life has many ways of testing a person's will, either by having nothing happen at all or by having everything happen all at once

1. What's something you've won and how did you win it? 

    during my last year of college, I lived in a house less than a mile from campus and my job at the ice cream parlor. Most of the time, I drove my car—primarily because there was little time to move between school and jobs and home, margins of only a couple of minutes. However, now and then I got the wild idea that I needed to get more exercise, and would ride my (old, crappy, heavy) bike. One evening, I was riding home after a full day of greasy french fryer and burger grill and cleaning and whatnot, looking and smelling none too pleasant. Wearing my "uniform" of formerly-white t-shirt and cut off sweats left over from high school and a shockingly bright orange, and some shoes that had come in contact with too many floor de-greasers and were almost unrecognizable as shoes. [Interjection: I was living with a female friend. If there was no external indication that we had guests, I would enter the enclosed back porch of our house, strip down, and leave my clothes on the porch, to keep their pervasive redolence away from our living area. I would walk straight into the bathroom to shower!]

Not the actual ticket

     On this particular night, riding my bicycle down our street, parallel to the railroad tracks, I had a sudden compulsion to stop at the bar ("my" college bar), to buy a lottery ticket. I pulled over, leaned the bike (because who in their right mind would steal that thing anyway??), went inside, and asked the bartender—"Lumpy"—for a $2 scratcher. It was near to Thanksgiving and the theme of the ticket was turkeys. Anyway, I paid, asked to borrow a nickel to scratch it ... and discovered that I'd won $200. Redeemed it out of the till, left a tip for the Lump, and rode the rest of the way home $193 richer.

 

2. Who is the closest friend you've ever had? 

    different friends at different times, for different reasons, at different intensities. I'm not going to name one of them to the exclusion of all the others who've saved me, too, in their own ways.

    My first reaction to this question was, somewhat predictably, Chris. Of course I remember him with great sadness and love and regret that our time was so limited. Especially right now, writing this between the anniversary of his death and his Christmas Eve birthday. Particularly after having watched his memorial video this past weekend—for the first time in nine years. 

 Chris' memorial video (c2015)
    I don't know whether he was my closest friend, ever. I do believe that he would have been, if he wasn't already, had he lived. Wish we could have known each other forever.

 

3. What are the advantages and disadvantages of being your height? 

    Pro: I never hit my head on a door frame or chandelier. Can buy pants or skirts off the rack. Generally shorter than the kids I slow-danced with in junior high.

    Con: I can't reach stuff on the top shelf. Lining up from tallest to shortest sometimes put me on the lower end of the social scale. Hugging a tall person can be awkward.

 

4. When was the last picnic you went on? 

    for the first time, I went to my mom's extended family reunion this summer. I went with Mom and Dad and my mom's youngest sister. With no idea what to expect, it turned out to be a reasonably decent way to spend a Sunday afternoon. Although it is called "the picnic," it was held indoors at a church hall in the middle of freakin' nowhere, 45 mi. southwest of here. Other attendees included all of my mom's surviving siblings, exactly one of my (~20) cousins, a couple of little kids, and primarily my mom's cousins and a couple of their surviving parents. 

    Everyone looked fairly similar, almost like we could all be related. 

    It was legitimately nice to see everyone, particularly one of my aunts; we haven't seen each other since her husband's memorial service. She is doing pretty well, though that loss changed her in indelible ways. The food was good, albeit structured roughly along one basic path: carbohydrates. I took a small enough amount from the pot-luck line that it was commented upon, yet I was painfully full after not quite clearing my plate. (Well, I didn't quite clear my first plate. The second was desserts, and it was all fantastic, and well worth the sacrifice of yet another bean-related hotdish.) The one drawback was getting cornered by my mom's cousin Phyllis, whose ability to speak in one single, unbroken sentence for what seems like years is only matched by her obliviousness to standard methods of social disconnecting. I thought I was going to have to gnaw my own leg to get out of that trap. Poor Phyllis.

 

5. What was your favorite recess activity: Dodgeball, Kickball, Four Square, Hopscotch, Freeze Tag, or jump rope? 

    I liked the variety of options, really. Some days we would all be in the mood for tag, and other days we'd gravitate toward Four Square. My favorite, though, was Tetherball. Pretty sure that's not an option anymore, since bloody noses and broken glasses were not rare back in my day.

 

6. When you need to confront someone, would you rather communicate in person, on the phone, by e-mail, or by letter? 

    ugh. Email, I suppose, though that depends on the person. 

    There is someone that I need to confront, and soon. I'm dreading it because it will be our first interaction and I don't want it to be entirely negative. It's hard to strike a balance between openly expressing concerns and aggressively approaching someone. I'd hoped I could put it off on someone else, or at least bring someone along for the ride to soften it (and make it less directly from me) but that seems unlikely. Time to face up to it. 

    This will be a letter confrontation, by the way, since the only other option is to lie in wait for their uncertain arrival, camouflaged to avoid premature detection.

 

7. What's the story behind a time when a car you were in broke down? 

    it was between my parents' place and my then-bf's folks', over Thanksgiving break my senior year in college. We were in his car, a 10+ year old Honda Prelude 5-speed that looked a lot like this photo, only the paint had faded to more of a rosy pink. The car was a P.O.S. with over a hundred thousand miles, and went through batteries and tires like no tomorrow. 

    I was driving. Hadn't been a strong manual driver up to then, so it was sort of my trial by fire. Ha! Cruising along (well, no cruise control, so "driving along") in the right lane just northeast of 43°30'49.3"N 89°31'25.0"W when suddenly, we were slowing down, a lot. 

        H: What are you doing?! Don't slow down! Why are you slowing down?

        me: I'm not; your car is. My foot's still pressing the pedal to the floor.

        H: DON'T SLOW DOWN!

        me: [...]

        H: Down-shift!

    I seamlessly clutched and downshifted. CLUNK. Foot back on the accelerator, engine revs uncomfortably fast.  

    I hit the hazards and pulled as far to the right as possible, intending to stop.

        H: Don't stop the car! Keep moving!

        me: ...I'm coasting.

        H: Down-shift again! Take the exit!

        me: [...]

    Driving with the flashers on, losing speed fast, I kept driving, now fully on the shoulder and possibly off a little toward the right. Ultimately able to shift into 2nd gear but barely able to keep it moving, we take the exit at a loud, excruciating crawl, each of us leaning forward and holding our breath, willing the thing to keep going. 

    At the end of the exit, I took a quick glance to the left, saw no traffic, and didn't even try to stop. Cruised from there into the first parking lot I saw.

        me: May I turn off the car now?

        H: [..., as he reaches over and turns the key]

    It was there that the Prelude took its last breath. My parents, driving separately, brought us a "spare" car. (My dad's next-older brother owned a garage and often had a sort of loaner system available to the family.) A couple of weeks later, my brother and a friend drove down and hauled away the remains of the Prelude, which had spontaneously puked up its gears, one by one, while we were driving. My bro's friend, who also did auto repair, said he was impressed I was able to keep it running long enough to get off the highway, much less up the exit, safely. When we were home, my brother quite ceremoniously handed over the $89.50 that the junkyard paid for the useless carcass.

 

 [from The Complete Book of Questions : 1001 Conversation Starters for Any Occasion; the title quotation is by Paulo Coelho, from The Winner Stands Alone]