Ex Marks the Spot: Meeting Up with Lisa
Monday, April 30th, 2007
It may seem surprising that someone to whom I was once married would qualify as one of my official ‘reunion’ people. But the truth is that Lisa had all of the unspoken qualifications. I had not seen her, spoken to her, or otherwise been in contact with her in more than five years…and I had to actively search her whereabouts – which honestly, was not that easy. It was only dumb luck that led me to her phone number. I had even run into her younger sister Erin still working at the Beavercreek Kroger store but she had never followed through with giving me the contact info. Read the rest of this entry »
By no stretch of the imagination was I ever what one might consider athletic during my school days. In fact even before my days of chubbiness when I looked like a normal kid, I was rather clumsy and awkward. None of this, however, stopped me from participating in sports throughout my entire grade school experience. I endured season after season of t-ball, baseball, basketball, soccer, and wrestling. Oddly, the only sport that I really enjoy both watching and playing today is football – and that was one I never even attempted. 
I must have been anxious to get to Chicago on Saturday, April 21, because it was only a few hours after heading out that I got my first speeding ticket in over a year. I had left about 10:00 am and was a bit north of Indianapolis having just eaten lunch at Burger King when I noticed that the car behind me had flashing lights in the front window. It hadn’t even resembled a cop car, so I think I was subconsciously speeding up as he rode my tail. I was clocked at 85 in a 65, a speed which will garner a $150 fee. But fortunately, the trip got much better after that. 
Jennifer Crum was one among the Ferguson Junior High girls that my group of friends would hang often hang out with. In fact, she was pretty much Christi’s best friend when Christi and I began dating. Jennifer also got a job at Hardee’s in late 1988, where I spent some of my most formative working months. We also shared a Cartooning Art class at Beavercreek High School (can you believe there was such a thing?). But mostly Jennifer, above all others, and I shared the same warped and out-of-this-world sense of humor. 
As I mentioned before, with all that was going on in my personal life, I sort-of mindlessy drifted through the 1990 Sons of the Desert convention. I was not very hot and heavy into collecting autographs at the time - although I certainly did gather a few from the celebs in attendence. As it turned out, this convention included very few: only three. I remember convention host Ron Young’s big dreams of actually getting Robert Blake and Robert Mitchum to show up, but that never panned out.