The following is a random list of things that have played a role in who I am today. I’m listing them, without explanation, in no particular order. Some are good influences. Some are not. (You’ll have to guess which is which.)

• My grandmother’s vintage Scrabble board game

• Actively attending church from as far back as I can remember

• Going camping as a family, with other families, from the time I was 6

• Taco Villa bean burritos

• Living in Amarillo

• Being skinny as a kid

• Atari / IBM PC, Jr. / Nintendo

• The “Bring Out Your Best” Budweiser jingle from the 1980s, which I always hummed to myself as an intensity-builder during basketball games

• My 7th-grade basketball coach at Austin Jr. High

• Bible Drill competition (I achieved “State Winner Perfect” from 4th to 6th grade)

• The music of Rich Mullins

• The lyrical mastery of late 1980s Kool Moe Dee

• Breakin’ and Breakin’ 2: Electric Boogaloo

• My 1977 Caprice Classic (brown and tan), handed down from my grandparents

• Trips in the RV with Memaw and PawPaw

• Having braces

• Not having much money during junior high and high school

• Not being as popular in high school as I wanted to be

• All the artists and musicians in my family

• Being around the deaf kids my mom taught

• The Lord of the Rings trilogy and The Hobbit, by J.R.R. Tolkien

• The Narnia series, by C. S. Lewis

• The Sports section of the Amarillo Globe-News

• That Bigfoot book I read about two dozen times

• The Hardy Boys

• The Duke boys

• My utter fascination with dinosaurs from the age of 4 until 2nd or 3rd grade (the first books I remember reading by myself were dinosaur books)

• The stories about Amarillo serial killer Jay Kelly Pinkerton

• The writing of Brennan Manning

• “Diff’rent Strokes”

• “Fat Albert and the Cosby Kids”

• My first crush, Megan, who lived across the street

• Mrs. Anderson, my 2nd grade teacher

• U2’s documentary film, Rattle and Hum

• Reading The Shining way before I should have

• The public library

• When my dog Scuppers died

• Chicago Cubs games on WGN

• My career running the 110-meter hurdles in 7th grade, during which I finished last in all races but one.

• The one time we went camping and I was sad because I hadn’t caught a fish all week, so my dad took me out one last time before we left, just the two of us, and I caught one (I still remember the place, and fished there with him just a couple of years ago)

• The Storseth family (now my in-laws)

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Good or bad, what are your influences?