25 Random Things

25 Random Things has been going around Facebook for a while now. My friend Larissa Schwartz tagged me on her list, so I put my fingers to the keyboard and posted one, too. Thanks again, Larissa! It was a fun exercise.

So...here is a whole lot more information about me than you will ever want or need to know:

1. I am named after my dad, but he had a different middle name (Melvin), so I wasn't a junior. My middle name is Patrick, after my Irish grandfather Patrick Gallagher. When I was young, I wanted my middle name to be Melvin, too. No offense to anyone named Melvin, but I'm glad now that didn't happen.

2. When I was young, my dad's family referred to us at Big Donny and Little Donny. Only my cousin Phyllis, my mom and a couple of my college fraternity brothers still call me Donny. I would rather be called Brilliant, but that will never happen.

3. I still hold the record for the 100-yard dash at my high school because after I graduated, they changed from yards to meters.

4. I really like watching and listening to great guitar players. I've played for more than 30 years, but never seem to get any better. My dream is for someone like Eric Clapton to invite me up on stage to sit in for a few songs. "And monkeys will fly out of my..." -- Madonna

5. I appreciate small, everyday things and stop to smell and photograph flowers whenever I see them. Earlier this week, I was late getting back to work after lunch because I spent time observing water droplets on leaves and the way the light sparkled differently as the angle of the sun changed. I once vowed never to be without a camera. So much for that; no photos to come.

6. As a kid, I would spend entire evenings watching spiders spin their webs until they finished and got into position in the center. I didn't wait around for the gory, insect murder portion of the program. I don't like horror movies, either, and usually leave the room when it gets violent.

7. I can go for long stretches of time without interacting with a whole lot of people in person. I like people a lot, but don't need to be around them all the time to be happy. That said, I was Speaker of the Year for Toastmasters Club 2593 a few years back. See number 8, below.

8. I'm generally not very competitive and don't mind when other people finish ahead of me, especially when they're people I like. Knowing how good they feel makes me feel good, too. But then, so does winning, so I guess I'm competitive after all. I can't decide. Being a Gemini is a curse, I guess. Or, maybe it's a blessing. I can't decide. You decide.

9. I took up bicycle road racing after I ruptured my achilles tendon playing racquetball when I was 35 years old. Last year, I was ranked number one in California and number four in the U.S. for criterium racing in my age group. For that, you get listed on a web page hardly anyone ever visits. "Everyone get 15 pageviews of fame." -- Andy Warhol

10. The hair that used to grow on my head has moved to my nose and my ears and other places where it should not be found (aging isn't pretty). In college, I was a bearded, long-haired, bell-bottomed hippy and used to go to San Diego to buy Mexican pot by the kilo. I spent a night in jail for growing and possessing it in 1973 and that scared the freaking bejesus out of me, so I put down the ganja. (Never, ever go to jail.) I still admire the Rastafari movement, the late Bob Marley and his sons who carry on with his message. One love.

11. I can't decide if I want to live in a beach house on an island in the Pacific, a cabin in the woods or an apartment in Manhattan. I wish I could alternate between the three.

12. I went to Brooks Institute of Photography to study photojournalism, but they closed the department when I got there and I ended up getting my degree in photographic illustration. It took a long time to realize it, but I don't enjoy trying to illustrate someone else's ideas. I much prefer to shoot what I see that inspires me.

13. I get tired and frustrated contemplating whether or not there is a god and what it means. I just wish people would destroy all the world's weapons, forget past animosities, love and care for each other and live in peace, marvel at the wonders of the universe and the gift of our planet and be thankful for the blessing of life. Hey, you might as well ask, right?

14. My great-grandfather Hiram Davidson was one of the first settlers of the San Bernardino valley and the city has a Davidson School and Davidson Street named after him. My dad told me Hiram owned a lot of land in the north end of town but lost it in a poker game. Whenever I go back to San Bernardino and tell people I'm the great-grandson of one of the city's pioneers, they say stuff like, "Spare a buck so a guy can get a meal? How about a cigarette?"

15. I grew up with parents who smoked and had my first cigarette when I was about 11 or 12 years old. When the attendant was busy checking someone's oil (like they used to do), my friend and I bought a pack from a machine at a gas station for a quarter. It made us dizzy, so we tossed them out. I took it up for real when I was in college because my girlfriend smoked. She left me, but I was hooked and I smoked until New Year's eve 1976. Cigarettes killed my dad, and my mom is tethered to an oxygen machine at home because of them. Philip Morris: kiss my ass.

16. On the first day of my first job out of college, I rode shotgun in a gasoline tank truck, filling tanks of wind machines in orange groves so they could prevent the fruit from freezing overnight. The tanks of the machines were on top of the towers and it was pitch dark, so we didn't know they were full until the gasoline was raining down on us. We did it until 2 a.m., and around midnight, the grizzled old guy who was driving the truck broke out a bottle of Wild Turkey whiskey that we shared as we drove through the groves. We did this 16 hours a day for two straight weeks. I was really glad I got a college education so I could make the world safe for orange juice.

17. Growing up, I lived in 14 different houses in 15 years and went to almost every school in San Bernardino. I wish my mom would have learned to redecorate instead.

18. If I accomplish nothing else of import in my lifetime, it won't matter because I raised two of the finest sons any man could ever ask for.

19. I have no tattoos -- yet. I have the design worked out, just need the courage (and/or copious amounts of alcohol).

20. I got my first job at age 15 and have been working almost continuously ever since. My average time on a job during those four decades is around four years. See number 17 to understand what Freud might say about it.

21. I generally prefer the company of women to men. When I worked at Mount St. Mary's College, one of the nuns called me Sister Don and I was honored. I have a lot of great male friends, mind you, and like to hang out with them, but (sorry, guys) I much prefer to be around women. They think better. I also find them a lot more pleasant to look at. (Yeah, I'm in big trouble now.)

22. I tend to work with intense spurts of high energy, sharp focus and productivity, followed by periods of aimless contemplation and lack of organization. Some might call this laziness, but I prefer to think of it as spiritual research and emotional strategic planning. One of my favorite van Gogh paintings is "Noon: Rest from Work (after Millet)." I'll take the tall haystack, please. With the shade on the side.

23. I'm an emotion junkie. I tear up every time Hallmark Hall of Fame shows that commercial where the former student returns to visit her retiring college professor as he's packing up his office. You know he knows where his glasses are; he just wants her to say the words in the card. And when he tells her he remembers her after all those years...

24. In the summer after my sophomore year in college, my dad gave me just enough money to fly one-way to Hawaii and said, "Get a job and earn your ticket home. I'm not paying for it." I lived in a one-room apartment in the Waikiki area of Oahu with two fraternity brothers, worked the 6-11 p.m. shift as a janitor for the Honolulu newspaper, spent the days eating the one big meal a day I could afford at Smorgy (the smorgasbord at the Royal Hawaiian Hotel), then lounged on the beach or hitchhiked around the island. During that summer, I saw Janis Joplin and Jimi Hendrix in concert right before they died. It took all summer, but I saved enough money to fly home. It was one of the best times of my life, but I was bummed that I never got laid.

25. I used to be a procrastinator, but can't seem to find the time for it any more. I would really like to try it again later.

Bonus Random Thing #26: If you don't make your own list and tag 25 friends, the world will not come to an end. It will, however, be a much less interesting place.

[With thanks to Larissa for inspiring me to do this and apologies for borrowing (albeit much less effectively) from her style and content.]