Back in the fall of 2006, Connie Reece plowed me out of her memory and Googled me off the web and we reconstituted a friendship started nearly 25 years ago. We had a digital reunion. I'd been writing a blog for Big River Advertising in Richmond, VA, and Connie was starting up a blog for AnthonyBarnum PR in Austin, TX. It didn’t take long for two old Southern storytellers to start Blogabillies with the hopes of making a few people laugh as we celebrate our Southern heritage and humor.
Last week Connie told me that I have been tagged for the Five Things meme. She's the one who tagged me, so I guess she should know. She swears it's a good thing, and I'm pretty sure I trust her. So here goes.
Five things about me that nobody probably cares to know:
1. I was unable to read until I was almost in the 5th grade. One day my mother dropped me off at the public library and I dug around until I figured it out, learning to read and then write by thumbing through well-worn copies of Sports Illustrated and Car and Driver. Eventually I became a story junkie and I continue to need my daily fix. I currently own about 9,000 books. I still get Sports Illustrated and Car and Driver.
2. The Civil Rights March from Selma to Montgomery was one of my first brushes with the unfolding history of that turbulent era in my home state of Alabama. Inside of a year in 1965, I ran across Dr. Martin Luther King and George Wallace, face to face. Several years later, after having met Coach Paul “Bear” Bryant several times, I figured I'd met every Alabamian who mattered and some more than once.
3. Michael Jordan has beaten me more than once playing H.O.R.S.E. It's sad that I list that athletic failure as a highlight in my life; but I don't have a lot of big-time accomplishments, so there it is.
4. I jumped from the second floor of my hotel in Santa Monica during the Los Angeles earthquake of 1994. Thank God I wasn't staying on the 11th floor. I would have jumped from there as well, no doubt, since I was in an unthinking hurry to exit the undulating building. I landed in a palm tree, slid roughly to the trembling turf ,and dropped next to a half-naked Fabio look-a-like who’d also jumped. That memory is worse than the quake.
5. This is sick. I am addicted to Pop Tarts. I mean, seriously hooked. It's not that I just enjoy one now and then either. I have a frosted-brown-sugar-and-cinnamon monkey on my back. I mainline them raw, no milque-toaster for me. I have eaten at least three Pop Tarts a day for 25 years. Do the math – that's 27,375 Pop Tarts that I can honestly recall chomping. Kellogg's owes me a lifetime achievement award.
Now, since I read about one-tenth of the number of blogs Connie does, I've had trouble identifying five bloggers to tag. So if any of the bloggers below are second-time taggees, or the kind who despise this sort of meme, I'll offer my apologies in advance. Otherwise, take your meme-medicine and 'fess up.
1. Starbucker, author of Ramblings of a Glass Half Full. I especially like the fact that he writes music extolling caffeine, and he still considers Pluto as a bona fide planet.
2. Ryan Anderson, who writes the New PR blog and doesn't let the glamour of PR go to his head.
3. Chris Brogan, proprietor of the Grasshopper Factory, an almost daily poster of self-portraits. (Happy Birthday, Harold!)
4. Curt Hopkins over at Foam Finger Media also works behind the scenes to protect bloggers who face government repression.
5. Jon Sobol, whose Talking Shop is part of the 76 Design group, advocates for every company to have a Chief Storytelling Officer. Chief Storyteller; that's a job I want!
You had me at daily poster of self-portraits. : ) I've been tagged a few times, but I'm not opposed to telling you five things, right here, within your amazing community, for the power of your Southern audience. Here are 5 things few people know about me:
* I have been to the south five times total: 4 to Florida (usual places) and once to Texas (Dallas). I am the least Southern person I know, but not because I'm a hater. I just don't have the billy-cred.
* I've been blogging in one form or another since 1998 (when I called it journaling), and if you were a die-hard fan, you'd see my tastes go from fiction writing, to nonfiction reading, to art, to fitness, to self-improvement, to community (current). I write about what excites me.
* I am the white lie. Less than I used to, but it's certainly part of who I am. The thing is: most of my lies are all for the sake of a better story or a smoother ride. Rarely to be mean or evil.
* If I weren't doing this, I'd be doing this offline, but pretty much the same premise.
* Once, when I was 12 or so, Billy Sonya accidentally tried to drown me in a YMCA swimming pool.
Posted by: Chris Brogan... | January 23, 2007 at 11:56 AM
T-Bone, even though I've already revealed 5 things, I'll be pleased to do another 5, for these 5 reasons:
1) I love your senses of humor
2) I used to be a PopTarts junkie too (strawberry with the white frosting on top)
3) I'm glad there's at least two of us that still want Pluto to stick around as a Planet
4) Anyobdy who has time to read 9,000 books stands a good chance to read another "5 things" post
5) Spreading link love is a beautiful thing
Thanks, from a new Blogabillies fan.
Posted by: Terry Starbucker | January 23, 2007 at 12:01 PM
Terry, Terry, Terry,
Those first four revelations did not cause me to fall off my chair or anything, but REALLY, your 3-a-day Pop Tart habit is, well, scary. And frosted, no less. I would feel better about it if you were at least consuming the fruit ones without the frosting. Oh well, make sure your life insurance policy is paid up...there are bound to be serious health consequences of eating 3-a-day. (You know, tho...I just had an idea. Maybe you could contact Kellogg's and pitch the 3-a-day slogan to them to go head-to head with the "5-a-day" fruits and vegetables campaign.) Bon appetit!
Posted by: Laurie | January 23, 2007 at 12:03 PM
Thanks folks, for the kind words and the great advice and the linkage. I love reading and I appreciate yours. And thanks for that R.I.P from Laurie. Here's the key to eating that many Pop Tarts: You can't eat much of anything else. See, it's not the Poppers that get you; it's that other food you shove in around them. That's because Pop Tarts don't play well with others. That's my secret.
I'd ask you all to give me the name of the best book you've ever read that you wished was still going when you had to close the last page, but, then, well, okay, I'll ask – tell me.
I'd invite you all to Alabama, but I even moved away from therea while ago, so that seems hypocritical, I suppose. The South is weird and different. It's not unlike a Faulkner sentence; hard to figure out why the nouns and verbs don't all match up. Contradiction is the real religion of the South, not Southern Baptists or football, as you may have read elswhere. If you can be your own cousin, think about that. Only in the South do people even keep up with such things.
We've had some bad history down here and we can't run from or hide it from polite company. We just have to face it, move forward and try to do better. It's like being one of the Rolling Stones; you have a past that is embarrassing and glorious all at the same time and even though you wake up and look at that awful visage in the mirror, you know that deep down, as long as you're still alive, you can still play some tunes. Just try not to shake your armflaps when the camera's on you at the Super Bowl.
Posted by: T-Bone | January 23, 2007 at 04:23 PM
Reading comments here at Hotel Larry in Dallas, where I attended launch of Social Media Club. You will have polished off another box of pop tarts by the time I get back to Austin! Saga of learning to type on Blackberry to follow.
Posted by: belle | January 23, 2007 at 10:27 PM
Belle, I have been tempted to get a Blackberry or some such device that would allow me to never be away from this digital realm. So far, I have not given in to the urge. Being addicted to Pop Tarts is bad enough. Being addicted to a Blackberry would cause severe itching and other discomforts I saw described in a Gold Bond commercial. So I have refrained. Good luck with yours. And be safe.
Posted by: t-bone | January 24, 2007 at 06:02 AM