A Few Things You Should Know About Me

I like knowing things.

I read all the time. Always have my nose buried in something. It used to be books but these days an iPad will work. I have an insatiable appetite for various magazines but I also read all kinds of newspapers everyday. The one I read the most? The New York Times.

I wasn't born in New York (that would be in San Antonio, Texas) but I consider myself a New Yorker. I lived there for over twenty years and that's the place I call home. I'm a Yankees fan, my twins wear Derek Jeter jerseys. My brother gives me a hard way to go since I went to junior high, high school, and college in Maryland. He thinks I should be an Orioles fan. I could say to let me know the next time the Os are in the World Series but instead I always remind him that I lived longer in New York than I did in Maryland.

I have a good memory.

Photographic almost. I'm terrible with names, I can forget one right after I've heard it but I can tell you what you were wearing, what we ate, where we were, what you said, on the day we met, 30 years ago.

I like trivia.

I always say I'm a vat of useless knowledge. I can tell you things about things that even I don't know why I know them. I know a little sumpin' sumpin' about gosh near everything. They say when you get older, there's so much stuff in your brain that it's hard to remember to get out of the rain. If that's true...

Let's hope I'm never caught in the rain.

I always was a pretty good athlete.

When I was younger I gravitated more towards baseball and basketball. Pitching, hitting, dribbling and shooting. Rebounding? Not so much. I could play football but football hurt. I'm a lover not a fighter. Plus they wanted to make me a lineman. I wanted to play running back.

I worked at a golf course when I was a teenager. It was there I learned to play golf. When I had my stroke my wife said," I bet you can't wait until you get back on the golf course." It was then I told her I didn't like playing golf before my stroke.

I like being a dad.

I have one daughter, a step-daughter, and twin sons. Can you say circus? I think you can. The boys are twelve. My friend Tony Mirante always says, "Little kids, little problems. Big kids, big problems." Griffin has been putting on his underwear backwards, for like forever. I always have to have him turn them around. Miles thinks donuts and video games are the bomb. They both forget to clean their room and to put on deodorant. And getting them to read during summer break? Let's just say it's not easy.

On to big kids, big problems...

Both my daughter and step-daughter have discovered boys. In turn, the guys have discovered them. Now when I was a boy, that wasn't an issue. Guess what? As a dad? It's an issue. Plus you find out the hard way what we practiced when we were younger. That is to pay no attention to parental advice.

We didn't.

It's different now that you're the parent.

Speaking of parents, my father, who I love to pieces, is 86 years old. His memory is not what it once was. And since I repeat everything, every time I tell him the same story, it's as if he's hearing it for the first time.

It's a match made in heaven.

One last thing.

I've known my wife for forty years. She still makes me bite my knuckle. When I met her it was the old Tom Sawyer/Becky Thatcher thing. Still is. Bless her for putting up with me. That Tom Petty song, the one that starts, "She's a good girl, loves her Mama, loves Jesus, and America, too..." always reminds me of her.

She is a good girl. Loves her Mother. Great mom, great wife.

And those are a few things you should know about me.




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