The Time I Took a Giant, Inflatable Banana on a Tour of Honea Path

Hahahahaha...good times.



So, I'm a pretty big reality TV buff. I used to be more so than I am now, but I still enjoy my Thursday evening Survivor and my Sunday night Amazing Race. I used to be a very active poster on RealityTVWorld.com's forums. They had an off-topic forum that got to be very addicting.

One time, someone posted about a six foot-long hard plastic banana there at her work. She noted how annoying it was and how she wanted to get rid of it. We suggested she steal it. Well, from that, it turned into a ploy to not only steal it, but to send it to other posters around the country.

Yeah. A banana tour.

Well, she ended up not stealing the banana because 1) it would be wrong, and 2) shipping a hard plastic banana would be expensive, and since we had some users in Canada, we didn't know how customs would take to that. :P

But that didn't stop us.

Someone found an inflatable Chiquita banana online and bought it. From there, we had sign-ups to get this banana, who we named Bruiser. This banana went everywhere. I had dinner with the banana once in Atlanta with some other posters. It went to Canada. East Coast. West Coast. No Coast. Everywhere it went, people would sign the banana and take pictures with it as it saw different sights.




And then, in January 2005, it came to be my turn. Bruiser came in the mail to me. I was so excited! I knew I had to give it the Honea Path experience! The rest is best told in pictures, so go here to see the pictures that I took with Bruiser!

Awesome. :D

The Time I Almost Won the School Spelling Bee in 3rd Grade

I have always been a good speller. I am a grammar/syntax nazi, and I cringe when I see a misplaced apostrophe or when people talk about how they were "effected" by something. And now, with spell check, Americans are even lazier when it comes to spelling. But, I grew up in a time with no spell check. (Ha, that makes me seem old.) As to why I'm interested in it, I don't know, but I am. As I went through grade school, I remember having a book that supposedly was good practice for the National Spelling Bee. (I wondered why the winning word one year was "luge." I mean, really? Luge? I could spell that when I was five. :P)

In school, I was always a year or two younger than everyone else in my class because I skipped kindergarten. So, when I got to Gantt Elementary (3rd and 4th grade) in 1992, I was only six, turning seven a couple of weeks into school. At some point in the year, whenever they started the spelling bees, I must've won the class bee and the grade bee. (I have vague memories of those.) What I do remember is the school spelling bee, though.

It was me and the 4th grader Jana. They started us out easy with 3rd and 4th grade words. We breezed through those easily. On to 5th and 6th grade words. No problem. Then, we get to 7th and 8th grade words. A formidable opponent. (Keep in mind that I was seven.) I really don't remember spelling any words in this bee except this one: "contagious." They said it, I imagined it in my head, and I began to spell.

"C-O-N-T-A-G-E-O-U-S."

Bah! I was done. Jana won after spelling my word and then her winning word. (I think that's how it went, anyway.) But oh well, I did pretty good, I guess you could say. :)

I always had a goal to win the school spelling or geography bee. I got close so many times, and had a lot of shining moments. I remember spelling "connoisseur" correctly in the 6th grade class bee (though I don't remember the outcome of that one). I also had not so great moments, such as in the 8th grade class bee, when I, a music person, misspelled "rhythm," leaving out the first h.

I remember making it to the school bee one time in middle school, and it turned out to be the quickest bee ever, as three of the four of us were eliminated in the first round. I had the word "achievement." I began to spell, "A-C-H..." I stopped and thought for so long, "I-E, or E-I?" I went over it again and again in my head. I'm sure I repeated "A-C-H" several times before making my final attempt. I decided on the way I thought it was, and I spelled it, flustered from all the thought I had put into it.

"A-C-H-I-E-V-E-M-E-N-T-S."

The proctor, noting my difficulty with the "I-E," told me that I had guessed that part correctly, but because I had added an s to the end, I was disqualified. :(

So, needless to say, I never won the school spelling bee. As to my adventures in the geography bees, you'll just have to wait until I tell that story.

The Time I Directed the Tiger Band at the Magic Kingdom

Wow, what an experience.

I have always loved music. My mom raised me on the piano, and my dad's being a music minister really gave me an early love for this art. I joined the band in 6th grade (1995-1996) on the trumpet, then switched to clarinet in the 7th grade. In the 8th grade, I joined the high school marching band. It was so much fun...and hard work...and stress. But fun, too. I marched clarinet in 8th grade, played xylophone in the pit in 9th grade, then played clarinet 10th-12th.

I always had a desire to be the drum major. I remember being on a band bus one time and passing a car with a Tiger Band bumper sticker. I think it was the sister of one of our band members (perhaps our own drum major), and she was a drum major there at Clemson. I thought to myself, "Wow, how cool would it be to be drum major at Clemson?" I was going to try out in the 11th grade, but I thought I would be going to Alaska on a cruise that season, so I decided it wouldn't be fair if I tried out and got the position, then had to take a week off. (I ended up not going on the cruise because of AP US History's work load...and I failed that exam at the end of the year still.) (So, really, I should've tried out.)

When 12th grade came, I thought we had a drum major, but she ended up quitting the band for some reason, so the position became available to one of us. Well that was convenient. The directors knew my desire and my capability. They also knew of my abilities on the field, and in a band of 40 horns, taking out the woodwind section leader and putting him on the podium would cause the horn line to take a hit, especially when the woodwinds had a soli at one part in the show.

They talked me out of it. It was mine for the taking. I could have said yes. But they talked me out of it.

We did compromise, though. I would still get to salute with the selected drum major Sharika (another clarinetist who became one of my new good friends that year) at the beginning of the show, I would help direct the music in the stands, and I would be the concert master for the wind ensemble, getting to direct a piece at that concert, too.

So, no drum major in high school for me. I did enjoy directing in the stands and directing an amazing arrangement of "Shenandoah" in the spring concert with the wind ensemble.

Now, on to Clemson, where I was a member of Tiger Band all four of my years there. I knew I wanted to try to be drum major, but my lack of "official" experience in high school would probably be at my disadvantage.

Christina, one of my best friends who I met freshman year, also had the desire to be drum major. She had been drum major at her high school in Texas and was now in the clarinet section with me. We were such nerds! We directed everything while we were walking down the sidewalks at Clemson. My friends sometimes would hold our arms so we wouldn't conduct. (What? How couldn't you direct "Tiger Rag" when you heard it?)

At the end of freshman year, we tried out. We were the only two rising sophomores trying out, and we were the only two who didn't make the cut to Round 2 (directing Tiger Band for their vote). Expected, though, because we were still young.

Sophomore year came and went, and Christina and I tried out again. This time, we made it to Round 2! I was so excited! I had never gotten to direct a band like Tiger Band before! And to top it off, the song we got to direct was "El Toro Caliente," which was an awesome Spanish song that we had marched to earlier that year. It was amazing! Unfortunately, most of the drum majors were returning, and they only had one spot to fill, and it didn't go to Christina or me.

One more try. Junior year came and went. No mention of drum major tryouts. There had been a fiasco where there were five drum majors that year, which was way too many, so we figured our band director Dr. Spede just needed time to figure out what to do.

Over the summer before our senior year, we got word that tryouts would be as soon as we got there. I filled out my application, passed the initial cut with Dr. Spede, and moved on to the final round. I think there were six or eight of us, and we knew only three would make it. I got to go first. Joy. I was so nervous, but I got up there and directed my heart out. I felt good. But I had to wait. I think it was a Wednesday, so I had to go to church...no checking my e-mail until I got back. That had to have been the longest ride back from church ever. I got back, opened my e-mail hoping for the best, but expecting the worst...

I had made it.

No, really. I made it.

I was going to be a drum major for Tiger Band.

I could hardly contain myself. I called everyone. Wow.

So, I showed up to my next practice with a whistle as my instrument. All of a sudden, I wasn't a nobody in the band. Try going from being in the back of the field with the clarinets and piccolos to the front on the podium, right under the microscope of the director. Talk about a change of attention levels. I was now being watched at all times. I couldn't screw up. And that was stressful. I knew I was able, but I also knew I had missed out by not being drum major in high school. But I handled it.

Being drum major that year was a blast. I loved getting to direct the band...such an awesome experience. I learned a lot about conducting. It was a good thing, even though I was frustrated and felt like a failure at times and didn't want to direct. (It seems I could never get the tempos straight, especially in the stands.)

At the end of football season my senior year, the Tigers got to go to the Champs Sports Bowl in Orlando, the same place where we went our freshman year. We got there, went to the game, then did some gigs around town, including Universal Studios and Disney World. (Hang around for a story for what went down at Universal Studios at the Fear Factor Live show...)

The last time I ever got to direct our fight song "Tiger Rag" was at the Magic Kingdom. The last memory I have was marching backwards in the parade, directing my heart out, with Cinderella's castle in the background. It was a very surreal last memory, and it's one I'll cherish forever.

Go Tigers. :)

The Time I Tried Paddling to Miami from Cuba

This one ranks fairly high up on my Stupidest Things I've Done List. Probably #3.

So, when I went to Cuba back in March of this year (2008), we got to spend part of Easter Sunday at the beach. It was a beautiful day, and very crowded! The water was crystal clear, and the beach was sandy white. Good times!


Pastor Jerry had already gotten mad at Braden and me for swimming way too far out to a "sandbar," which was actually just a spot of water that looked shallower. Yeah, that was dumb.

But I'm glad he missed this part. (It's okay. He knows about it now.)

So, there were lots of people on paddle boats out in the water. I thought it would be fun to rent one, so I simply asked some Cubans as they went by where we could rent one. They said something really fast in Spanish, gave me their hand, and invited me onto their boat.

Of course, I said yes. The other people from my church just looked and laughed, having no idea really what was going on. (As it turned out, neither did I.) I thought they were just inviting me on so I could jump off the side or slide down the slide in the back. As I tried, they were like, "No, no, sit down." I thought to myself, "Okay, they just think it's too shallow for me to jump."

So, I sat down, and they kept paddling farther out. They started speaking some unintelligible Spanish at me. They knew I spoke Spanish, but they were just using so much slang that I couldn't understand. They started using hand motions, and at that point, I realized they were being vulgar. Based on my responses, I think I left them with the feeling that I was gay. :P

And at some point, they offered me a beer. Excellent. Nothing better than drunk, vulgar Cubans on a paddle boat. I refused, saying I didn't drink. They kept insisting, almost putting the can onto my lips. Awkward? Yes.

There were a couple of guys on there and a couple of girls. One of the girls noted that I was very uncomfortable and tried to get the guys off of my case. She offered me juice and a Coke, but I didn't want anything from these guys.

They kept paddling around, far from shore, and at some point, they said something along the lines of, "Why not just paddle all the way to Miami?" Of course I agreed, because that was just awesome. (We didn't try, really, but it makes for a good title of a post.)

I insisted that I needed to get back, that they needed to paddle me closer. They said okay, but as they went closer to shore, they would do something and end up going back farther away. I was like, "No, really, my friends are waiting for me." (Who knows what they actually were thinking?)

Eventually, after much discomfort and examining my options, I eventually was just like, "Chao," and I jumped off the boat. I probably swam about as far as I did with Braden swimming to the sandbar. No idea how far it was, but it was no short trek. No life jacket. No lifeguard. But at least no more drunk Cubans.

Wow, that was a dumb idea.

The Time I Had a Japanese Pen Pal

So, I'm a language nerd. I love learning new languages. Spanish was my major, and obviously I have spent a lot of time with that language; however, at some form or another, I have attempted to learn French, Italian, German, and Japanese. I have a little exposure to Portuguese, Wolof, and Latin as well.

I have never taken a Japanese course in my life, but at one point, I thought it was going to be my minor, back when I was going to be a Computer Science major. My dream job was to be a translator for video games coming from Japan to America. I used to sit at my computer and play Pokémon Gold and Silver, months before it was in America, and try to translate the Japanese script. I had (and still have) books and books on Japanese grammar and vocabulary. I still can read one of the three alphabets fairly well. Writing is difficult. About the only speaking I can do are the basic greetings, "cat," "Who's your daddy?" and the song "Head, Shoulders, Knees, and Toes." (I learned that last thing from VBS years and years ago.)

I did all of this learning on my own. I guess you could say I've always been fairly self-motivated. I just thought it was really fun learning it all. Japanese is so different, so backwards.

To help me improve (and just to be cool), I got a Japanese pen pal. (I'm going to guess all of this happened about the year 2000 or so.) I believe her name was Miho Uchida. We would write letters back and forth between the US and Japan. She would write in English, and I would write in Japanese. She always said I wrote very well. It was definitely a challenge because sentence structure and word order in Japanese is very different. Example: "Who's your daddy?" becomes "You (word signifying possession) Daddy (word marking the end of the subject) Who Is (word signifying a question)." Or, in Japanese, "Anata no chichi wa dare desu ka." I would put it in script, but I believe the romaji (use of the Latin alphabet) will just have to do.

So yeah, we wrote back and forth (like actual snail mail letters) for a few months, and then we just stopped. I stopped learning Japanese by myself, and I moved on. I still have an interest in it, though. Who knows? Maybe I'll try again one day? Maybe I'll move on to Arabic? There's a whole world out there...

The Time I Realized Nobody Is Perfect

Sometimes, Christians have the hardest time being real people. We worship a perfect God, and as such, we feel it is our responsibility to be perfect here on earth. While it is true that God calls us to be holy and set apart (and that includes being sinless), the fact of the matter remains that "[a]ll have sinned and fall short of the glory of God" (Romans 3.23).

We all sin. We all need the grace provided by Jesus Christ.

I think we're good at recognizing that we ourselves sin, but where we fall short is recognizing that the people around us also sin. We sometimes feel that the people around us are perfect, and as such, we put up a mask of perfection so as to feel like we're just as good as our neighbors. We forget that they sin, too, and that it's okay to not be perfect, to be real, around them. I believe it's a ploy from Satan to keep us from being broken people in need of grace.

I fell into that trap for so long. I had a few struggles deep within that I never let anyone know about. They were things that were eating me alive deep down inside, but I felt like I had to portray that I had everything together, especially because my parents both worked in the music ministry at church. There was nothing I could do except pray, fight with my own strength, and hope it got better. And while it is true that God gave me strength, I neglected to draw from the strength God gives us through other people. And until you draw from that strength, you have no idea how helpful it is.

I now have four summers under my belt working at the Christian youth camp called Summersalt. I have grown to love Summersalt so much because of the staff that I work with. They are people that strive to follow God with their entire being, and they have really helped push me to a deeper relationship with Christ.

The first summer I worked there (2005), we all got together (like usual) in March for a weekend of planning. It was a time filled with laughter, tears, prayer, song, and good discussion. At one point, one of the leaders asked us to do something that brought about a discussion that has had a profound impact on my life. She said that students would be coming to us during the summer with so many struggles, and that in order to best be of service to them, she suggested we talk about the struggles we have or have had in our own lives.

What followed shocked me, surprised me, made me uncomfortable, made me think, and really made me chew on and wrestle with things about myself. There in that room, we had 25 people who are often viewed as "super-Christians" since we work at a church camp. And yet, a lot of these "super-Christians" were talking about their past experiences with (among other things) sex, drugs, and alcohol...you know, the sins we like to attribute to "those people," those people who aren't "good Christians."

I guess even I (a staffer myself) had come to view other staffers as people on a pedestal who had it all together.

I never opened my mouth during that discussion. I knew of my own personal struggles, but I just couldn't humble myself bring myself down from my own pedestal that I created. I realized, however, that I wasn't judging the other staffers for their downfalls, but I respected them even more for having the courage to be real. After the retreat, I wrote an e-mail to the staff referencing that discussion, and letting them know that I had come to realize that my biggest struggle was letting others know what I'm struggling with! That was the first step in a process that helped lead me to freedom.

So, I realized then that nobody is perfect, but let me finish out my story.

The retreat was in March. In November, I finally pulled my mask of perfection off. I just couldn't take hiding anymore. I finally risked humiliation and just let it all go. Because I'm not bold enough to say something like that in person to someone, I just blogged about it. (I've got it if you care to read it.) In it, I revealed the most shameful parts of me that had been tearing me up. Nobody had known until that point except me, and I just needed to make it known. (Some criticized me for making public that sort of private information, and now that I'm working for a public school, I have taken that, along with other very personal posts, offline. At the time, however, I needed to make it available to all because I felt like I had been hiding from everyone.) (But, like I said, I've got all those posts archived, and I would be glad to share them if you'd like.)

I wrote it all out, hit "Publish Post," and immediately went to bed, dreading what would be waiting for me the next morning. Would my friends have rejected me? Would I have an inbox of hate letters?

Not at all. Just the opposite, in fact.

What I found was the Body of Christ. Friends supporting me, thanking me for being open and honest. Promises to pray for me. Encouragement that I wasn't alone. In the days that followed, my closest friends came to me and revealed their struggles to me. It was a time of mutual confession and healing. Surprisingly enough, I found that one of my best friends with the exact same things as I was. I had no idea, nor would I ever have guessed. But it gave me so much comfort.

From that point on, I had no shame. I recognized God's grace that covers over any and all of my sins. I recognized that God gave us other people for a reason. "It is not good for man to be alone," said God in Genesis...and He ain't lying! I recognized that we are weak so that He can be strong.

The next spring, I had the opportunity to preach at my church on Youth Sunday. My topic was "Stained Glass Masquerade," named after a Casting Crowns song which I will post once I stop typing. I basically talked about all that I've just said--how we love to act perfect and wear that mask, but it's only in taking the mask off that we can find healing. I hope I encouraged others to be bold because I would love others to experience the freedom that God gave me the day that I unmasked.

And maybe you would like to unmask. Feel free to contact me if you need to talk. Find one of your friends. Find your pastor. Find one of your parents or your spouse. Just be straight up with someone. I won't judge you, and neither should anyone else, because we're all messed up. We all need God's grace desperately.

(This last line, which I also used in my sermon, is blatantly stolen from Nichole Nordeman's album notes for Brave.)

"Barbra Streisand nailed it. People do need people. And God knew that."

And now, Casting Crowns's "Stained Glass Masquerade."

Is there anyone that fails
Is there anyone that falls
Am I the only one in church today feelin' so small

Cause when I take a look around
Everybody seems so strong
I know they'll soon discover
That I don't belong

So I tuck it all away, like everything's okay
If I make them all believe it, maybe I'll believe it too
So with a painted grin, I play the part again
So everyone will see me the way that I see them

Are we happy plastic people
Under shiny plastic steeples
With walls around our weakness
And smiles to hide our pain

But if the invitation's open
To every heart that has been broken
Maybe then we close the curtain
On our stained glass masquerade

Is there anyone who's been there
Are there any hands to raise
Am I the only one who's traded
In the altar for a stage

The performance is convincing
And we know every line by heart
Only when no one is watching
Can we really fall apart

But would it set me free
If I dared to let you see
The truth behind the person
That you imagine me to be

Would your arms be open
Or would you walk away
Would the love of Jesus
Be enough to make you stay

The Time I Got Baptized

I have the best family ever. Seriously. My parents are both Christians and raised my brother and I to be Christian men of God. They taught me of God's love and of Christ's death and resurrection as we grew.

I remember as a kid (about age 8 or 9ish) thinking that I needed to ask Jesus into my heart. (Looking back, I may have been doing it because it was the "right" thing to do...because that's what we were "supposed" to do--become Christians.) I remember numerous nights in bed asking God if I could be a Christian. I asked more than once probably just to make sure God heard me. :) I didn't really talk to anyone about it until my brother spoke up sometime in late 1994 about his becoming a Christian. My mom and dad then talked to us both, and I told them that I had asked Jesus in my heart, too (as to not be outdone by my little brother :P).

My parents then arranged when my brother and I were to be good Baptists and "walk the aisle." I remember praying with mama and Luke and Pastor Shull as my dad led the music at First Baptist Church of Honea Path. Later that day, mama told me to call my grandparents to tell them I had made my "profession of faith." I didn't have the slightest clue what that meant, but I did, because apparently it was something exciting. :) Of course, my grandparents were overjoyed.

We then planned our baptism. Mama said that daddy was going to baptize Luke and I. For some reason, I didn't want daddy to do it because it broke protocol. (Hey, I had only seen the pastor baptizing people, not the minister of music! Give me a break! :P) But, mama changed my mind for me. Luke and I were both baptized by our father on Sunday, Christmas Day, 1994.

Appendix: As many experience, my baptism and my relationship with Christ didn't gain meaning until a few years later in life. I was in 5th grade at the time, but it wasn't until my senior year that I really started consciously devoting my life to Christ, but I still praise Him for drawing me to Himself even as a youngster so that I might hear of His love throughout my life. :)