# Tell A Story...



## mr drinky (May 15, 2015)

I'm a big fan of NPR's Story Corps, the Moth, and This American Life, and I believe that everyone has something interesting and relevant to say through story telling. 

Go ahead, make this interesting

k.


----------



## mr drinky (May 15, 2015)

Ok, I will start it off. 

When I was about 8, 9, or maybe even 10 (I can't remember) my TV went on the blink. The screen got wavy and greenish. It was an old TV. 

So this was in the '80s and cable TV was just coming out. Before this time we had five stations -- two of which were Canadian (CBC and CTV). TV was just starting to get interesting.

But when a TV goes bad -- in those days -- you usually fixed it, right? It was a hard box Zenith in color. Plenty of service vendors were available. 

But that wasn't what we did. My parents had just converted to Christianity and had gone all in for Jesus. And a TV was just another object to pray for. And after about two weeks of the swirly green screen betraying any human image, my parents called a family meeting, and since we really couldn't afford to get it fixed, they simply prayed for it.

My father asked us all to lay our hands on the TV and he said one of those beseeching prayers of hope. But during this whole thing, I remember clearly thinking one thing, and one thing only: I REALLY HOPE THIS WORKS. 

But it didn't.

The TV died, and we eventually bought a new TV that captured all the new cable glory and my two Canadian channels to boot. But it wasn't just a tech blip of meaningless green TV fuzz either, it meant something to me. It is silly now with handheld devices and streaming over everything that plugs in, but the one thing that continues to intrigue me to this day is this: What would have happened had that old TV started working after the prayer? My parents with imperfect knowledge of religion and God went all in on a piece of technology -- and they lost. 

k.


----------



## mr drinky (May 15, 2015)

Oh boy. Well the story from last night is that a childhood friend of mine came to visit and we drank WAY TOO MANY caucasions (and some wine). So reminiscing and drinking apparently leads to a late-night thread on KKF on story telling. I also wrote someone about getting a tattoo.

Feel free to let this thread die while I nurse my body back into shape.

k.


----------



## Zwiefel (May 15, 2015)

I rather enjoyed your story. Perhaps I should say stories.


----------



## aboynamedsuita (May 15, 2015)

I remember an old tv that did something similar. The color hues kind of cycled and had more green, then red, etc. then back and forth. And the picture sort of expanded/contracted. Gave me a headache watching it


----------



## Zwiefel (May 15, 2015)

That reminds me of using a strong magnet to Gauss the screen when I was a kid...annoyed the crap out of my family.


----------



## drawman623 (May 15, 2015)

On the subject of "faith stories" I'll offer something. 

After a conversation with a former minister (turned exercise coach) I learned about his daily tradition of paying for the person in line behind him at the coffee shop drive thru. This ritual was performed with a faithful belief that his generosity might help another person and that unconditional kindness can inspire other good works. He told me he had been making the gesture daily for about 3 years. He added that though he never knew if the person behind him appreciated his small kindness, he believed that was so. He also mentioned that he himself had never received a free coffee from another customer.

That morning I drove to the local coffee shop and bought an iced coffee. I left an extra $5 for the next person in line and thanked the server for assisting. I drove off and felt good about it. To my surprise, a couple in a jeep pulled up beside me at the next light and raised their cups, smiling ans saying thank you. I drove back to the gym and told the former minister. He looked a bit frustrated and so I mentioned my interpretation of the event...God shares proof of the good only to the most remedial of his flock...the rest don't need such reinforcement. He smiled 

It wasn't long after that I found myself the recipient of a free coffee... OK so I'm not Oxford material... no doubt because I have cable tv


----------



## drawman623 (May 15, 2015)

One more as Mr. Drinky is also a music lover...

When returning home from a spring break trip to the Virgin Islands, I changed planes in Baltimore. I recognized among the many faces in the airport the vocalists and creative element of the band America. They were also between flights. Since neither carried an instrument, I could not be 100% sure... I asked "are you guys musicians?" The reply was "we used to be."

I smiled and said no..you guys are America aren't you. They were surprised to be recognized...or just humble about it. I told them that the first music I ever experienced on headphones was theirs. Horse with no name, sandman, tin man, daisy Jane...all favorites of a boy astounded to be able to shut out the world and hear the music as if he were in the venu himself.

They enjoyed the recollection and offered a reciprocal answer. Both experienced The Beach Boys as their first and perhaps most inspiring musical experience. They added that they were on their way to play a concert as the opening act for The Beach Boys. I congratulated them and offered a bottle of Caribbean rum (the only thing I had for carry-on luggage). We ate some Chinese food and shared a few minutes pleasantly.

I couldn't help but say as I left, the Beach Boys should be opening for America.

Sometimes I wonder, if my mother had here way and I had first experienced Tchaikovsky through my headphones, if things hadn't turned out differently for me.


----------



## Chifunda (May 15, 2015)

Back in the day, Wally Beinfeld's Antique Arms Show in Las Vegas was considered the best high grade gun show in the country. 

One of the faces I could count on seeing most every year was John Milius. Milius is very knowledgeable about good guns, is a great raconteur, and was always generous with his Havana cigars.

The last time I saw him, he had obviously bulked up a bit since our last meeting and when I commented on his increased girth, John looked at me and growled, "Dave, I've decided that God intended for me to be fat, and I wouldn't want to do anything to offend the Supreme Being."

I've got to remember that line next time I see my cardiologist.


----------



## mr drinky (May 16, 2015)

drawman623 said:


> One more as Mr. Drinky is also a music lover...
> 
> When returning home from a spring break trip to the Virgin Islands, I changed planes in Baltimore. I recognized among the many faces in the airport the vocalists and creative element of the band America. They were also between flights. Since neither carried an instrument, I could not be 100% sure... I asked "are you guys musicians?" The reply was "we used to be."
> 
> ...



It is always hard to ask these questions. When I was walking in the Dallas airport I saw someone who I thought was NFL hall of famer Chris Doleman. I passed him by a couple times, but eventually I walked up to him and said, "You're Chris Doleman, right." It was him. We shook hands, made some small talk and parted. 

But the weirdest situation was when I was in the military and we took a weekend to go to Disneyland from Monterey. And at Disneyland a friend of mine saw someone he thought was in the Conan Barbarian movies -- the guy who ate the jewels. So my friends kept talking about it and I got sick of it, so I just walked up to the guy and said: "Excuse me, but are you the guy who ate jewels in Conan the Barbarian." He said yes.

I talked to him for a bit, and he told me of his upcoming movies. Young Guns II sticks out. But the thing I took home from that event was this: You cannot truly understand how ridiculous a question is until you are face to face with someone asking something ridiculous. And to this day, this has been the most bizarre question I have ever asked: "Were you the guy in Conan the Barbarian who ate the jewels." At least he said yes. 

k.


----------



## Chuckles (May 16, 2015)

I politely disagree. I believe the strangest question you have ever asked involved an extremely friendly cat in a foreign land.


----------



## mr drinky (May 16, 2015)

Chuckles said:


> I politely disagree. I believe the strangest question you have ever asked involved an extremely friendly cat in a foreign land.



True that. I think the take home lesson from that event in my life was: If you stick a q-tip in a cat's vagina, it raises more questions than it answers. 

k.


----------



## mr drinky (May 16, 2015)

So I used to work in the consular section at the US Embassy in Sana'a Yemen. In general, consular sections are interesting places, but in Yemen it was even more so. It was literally ground zero for crazy. But while I was working at the embassy I was also studying Arabic at the Yemen Language Center, during which time, the American Taliban, John Walker Lindh, was also a student there. He was quiet and a bit weird, and often would 'police' the females by telling them to dress more conservatively or instruct the women to shut their windows so men couldn't see in. And then he did the clichéd Muslim convert thing and grew a beard and changed his dress. And eventually he just disappeared. He'd pop up every now and then, but for the most part he was just gone. He likely went up north where a lot of western Muslim converts used to go to learn about Islam. But who knows really.

So after that for maybe a year or so, his mother, Marilyn, would call the consular section looking for her son and asking if we could help find him. People tend to think consular sections are this super helpful body that loan people money, send out search parties and otherwise come to peoples' rescue -- but this simply isn't the case. Yes, they do help American citizens in extreme circumstances, but for the most part they administer immigration law, visas, and passports and have little means or desire to deal with personal matters. So when Marilyn would call monthly we would field the calls, knowing we couldn't and wouldn't do a thing. Three of us in the consular section would rotate who would talk to her and politely listen to her concerns. After a while, we just didn't want to deal with her -- we couldn't do anything. But I do understand her concern. What parent wouldn't be worried about their son whose missing in Yemen? But eventually we had so many calls, I started a file and began documenting John's case, his history at the language center, his whereabouts and his mother's numerous contacts.

So one day I was doing American Citizen services and up to the window walks John Lindh -- that is the name he went by back then. I collect his passport, ask him a few questions, go get his file and brief the American Consul on the case. 

After about two hours of John waiting, the Consul goes to the window and calls out on the sound system: "John Lindh, window 4." He walks up to the window and the American consul -- in a display meant to slightly intimidate -- opens in front of him the brown file bearing his name and slowly looks through the papers inside. I can only imagine what John thought when he realized we had a file just for him with a fair amount of documents inside. But the consul kept slowing reading what he already basically knew just to let him sweat it out a bit. 

Then in a flourish of diplomatic understatement he closes the folder, looks at John Lindh and says in a stern bureaucratic voice: "I recommend that you call your Mother." I just laughed. He then added that he would strongly advise him to travel back to the United States and leave Yemen. John Lindh took that advice and he went back to the US; he left Yemen and was no longer our problem. Marilyn never called again. Case closed, right? 

Now fast forward about two years. I'm working an election in Kosovo and had to make a visit to Belgrade, Serbia. The events of 9/11 have happened and the US is at war in Afghanistan. I am watching CNN at the Hyatt trying to follow what is going on, then breaking news comes on the screen and shows a young American being put on a truck after the Americans captured some Taliban town. I look a bit closer, and then I call to my now ex-wife who is in the bathroom and say to her: "They just captured an American fighting with the Taliban, and I think I know that kid." Sure enough it was John Lindh. 

So the last time I saw him he was being told to call his mother. It makes you wonder. 

k.


----------



## sachem allison (May 16, 2015)

i would tell you some stories but, it would depress you so bad you might commit suicide.


----------

