Okay, so I lead a charmed life. Around mid-day on Saturday, Andrea suggested she prepare dinner for me. She and Kevin would come over for the evening. How could I say no to that? That isn’t to say there wasn’t a caveat attached to the invitation.
I guess you could say I saw it coming. Saturday is game day during the football season and if LSU is playing, Kevin and Andrea are watching. For a brief period of time, I even joined the LSU “must watch” bandwagon. All it took was watching one game when Joe Burrow was quarterback and I zoned in for future games like a hummingbird looking for nectar. The talent that this young man comes with is enough to convert a non-sport enthusiast like me into a “must-watch” fanatic. National football hasn’t had the same appeal for me since Burrow left LSU.
Hey, for one of Andrea’s home-cooked healthy meals, I could watch the game. Somehow the game didn’t carry the same appeal, but it was a good game.
Following dinner and the game, Appalachian State and Troy University were playing. Wouldn’t you know it? Kevin wasn’t ready to turn off the game.
Frankly, I know nothing about football, but I have been to Appalachian State University in Boone, North Carolina. A residential childcare facility in that area hosted a meeting for the organization I now work with on the Appalachian State University campus. I was a board member of the organization at the time. It was many years ago, but the ambiance of a small campus in the Appalachian Mountains made a lasting impression. Trust me, I couldn’t have been more surprised that a school that size would be on national television. It is a really small school.
Years after I had been to the campus, I met a recent college graduate of Appalachian State University on a plane. I can’t remember where the plane connection took place. I’m thinking it was Midway in Chicago. He was flying from North Carolina back to Texas after a delayed Christmas break. He had to work over the Christmas holidays. It was his first trip back home to visit family.
Wanting a taste of a big city environment, he left his home in Chapel Hill, NC where his mother lived, and headed to Austin. He had friends from Appalachian State that relocated to Austin. They extended an invitation for him to come to Austin to look for work.
When we met, he was working as a waiter at a restaurant. It wasn’t the job of a lifetime, but it was a predictable income. He wasn’t in a rush to find a career track.
Over the years, I’ve been surprised by the things that people on planes share with me. I can ask a simple question like “where did you grow up” and I get a synopsis of their childhood. People are sometimes hungry to share their stories.
I’ll never forget the story this young man shared. He said, I don’t know if I’ll ever get married, but if I do and we have children, I will be the world’s best father. I decided a long time ago that I owe that to my children.
He said of his father who divorced his mother when he was a small child, I don’t remember much about him. My memories are very few. He was an airline pilot. I remember sitting in his lap in the cockpit, and that is the only real memory I recall clearly. We were going to South America. After he divorced my mother, he also divorced my brother and me and had nothing more to do with us. I want to be a different kind of dad.
At any rate, in addition to watching LSU beat Mississippi State, I saw the Hail Mary pass and touchdown that Appalachian State University made in the last two seconds of the game to push them in the lead over Troy University. Wow!
It turned out to be a most pleasant evening. Andrea told me I have good stories and that I need to write them down. Consequently, these are the stories that came to me last night.
All My Best!
Don
Carpe Diem 