{"id":61,"date":"2010-01-25T13:28:00","date_gmt":"2010-01-25T13:28:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/omeoflittlefaith\/2010\/01\/an-incomplete-list-of-influences.html"},"modified":"2010-01-25T13:28:00","modified_gmt":"2010-01-25T13:28:00","slug":"an-incomplete-list-of-influences","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/omeoflittlefaith\/2010\/01\/an-incomplete-list-of-influences.html","title":{"rendered":"An Incomplete List of Influences"},"content":{"rendered":"

The following<\/span> 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.)<\/p>\n

\u2022 <\/span>My grandmother’s vintage Scrabble board game<\/p>\n

\u2022 <\/span>Actively attending church from as far back as I can remember<\/p>\n

\u2022 <\/span>Going camping as a family, with other families, from the time I was 6<\/p>\n

\u2022 <\/span>Taco Villa bean burritos<\/p>\n

\u2022 <\/span>Living in Amarillo<\/p>\n

\u2022 <\/span>Being skinny as a kid<\/p>\n

\u2022 <\/span>Atari \/ IBM PC, Jr. \/ Nintendo<\/span><\/p>\n

\u2022 <\/span>The “Bring Out Your Best” Budweiser jingle from the 1980s, which I always hummed to myself as an intensity-builder during basketball games<\/p>\n

\u2022 <\/span>My 7th-grade basketball coach at Austin Jr. High<\/span><\/p>\n

\u2022 <\/span>Bible Drill competition (I achieved “State Winner Perfect” from 4th to 6th grade)<\/p>\n

\u2022 <\/span>The music of Rich Mullins<\/a><\/p>\n

\u2022 <\/span>The lyrical mastery of late 1980s Kool Moe Dee<\/p>\n

\u2022 <\/span>Breakin’<\/span><\/a> and Breakin’ 2: Electric Boogaloo<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n

\u2022 <\/span>My 1977 Caprice Classic (brown and tan), handed down from my grandparents<\/p>\n

\u2022 <\/span>Trips in the RV with Memaw and PawPaw<\/p>\n

\u2022 <\/span>Having braces<\/p>\n

\u2022 <\/span>Not having much money during junior high and high school<\/p>\n

\u2022 <\/span>Not being as popular in high school as I wanted to be<\/p>\n

\u2022 <\/span>All the artists and musicians in my family<\/p>\n

\u2022 <\/span>Being around the deaf kids my mom taught<\/p>\n

\u2022 <\/span>The Lord of the Rings<\/span> trilogy and The Hobbit<\/span><\/a>, by J.R.R. Tolkien<\/p>\n

\u2022 <\/span>The Narnia series<\/a>, by C. S. Lewis<\/p>\n

\u2022 <\/span>The Sports section of the Amarillo Globe-News<\/a><\/p>\n

<\/span>\u2022 <\/span>That Bigfoot book I read about two dozen times<\/p>\n

\u2022 <\/span>The Hardy Boys<\/p>\n

\u2022 <\/span>The Duke boys<\/p>\n

\u2022 <\/span>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)<\/p>\n

\u2022 <\/span>The stories about Amarillo serial killer Jay Kelly Pinkerton<\/a><\/p>\n

\u2022 <\/span>The writing of Brennan Manning<\/a><\/p>\n

\u2022 <\/span>“Diff’rent Strokes”<\/p>\n

\u2022 <\/span>“Fat Albert and the Cosby Kids”<\/p>\n

\u2022 <\/span>My first crush, Megan, who lived across the street<\/p>\n

\u2022 <\/span>Mrs. Anderson, my 2nd grade teacher<\/p>\n

\u2022 <\/span>U2’s documentary film, Rattle and Hum<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n

\u2022 <\/span>Reading The Shining<\/span><\/a> way before I should have<\/p>\n

\u2022 <\/span>The public library<\/p>\n

\u2022 <\/span>When my dog Scuppers died<\/p>\n

\u2022 <\/span>Chicago Cubs games on WGN<\/p>\n

\u2022 <\/span>My career running the 110-meter hurdles in 7th grade, during which I finished last in all races but one.<\/p>\n

\u2022 <\/span>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)<\/span><\/p>\n

\u2022 <\/span>The Storseth family (now my in-laws)<\/p>\n

————–<\/p>\n

Good or bad, <\/span>what are your<\/span> influences?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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.) \u2022 My grandmother’s vintage Scrabble board game \u2022 Actively attending church from as far…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":84,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[19,37],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-61","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-lists","category-random"],"yoast_head":"\nAn Incomplete List of Influences - O Me of Little Faith<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/omeoflittlefaith\/2010\/01\/an-incomplete-list-of-influences.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"An Incomplete List of Influences - O Me of Little Faith\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"The following is a random list of things that have played a role in who I am today. 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