Dear Mike,
You asked me to write a letter to you for your time capsule (to be opened in the year 2015). In it you asked for memories of your college days at Lipscomb University. So here goes…
I hope things are going well for you. I guess by now we’d both be about 40 years old. Agghhhh…middle age! I suspect you are working for Disney in some type of manner. Probably married.
As far as memories at Lipscomb, in our freshmen year, I remember getting (by e-mail) your 101 distribution list of “101 Things to Do During a Dull Sermon.” You had a distribution list of e-mail addresses at school. You would periodicially send out your 101 list twice a week or so. Your list grew from teh orignal sermon idea to announcing happenings at school. I had a distribution list of my own…where I would send out David Letterman’s Top Ten lists. We seemed to get competitive about who could get the most people on their distribution list. E-mail was a new thing back then. It was amazing that I could e-mail a friend in Massachusettes and she would get it within seconds.
Do you remember Mike Woollard’s stuffed animal Walrus? His Walrus was something that he made in home economics in 8th grade. He had brought this blue Walrus to school. We bugged him about having a stuffed animal at college. One time you, Matt Owensby, Amy Bohn, and some other people kidnapped Mike Woollard’s Walrus and took pictures of it at different places. You went to the local Media Play (store that sells, books, CD’s, and computer games). You took pictures of it in a shopping cart and a bunch of different places. You were so wild at Media Play, the manager had to ask you to leave. I think you went to Opryland Hotel after that. Unfortunately I wasn’t with you at the time. I had invited my parents to see Singarama (Lipscomb’s yearly musical). But I did see the pictures you took. You were able to replace the Walrus without Mike Woollard knowing anything had happened. Mike W. didn’t know what to think when he saw those pictures of his Walrus.
Do you remember rooming with Clark Gray (from Huntsville, Alabama)? Clark spoke with an extremely southern accent and liked tennis. He did have an aquarium with piranhas in it. These piranhas only ate when it was dark. Clark had put some goldfish in the tank. They weren’t eating them yet. I happened to be over at your dorm room. You told me that you were going to take a nap. I left and went back to my dorm room. You called me about 20 minutes later to ask me to come down to your room. It sesm like the piranhas had eaten some of the gold fish while you were sleeping. THere was a floating head of one of teh goldfish. Gross!
How about O.J. Simpson’s trial? It was all we heard about on the news from late 1994 to 1995. On October 3, 1995 they finally announced the verdict (in the criminal trial). They were going to be announcing the verdict will we were in chapel. After chapel we rushed into the basement of Burton Bible Building to find out the verdict. Not guilty. We were disappointed. The evidence showed that he was guilty.
Do you remember working the help desk at ISS at the school (in the basement of the library)? How about Helen Gore and Michelle Putnam? Helen was in charge of us ISS workers and kept us in line. 🙂 Michelle was a faculty member at Lipscomb. At the end of each semester we’d have a pizza party for ISS workers in the conference room at ISS. Helen would order tons of pizza from Papa Johns. We’d sit and eat all day. ANd it was all free.
Do you remember when the VAX would go down and no one could access their email (or anything else)? Or how about the change from a DOS environment to Windows ’95? That was quite a chance. It took forever for students to learn to use Windows 95 without asking the help desk.
Do you remember going to church at Crieve Hall church of Christ? I always caught a ride from you. I offered to drive, but you thought I was a bad driver. So you didn’t want to ride from me. Dan Winkler was the preacher at Crieve Hall. I remember the singing being excellent.
I remember Dennis Hennen and I visiting you at Disney World in June of 1997. We were able to see most of the parks (Magic Kingdom, EPCOT, and Disney MGM). Animal Kingdom hadn’t opened yet. Dennis had made up these cards that told us when to ride the rides (when was the least busy times) and where the most inexpensive place to eat at was. It helped out a lot. We rode Space Mountain about 4 times.
Well, that’s about all I can think of at the moment. I was able to get a full time job in September ’97 at Northern Telecom (Nortel) in Nashville. I think right now you are planning to work at Disney World again from Feb. ’98 to August ’98. Please try to contact me when you read this. My parent’s ohone number and address is at the top of this page. I imagine I’m probably not living there any more (but hopefully still in Middle Tennessee). Hope things are well iwth you.