And Ten More....

Ten more Facebook friends in the last two days, so here are ten more things:

101) Megan Croy: Megan's father, Bill, did two tours of duty at Trinity UMC in Lima. The first occurred when I was a but a wee lad. Thus, even though she is a mother and pastor who's been out on her own awhile, I generally think of Megan as being about 3 or 4 years old and am always shocked when I see her, and she isn't. What's this mean? I am a total idiot.

102) Lindsay Hefner: We have two Lindsay Hefners at Shawnee UMC who are about the same age and grew up in the church. It's very confusing. I think, if we'd been smart we would have set up a watermelon seed spitting contest between these two when they were five, and the winner would have been able to keep her name. The loser would have been the subject of a "choose this girl's new name contest". People could submit as many suggestions as they wanted for a dollar per suggestion, and then we could have drawn the winner. If this Lindsay Hefner would have lost, I would have suggested we name her "Sloopy" so that every time "Hang On Sloopy" played she could stand up and dance, driving her friends into a frenzy. I guess that's why they don't put me in charge of these kinds of things.

103) Tyler Deitering: Tyler attends Shawnee UMC and Spencerville HS, but generally on different days.

104) Tyler Hollis Derryberry: What to say about Tyler...... He owns his own therimin, which he bought from a mail order catalog and had to assemble himself. He plays in a band that once opened for The Melvins. While fronting his former band, "The Rancid Yak Butter Tea Party", he once wrote a song named "Thelonious Monk Surf Helmet". He is a strict vegan who will tell you if you are sitting in a Denny's wondering what in the world he eats that there is plenty of food in the world he can eat just none of it is at Denny's. He is passionately inclusive and welcoming of others on the margins of society. He's a good friend. He lives in Boston. He works a 9-5 job, but only cause it pays the rent. His brother works at a zoo in Orlando, his mother is a librarian, and his father is running for judge in Allen County.

105) Lisa Deakins: Will always be Lisa Shaw to me, because (once again) I am not a bright man. Apparently people do get older even if you aren't around to watch them get older. Lisa is married, living in Indy, has two kids, and works in a chemistry lab coming up with antidotes to poisons crafted by super villains because she works for Batman.

106) Jennifer Lynne Logan: J.L. (my nickname for her since she was but a wee lass) is another former Shawnee youth groupite (like Lisa and Tyler.... Sloopy was too young to have been corrupted by having me as her youth pastor) who is now living in San Diego. Like Davy, she was in the Navy, but she probably won't be for life. J.L. loves animals, Jesus, and apparently after an experience at the Cochella Music Festival, Pink Floyd. J.L. also loves her Mom and sister, and misses her Dad.

107) Russ Cottle: Russ is probably wondering why in the world I invited him to be a Facebook friend. It's cause I knew both his older brother and sister pretty well when we were all kids. Russ was the youngest, quite a bit younger than Robyn and John, and in those days was called Rusty. Now he's married, a father, and living in St. Louis.

108) Kim Sharp: I did Kim's marriage ceremony. I can't remember much about it though. See, I was in the middle of 44 hour Rock-a-thon and hadn't slept in a couple of days. Also, while I did her wedding the kids in the youth group slipped "Dazed and Confused" into the VHS player. I don't know if it was the sexual content, language, or drug use that compelled me to take it out when I returned (and also ask the parental chaperons what the heck they were thinking), but that's the only Rated R movie I ever showed my youth as a youth pastor (except for "Falling Down"... we did watch that one too). Kim is married, has a set of twins, and lives in Spencerville. Her mother has a direct line to God (no foolin').

109) Mike Gossard: Married one of the Elmquist girls. I'm not sure how their father, Ed, survived having three daughters who were all popular with the guys and couldn't be locked up in the house. Mike and his family live in Sidney, where he is active at Sidney First UMC (Chris Heckaman's church). I got to know him while working together on a Habitat for Humanity house built so long ago it was made out of stone. It was located next door to Barney Rubble's digs.

110) Jeff Rempe: Jeff is an old friend from High School. We were in band together, and bowled briefly together on "The Coconuts", the world's worst bowling team. Instead of bowling shirts (which, unlike today, were completely uncool) we wore Hawaiian shirts because they were loved by the ladies. Or maybe we were just too cheap to buy other shirts. No matter. Jeff works for the power company, is active at Lima Community Church of the Nazerine, and lives in a house with a pool. He was so cheap in high school that once he refused to loan our friend Bubba two cents needed to buy a milkshake, so if you need money, don't bother asking him for a loan.

That's it. No more. Consider this chapter closed.