Several years ago I went to a independent wrestling event with Dave, the Celt, and Mrs. Celt. The event was put on by MRW, a small federation from the St. Louis area. The wrestlers acted as their own ring crew and souvenir sales, they had a lot of energy, and put on a great show. As […]
MadMania
Faith, Books, and Stuff
Category: stories
A few years ago I’m sitting in my office on a July Monday morning catching up on email. Behind me I hear someone enter the stockroom and stop. “Dude.” It was Kaleb. I turned around, and Kaleb showed me how his weekend was, out on the Smithville Lake in an aluminum boat.
In 1997 I went with my friends The Celt, his wife (Mrs. Celt), Tony, and Stickler to my first rasslin’ event: WWF Monday Night Raw is War on October 6 in Kansas City, Missouri. The previous day had been pretty eventful, with the Kane and the Hell in a Cell match making their first appearances in St. […]
Spring 2002, a long time ago. I was out of work–me and everyone else but two people from my old job were laid off right before Christmas. I’m standing in downtown Kansas City. The photo is super-grainy because we are using a 1.2 megapixel Kodak I got from the aforementioned job. The camera was as […]
A few years ago my daughter, Ally, who was seven at the time, came back to my office. “Dad, I want you to tell me the truth,” she said seriously. It’s always scary when one of your kids says that. “OK,” I said. “There’s no Santa Claus, is there?” I took a deep breath and […]
Once, Heather and the girls went out of town for Thanksgiving; I was stuck at home because I had to work. But before Heather left, she made a chocolate cake. So I had cake for breakfast that first day. When I came home for lunch, I didn’t feel like cooking, so I had chocolate cake […]
n., a victory won at too great a cost too great to make it worthwhile. A long time ago my wife-to-be and I were heading back to our apartment from her parents’ house on a gravel road. I was driving, and Heather was nagging. She had quickly tired of my driving, and I had quickly […]
My favorite 4th of July memory happened the summer after I turned 12. We were over at the house of one of my Dad’s friends, a loud German guy named Bob. Bob lived in Kansas, and despite the state’s reputation for flatness, Bob lived on an amazingly steep hill. Both his front and back yards sloped […]
When I was 14 my dad came home with a fresh pineapple (or as fresh as you can get in Missouri). It was the first time I ever had fresh pineapple, and it was amazing. Between me, Dad, and my three brothers, it was too-soon devoured. But there was still plenty of pineapple core left, […]
One of my children used to have an imaginary friend, a rabbit named Hop-Hop Bunny, who had a brother named Hop-Hop. They were from Hop-Hop Land (I know you didn’t see that coming). We heard several Hop-Hop Bunny stories from the time our daughter was in preschool through first grade. One day we were working […]