The (Original) [Obligatory] 100 Things About Me

I guess if one purports to be a blogger, one has to do this list. The 100 things about me that you did not know and you probably do not care to know:

1. My father [accidentally] smashed the fingers of my right hand in the car door of our 1949 Chevy when I was about 4 years old. I have no permanent damage.

2. I am not at all athletic, but as a senior in high school I went out for wrestling (my first time to try out for any sport).

3. I thought I would be cut from the wrestling team, but our team was so poor that the coach kept me. I quit after three weeks (a story for another time).

4. I have regretted my decision to quit the wrestling team to this very day. It ranks as one of the top five worst decisions that I ever made.

5. My parents never talked to me about sex except to say “don’t do it”.

6. My sexual education was held in tents during campouts with my Scout troop.

7. My teachers of above said education were my fellow troop members. NO adult leaders were ever involved.

8. My first conscious arousal was at age 10 (pre-scouts). I thought something was terribly wrong with me.

9. My dates through high school and college turned out to be almost exclusively with girls who had steady boyfriends of whom I was unaware.

10. My parents told me that I was never to date a Roman Catholic nor a Jewish girl, and they were not too keen on any girl who was not a member of the small Protestant denomination of which they were members.

11. My parents never drank alcohol and I was raised with the idea that with my first sip I would go straight to hell.

12. My parents swore, but I never heard the word “f**k” nor saw “the bird” until a kid said/did it to me on the way to school in seventh grade. I pretended I knew what it meant.

13. I am fairly unique in that both my father and mother were present (and together as a couple) through my youth (until they died).

14. My father, a star athlete, could never understand either my lack of physical coordination nor my lack of interest in most sports.

15. The only sport I ever even tried out for (wrestling, see above) was the one sport that my father never tried.

16. After my father’s death, I took up weight lifting and jogging on a daily basis until my health failed.

17. I love fresh strawberries, (ripe) peaches, and pineapple.

18. I never ate broccoli until my mid-twenties. I love it.

19. My mother served some form of potatoes at every evening meal. To this day I rarely eat potatoes.

20. I learned to drive on a 1957 Chevy Impala Bel-Air. V-8. Automatic. Silver exterior with vinyl roof and red interior.

21. I also learned to drive “stick” before I took my driving test. I love to drive standard transmission.

22. I took my driving test at the local state police barracks in six inches of snow.

23. My favorite color is blue.

24. In fifth grade I did a color design in blues and greens, in a time when art teachers taught that blue and green do not go together. My teacher loved it.

25. I am the only son of an only son with children of an only son of one of eleven sons.

26. I never could ice skate wearing hockey skates. When I tried figure skates, I skated right away.

27. I have never smoked a cigarette, but I “inhaled” most of my father’s smoke growing up. I hated it.

28. As a youth I would contract strep throat every May. As an adult I rarely contract it.

29. As a youth I developed such a tolerance to penicillin that the doctors had to prescribe older sulfa drugs when I needed antibiotics.

30. I have never played poker (real, regular poker, that is). There was that time on the campout, however…

31. As a child I had a pet chicken and goldfish. I was not permitted to have a dog or cat.

32. As an adult I have had one cat and three dogs as pets (so far).

33. I am fascinated with traditional, analog clocks.

34. I was punished at school (and at home) in fourth grade for throwing a snowball in the direction of the school bus garage.

35. I wet my pants in second grade during a field trip to the local firehouse as I was permitted to spray water from a fire hose.

36. I never owned a pair of blue jeans until after I graduated from college.

37. I love button-fly 501 jeans. They are hard to find in my current size.

38. In college I once unintentially and unknowingly wore one black dress shoe and one brown dress shoe. They were even different styles.

39. I was paid $15 per week in the 1960’s to read scripture in another language at a bi-weekly foreign language worship service.

40. I worked as a dishwasher in the college dining hall. When I had to work the fancy fund-raising banquets (for the college benefactors), I would frequently join my co-workers in eating the uneaten shrimp cocktail that was returned by the waiters.

41. I do not like fishy tasting fish.

42. Even the thought of sushi disgusts me.

43. The smell of cooked lamb or cooked beef liver makes me literally nauseous.

44. The smell of locust trees in flower makes me nauseous. It reminds me of the smell of sperm.

45. The smell of sperm does not make me nauseous.

46. I love the smell of a balsam fir forest after a rain storm.

47. I have set my feet on the soil of three nations outside the United States.

48. If I did not have certain family ties and responsibilities, I would most likely consider emigration to either Canada or New Zealand.

49. I consider celebrating Christmas in “summer” a major drawback to living in the southern hemisphere.

50. Christmas without snow is like unfulfilled sex.

51. I once found my Christmas presents hidden in my parent’s closet. It turned out to be my worst Christmas ever.

52. As a young child I used to warm my underwear in winter on the steam radiator of the bathroom while I took a bath.

53. I rode a horse at a community block party at age 6.

54. I do not care to be around horses.

55. I am amused when watching cows eat hay.

56. Among flowers I particularly like the look and scent of roses, lilacs, mock orange, lilies, lilies of the valley, hyacinth, and gardenia.

57. I do not like the smell or look of geraniums.

58. I get cabin fever in summer. I stay inside to avoid heat and humidity.

59. I come alive in winter. I love to “play” in the snow.

60. I love spring, but my favorite time of year is autumn.

61. Of all holidays, I hate Hallowe’en the most, although commercialized Christmas comes in at a close second.

62. I rarely stay up until midnight on New Year’s Eve.

63. I do not consider my birthday a special day and I am rather embarrassed when someone makes a big deal out of it.

64. I do not enjoy dining in noisy restaurants.

65. I sweat profusely after extremely little exertion.

66. I hate to go to bed “dirty”.

67. Although slight, subtle use of cologne can be a turn on, I do not like to be around people who wear strong or cheap colognes. I develop breathing difficulties.

68. To me some people wear a cologne that smells like bad body odor.

69. The subtle natural scent of a “clean” body is a turn on; the strong stench of sweat and body odor is an extreme turn off.

70. As a child and youth I thought body hair on a man was gross, and I hoped I would not grow any.

71. As an adult I think body hair on a man is sexy. (Yes, I am hairy.)

72. I vacillate between trying to do something about my weight and accepting myself as I am.

73. I have always struggled with my weight.

74. I go ballistic when I see someone driving and talking on a cell phone.

76. I am not impressed by ostentatious purchases by the wealthy.

77. I would rather eat pork and beans from a can with a workingman than to dine in an exclusive restaurant with the wealthy and powerful.

78. Most of my clothes have never fit well.

79. I wish I were bigger. (You know what I mean.)

80. Unlike a lot of other people, I am not hesitant to admit that I would like to be sixteen again and to start over. Of course, I want to know a few things that I know now.

81. Were I to live my life over, I would do less to please others (my parents, etc.) and I would live a life truer to who I am.

82. I fantasize about having a time machine and about using it to go back into time to meet my ancestors and to see how they lived.

83. I consider baseball “twenty minutes of intense action packed into three hours of boredom.” I have never understood why it is “America’s game”.

84. I consider basketball the stupidest game on the planet that gets airtime. It is forbidden to watch a basketball game on my tv in my home.

85. Re #84: I forgot about bowling and golf. There is a trifecta.

86. Hunting for the sport of it horrifies me. I have always appreciated the attitude of many native American tribes who stopped after killing an animal (for food or for clothing) to thank the spirit of the animal for yielding its life so that the native could eat or be clothed.

87. Fishing bores me.

88. If I needed to fish or to hunt so that I could eat, I could do either.

89. I do not like the taste of venison and I have not had anyone disguise it sufficiently in bologna or sloppy joes to pass it by me.

90. I do not like snakes. I do not care whether they are poisonous or not.

91. I see no use for alligators other than shoes or handbags.

92. All in all I’ll stay in the northeast. I’ll take a blizzard any day over a hurricane, tornado, earthquake or volcanic eruption.

93. I used to buy my underwear from one of those “men’s underwear specialization” catalogues. I loved the fit and feel of a certain fly-less style. But after I gained so much weight, I could not find my size and I realized that big guys just do not look cool in such garments.

94. I served for 4 years as a volunteer ambulance attendant.

95. Although I have no formal medical background other than #94, I think I would like to be a “care giver” or a “counselor” for victims of AIDS.

96. I think every American should learn at least one language other than English. I speak one foreign language with fair fluency and I can “work” (in varying degrees of success from the piss-poor to the workable) with six others.

97. I cut my finger badly during an “axe sharpening and safety demonstration” at a national scout leadership camp. I still have the scar.

98. The smell and feel of leather is a very erotic sensation for me.

99. Tattoos both repulse and fascinate me. I have none.

100. The more I learn about my world, the more I find that I am “out of the norm”.

Thanks for reading!
[repost from original blog]