Monday Meme: My Firsts

I'm lifting this from Mark's blog: My Firsts

1. Who was your first prom date?
Uff - great one to start on. Her name was Jennifer, I met her at Music Camp, and she was everything Allyson Hannigan was NOT in American Pie. Wow, what a disaster. I spent all day cleaning up my dad's new pickup, and the first thing she said was "it smells like pigs." (he'd only had it for a month or so - that's some nose, huh?). The night just got worse from there. Both my junior and senior proms were terrible nights - maybe we could file that under "first experiences of abject humiliation?"

2. Who was your first roommate?
Not counting my brother, my first roommate was a guy named Brady at Music Camp. A great friend throughout my sophomore, junior & senior years of high school. I can't remember my first college roommate's name, but he was cool - we were both smokers and he had that giant poster of marching hammers from "The Wall" above his bed.

3. What alcoholic beverage did you first drink?
Not counting the occasional beer I snuck out of my parents' fridge, my first alcoholic beverage was a mixer of Seven-Up and Bubble Gum Schnapps. No, I wasn't at a sorority party - it was all my friend Aron could scare up before the Valentine's Day dance my senior year of high school.

4. What was your first job?
Box taper at Big Red, the egg packaging plant just outside of my hometown. Run the box through the taping machine, stack the box on a pallet: sixty cases to a pallet, thirty dozen eggs to a case. At least I didn't have to work in the chicken houses like my brother.

5. What was your first car?
A 1977 Buick LeSabre. Man, I loved that car. 350 V8 with a 4-barrel carbuerator - smooth sailor. I had a tape deck & everything!

6. When did you go to your first funeral?
I remember going to my Great-Grandma Spangler's funeral when I was 4 or so, I think. The first funeral I remember really well was my Grandpa Janke's funeral; I was 12, had just placed second in the county spelling bee, and the pastor told me that Grandpa had said he was very proud of me. That was a heck of a thing for a pastor to remember; he was a good guy.

7. Who was your first grade teacher?
Mrs. Sharpe. At the time I thought she was pretty mean, but by the time I graduated from high school I liked her quite a bit. She was a good teacher.

8. Where did you go on your first ride on an airplane?
When I was 14 my family drove from Nebraska to Seattle to visit my Aunt Phyllis & cousin Karen, stopping at Yellowstone and a number of other spots along the way. My Grandma & Grandpa Johnson flew out to Seattle, then they drove our car back & we flew home. Phyllis worked for Northwest Airlines at the time, so she was able to get some pretty cheap tickets for all of us, though I imagine we probably flew stand-by. I remember we connected from Seattle to Omaha through Las Vegas, and there were slot machines in the airport. Dad got to go play but we didn't. No fair!

9. When you snuck out of your house for the first time, who was it with?
Considering we lived three miles out of town, we didn't really sneak out of the house with anyone. I did sneak out once when I was really in trouble with my folks. I climbed a tree & hid up there, twenty feet off the ground, while my dad came looking for me. Stayed up there for about an hour or so, then came back to the house & took my medicine.

10. Where was your first sleepover?
My friend Anthony's house, about a mile away from our farm. During kindergarten & first grade, it seemed like every Friday one of us slept over with the other; we watched "The Dukes of Hazzard" Friday night & played football all day Saturday with our little brothers. Good times.

11. Who is the first person you talk to in the morning?
My daughter, though the conversation is generally one-sided.

12. Whose wedding were you in the first time?
I was the ring-bearer for my Uncle Ken's wedding when I was five. I remember the tuxedo shirt had ruffles and it didn't fit right; the photographer commented on my pants being really baggy and she was really mean. But my Aunt Arta's little sister was the flower girl and I remember thinking she was really cute.

13. What is the first thing you do in the morning?
Try to navigate our narrow, steep stairs to get my daughter without falling on my head. Then I usually make coffee. Though I'm now a morning person, I still don't wake up quickly.

14. What was the first concert you ever went to?
Amy Grant - the "Unguarded" tour. 4th grade. How sad is it that I thought an Amy Grant concert was REALLY LOUD?

15. First tattoo or piercing?
I made a deal with myself that I could get a tattoo for every marathon I finished. Unfortunately, I did not make that deal with Beloved. I'll keep you posted. I suppose you could say my first piercing was when I ran my foot into a pitchfork in a feed trough while chasing pigs when I was 13.

16. First celebrity crush?
Hmmm - first that I can remember was Joanne Whalley-Kilmer in Willow. I've always been a sucker for redheads.

17. First crush?
Kelly E. Redhead. Our kindergarten teacher actually called our parents and warned them that we were spending way too much time together. I have a picture in my scrapbook of the two of us holding hands, leading the Halloween parade. I told my family that I was going to marry Kelly and we would have six kids. Beloved just smiles when that story comes up.

18. First TRUE love?
Wow - I really thought I was in love with Kelly. First time I went ass-over-teakettle in love was probably Jody when I was a sophomore in college. What a horror story that one turned out to be - by the time it was all over I could have probably been arrested for stalking. Not pretty at all: I nearly lost a couple of dear friends during the blowback after the breakup.

19. When was your first detention?
Sixth grade. How classic is this - we were making spitwads. I flicked one that landed on Kristen M's desk and she promptly ratted me out. That wasn't quite as dumb as the boys who stole those big silver thumbtacks from the same teacher, stuck them into the soles of their shoes and scraped their way up and down the tile floors of our school hallways. I mean, hello?

20. What is the first big trip you remember taking?
I remember taking a trip to Denver to visit my Aunt Lois, Uncle Gordy & cousin Joe when I was around 12 or so. We had gone to see them in Des Moines several times when I was younger, but never for more than two days or so. We were in Denver for a week, long enough for me to get hurt riding horses at the home of some of my dad's distant family and spend the rest of the trip in a splint on my right arm with busted glasses. I also got lost in Casa Bonita, this huge Mexican restaurant in Denver. But we got to go to Garden of the Gods park, which I thought was the COOLEST place ever - we climbed all over the place out there.