something revealing about me. Hmm...OK, I wear boxers, or sometimes nothing at all. Depends on how long ago wash day was...