Thursday, April 30, 2009
The Good Samaritan
Getting something stolen from you is one of the worst feelings in the world. When you realize that something is missing you run through all the different places it could be in your mind. When you finally settle on somebody must have taken it, its a slug to the chest. You are naked, exposed, they got you and you didn't think they ever would have. Thats how this story begins. You see we were on a basketball tournament and it was my senior year of high school. Somebody decided to jack my thirty dollars that my mom had given me to get snacks and stuff. So there I was sitting in the Southwestern cafeteria after church with no money. Sometimes when you have no money you do stupid stuff to get money. This was one of those moments. At that time in our lives we thought that tripping on purpose in front of a whole bunch of people was the funniest thing to do. Now that sounds strange so let me help you understand my high school. Every year there was a new fad that the whole school followed. My sophomore year it was taking people's "cool points" when they had a bad joke. We did this by saying "lost" and holding our hand out. My junior year was the "deez nuts" and "dry jokes" year. By my senior year we had moved to tripping on purpose. What would happen is one of my buddies would fall down really hard in front of a huge crowd of people. They would all laugh cause that is what kids do. But the real joke was for us because we knew it was an act. If it looked real and was really loud it was that much better. Now its after church and we are all getting a little restless. And when kids get restless they try to convince other kids to do something stupid that they would not do. This is the point were my buddy says "Rich you got to trip in front of all of these people". There were probably about 500 students in the cafeteria at that time. "Naw dude" was my reply. "I'll do it for thirty bucks" was my next response. Thats what you say when don't want to do something. You just say that you will do it for an amount of money that you are sure that a bunch of teenagers could not put together. But I was wrong. Like I have mentioned earlier someone had D bowed my thirty dollars so there was money swirling around my friends that I did not know about. Plus they got with another academy in the cafeteria and began pooling money to get me to trip on purpose. It started to get really real really fast. My buddy came back and said "Alright we got your thirty bucks but you have to trip and fall into a bunch of food". "No way dude. Thats too much". We bargained a little more and finally we settled on me getting the thirty bucks if I fell into a salad filled with ranch dressing. Was I actually goin to do this. Now we had about twenty kids around trying to get me to do it. There was only two people trying to stop me. My sister and my girlfriend. My sister looked at me and said "don't do it buddy". My girlfriend said "I don't think this is a good idea". They were not as convincing as the twenty guys telling me it would be the funniest thing they had ever seen in their lives. The moment of truth came and I decided that I was going to be the cool guy and do it. Now that I am a little older I see that instead of being the cool guy that I thought I was for doin this I was actually the sucker who embarrasses himself in front of a bunch of people only to get paid back from the money that was stolen from him. Hind sight is twenty twenty. I got up and went to the salad bar and I filled a bowl with a bunch of lettuce and tons of creamy ranch dressing. I looked at my group of friends and they were sitting close to the entrance of the cafeteria. I walked toward them and as I got closer I picked up speed. When I got really close to them I clipped my backfoot with my front foot and tripped myself. Now in order to really pull it off and get the bigggest laugh your trip has to be authentic. If it looks fake its not as funny. So whenever I did trip on purpose I sold it like a used car salesman. On my way down to the ground I smashed the salad all over my face. I landed hard on my elbow . It felt like every inch of my face was covered with ranch dressing. The whole cafeteria seemed to stop. I got on my knees and everyone was able to see my face. The cafeteria erupted in laughter and everyone was pointing at me. To add dramatic effect I cried for a napkin. "Someone please give me a napkin." All of a sudden out of nowhere a man ran to my side and started yelling at the crowd. "Stop laughing! Stop laughing! Are you ok?" I had never seen this man in my whole life. He looked really sad that I had fallen down. I just wanted him disapear or me to disapear. My buddies were running up to me with cash in their hands. The last thing I wanted was for the man to know that this was set up. I pushed my friends away while this gentleman was grabbing napkins from a nearby table. This guy was the nicest guy I had ever ran into and I felt like a jerk. After I cleaned myself up I thanked the guy and he went away. I felt like I was lying to his face. The after math got ugly. One of the parent that came to watch his son chewed me out in front of all of my friends. It didn't help that I was a ball hog and never passed to his son. I tried to explain my self but he just told me to shut up. I wasn't allowed to play in the first half of the next game. Every once in a while I am reminded about this guy. Not only did he come to the rescue but he did it when it was the least popular thing to do. Its been eight years since this happened and I no longer have a clear picture of what this guy looked like in my head but I do know that I want to be like him the next time I get put in a similar situation. And who knows I might be in the position to actually help someone.
Wednesday, April 29, 2009
Tuesday, April 28, 2009
Monday, April 27, 2009
Saturday, April 25, 2009
Tuesday, April 21, 2009
Monday, April 20, 2009
Friday, April 17, 2009
Wednesday, April 15, 2009
Sunday, April 12, 2009
Wednesday, April 8, 2009
Its ok to back track
I am one of those guys that doesn't like to ask for directions. Yes the sterotypical male here. When it comes finding where I'm going I like to use a quote from the eloquent Charles Barkeley "I may be wrong, but I doubt it". Every once in a while my pride gets the better of me and I end up being late. I hate this. I like to show up to places exactly when I want to be there. I know that sounds stupid but I don't want anyone or anything controlling when I show up besides myself. Sometimes I like to be early to an event like a Jayhawks game at Allen Fieldhouse. I like to be in my seat fifteen minutes before tipoff so that I can take in the wonderful enviroment. Sometimes I like to be right on time to things. Like waking up on Sabbath morning at 11:27 and being in my seat at church at noon. Sometimes I like to be a little late to things. Like any social event you don't want to be the first person to show up. So in essence I like to control my time destiny. When I don't control my time destiny I get angry. So today was the combination of not asking for directions turning into a loss of time control. Here is the situation. I was supposed to meet a couple of students from Ozark Academy at noon to take them out to lunch and try to answer any questions that I could about Union. Ozark is quite a little trip from Union so I decided to drive to Kansas City and stay at my folk's house the night before so I would not have to get up at four in the morning to make it for lunch. I left my folks house at eight o clock. That should have given me plenty of time to make it Gentry by 11:30. Then I could sit back and chill till I had to take them out. This is a good plan in theory. Now I have been to Ozark about eight or nine times but I wrote down directions from mapquest just to make sure. On the way down I listened to six hundred different people on the radio dissect the national championship game and why Tyler Hansbourough will be a bootsy pro. This is all fine. Now by the time its eleven o clock I am closing in on Ozark. I have plenty of time. I take a couple of turns and I am following the directions when the moment came. You know what moment I am talking about. The time where you come to the fork in the road and you see something familiar one way but you aren't exactly sure if that is the way you should go. This all happens in a split second while you are driving. Your options are to go with your gut or to go the way that could possibly be the right way but you aren't sure. So guess what I did. Thats right I'm a man. So I take this turn and I start convincing myself that I made ther right move...still kinda unsure...better ask this hobo looking guy walking down the street...roll window down...."excuse me sir is Gentry this way?" "yup". I am convinced. So I started driving and I am going up and over hills and threw valleys and it is an exciting roller coaster of a drive. Ten minutes later I am in the land of the where am I. Then all kinds of questions are popping in your head. My least favorite question and probably the most important one is "should I backtrack"? I hate backtracking. I think all males do. Not only is it the white flag of surrender. Its the concession of the wasted time that you have to backtrack. If you go fifteen minutes in the wrong way you waste thirty minutes total if you decide to backtrack. So I do what I think is right but what couldn't be more wrong. I decide instead of back tracking I will find a new way to get there going this way. Long story a teeny bit shorter I got even farther away and what was almost being thirty minutes early ended up being thirty minutes late. I think this happens to alot of us. We are going along in life and we come to a fork in the road. Its not always easy to tell which way to go. One looks familiar. We choose the direction and it doesn't take much time for us to realize that we have made a mistake. Except we fight it. We don't give up. We keep going deeper and deeper and we are getting farther and farther away from the truth and what is right. We think that since we have gone this far we might as well find a new way to get there. But the new way is a mirage. It isn't there. We are drowning now. If we had decided to back track a while ago we would not be in this new terrible situation. What could have been happiness is now guilt and shame. We make it harder for ourselves. There is only one way and it always works and it will always be there. We will all make mistakes but He is great and He will forgive. He will do it every time.
Tuesday, April 7, 2009
Monday, April 6, 2009
Friday, April 3, 2009
Thursday, April 2, 2009
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