Memory Loss

I don’t remember significant portions of my life. Not because of any kind of substance abuse or anything, but because I was only physically present. I chose not to look around. My lack of music knowledge has me playing catch up nowadays. I can’t really participate whenever my friends debate whether David Lee Roth or Sammy Hagar was the better lead vocalist for Van Halen. When we talk about movies, oftentimes I get, “YOU HAVEN’T SEEN (insert movie here)?” It puts me behind the times in Animal House and Caddyshack conversations. I just didn’t get out much growing up. I guess I watched too much TV or played too much Nintendo as a kid.

So my cultural knowledge is rudimentary at best.

I also don’t remember much of what happened to me when I was in college at Texas Tech, from 1993-97. Part of it was not looking around much, though I did manage to make friends, which helped. But I also worked my tail off. I guess I was young and idealistic and trying to get somewhere, and not stopping to smell the roses. Part of the work involved the early-morning shift at the NBC-TV affiliate in Lubbock. My first year, I woke up at 3 am to make a 4-8 shift, where I was the associate producer (video editor) of Daybreak 11, which started at 6 am.

My second year, I advanced to producer of Daybreak (probably because nobody else was crazy enough to do it). This meant waking up at 1:45 am to make a 3 am shift. And it seemed someone was always getting home and slamming their car door shut in the parking lot about 30 minutes before my alarm would go off. And I was a full-time employee working a split shift-- after the morning show ended at 7, nothing happened at the TV station until the morning news meeting at 9 and the noon news, which I either produced or cut video for. My workday typically ended around 12:45 pm. So it was rough.

Both years, I’d go to bed about 6:30 pm, so my contact with the outside world was limited to recorded versions ER (before it got too depressing) and Touched By an Angel (it was a phase). I knew the Colorado Avalanche won the Stanley Cup in 1997 only when I saw the highlights on the morning news feed, when Uwe Krupp scored to beat John Vanbiesbrouck of the Florida Panthers. Had to get to bed and had to get to work. And you know what a playoff hockey geek I am.

The TV job was one of three I had at the time—I was also a weekend board operator at the talk radio station. Running commercials for ESPN Radio, Texas Rangers baseball, World Champion (at the time) Houston Rockets basketball, and the coast to coast and border to border Dallas Cowboys radio network.

And I also worked as an engineer for a high school sports network on Friday nights. Sometimes they were home games, other times we’d head to Plainview, Canyon or Amarillo.

So I worked a lot of long hours in those days. Drew and Heather, who stopped by to see us last summer, were an item during this time, and I really had no recollection of what their relationship was like, since I was gone most of the time. I had to have them tell me about those years—1995 through 1998, since I was seldom around. And if I was, I was dazed and confused. Most of the time, I was at work or at school. And half conscious due to a lack of sleep.

Of course, there are things I’d do differently if I had the chance to do them over, but I'd rather not look back, and just prefer to take a look around every now and then, and remember that it’s OK to like things that everyone else likes. Maybe they’re right—maybe it’s fun.

So I’m trying to read a little more, write a little more, and perhaps put myself out there a little more. You know—look around a little bit.