John tagged me for this many moons ago. I won't prolong the agony by passing it along, but will share what I've got. The randomness turned into a nice memory exercise, which I probably needed.

I went to free school for first and parts of second grade. Twelve Gates Free School started out on a farm in Corrales New Mexico, where the main memory I have is an incredible school-wide mudclod fight that took up an entire day. If you’ve never had a mudclod fight, then know that mudclods are about the size of snowball, except fashioned from wet mud and then dried, sometimes with a small rock inside for good measure.

In high school my best class was auto shop, taught by Erwin Schlaack, who brought his German background and Porsche sensibilities down hard. Re-roll that air hose; it has a loop out of place; rotate it one turn for every loop. Back to the solvent tank; the hidden parts of that cowling need to be cleaned as well. I loved it. Tore down and rebuilt the motors on a 1974 Porsche 911T and a really nice 1969 911S with racing cams. I can still hear the timing chains sometimes sing. Whreeem whreeem.

I’ve lived in a tree house. Before that I lived with my Mom and my three brothers crammed into our bungalow house. One day I had had enough. Strung an extension cord out to the tree house in the backyard and spent my last year and a half of high school there. After some bouncing around, moved back to the tree house for another year and a half. Temperature in Laguna 65-75 degrees pretty much all the time,

I won the Turkey at the Boys Club Thanksgiving gaming tournament when I was 12. The tournament combined scores for pool, ping pong, foosball, air hockey, and archery. I was a foosball wizard and still like to try out the bow and arrow to center the mind at times.

I own eleven antique bicycles. Six of them are in a shed at my Dad’s house in New Mexico. Four are in my attic. They are all in various states of refurbishment. Some day I will rebuild most of them. Right now I have one rider, a 1948 Rocket girl's frame with gas tank that sits in the garage—I need to put on a new pedal.

I sang lead for a couple of bands in college. What a wonderful time of life that inspires someone with no experience to put themselves on exhibit with little thought to the embarrassing consequences. At Irvine when I went to college to play disc golf, I played in a band called Tribal Europa—Talking Heads inspired new wave music with some skanky influences rolled in. At UNM I was in Johnny B—always disliked that name. Not sure what that music was. Told you it was embarrassing.

I just killed a copperhead—IN THE GARAGE! Jeesh. Living in the country has its benefits, but I’ve about had it with nature. We’ve been cleaning up the yard lately and must have stirred up a nest. This is the third one in a week.

I have four cats: Hero and Danger, brothers and middle-aged statesmen of the home, Copper, who just got in a fight and has a torn up ear, and Blue, found at the beach last year.

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