Throwback, Part 2

Gun’s Quote-of-the-Week:

…and now we continue with Pickell Hall from the great year of 2004. Let’s just right to it, shall we?

“Please use the crotch to get in to the building.”

-Erin. So, our dorm that year was shaped like a pair of pants. There was a main door between the two “legs” and we instructed students to enter through those doors… by telling them to come in the crotch.

“Nobody beats ‘Off In The Corner!’”

-Beau Poquette. We were creating teams for some activity in the dorm, and Beau came up with “Off In The Corner” for a team name. We simply couldn’t understand why this was a good idea, so he said the above to help explain his logic. No further explanation was needed.

 “I like how your plants move like it’s real… I mean it is real… but…”

-Derek Ridge. I think Derek got confused when he was observing my aquarium plants moving in the water flow of my tank.

“That’s my daddy for you… he’s a farter.”

-Katie Green. Katie sharing fond memories of her childhood.

“No, some things make me fart, but bread makes me poop.”

-Derek Ridge. Derek specifying the source of indigestion that evening.

“Here’s my plan. I just farted.”

-Derek Ridge. Good plan.

“If you fart on me, I will burp on you!”

-Katie Green. Threatening with threats.

Now that I think back, my Pickell staff had a great deal of interest in poop and farting… oh well.

“Pass Away… as in die?”

-Bridget Dougherty. Bridget needed to clarify that we were, indeed, talking about death.

“You’re like a 1980s computer.”

-Aaron Ingrassia. Aaron seemed to be disgruntled with how quickly someone was moving that night. He liked them to archaic technology.

“I had a chest hair once…”

-Bridget Dougherty. Thanks for sharing.

…and my personal favorite out of this bunch:

“Get your panties out of the thong position!”

-Michiko Alvarenga. Michiko (our boss) was telling us to dry up and quit complaining about something. We did. Then we laughed our loud.

Tomorrow night the escapade will continue with non-sensicle quotes from 2005. Stay tuned!

…and that’s why it’s a Gun’s Quote!

Throwback, Part 1

Gun’s Quote-of-the-Week:

Well, folks, this week I spent my time at home instead of in Illinois where I should have been enjoying an evening with a pledge brother and his new wife. The fact that there were still cars slipping off of the highway and ramming in to each other 24 hours after a record-setting snowfall hit Kansas City kept me cramped up in my house all day for fear of becoming yet another idiot out on the road who shouldn’t be driving.

In any case, I figured I would do something productive, like sort and file old notes and files from years past. You know, cleaning things out. While doing so, I discovered old Gun’s Quotes that I kept from my days in Clark Hall, room 319 where Gun’s Quotes started on a marker board! Many of them are ridiculous, so tonight we are doing one, big, absurd throwback to ten years ago (2003 to be precise) and throwing out as many gems in one post as possible. Are you ready, kids?

“God’s not up at 5 AM!”

-Aaron Ingrassia, after telling him that I was doing some church-related activity early one morning. (Adopt-a-Highway, maybe???)

“She’s pretty cute… for a girl.”

-John Sillitti. John is going to make this list quite a bit tonight.

“Do not fornicate my pretzels!”

-Aaron Ingrassia. Aaron’s going to make this list a bunch tonight, too.

“You’re always black when you’re on my phone!”

-John Sillitti. John had an old, black-and-green screen cell phone. Most of the rest of us had upgraded to color by then, because, you know, cell phones had color screens for five years up to that point. So, when somebody called John’s phone, their name came up in black text… always.

“We resurfaced all the old people.”

-John Sillitti. That makes three thus far, John.

“Your arm’s asleep why? Because you ate rye bread?”

-Derek Ridge. Can’t quite remember how Derek made this rather far-fetched conclusion…

“I love my printer guy. He talks to me.”

-Derek Ridge. Derek had a Lexmark printer that had that super-annoying printer driver that felt the need to announce to you “PRINTING STARTED” whenever you hit print. But he liked him.

“How can you go home and look your mother and father in the eye knowing that you hugged a man that was pantless?”

-Tyler. An excellent question indeed.

“…and look how you turned out… Religious.”

-Aaron Ingrassia. I believe that we were discussing how our parents raised us one night, and Aaron pointed out a key flaw in my upbringing. Haha!

“Hey, baby, wanna go to church?”

-Aaron Ingrassia. Aaron was suggesting pick-up lines to help me find a date. For the record, this one never worked.

“Why don’t you run, fan?”

-Josh Reasoner. Josh wired it up, turned it on, and nothing happened. His curiosity was stirred.

Oh, there’s more where that came from, folks. Tomorrow night will be Pickell Hall and the quotes I found from 2004. Stay excited… you are getting four Gun’s Quotes this week!

…and that’s why it’s a Gun’s Quote!

Intersections

Gun’s Quote-of-the-Week:

“Be discerning. Bad decisions and bad friends are easily made.”

-LLIC 2008

It’s easiest to go straight.

Think about it. When you see a car wreck, where do you see it? Is it on the straight section of road, with no intersection, no turns, no curves? Hardly. Sure, there are exceptions. Sometimes the road has ice. Sometimes there’s a blowout, but for the most part, if somebody makes a mistake and causes an accident, it is because they didn’t see something or made the wrong turn at an intersection.

Intersections are where lost people can’t decide whether or not to go right or left and change their mind when the light turns green. Intersections are where people miss the stop sign and drive on through. Intersections are where you question if this was the turn you were supposed to make or if it is the next one. They are the point in which you choose which way you are going to go. Your decision turns into the place you want to go or the place you never intended to. Indiscretion at an intersection can turn you into a pile of twisted metal. Conversely, your indiscretion can do the same thing to somebody else.

There would be no use for roads if there were no intersections. There are many places in life to go and many places we should never be. The only way we can avoid bad places and reach the good ones is to turn. Sometimes, that’s hard. Sometimes, we second guess ourselves.

There has been much second-guessing recently. There has been much looking in the rear view mirror. There is wonder as to where that one road lead. There has been concern that this road is bumpier than the one I could have taken. There is concern that my next turn is bumpier yet.

Then, there was clarity. It came quickly and without much warning this weekend. Suddenly, I knew that the road I was traveling was the correct one. My nerves and senses were calmed, and I came to know the confidence of driving in the right direction again.

You see, there is one other intersection that exists in our world and at that intersection was the Sacred Heart of Jesus. The intersection I speak of were the two tree limbs that made His cross. That was, perhaps, the toughest intersection of them all.

It was this intersection, this love, that helped remind me that the decisions I made in my past were discerned carefully, honestly and with great care. It was this intersection that drove me to where I wanted to go and to where I belong. It was reliance upon this intersection that provided me the direction in the first place. It will be this reliance which guides me on where I turn next.

We all have the benefit of 20-20 vision. We also have the benefit of discernment. We all make decisions everyday and sometimes we look back and question whether or not we really did the right thing. It’s natural and it’s human.

This road of life is a one-way street, however, and there is no going backwards. So even if you’ve made a wrong turn, know that you can discern a new one. Know that the most important intersection in life, the Cross, can help you with that discernment.

After you discern, choose, and drive forward.

…and that’s why it’s a Gun’s Quote!

Play

Gun’s Quote-of-the-Week:

“Life is a game, play it.”

-Mother Teresa

The snow gently started to fall as the five of us made our way back to the cabin. We were all pooped.

Unbeknownst to Chris but knownst to Micah and me, we crouched down in a football 3-point stance and prepared to pounce like a lion on an unknowing gazelle. Suddenly, Micah let out a roar and the two of us took off at full force, gang tackled Chris to the ground, and snow wrestled until we were both satisfied with the amount of white power we got into his face.

This is my life for this one weekend out of the year. It’s the weekend of potato guns, snow wrestling, fort building, tree falling, bonfiring, grilling and peeing outdoors. It’s Men’s Retreat.

We have never had a formal program. We are a bunch of friends who get together at Chris’ cabin sometime in February in the middle-of-nowhere northern Michigan, where most sane people avoid because of the snow and frigid temperatures. It is this weather that drives us out to play.

Play.

That’s what we do. Play. There is no other time of the year where we act so juvenile, immature and young. The last time I went out into the snow and just played was at last year’s Men Retreat. The time before that I probably was not a teenager yet. As guys, we were all very comfortable with each other in the cabin. We cook our own meals, throw fits when we lose at a four-hour-long Risk game, heckle each other, create competitions with bodily noises and are just very authentic, real, honest and sometimes raw. The same guys that I shot a potato gun with are the same guys I had a gun control conversation with. They are the same guys who listened to my struggles in life right now and who offered their advice when I needed it, even when I didn’t ask.

There are some who would read this and wonder if we also sang Kumbaya. For the record, we didn’t. We’re not weird.

An event like this shouldn’t be weird, either.

I have no idea when it happened, but at some point in my life, I grew up. The days of running out in the snow and wrestling around stopped suddenly and without any real reason. The honest, innocent conversations pretty much ceased. The importance of rest and relaxation gave way to paying the bills, finding a job and being a productive member of society. While nobody ever told me I couldn’t do it anymore, the idea of sleepovers and staying up till God-knows-when in the morning with your friends just to see which of the last two players standing won Risk turned into a thing that kids do. Sharing a bed – Hell, sharing a bedroom – was out of the question. Adults had private, personal lives which were not the business of anybody else. There were walls and bubbles that we were all supposed to make and respect. We were inside of them. Nobody came in and nobody came out, and they certainly didn’t make themselves vulnerable to one another. And to play? No, adults never play.

Well, this one did. No, it’s not abnormal. Whether you care to acknowledge it or not, there is a deep passion inside of each of us that I can only call the Human Connection. It supersedes Facebook, Twitter, TV, Facetime, a phone conversation or YouTube. It is the power of being with your family, your best friends, your confidant or significant other and just being real. Just for a moment. Just long enough to tear down the arbitrary barriers that we collectively put up as a society so that we really experience life.

I’m on an airplane now heading back from Michigan to Kansas. I work tomorrow. I need to do laundry. There are bills to pay. I’m gearing up for a construction project on my house. You know, adult stuff. I’ll do all of these things as cheerfully as I can, knowing that none are my life but only a means by which I make my living. They are merely the things that I do so that I can actually live life the way it’s meant to be.

Not with barriers or expectations or masquerades, but with honesty, humility and, well,

Play.

…and that’s why it’s a Gun’s Quote!