Quarter Century

Today is the 25th anniversary of my being. A quarter of a century. A potential quarter of my life. Twenty-five years. Crazy.

July has always been one of my favorite months. Growing up, my friend Mel and I shared a job working out in the fields of Pruitt Flowers, a common love of Jimmy Buffet, and birthdays that were two days apart. I learned a lot on those hot, muddy July days out in the flower fields, and in them, Mel introduced me not only to Buffet's music, but also to his hilarious, but strangely profound writing. In his book, A Pirate Looks at Fifty, the beginning goes like this:

"In four hundred words or less, this is what happened from early adolescence until now: I broke out of the grip of Catholicism and made it through adolescence without killing myself in a car. I flunked out of college. I learned to play the guitar, lived on the beach, lived in the French Quarter, finally got laid, and didn't go to Viet Nam. I got back into school, started a band, got a job on Bourbon Street, graduated from college, flunked my draft physical, broke up my band, and went out on the road solo. I signed a record deal, got married, moved to Nashville, had my guitars stolen, bought a Mercedes, worked at Billboard Magazine, put out my first album, went broke, wrecked the Mercedes, got divorced, and moved to Key West. I sang and worked on a fishing boat, went totally crazy, did a lot of dope, met the right girl, made another record, had a hit, bought a boat, and sailed away to the Caribbean. I started another band, worked the road, had my second and last hit, bought a house in Aspen, started spending summers in New England, got married, broke my leg three times in one year, had a baby girl, made more records, bought a bigger boat, and sailed away to St. Barts. I got separated from the right girl, sold the boat, sold the house in Aspen, moved back to Key West, worked the road, and made more records. I rented an apartment in Paris, went to Brazil for Carnival, learned to fly, went into therapy, quit doing dope, bought my first seaplane, flew all over the Caribbean, almost got a second divorce, moved to Malibu for more therapy, and got back with the right girl. I worked the road, moved back to Nashville, took off in an F-14 from an aircraft carrier, bought a summer home on Long Island, had another baby girl. I found the perfect seaplane and moved back to Florida. Cameron Marley joined me in the house of women. I built a home on Long Island, crashed the perfect seaplane, lived through it thanks to Navy training, tried to slow down a little, woke up one morning and I was looking at fifty, trying to figure what comes next."

So in the spirit of Mel (happy birthday old man!) and Jimmy Buffet, here is my version:

I was born in a Naval Hospital in Oceanside, CA and spent my first few years filling my diaper with sand from the shores of the San Luis Rey and learned to swim in the Pacific waves. My sister was born when I was three and I promptly bounced her off the trampoline into an orange tree. At 6, we moved to Indianapolis where I flunked my first homework assignment and learned to ride a bike. I spent the next two years exploring the labyrinth of unfinished roofs and muddy basements of our fledgling subdivision. At 9, we moved to southern Indiana, spent a long year sharing a bed with my sister at my Gran's house, and then moved to the farm, where I started exploring everything from our cabin a hundred meters away to abandoned houses miles away. I started playing softball and basketball, learned to play the drums, and joined the science fair team. I won the conference cross country meet, became an Intel Science Talent Search finalist, played with President Bush's dog, and headed to France and Spain. I spent the rest of the summer in Israel, worked at the Weizmann Institute, climbed Masada at sunrise, swam in the Red Sea and Dead Sea, and fell in love with an amazing British bloke. I attended Purdue, started rowing, spent a summer in Dublin, climbed half the peaks in the Wicklow Mountains, broke up with the British bloke, and fell in love with the idea of rowing across oceans. I found someone crazy as myself, bought a boat, graduated from Purdue, and spent a summer dodging hurricanes in Florida. I attempted to row across the Atlantic, got caught in a tropical storm, was rescued by pirates, spent 11 days learning to sail and exploring tropical islands before being plucked out of the Caribbean, and landed on the set of The Today Show. I spent the next few months wondering what I was supposed to do after the biggest failure of my life, so I headed out to Arizona, started my PhD, learned to play rugby and ultimate frisbee, and explored desert oases by foot and bike. I spent 51 days rowing across the Atlantic, broke a world record by 17 days, returned to Arizona, reflected for a bit, and while looking for the next adventure; I realized that I had made it to 25.

It's been an amazing, interesting, and adventurous life so far, and I want to thank each and every person in my life that has made it special. Without you, I would have no one to share my adventures with, and my life wouldn't mean half as much. So, here's to the past 25 years... and to the many adventures to come in the next 25.