One of your favorite things to do when you stay at Nonna and Papa’s house in Alabama is to go outside and find wildlife.
I’ve noticed it never takes much effort nor time for you to come back from the yard with a collection of bugs and/or lizards.
Granted, some of the bugs end up becoming the dinner of the lizards.
So for a 2 grade boy spending his Spring Break in the mountains of Alabama, what better way to spend hours of daylight then to go out explore nature… and then to bring that nature back with you!
There are some people who just don’t care anything about going to their high school reunions.
They are the ones who will say, “I spent a dozen years with those people and I didn’t like them then, so what makes you think I would want to go hang out with them now? If I was really that curious what they are up to, I would just look them up on Facebook!”
Clearly, I am not one of those people. No, instead, just call me Mr. High School Class Reunion!
For me, going to my high school class reunions is like repeating the final scene of the final episode of Lost… every 5 years of my life.
What is really special about my own upcoming 20th High School Reunion this July is that we just happen to be the first official Millennial class to experience this.
If the Millennial generation were siblings, then those of us who graduated high school in 1999 would be the firstborn children.
This is history in the making.
Back in 1988, when I turned 7, I had a very memorable birthday party. My dad had just cut down a tree in our backyard, so the main entertainment was being able to climb the fallen tree. And coincidentally, I just happened to be wearing a “Class of ’99” t-shirt on my birthday.
Fortunately, my mom did a great job of taking several pictures to capture the magic of that day.
Gary Schrader, Russell McElhaney, Will Stephens, Shane Burt (along with his sister and mom), Tabatha Thomas, Haley Rogers and her sister Ashley, and my own sister Dana were all there that day; whether they remember it now or not… and whether they have ever seen these pictures before either!
I am confident that my upcoming 20th High School Class Reunion will be a highlight of 2019.
Two months ago, when I took you to Target so you could spend a $25 gift card you received for your birthday, I also invested in the classic board game Crossfire for our home.
It has truly served its purpose as a casual form of pick-up entertainment in our living room.
But this past weekend, you realized that there are some major similarities between Crossfire and Hungry Hungry Hippos.
So now, both games take up the real estate of our living room table.
I’m happy though. You and your sister even entertained yourself this week before school; alternating between the two games.
It’s like having our own little arcade in our living room!
During the Christmas holidays, we spent one whole day at your Aunt Dana and Uncle Andrew’s house. I enjoyed it very much.
That’s because I basically got the whole day off, just to sit back and enjoy old home videos that Uncle Andrew had transferred from VHS to our family’s own private YouTube channel that we were able to watch up on the flat screen TV.
There were so many classics, like the video I made Aunt Dana shoot exactly 23 years ago day, right before I got my haircut:
Meanwhile, you and your two cousins completely entertained yourselves the entire day, with all the toys they had in their playroom. For you, it was like getting to try out all the new toys in the toy store with your friends. And with it being a one story house, I never had to be watching to make sure you made it up or down the stairs okay.
You never even acted tired, so I didn’t have to put you down for a nap. And when you don’t have to take a nap, it’s one less thing for me to have to do.
You got to play. I got to rest. A good time was had by all.
Looking back, I realize now that I’ve actually always been a side hustler; even in high school and college. Earlier today, I published an article declaring that my 5 SEO side hustles all made me a minimum of $1,000 each in 2018. But that mentality has been a part of me, undeniably, since at least when I was a teenager in high school. (See picture above.)
Here on the first day of 2019, I am learning a little bit more about myself. The fact that I have 5 side hustles as a 37 year-old man makes perfect sense, considering my scheming ways back to when I was a teenager.
When I started high school, I couldn’t help that notice that chewing gum was high in demand in the halls of my high school. It just so happened that it was weekly tradition that I would accompany my mom in buying groceries. I noticed that I could buy a multi-pack of Wrigley’s gum at nearly a wholesale price for $1.25; which contained 10 packs of gum (each of which contained 5 sticks of gum), then I could sell each pack for just a quarter. By the time I sold the 10 packs, when I could easily do in a 10 minute break, I had made $2.50. In other words, I was making 100% profit!
It didn’t took long before I became known as “the gum dealer.”
This was great for me. I got to social with all the different groups of friends, and met new ones, by offering them the best deal on chewing gum during each of our two breaks each day during high school.
It was also during high school that I began making my own videos, on VHS. Not only did I direct a horror movie, called “Frosty Bites”…
Then when I moved into my college dorm, Dorm 15 at Liberty University, I took my gum dealer experience and opened up my own convenience store, using two micro fridges, and buying all my products for wholesale price at WalMart.
I sold soda, Little Debbie snack cakes, Ramen noodles, Hot Pockets, and frozen burritos. I even let my customers heat up their food in my microwave, so they could hang out with me while their food was preparing. I appropriately named my store, The Freshman 15.
Those profits went to financing my mission trips to Thailand in the summers of 2003 and 2004, where I was a 4th grade teacher specializing in ESL…
then teaching conversation English to high school students and adults.
Some things just never change. I am and always have been a side hustler. This is simply part of my identity.
For me, this picture of you perfectly captures who you are now, at age 8.
It was our first morning out on the beach last week in Destin to celebrate your birthday. The beach was covered in sea cucumbers, most of them appearing to still be alive, but barely.
I suggested that you throw as many as you could back into the sea.
Fortunately, you had your trusty shovel with you, which served as the perfecting launching pad.
While I’m not sure how many lives you saved that morning, I do know that the ones you threw back definitely stood a better chance of survival, had you not come along to rescue them.
I think it’s really cool how in this picture, not only is the landscape beautiful in a way not typically associated with Florida, but how you can see the sea cucumber flying through the air as the immediate result of your throw, still in motion.
This is a memory that I will always associate with your 8th birthday.
