StoryWorth

Not all stupid things end up having bad consequences, and very fortunately so in my case.  Back in my twenties, I had a Yamaha 400 motorcycle which I enjoyed immensely.  This was before drivers were distracted by their mobile phones and potholes seemed few and far between.  I was a very careful rider and was very good at anticipating danger, knowing that, regardless of fault, I would end up badly hurt or worse. I rode my motorcycle to a family picnic one day, somewhere out in the country west of Dayton, if my memory serves correctly.  Rain moved in and I decided to ride home through it.  But there was so much water coming off the road that I decided to put my feet up on the handlebars to keep them somewhat drier.  So I’m flying down a country road at fifty miles per hour, tires hydroplaning and I’ve raised my center of gravity and given up some amount of control.  It took a few minutes to piece all this together and reverse this stupid decision. ...

My favorite print, photographed by Gary Crandall, is an image of a male mallard duck floating on water.  I bought this years ago from a store in Park City, Utah during one of several skiing trips I took to the Big and Little Cottonwood Canyons southwest of Salt Lake City.  I had been searching for a lone duck print for years and when I spotted Crandell’s work, I immediately went to a store clerk and said I wanted it, without bothering to ask how much it cost.  I didn’t care, I was going to buy it no matter what.  The most compelling feature of this duck picture is the gently falling snow landing on the duck and surrounding water, adding to the story that a duck, as I’ve often thought of myself, is someone that is calm on the outside while paddling like crazy below the surface. My second favorite print, photographed by David Whitten, is a bright white picture of aspen trees standing in several feet of winter snow.  It reminds me of the several snowmobile excursio...

The biggest concern I had was with the draft, as you might expect for teenagers at the time.  The actual reason for the “war” (not really, the U.S. never declared war) and why it was needed didn’t really concern me, I was focused on high school, getting ready for college, working, and camping.  Nobody I knew cared, at least not until 1969 when the first draft lottery took place.   My older brother, then seventeen years old, would face the draft in 1970 and while he probably would avoid the draft using a college deferment, it wasn’t a sure thing.  For the next couple of years, we would listen to the news as they selected the birthdates that would be chosen first, hoping for a high number and dreading getting a low number.  As I recall my brother was fortunate to have pretty high numbers, and we shared a sigh of relief each time. I turned eighteen in October 1973, nine months after the draft ended in January.  I never had to nervously sit and wait for Oc...

I think the actual question is how much time does one spend being extroverted versus introverted, as everyone is some of both.  According to my last Myers-Briggs personality profile, many years ago, I’m fifty-two percent extroverted and forty-eight percent introverted.  That made perfect sense to me as sometimes I need to interact with people and other times I just want to be left alone.  I know that if I’m scheduled to present to an audience for a few hours, I need to schedule some alone time afterward.  The reverse is also true.  If I spend a morning alone in the office working heads down, by the afternoon I’ll be wandering the halls looking for someone to talk to.  As long as I maintain a balance I’m good, but too much of either will cause me to feel tired and uneasy. My complete Myers-Briggs profile is ENTJ, having Extraverted, Intuitive, Thinking, and Judging attributes.  The direct opposite, ISTP, is characterized as Introverted, Observant, Feeli...