Friday January 05, 2007
Five Things About Me...Even If You Don't Care
I've been tagged by
The
Tutorial Divas! I've never passed on the emails
that claim someone will die if I don't but I felt compelled to keep
this tagging chain going for some odd reason. Perhaps deep
down I want to divulge more private information about myself and was
just waiting for the chance to do so. Yeah right!
So here are five things that you probably don't know about me.
- I lived in Germany for three years in the late 80's while I
was in the Army. While I was on a weekend trip to Berlin
(remember the wall was still up in the 80's), Libya-backed terrorists bombed
a discotheque in West Berlin. Two U.S. soldiers
were killed and 50 injured. Fortunately I've never been into the disco
scene. You couldn't walk anywhere near a U.S. installation without
having the proper identification the rest of my trip. The
U.S. subsequently bombed
Libya.
- Upon graduating High School in 1981, I participated in the Fort
Lewis College Japan program. I lived with a family
in Tsukatsuki-shi Japan (Between Osaka and Kyoto) for six months.
I took a semester of Japanese before going but soon learned
the difference between learning a language from books and tapes and
understanding a native speaker. I was with a family in Tokyo
the first three days in Japan. I was standing naked in the
shower/bath area trying to figure out how to work everything when the
home stay mother opened the door and rattled off something in Japanese
and shut the door. I don't know what she said to this day.
She probably said something like, "Don't take a long shower
because we don't have huge hot water tanks like you Americans."
- My Great Grandfather, Tom Botterill, started the first Pierce Arrow
Automobile Company in Salt
Lake City, Utah and later Denver, Colorado. That's
ultimately how I wound up being from Colorado.
- Do you remember the story of the boy who had is arm bitten
off by a shark in Florida? On July 6, 2001 we were
vacationing near Pensacola, Florida. We'd been at the beach
most of the week and it was very hot. The beaches there are
incredible, white powder sugar sand and warm water. Near the
end of our vacation, the people we were visiting there said
they usually go to the beach in the evening because it's less crowded
and much cooler. So there we were on the beach at Gulf Island
National Seashore about 6:00 PM. My four kids were out in the
water playing in the waves. I was standing in the surf
watching them. There were only a few groups of people there
that evening. All of a sudden some women came running down
the beach towards us yelling, "A boy's been bitten by a shark get out
of the water!". First I thought, "That's not even funny."
Then the reality that it might be true struck me.
I started frantically yelling at my kids and my friends' kids
to get out of the water. Two Japanese women farther out
couldn't understand what I was shouting at them. They finally
came in. I instructed everyone to stay put and I went toward
where Jessie Arbogast was getting CPR. It was surreal.
Jessie was on the sand without an arm while his aunt gave him
CPR. About five feet away from him was a 7 foot bull shark.
No blood was coming out of his wound so I knew he had bled
out in the water. A helicopter landed and rushed him to a
nearby hospital. I returned to my family and regretfully
informed them that he probably wouldn't live. I was surprised
to hear the next day that he was expected to recover. My wife
had strolled up the beach about 10 minutes before the attack and taken
a picture up the beach. The picture included Jessie's group's
area. This picture was later used by the park ranger to deny
the claims that Jessie's uncle was shark fishing. I spoke
with the park ranger and confirmed to him that I never saw Jessie's
group fishing but did see a man and boy fishing farther up the beach
earlier. Here are a couple of good pages with more info if
you're interested.
- I live with my mom. Actually, my mom lives with
us. My mom's health has taken a bad turn in the past couple
of years and she really can't live alone anymore. I'm glad I
can do this for her after all she did for me growing up. I
won't lie and say it's been easy for us. This hasn't been
easy for my mom either. She's lost her freedom and is in
constant pain from a bad hip.
Posted by david
( Jan 05 2007, 05:37:47 PM MST )
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