Five Things You Don’t Know About Me

 

Usually people want Ten Things, but let’s make it easy for everyone:

1. In 1999 on Kauai for a conference called Storytelling in the New Millennium, I interviewed Todd Rundgren, Thomas Dolby, Graham Nash (a super nice guy), and Dennis Muren of Industrial Light and Magic for video press releases.

2. I once composed, performed, and recorded keyboard music for a guided imagery program for Kaiser Permanente. Got paid $200.

3. I was at that Day on the Green concert with Led Zeppelin where John Bonham beat up Bill Graham’s security guard. They delayed the start by more than two hours, saying over and over, “They’re still trying to fix Jimmy Page’s guitar” until Bill Graham gave into extortion.

4.  A friend who worked for George Lucas gave me a tour of Skywalker Ranch while George was out of town; got to see his private theater and cherry wood elevator. The huge sound stage was designed for the walls and ceiling to move in and out to accommodate sound recordings.

5. My first marriage lasted about 14 weeks; I moved to Minnetonka, MN, for eternal love and marriage, and after the annulment left for a friend’s couch back in California on April Fool’s Day. Sometimes the universe makes an obvious point.

Your turn.

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  1. She Member
    She
    @She

    Phil Turmel (View Comment):

    She (View Comment):
    I can only guess at the wailing that will ensue.

    Just like moving similarly-mature humans from crib to grown-up beds. /:

    Exactly!

    She (View Comment):
    However, about 8PM they appear in concert on my back porch, serenading me in increasingly acrimonious-sounding and dissonant minor chords…

    If I were to speculate on their provenance, I should think it’s probably Baaaa-ch.

    • #31
  2. OmegaPaladin Moderator
    OmegaPaladin
    @OmegaPaladin
    1. I used to read random volumes out of the encyclopedia.  There are family movies of me reading from the large Random House encyclopedia at the age of five.
    2. I custom-make my own soda, using my own flavoring and a SodaStream modified to take CO2 cylinders.
    3. I’ve met noted terrorist Bill Ayers, and been at his office in EPASW Building, UIC.  I also met David Horowitz and Yaron Brook briefly at university talks.
    4. I directed a one-act play in high school, and took part in several plays  either on stage or in crew.  I also went to the state championship for scholastic bowl.
    5. I’ve been to dozens of national parks, most before I was 25
    • #32
  3. philo Member
    philo
    @philo
    1. By my own accounting (i.e. tracking spreadsheet, some of which had to be recreated from memory in the 2008 timeframe), I have read 483 books.
    2. Despite his best efforts, I have never been in the same building as Al Gore.
    3. I was at Nolan Ryan’s 7th No Hitter on a $2 ticket. (A very strange evening…actually stopped drinking beer in about the third inning when it became obvious that something big was afoot.)
    4. I was once a better than average practitioner of the Fosbury Flop.
    5. I am the funniest guy I know.
    • #33
  4. Charlotte Member
    Charlotte
    @Charlotte

    Stad (View Comment):
    My favorite food is beer.

    I believe the instructions were to list things we don’t know.

    • #34
  5. Charlotte Member
    Charlotte
    @Charlotte

    1. I hit three home runs and two doubles in a Little League softball game when I was 12. It made the local newspaper. That was the peak of my athletic career.

    2. I wrote (as in, wrote, by hand, old-school) and mailed one letter per day in 2018, just to see if I could do it. It was fun and rewarding, but mostly it was stressful.

    3. My mom and I have been collecting coins and paper money together for 40 years. We have a huge, varied, interesting collection. When we tell people about it, their first question is always, how much is it worth?? We don’t know and we don’t care. That’s not why we do it.

    4. My favorite cereal is Post Oh’s. I eat an entire box at a time, dry. It’s not pretty.

    • #35
  6. Steven Seward Member
    Steven Seward
    @StevenSeward

    She (View Comment):

    This is a great thread. Unfortunately (or fortunately, as the case may be), I’ve been on Ricochet so long that I don’t know if there are five things everyone doesn’t know about me, but here goes:

    1. When I was very young, I slept in the beds of several highly-placed government functionaries and heads of state. No need to call CPS; they weren’t in them at the time.
    2. One of the most classy and elegant sights I’ve ever seen in my life was Jackie Kennedy in jeans and a sleeveless top, riding a horse in Newport RI, when my family was there for the America’s Cup trials. (I think it must have been 1964. Dad went over to chat to her for a few minutes, and when she left, asked if it would be alright to take some film of her riding away (8mm). She agreed, rode several paces, then turned, smiled, and waved. A nice memento.)
    3. Auntie Pat (98 in July, may she live forever) and I were in Washington DC while parts of Absolute Power, starring Clint Eastwood, was being made. Dreadful, strangely fascinating, film. Had we arrived at our destination about five minutes earlier at one point, we might have been extras in a scene, but we did see some of it (and Clint) being filmed.
    4. I have a Nigerian name bestowed upon my by the Sardauna of Sokoto, who formally adopted me when I was an infant. It’s “Hawa Numan.” Hawa is the Arabic name for Eve, and Numan is where Dad was stationed when I was born. When I was nine years old, and lived under 24×7 armed guard for a year, the folks who were trying to do me and my family in gave out a story that my mother and father had been killed in a car crash that they had engineered (this was false, but it made all the Nigerian papers, and even a couple of British ones). The Sardauna wrote to my grandmother in the UK, offering to take me and my sister, if we did not have family who could step in.
    5. From 1965 until 1978, I lived in the house, in a suburb of Pittsburgh where Barbara Feldon (Barbara Hall as she was then), Get Smart’s Agent 99, grew up.

    You are like Forest Gump.  Sounds like a pretty fascinating life!  How did you end up sleeping in heads of state’s beds?  And who were they?  Did you tidy up or leave a mint before you left?

    • #36
  7. Steven Seward Member
    Steven Seward
    @StevenSeward

    She (View Comment):

     

    She (View Comment):
    However, about 8PM they appear in concert on my back porch, serenading me in increasingly acrimonious-sounding and dissonant minor chords…

    If I were to speculate on their provenance, I should think it’s probably Baaaa-ch.

    You must be talking about Carl Philip Eman-ewe-el Baaaa-ch.  Could have been singing french composer Ram-eau’s music, too.

    • #37
  8. Mark Alexander Inactive
    Mark Alexander
    @MarkAlexander

    Steven Seward (View Comment):

    She (View Comment):

     

    She (View Comment):
    However, about 8PM they appear in concert on my back porch, serenading me in increasingly acrimonious-sounding and dissonant minor chords…

    If I were to speculate on their provenance, I should think it’s probably Baaaa-ch.

    You must be talking about Carl Philip Eman-ewe-el Baaaa-ch. Could have been singing french composer Ram-eau’s music, too.

    Moo-zart…

    • #38
  9. Steven Seward Member
    Steven Seward
    @StevenSeward

    OmegaPaladin (View Comment):

    1. I custom-make my own soda, using my own flavoring and a SodaStream modified to take CO2 cylinders.

    My wife and I swear by Soda Stream.  After they were bought out by Pepsi, they stopped filling the large canisters with CO2 in favor of smaller canisters at a higher price.  We discovered through Internet sharing that we could simply fill our large canisters with dry ice pellets.  For 30 Bucks we bought a ten-pound bag of dry ice and filled something like seven or eight canisters.  That is enough to make soda water for several years.

    • #39
  10. JustmeinAZ Member
    JustmeinAZ
    @JustmeinAZ

    She (View Comment):

    6. I have two lambs who are clearly too large for the playpen they’re in, who still spend the night in (what’s left of) my kitchen.

    This should surprise very few here, although it is a breaking news update.

    They spend all day outside now, and are quite adept at grazing on grass, eating sheep feed, and drinking out of a bowl. However, about 8PM they appear in concert on my back porch, serenading me in increasingly acrimonious-sounding and dissonant minor chords until I let them in, give them a watered-down bottle (more comfort than anything else at this point), lift them into the playpen, add a little (more) hay for them to snack on during the night, and leave them to it. They settle down, lie down, go to sleep, and I rarely hear another peep until the next morning, when I get out of bed and start moving around the house. (So much better behaved than 2 1/2 month old human babies…).

    When I make it to the kitchen first thing in the morning, this is what greets me (Tatiana on left; Oleg on right):

    I’ve been teaching them to spend time in a pen in the barn, and pretty soon (hopefully before the playpen floor gives up the unequal struggle), they’ll have to go out there for the night. I can only guess at the wailing that will ensue.

    I have unofficially adopted Oleg since I am going to do a cross stitch project of him with daffodils. It’s like having a grandchild – I get the fun part of seeing pictures but his Mom has to take care of him.

     

     

    • #40
  11. Juliana Member
    Juliana
    @Juliana

    Stad (View Comment):

    1. Other than meeting prominent conservative writers, thinkers, and politicians on NR cruises and Meetups, the most famous person I’ve met was Admiral Rickover in my interview for the Nuke Navy.
    2. I’ve met one Hollywood producer/director because one of my best friends is married to his older sister.
    3. The same best friend had lunch with President George HW Bush on Air Force One.
    4. My late brother-in-law was one of the top vacuum cleaner experts in the country.
    5. I’ve been married three times.
    6. I was named after both my grandfathers.
    7. I drove submarines in the Navy, and flew a Cessna in civilian life. Still haven’t driven a locomotive . . .
    8. My wife and I adopted three girls from Russia in December, 1996.
    9. My favorite food is beer.

    https://nnry.com/pages/engineer.php

    Nevada Northern Railway – take a quick class, then get on board to drive a steam locomotive. Expensive, but something I would love to do.

    • #41
  12. She Member
    She
    @She

    Steven Seward (View Comment):
    You are like Forest Gump. 

    Actually, it’s my mother who was the Forrest Gump character in the family.  She was incredible.  She’s the one who noticed Jackie Kennedy on the horse and called out to Dad, who was filming the yacht racing, in Hausa (because there were lots of people and she didn’t want to start a stampede), something to the effect of: “Look, there is the wife of the chieftain who used to live in the big house that is white!”  

    She was always running into people: Colonel Sanders (the original one), Duke Ellington, Harry Secombe, and more.  She went to grade school with Kenneth Tynan, and spent her childhood summer holidays at the same guesthouse as Bertrand Russell and his family.  And on and on.

    Sounds like a pretty fascinating life!  How did you end up sleeping in heads of state’s beds?  And who were they?  Did you tidy up or leave a mint before you left?

    LOL.  Dad was in the British Colonial Service, and we were in Nigeria and the Cameroons for the first decade of my life.  He was quite influential by the time I was born, and it was a life, in the evenings, of high-society,  receptions, cocktail parties and the like.  (Yes, they met the Queen and Prince Philip.  And Princess Alexandra.  And the Duke and Duchess of Gloucester.  But I didn’t sleep in any of their beds.)  But when I was very young, they’d take me with them, and the house staff would keep an eye on me when I was an infant, and I’d play with their kids when I was a bit older, and when it came time for bed, and if all the guest rooms were occupied, they’d just tip me into the Governor’s bed or the Premier’s bed.  Until it was time to go home.

     

    • #42
  13. She Member
    She
    @She

    Steven Seward (View Comment):

    She (View Comment):

    At about 8PM they appear in concert on my back porch, serenading me in increasingly acrimonious-sounding and dissonant minor chords…

    If I were to speculate on their provenance, I should think it’s probably Baaaa-ch.

    You must be talking about Carl Philip Eman-ewe-el Baaaa-ch. Could have been singing french composer Ram-eau’s music, too.

    Ouch.

    Mark Alexander (View Comment):
    Moo-zart…

    Argh.

    Hay-den.

     

    • #43
  14. Arahant Member
    Arahant
    @Arahant

    Charlotte (View Comment):
    2. I wrote (as in, wrote, by hand, old-school) and mailed one letter per day in 2018, just to see if I could do it. It was fun and rewarding, but mostly it was stressful.

    For three years in a row, I averaged writing over seven hundred poems per year. That was around 2005-ish.

    • #44
  15. Mark Alexander Inactive
    Mark Alexander
    @MarkAlexander

    Arahant (View Comment):

    Charlotte (View Comment):
    2. I wrote (as in, wrote, by hand, old-school) and mailed one letter per day in 2018, just to see if I could do it. It was fun and rewarding, but mostly it was stressful.

    For three years in a row, I averaged writing over seven hundred poems per year. That was around 2005-ish.

    Here’s the poem I gave to my wife and guests at our wedding (no typos, please):

    If notes were ever isolate in tone
    Most wondrous melodies would hold no plea,
    The tuneless world would merely lie and moan
    And creatures all would fall from harmony;
    But notes of love must seek each other out
    Through all the lonely silences of night,
    And sound on true through moments posing doubt
    To find that rhythm formed of play and light.
    Imagination bridges over time,
    Our happy hearts aspire to cross the fjords;
    And thus between, the two approaching find
    An interplay of heavenly cadenced chords.
    For this I know of autumn-winters long:
    We who sing of love become the song.

    • #45
  16. Arahant Member
    Arahant
    @Arahant

    Mark Alexander (View Comment):
    Here’s the poem I gave to my wife and guests at our wedding

    Are you a Southron?

    • #46
  17. Mark Alexander Inactive
    Mark Alexander
    @MarkAlexander

    Arahant (View Comment):
    Southron

    Born in Nebraska, raised in Kansas through age 11, then California, except for that short hiatus in Minnesota. Mom born in Alabama an dad in Tennessee. 

    • #47
  18. Randy Webster Inactive
    Randy Webster
    @RandyWebster

    Mark Alexander (View Comment):

    Arahant (View Comment):
    Southron

    Born in Nebraska, raised in Kansas through age 11, then California, except for that short hiatus in Minnesota. Mom born in Alabama an dad in Tennessee.

    The best people come from Tennessee stock.

    • #48
  19. Arahant Member
    Arahant
    @Arahant

    Mark Alexander (View Comment):

    Arahant (View Comment):
    Southron

    Born in Nebraska, raised in Kansas through age 11, then California, except for that short hiatus in Minnesota. Mom born in Alabama an dad in Tennessee.

    The only way I could make that “aspire” work was as two-syllables as a Southron might say it: “aspiah.”

    • #49
  20. Arahant Member
    Arahant
    @Arahant

    Randy Webster (View Comment):

    Mark Alexander (View Comment):

    Arahant (View Comment):
    Southron

    Born in Nebraska, raised in Kansas through age 11, then California, except for that short hiatus in Minnesota. Mom born in Alabama an dad in Tennessee.

    The best people come from Tennessee stock.

    You spelled Alabama wrong. 😁

    • #50
  21. Randy Webster Inactive
    Randy Webster
    @RandyWebster

    Arahant (View Comment):

    Randy Webster (View Comment):

    Mark Alexander (View Comment):

    Arahant (View Comment):
    Southron

    Born in Nebraska, raised in Kansas through age 11, then California, except for that short hiatus in Minnesota. Mom born in Alabama an dad in Tennessee.

    The best people come from Tennessee stock.

    You spelled Alabama wrong. 😁

    I don’t think so.

    • #51
  22. Arahant Member
    Arahant
    @Arahant

    Randy Webster (View Comment):
    I don’t think so.

    It comes from being sinister.

    • #52
  23. TBA Coolidge
    TBA
    @RobtGilsdorf

    She (View Comment):

    6. I have two lambs who are clearly too large for the playpen they’re in, who still spend the night in (what’s left of) my kitchen.

    This should surprise very few here, although it is a breaking news update.

    They spend all day outside now, and are quite adept at grazing on grass, eating sheep feed, and drinking out of a bowl. However, about 8PM they appear in concert on my back porch, serenading me in increasingly acrimonious-sounding and dissonant minor chords until I let them in, give them a watered-down bottle (more comfort than anything else at this point), lift them into the playpen, add a little (more) hay for them to snack on during the night, and leave them to it. They settle down, lie down, go to sleep, and I rarely hear another peep until the next morning, when I get out of bed and start moving around the house. (So much better behaved than 2 1/2 month old human babies…).

    When I make it to the kitchen first thing in the morning, this is what greets me (Tatiana on left; Oleg on right):

    I’ve been teaching them to spend time in a pen in the barn, and pretty soon (hopefully before the playpen floor gives up the unequal struggle), they’ll have to go out there for the night. I can only guess at the wailing that will ensue.

    Glad to hear you’re branching out into emotional support sheep. 

    • #53
  24. TBA Coolidge
    TBA
    @RobtGilsdorf

    Steven Seward (View Comment):

    She (View Comment):

     

    She (View Comment):
    However, about 8PM they appear in concert on my back porch, serenading me in increasingly acrimonious-sounding and dissonant minor chords…

    If I were to speculate on their provenance, I should think it’s probably Baaaa-ch.

    You must be talking about Carl Philip Eman-ewe-el Baaaa-ch. Could have been singing french composer Ram-eau’s music, too.

    These puns are making me miss polemic acrimony. 

    • #54
  25. Mark Alexander Inactive
    Mark Alexander
    @MarkAlexander

    Arahant (View Comment):

    Randy Webster (View Comment):
    I don’t think so.

    It comes from being sinister.

    You’re a lefty?

    • #55
  26. Arahant Member
    Arahant
    @Arahant

    Mark Alexander (View Comment):

    Arahant (View Comment):

    Randy Webster (View Comment):
    I don’t think so.

    It comes from being sinister.

    You’re a lefty?

    Randy is.

    • #56
  27. Randy Webster Inactive
    Randy Webster
    @RandyWebster

    Mark Alexander (View Comment):

    Arahant (View Comment):

    Randy Webster (View Comment):
    I don’t think so.

    It comes from being sinister.

    You’re a lefty?

    And Arahant never lets me forget it.  Not that I’d want to.  Sets me apart from run-of-the-mill northpaws.

    • #57
  28. Steven Seward Member
    Steven Seward
    @StevenSeward

    Randy Webster (View Comment):

    Mark Alexander (View Comment):

    Arahant (View Comment):
    Southron

    Born in Nebraska, raised in Kansas through age 11, then California, except for that short hiatus in Minnesota. Mom born in Alabama an dad in Tennessee.

    The best people come from Tennessee stock.

    That would be my dad’s side of the family.  Born in Opelicka, Alabama, but raised in Tullahoma, Tennessee.  Decades TV is running an all Beverly Hillbillies marathon this weekend, my favorite TV show.  I’ve taped about 20 hours of it so far.  My dad never liked it much because he complained that their Tennessee accents were too phony.  I didn’t care.

    • #58
  29. Pony Convertible Inactive
    Pony Convertible
    @PonyConvertible

    I have swam in, and drove on, the Arctic Ocean.

    I’m 61 and still waterski every morning at sunrise in the summer and most of the fall (weather permitting, not with rain, thunder, or high winds).

    I took up paramotor flying for something to do during the Covid lockdown.

    I still have my first car, which I bought in 1976, and drive it on a regular basis.

    • #59
  30. Arahant Member
    Arahant
    @Arahant

    Steven Seward (View Comment):
    That would be my dad’s side of the family.  Born in Opelicka, Alabama, but raised in Tullahoma, Tennessee.

    Now, ya see, that’s not coming from Tennessee. That’s being born in a civilized place and moving north.

    Never thought to ask before, but are you related to William Seward?

    • #60
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