So it's getting harder to actually remember to write anything on this blog as there is nothing new really going on with me, so I thought I would enlighten you all with a few anecdotes.
Amy and I are trying a new church in West Little Rock called Chenal Valley and we've been a few times. Sunday we went to the morning service and then stuck around to eat at the lunch they were serving for visitors. Afterward, we went to a small class called "Discovering Chenal" where the preacher and one of the elders talked about what the church is all about. There were 10 people there: Amy and I, the preacher and elder, a couple who had just gotten married, a couple who had been married for about 30 years, and another couple who had 2-year-old twins. We sat in a circle and each person took a turn introducing himself or herself. Across the room from me was the man who had the twins and after sitting down I immediately thought to myself, "That man looks so familiar." (Amy later told me she thought the same thing). At first I thought maybe he was in a local car commercial or maybe he was a reporter at another station because I absolutely knew that I had seen him before. Well, we all went around the room and when it got to his turn he said he was an actor and he used to live in New York and California but he was originally from Little Rock and decided to move back here with his wife to raise their kids. After he was done the preacher then said that he was going to embarrass him by asking him what his biggest role was. The man kind of smiled a little and then he said, "Well, I used to be on Saturday Night Live." I had to think about what he had said before I promply hit Amy with my foot. This man used to be on Saturday Night Live, whose studio is one of my three Meccas along with the Kodak theater in Hollywood and the Coca-Cola Museum in Atlanta. Fortunately, I've been to all three so I can die knowing I've led a full and complete life. I realized that SNL must have been what I recognized him from, and felt a little ashamed that I had grouped him in with those used car dealers from the commercials who are somehow all convinced that if they call their prices or themselves "crazy" it will somehow make people want to buy a vehicle from them. He said most people recognized him from the skit that the preacher called "Massive Headwound Harry" in which Dana Carvey goes to a party with his head bandaged up and lays down on a couch and a dog comes up and starts licking and eating the bandages off his head. It was great.
A few weeks ago, Roby and I went to Fort Smith in Northwest Arkansas to interview the outgoing and incoming CEOs of Arkansas Best, a trucking company. The drive is about three hours and we left about 6:30 am for a 10:00 interview. Roby drove the first half of the way up and then we switched out and I drove the second half. I don't really know the exits and hightways to take so Roby said he would just tell me where to turn and whatnot. So we're driving along and Roby gets a call and starts talking to someone and I'm just kind of bebopping along in the Trail Blazer. About 10 minutes later, Roby says, "I think we may have missed an exit way back there." And then, almost as if it was cued, we pass a sign that says, "Welcome to Oklahoma" to which I said "Yeah I think we did." It turns out we were only about a mile off course and cut back around without losing any time. I guess I didn't realize that Fort Smith is really close to the Oklahoma border. But it was nice to be in OK again, it reminded me of all the other times I've been there, well I guess the two other times I've been: the summer of 2004 when I drove across it and the summer of 1999 for the TSA convention when we narrowly avoided being hostages in a stand-off at the Piggly Wiggly. And no that's not a joke, it's a real story. As you can tell, Oklahoma and I share a rich, crazy history.
