And So It Begins...

Greetings and salutations, this is my first Blog, but hopefully it will not be my last. I have to get used to writing in this kind of format so it may be sketchy at first. You may be asking what the purpose of this Blog is and to be honest with you I cannot answer that at this time other than to say that I feel compelled to write.

What shall I write about? That is a good question to ask. Another good question could be what is this person passionate about, what drives them, piques their interest? Well there are a few things that I am passionate about and I am sure that I will speak on all of them at one time or another. For now I am mainly concerned with finishing school.

A little background first….

In 1994 I went to college. It was, is a small liberal arts college in a small town of around 10,000 people. Across the street from that college is another college but it is a Baptist College. In this environment I found myself cut loose, on my own with only my brother for company. I had such aspirations for my first time at college and it all came to naught with the following phrase:

“Hey ya’ll want to come over to the Fraternity house and meet some of the brothers?”

The die was cast. Into the realm of Greek Fraternity my brother and I plunged headlong. We were in a group with lots of really interesting and diverse people from the skater punk with hair down to his butt and the guy from New Zealand whose mother was a nurse to the guy who rode the bus from California for 40 hours just to get to school. Rush happened in a blur, not an alcoholic one because they had dry rush – sure we partook of some spirits every now and then but never with a member of the fraternity only with our fellow pledges.

Hell night came and went and we were full-fledged brothers in the Fraternity. Now, a side note for those reading this – my mistake was joining a fraternity my first semester at college, it provided to many interesting distractions the least of which were women and alcohol. Joining a Fraternity is not a bad thing you just have to have your priorities straight. So I joined a fraternity and had a good time.

My father says that I majored in women and alcohol my first semester and he is not wrong, it was that first semester that I met my future wife and I also discovered my love of good whiskey. It was all down hill from there academically. I went to class a total of 3 times the entire semester, I think I withdrew from all my classes at the end just to scavenge some kind of GPA from the two courses I was actually attending; choir and radio broadcasting.

The Spring semester was not much better but by this time my future wife and I were seeing each other exclusively and I was madly in love. My brother and I got an apartment in the town for the summer and slowly but steadily the last remaining apron strings were cut. Once school started again I outfitted myself like a champ and then again failed to attend classes withdrawing after a month. My first foray into college was a disaster for the most part; the best thing to come out of it was I meeting my wife. I mean its pretty bad when the Dean of Students calls you into his office to talk and he tells you that perhaps you were not cut out for college at this time. He was so right.

So after getting kicked out of an institution of higher learning, I decided to join another institution – the institution of marriage. So we got married, our anniversary is in December and it will be 10 years of wedded bliss. I had a new wife, a car payment, insurance and bill to worry about as well a mortgage to pay. No degree, no experience really in anything just my wits and my drive – which was not much at this time – and a desire to provide for my family and myself.

I won’t bore you with the litany of jobs that I have held, needless to say that they all fell into one of two categories; construction and retail. Now working construction is a noble effort, people need things to be built. Houses, business, etc. etc.: all must be built in order for society to continue to have one of the things necessary for survival, shelter. That being said I worked as a roofer and in hanging siding on people’s homes. Hot uncomfortable jobs but jobs that I found strangely pleasing and after a time very rewarding in and of themselves for the simple fact that I was helping to create something that others would enjoy and appreciate.

So I worked construction for a time and met many interesting people, some were normal, average, everyday citizens; others had followed a side path and I came into contact with men who had served time in prison for various things. Now some would have you look towards an ex-convict as some one bad, but I tell you these guys were a special breed. Most were hard working individuals who waited for their check on Friday and by Monday they were broke again. It was an interesting cycle and one that is not uncommon, but I found their stories of prison and of their weekend escapades most interesting.

Eventually I grew bored with construction, I admit that my attention span is not something I am proud of but it is something I have had to work on. As I was saying I grew tired of working construction and I began looking for another job. I soon found it as a worker in a bookstore. Now I love books, probably after my wife, son and God my next great love is books. This was the job of my dreams. I worked in a bookstore and I was able to steer other people to things that might interest them based on who they had read previously. To top it all off it was a fun job.

The only problem with the job was management. I am sure that you are not gasping in surprise at that statement. Management was workable though and after a few months a position opened up for an Assistant Manager and I took it; $21,000 a year salary, working like 60 hours a week. I was an idiot. The institution of slavery is alive and well in the United States, its called working on salary for a retail company (It’s also called minimum wage but that’s a whole story all on its own.).

Eventually I grew tired of the upper Management taking advantage of me and others by giving us all the bad hours while they took off every weekend and worked the midday shift so that they were at work by noon and home by like seven at night. It was this experience that convinced me of my past mistakes and impressed upon me the need to go back to school. The only problem was that neither my wife nor I had any credits towards graduation that were worth a damn.

Figuring I would have an easier time of finding a good job in more familiar surroundings. We moved back to my hometown, where we still live today and I got a job. I am still there amazingly enough after five years. My wife went back to school full time while I supported the family. It took her about 4 ½ years to graduate since she took one semester off to have our son, but she finished up and now has her own job that allows her to apply what she learned in college to her satisfaction and ours. Plus I personally like the paycheck.

Now that is the background information, which brings you pretty much up to date. Now we move into the current state of affairs, which I hope will provide plenty of thought provoking debate and curiosity to those who read this. Ok, it probably won’t but I figured an online journal would be cool to write; recording all my important thoughts and events as they occur on a day-by-day or week-by-week happening…or whatever the case may be.

So now it is my turn to go to school, in person. I spent the last two years taking courses online and obtained my AA in Social Sciences. Now I am working towards my degree in History. That dear reader brings you up to date on the foibles of fate and destiny that have led me here to this place in my life. I have recently begun to discover my own longing for an understanding of my faith while I also strive to complete my education. I have a wife and a son who also require my attentions and as mentioned before – my books.

Rest assured that reading this may be a toil; the writing of it is also no less strenuous. I beg your indulgence as you read on and hope that you find some kernels of truth, or wit or strange comedy, as you will.

Respectfully Yours,

~ Terhune