Most people have, at one time or another, been faced with the question of what super power they would choose if presented with the opportunity. The most common answer seems to be that of flight. I’m not entirely sure why this answer is so prevalent, since I figured out the secret of human flight over two decades ago, when I was naught but a wee lad.

I know, a bold claim, but a claim founded in nothing less than the absolute truth. It’s incredibly simple, once you think about it; it’s a wonder nobody else has figured it out.

It came to me one day as I was running. What if I simply lifted my left leg off the ground and kept running with my right leg? After that, it’s simply a matter of lifting my right leg as well, and flight is achieved.

At least, flight is theoretically achieved. I still haven’t gotten the balance quite right. One of these days, though.

One of these days.

Let me preface the rest of this by saying that I’m not making excuses for my behavior or his, but I do want to paint a picture of this time in my life in order to provide a better context for this tale. That being said, I went through a period of a few years where I didn’t talk to my father. It started either in late 1996 or early 1997 (the most I can narrow it down is that school year, my last before high school), and if I recall correctly (which I’m probably not), lasted until after I had completed high school (my junior year).

That would put our reconnection somewhere around the year 2000 at the earliest, more likely in the 2001-2003 range.

The year leading up to…the incident…was not exactly the highlight of my life. In the summer of 1996, my parents divorced and my maternal grandmother died. I went into the eighth grade with drastic changes at home, and losing a person who meant more to me than words can ever properly convey. Needless to say, I was not what one could consider “well.” Looking back, though I thought I was doing fine at the time, I can see now that I was not handling events with any semblance of grace. I was unreasonably difficult to my mother (for which I carry a deep regret), reactionary to my father (for various reasons), and I didn’t care about school in the slightest.

It’s this last bit that sparked…the incident (oooh, dramatic!).

My father was a teacher at the magnet school I was attending (he still is). He pulled me out of my advanced algebra course and into his classroom during one of his planning periods in response to a notice he had received from one of my teachers (I forget which). Our conversation became heated, and I said and did some things that I am not proud of. However, both of us being of stubborn stock, neither of us would apologize for our behavior, and thus began years of silence between us.

When we finally reconnected, I discovered that he had remarried during our silence. His high-school sweetheart, Pam, was the lucky lady, and a mother of three; I had two step-sisters and a step-brother! I had met her and the youngest of her children sometime after my parents’ divorce, and had interacted with them on occasion (mostly while playing Hearts with my father’s duplex neighbor), but I never met (or I don’t remember meeting) the others.

Did I mention that by the time my father and I had reconnected, he was no longer married to Pam? That’s right, folks; for a year or two, unbeknownst to me, this only child had three step-siblings.

Crazy world, huh?

When I was but a wee lad, sometime before my tenth year of life (if I recall correctly), I got a bad case of poison oak. It was summer, and we were spending a few days up at the house in Coarsegold after a bit of an absence. During that absence, it seems that a large patch of poison oak had started coming through the gravel of the parking area. Daie Vargha (fun fact time: Daie is Farsi for uncle, but not just any uncle, specifically my maternal uncle; my paternal uncle, were he not a hella Anglo [that’s the technical term] descendant of William the Conqueror, would be Amoo) started picking them, barehanded, and I was eager to help. I asked if I could be of any assistance, at which point I was told that the plants would make me itch. My logical mind watched him grabbing them up barehanded for a few seconds before pointing out the obvious discrepancy in his statement. If they would make me itch, then why was he picking them with his bare hands? Would they not make him itch just as much as they would make me itch? His response was that he was immune, and would not develop an itch from handling the poison oak in that way. He was always quite the joker, so naturally I assumed he was pulling my leg. I started grabbing them and pulling them out of the ground with my bare hands, just like my uncle.

The next couple of weeks were spent taking medicated baths, applying medicated lotion, and scratching myself until I was raw. I learned a valuable lesson that day: don’t pick poison oak with your bare hands. I’m sure there was some sort of larger life lesson there, but I can still feel the itching when I think about it.

I have, in my opinion, a fairly nice beard. In the past, I switched back and forth from full beard to goatee to clean shaven and back without really sticking to a look for too long. For the last two or three years, however, I’ve stuck to my full (neatly-trimmed) beard. Today’s story takes us back to January of 2009. One day, while out and about, I stopped at a gas station to fill my gas tank, and ended up getting more than I bargained for.

Now, I mentioned already that I have a fairly nice beard. I hardly think it’s worthy of any great compliments, but it suits me just fine. The attendant at the gas station felt differently. I walked in to grab a candy bar while the gas was pumping, and as I approached the counter, the cashier (a young, lean Indian man with no real beard to speak of himself) looked up and greeted me. As he started to ring up my purchase, he paused, looked at my beard, and declared, “Hey, man, that is a great beard!”

After a short silence, I asked him to repeat himself, thinking that perhaps I had misheard.

He reiterated, “That is a really nice beard!”

Having now heard the same sentiment twice, I could no longer assume that I was hearing him say something other than what he said. What else could I do at this point but thank him for the compliment?

He finished ringing up my candy bar, and as he was placing it in a small bag, he gave me one final compliment…”A lovely beard, really.”

It is, of course, for this reason and this reason alone that I now maintain my beard.

Sometime around 7:55am (CST) on the morning of Wednesday, October 27, 1982 in Norman, OK a child was born. I’m sure many children were born at the same time around the world, and perhaps within that very same hospital, but the child that we will concern ourselves with primarily for the duration of this website will be, naturally, me. This is not to say that those other children are of no significance to the world. This is to say that they are of no significance to me or my life, as far as I know or am concerned. Sorry, other children. This is not your story.

I may have been born in Norman, OK, but my parents (and I, though that should go without saying) lived in Oklahoma City (in Oklahoma, for those of you who aren’t too sharp with a map). Oklahoma City wasn’t a bad place to be a kid, as far as I can tell; the school system was decent, the city was fairly quiet and calm, and we got snow in the winter. Looking back, it reminds me in a lot of ways of Fresno (my current home [future edit: no longer my current home, I have taken up residence in beautiful Long Beach, which is dramatically different than both Oklahoma City and Fresno]); it’s fine for kids and old people, but there really isn’t a lot of variety for young adults. Then again, that’s just fine for me because I’m a fairly boring individual.

Why is this important? A great deal of my childhood stories will take place in Oklahoma City. Now you know why.