The Day I Learned About Racism

My youngest brother Dan, though I love him to death, hasn't always been the brightest crayon in the box. Not to say that he's dumb, but he's a school of hard knocks kinda kid. It seems to me that things that would normally come easy to a person like myself, just don't dawn on him until it's too late.

For instance, at one point in his life Dan decided he wanted to be "Black". I don't mean it as a slur or anything, it's how he defined his want to be a rapper, a gansta and a playa. He wanted the whole shebang.

To this day I'm not sure what is so appealing to white, middle class children about the whole black suburban culture. Dan grew up with me in a tourist town in the middle of northern Michigan. I mean, you really can't get much more removed from the urban demographic than the open waters of Houghton Lake. But I digress:

One day Dan and my middle brother Andrew were traveling through Lansing. I don't know if Dan had been watching too much MTV's "Cribs" or if he had just gotten off a binge of BET, but Dan had learned some new lingo.

Andrew had stopped at a red light somewhere downtown, a group of young, thuggish, African American men were standing at the same street corner. Dan, out of complete ignorance, rolled down his window, leaned out and screamed "WHAT'S UP My N***AZ?!" (A claim to my innocence... I'm not sure how to spell N***az, or that it's even a word people use...)

Now, Dan had no idea of the implications of what he had just said, my brother Andrew on the other hand, did. Andrew blew through the red light and took off like a shot, both making him break the law and look guilty of sharing Dan's racist attitude.

I guess the guys at the street corner were livid and shouted at my brothers till they were out of sight.

When Andrew and Dan got home the whole family got a lecture from my parents about what a racial slur is and how the words used in rap songs and on BET arn't ones we are allowed to say. Dad wasn't able to explain why, just that it's how the world works and we have to abide by it.

Dan never did become a rapper, but he did move to the city, maybe it's still in his blood?

The Day Of My First Date With Sara

It was just a few months after a big breakup (it took almost a month to convince my former girlfriend that we were, in fact, not an item anymore... but that's another story) when I met Sara for the first time. I remember it like it was yesterday...

(Cue the blurry flashback montage as my eyes begin to mist...)

I walked into the Radio Station that I worked at as an assistant to the Music Director and loudly declared my presence to the rest of the staff, "Hello everyone! I'm baaaaack!". As I walked around the corner to head to my office I was met with a new face, a blond girl with big, beautiful, blue eyes that met my own with a striking stare. My first words were something like "Oh my sweet, how lovely it is to meet you. Allow me now to sweep your off your feet and introduce you to your destiny!"

Actually, that would have been pretty smooth on my part and as anyone who knows me will contest, I'm about as smooth as extra chunky peanut butter. Really, my first words to the woman who would become my wife were "Who are you, I don't know you?". I know right? great way to start off a lifetime of love...

Which brings me to our first date. It was probably about two or so months later from the time we first met and we'd hung out a lot since then. When I finally asked her if she wanted to go to dinner with me sometime, I already knew she would say yes.

I was suave. I thought this thing through, I knew where we were going to eat, what I was going to wear and most importantly what kind of flower I was going to bring. Just to make sure I got a good one, I bought her a rose the day before our date. I would hate to have gotten to one of the stores in my home town, which was a hour away from the town she lived in, and found no good roses left. I also, for whatever reason, decided that the flower needed lots of sunshine so I left it in my car where it could blossom to it's full ripeness.

On my way out of town the day of the date I stopped by a fundraiser my mother was putting on out front of one of the grocery stores. It was a car wash to help fund the youth center she was trying to start for our town. I rolled up my jeans and grabbed a sponge and helped scrub down a dozen or so cars before I took my leave.

I was nervous. I don't get nervous very often and I don't like it. But I liked Sara a lot and wanted to make a good impression. I had butterflies in my stomach and I couldn't keep still.

Also, my feet itched.

I was probably a good 40 minuets down the road when I realized that my feet really itched, which progressed to a fiery sensation and a little swelling. It hit me then that I was having an allergic reaction to the car wash soap that they were using. It was awful, like walking on coals wearing shoes made out of jalapenos on the surface of the sun.

In a panic, I called Sara up and asked her if any of her roommates had any head & shoulders shampoo. I happened to know that particular kind of dandruff shampoo had couple different kinds of ammonia in it and I figured it might help ease my pain. Sara happened to have some.

When I got to her house I ran in a frenzy to the front door, I didn't even knock, I just flew inside. My feet were about ready to explode. I ran through the front door and into the living room where Sara was sitting patiently waiting for me. As I passed nonstop through the living room, I yelled something like "Hey you look nice" and I dashed into the bathroom to scrub my feet.

After a good scrub my feet began to feel better. I sat with her on the couch and went over what exactly had just happened and we had a good laugh about it. We also had a good laugh at the dry, wilted and dead rose that I had left in the car too long and murdered carelessly. I gave it to her anyways, and she actually still has it.

We went to her favorite Irish themed restaurant and honestly I can't remember what I ordered anymore, I just remember what it did to my insides.

We decided to go take a walk in the park. Now to truly understand the situation, you must first understand that "The Park" was actually a series of small parks all linked together throughout the course of the town she lived in. We started at one end and had probably made it a good half mile in before dinner hit me in a big way.

I had to go to the bathroom. I had to go now.

But instead of politely excusing myself I decided to play it cool. We sat on a bench by a fountain with a bear statue in the middle of it. I began to regale tales of my life and we sat there for a good 15-20 minutes before I began to sweat.

This was no ordinary sweat, this is the sweat of a man who knows he is about to die. It was the kind of sweat you break right before you jump out of an airplane, or when they tie the blindfold over your eyes before the firing squad comes in. I got panicky again.

Sara noticed and asked if I was OK, I said "Yeah I'm fine, I just need to use the bathroom". My delivery was as cool as a cucumber even if my panicked sweat gave away my desperation.

I spied a public restroom a couple hundred yards or so away and told her I'd be right back. It was an awkward walk there, one of those half-waddle half-sprints when you really got to go. I made it into the two stall bathroom and to my dismay there was no toilet paper in either stall, or sanitary seating arrangements, though I was willing to overlook that considering the situation at hand.

I left the bathroom nearly in tears, I wasn't sure what to do. How uncool of me to get diarrhea on my first date. I doubted if she's ever want to talk to me again. I made it back to Sara and I told her that we need to look for another bathroom. My intestines started to bind and my sweat glands opened the floodgates in protest to the prolonged evacuation of my bowels. I remember having to stop a couple of times to gather myself before taking on a stairway or steep hill.

There has only been a handful of times I have ever had to poop so bad in my entire life, though none of which were as painful.

Slowly, and eventually we made it to another bathroom. I ran inside and Sara says that the unwholesome noises that proceeded were enough to make her pity me. I was in there for what seemed like forever, in fact, the sun had almost set in the time that passed. I made it back to the car where Sara was waiting patiently for me.

She was so sweet.

I had dried my shirt a bit on the hand blower in the bathroom and mopped most of the sweaty moisture from my hair and back. The front passenger door to my car was open and Sara was smiling at me. Actually, it was more like snickering. I'm sure I looked like I had just ran a marathon uphill, against the wind and dragging a dead rhinoceros.

I leaned against the car and tried to play cool and that's when Sara decided she had enough. I'm not sure what exactly snapped in her brain at that moment, I do know that she had decided that if this relationship was to go any farther she needed to know everything about me and now.

She started drilling me with questions about my sins, my past relationships, and my theological standpoints. I was strictly questioned on what I had done, who I had done it with and what I was going to do about it. She was quite thorough too, I must have really been in the bathroom a long time for her to come up with so many questions.

She dug into my past so much that at one point I cried a bit. I was embarrassed to confess everything I'd ever done to a girl I was trying to impress. I was sure that this was it, we were finished and this was just going to be another story of a botched relationship in my life.

But on the contrary, Sara was relieved by my honesty and willingness to share. Apparently, I was just the kind of guy she was looking for and she asked about the next time we would get to see each other.

I should have guessed right there that any woman willing to sit through that kind of first date would be one worth marrying. And though this would be the last first date I would ever go on, it certainly goes down in infamy as the best first date I've ever had.

The day I first started writing my story

I’ve been really blessed to have a loud family. No one wonders if the Thompson Clan is in town when we get together, I mean people from the next town over swear they can hear a dull roar blowing over the trees when we start in. It’s not that we're shouting at each other (which we do) or that we’re hard of hearing (which we are) necessarily, we just love to laugh. The louder we laugh, the louder we shout and the harder the rafters of wherever we are start to shake. We've actually had other people leave restaurants because we were so noisy, which I would feel bad about if we weren't having such a good time.

We are a family that is full of joy and hot air, and boy, if that doesn't sum us up in a flash I don't know what would. We love to get together around a dinner table or in a living room somewhere and just tell stories.

Stories from our lives of times long ago.

Stories of what happened at school yesterday.

Stories of ways we've been blessed, or what God has been teaching us lately.

We share stories about pretty much anything and anyone, which is why I think I've got so many. I noticed a while ago that strange and interesting things happen in my life and the lives of those who are near me and I began to write them down. That is what this Blog is all about, documenting the crazy life I've been blessed with and sharing some of the awesome stories that I hope will get you and yours laughing as hard as the Thompsons when they get together.