Big

All Paul ever wanted was a normal childhood. But normal was the one thing he couldn't experience. He wasn't able to play with the other kids on the playground. He was always afraid he'd hurt someone or break something. But, even if that wasn't a fear for him, he didn't want to deal with all the teasing that came with being around his classmates.

Paul was a big kid. And it isn't the kind of big that most people think about these days. Paul wasn't a victim of childhood obesity. No, Paul was just the closest thing one could find to a giant outside of Jack and the Beanstalk.

Doctors couldn't explain the boy's size. When he was born, all signs pointed to the fact that he was a normal, healthy baby boy. Then, somewhere over the course of the next 10 years of his young life, he grew. His parents loved him dearly, but weren't quite sure how to deal with a child of Paul's size. The boy was taller than his own father by the time he reached the fourth grade. By that point it was clear that his name seemed to be a cruel joke, as all the kids would refer to him as Paul Bunyan. For Paul, it stopped being funny a long time ago.

But Paul tried to stay happy about his situation. Sure he couldn't run around and play tag with the kids who were half his size. He couldn't jump on the swing set or go down the slide. But he was smart. Even at a young age, Paul understood the importance of making good grades, and he never came home with less than an A. He worked hard and knew that one day it would all pay off.

He looked forward to a time when he could be in high school. He'd still be bigger than the other kids, but they'd catch up to him. At least a little, anyway. And then, maybe he'd be able to play with everyone else. Maybe he'd be able to go out for the football team. He'd watched enough football on TV with his dad, he knew that no one would ever be able to take him down. He'd be able to play basketball. By then, he'd be able to dunk the ball without ever leaving the ground.

Paul knew there would be struggles, but he smiled when he thought about what his future held.

Today's writing prompt is brought to you by Sunday Scribblings.

Unfrozen

Today just seemed like a good day for some classic SNL and some classic Phil Hartman. Have a great weekend kids.

Question of the Week: Sacrifice

Would you be willing to make a substantial sacrifice to have any of the following: your picture on a postage stamp, your statue in a park, a college named after you, a Nobel prize, a national holiday in your honor?

Maybe I'm just not ambitious enough, but none of these things really appeal to me. The way things are looking for the post office, stamps may become a thing of the past. Why would I want to become a statue? One more thing for pigeons to rest and relieve themselves on. Not cool. The only good thing I could think of that would come from winning a Nobel prize is that I might become a clue on Jeopardy someday. And do we really need another day off? Okay, yes, we probably could use that.

Maybe my ambition is just dampened by the fact that I'm on vacation right now. Stop making me think about making sacrifices for the greater good.

*Question of the Week comes from The Book of Questions by Gregory Stock, Ph.D.

AFI 92 - Goodfellas

GoodFellas

1990

Directed by Martin Scorsese

Netflix sleeve: Joe Pesci and Robert De Niro chew plenty of scenery, but the focus of this gripping Martin Scorsese opus is real-world mobster Henry Hill (Ray Liotta), a gangster who dreamed of making it big but landed in the Witness Protection Program instead. Nominated for six Oscars (including Best Picture), the film's only win was Pesci's Best Supporting Actor statue for his scene-stealing portrayal of ticking time bomb Tommy DeVito.

Violent. Gritty. Based on true events. I read somewhere that the F-bomb is dropped more than 300 times. I'm pretty sure 250 of those came from Joe Pesci. I actually watched this a few years ago and I was glad I did. It prepared me for Community's Mafia movie tribute episode from last season. I actually haven't seen too many gangster movies. I've seen all the Godfather films, but that genre just isn't my cup of tea. So, I thought this movie was okay, but it wouldn't land in my personal top 100.

'Cause I Wonder Where You Are

Monday was a busy day, and it started kind of early. Not really that early for a typical Monday. But this Monday was no typical Monday. It was a vacation Monday. Vacation Mondays are meant for sleeping late. Well, they are if you don't have a job interview at 8:30 in the morning.

More back story...

Around the beginning of February I applied for a couple open social worker positions back home in Roanoke. I've been trying to get out of banking almost the entire time I've worked in banking, this is no secret. Things just haven't really panned out for me thus far. Now, for selfish reasons, I would love to find a job in or around the Raleigh area, making the need to relocate a non-issue. However, jobs are difficult to come by these days. So when one opens up and I have a shot at it, no matter where it is, I'm gonna take the shot.

Applied. Resumed. And went several weeks without hearing anything. So I wrote it off as a negative response. And then I checked my mailbox a couple weeks ago.

I received a letter saying that they wanted me for an interview. The only problem was that the interview was scheduled for the day I received the letter in the mail. Not a great system they have there for letting their potential interviewees that they're wanted for the interview. I mean, there's this little invention called the telephone. I hear it's caught on pretty well. Oh, and the kids keep talking about this "electronic mail" that apparently sends messages instantaneously. You don't even need to pay postage. I don't know if that will catch on. We'll see.

Anyway, the letter informed me that if I wanted the interview, I needed to call by the previous day to confirm my time. So I did what any sane person would do. I hopped in my Wayback Machine and made the phone call. I confirmed my interview, scheduled that Thursday off, then drove into Roanoke to meet and greet my interviewers. But wait, if I did that, then I wouldn't have been there Thursday to receive the letter in the mail and I'd be stuck with a universe altering paradox.

Scratch that. I did not travel back in time.

I called the next morning to see if anything could be arranged. And luckily a phone interview was arranged for the following Monday. So Monday's phone interview came and went. I didn't think it went very well. I really don't like phone interviews. You can't read people's faces so you don't know what they're really thinking. There are long moments of silence while the interviewers are writing things down and you can't help but wonder if your stupid cell phone dropped the call. Very frustrating.

But this past Wednesday I received another call asking if it would be okay for them to check my references. From this, I assumed it was a good sign. And from that, I can assume that my phone interview went better than I initially thought. They called my manager at the bank, who gave me a glowing recommendation. I asked him how badly he had to lie. In his words: "I'm not Catholic, but I did have to go to confession for all the lies I told." He was joking, of course... I think.

And Thursday they called me again, this time to set up an in-person second interview. I'm pretty sure they don't just give second interviews to everyone who fills out an application. I'm taking this as another good sign. This brings us to this vacation Monday. Isn't it great how all this worked out? I just happened to be in Roanoke on vacation at the same time that I was needed for a job interview. It's a little thing I like to call "meant to be."

I'm not trying to count my chickens. I mean, don't get me wrong, the interview went well. I suited up and gave some pretty good answers. I was open and honest and even got a few laughs out of the room. I'm not sure when I'll know if I got the job, but it should be within a couple weeks, I'm sure.

That was the beginning of my Monday. This was followed by some running around. I met Jessica for a breakfast that stretched into lunch. It's great catching up with a friend like that when you haven't seen each other in so long. I visited my grandmother and drove her to pick up my cousin from school. And to top the day off, Mom made chicken and dumplings. And I ate. A lot. I collapsed into a food coma, from which I finally awoke about an hour ago.

All in all it's been a pretty decent trip to the 'Noke.

Hello... Is It Me You're Looking For?

I feel the need to play a little catch up here. I have 38 followers now and that means that 38 people out there have gone three days without seeing anything new from the Carp Dime. If you've had your hopes up all weekend, crossing your fingers, thinking that at some point, maybe late in the night, the Single Guy would post something new, I apologize. I didn't have anything.

Actually, it isn't that I didn't have anything. As you'll see from the following paragraphs, I had plenty. I just didn't have internet access. But to set the stage for the story of this weekend, I have to give some back story. So, please, bear with me.

Back in September, I got together with a group of college friends for a weekend get away at Smith Mountain Lake. Heather's folks have a pretty snazzy house on the water that they let us use from time to time. At the time I wrote a little about it here, but it was more a serious reflection on the importance of these friends in my life than it was a summary of the good times we had over the weekend.

During that weekend, it was announced to the group that our friends Brandon and Kara were expecting their first child, due in April. The months passed and a few of us decided it would be a great idea to have what we have referred to as a "Bromance Baby Shower." The original plan was for the guys of our little group to get together at Mark's house in Bluefield (hometown of our collective alma mater) and throw a pre-fatherhood party for BrandoCommando.

Well, the baby girl decided to make an early appearance. Things are going well for both baby and mama at this point, though being a few weeks early, the baby's still at the hospital 'til she gets a little bigger. But this sort of put the kibosh on getting Brandon to a weekend party in a town two hours from home. So we adjusted the plans.

The guys who were still able to make it went, instead, back to the lake house. Since the house is closer to Roanoke, it made it easier for all of us to meet Brandon and still have a great time. Saturday evening we all came into town and met for dinner at Buffalo Wild Wings. Afterward, we hit the bowling alley for a game (and remind me to tell you about the messed up system they've got going on), followed by some ice cream. Yeah, we're getting pretty wild at that point.

Honestly, we can't get too wild these days. We've embraced the fact that we're all either in our 30s or quickly approaching them. And half the guys in our group Saturday night are fathers. Yeah. And here I am, the immature guy who has a hard time just talking to women. A story for another time...

Anyway, after the festivities in Roanoke, all of us (except the new dad) headed back to the lake house. Cards were played. Old school Nintendo was played. SNL was watched. It was a good time.

Sunday was a cold and rainy day. No fun to be had on the water, but we still had a great time sitting around catching up, the way friends do when they've spent some time apart. After a quick lunch, we said our good-byes and went our separate ways.

Oh yeah, I forgot to mention... Sunday was also my birthday. It's 31, so not really a big deal. But I did have a good birthday. Josh brought along a cake that Heather had made for me. It was Funfetti (with no chocolate, thanks for that). For me, these days, birthdays don't need to be a huge blow out kind of party. Any birthday spent among friends is a special one and is memorable.

I got back to Roanoke Sunday night. Since I had vacation this week, I decided to spend a few days with Mom. I haven't spent any significant time in Roanoke since last summer. Come to think of it, it may be longer than that. So I had internet access Sunday night and Monday. But Sunday night I was pretty exhausted (I told you, Saturday was wild) and Monday was a pretty busy day.

I'll post my Monday story tomorrow. There you go... something to look forward to.

Question of the Week: Judge

Do you judge others by higher or lower standards than you use to judge yourself?

I'd say that I judge myself much more harshly than I judge others. Don't get me wrong, I'm extremely judgmental of others. More so than I have any right to be. But I think that's human nature. We're constantly looking at people, comparing them to ourselves or others. I'm not excusing that behavior and I'm not saying it's right. It just is. Meeting someone for the first time, it's the easiest thing in the world to make a snap judgment about them, especially if you don't really know anything about them. It'd be nice if that was one of those things we could just turn off.

*Question of the Week comes from The Book of Questions by Gregory Stock, Ph.D.

The Horse and His Boy

Title: The Horse and His Boy
Author: C.S. Lewis
Published: 1954

Once again, I feel the need to explain that I'm reading this series in the order in which the books were originally published. That's how I roll. Even if the set I own tells me that this is supposed to be book 3 in the series. Balderdash!

I don't know what balderdash really means. I just like saying it sometimes. Sounds British. And since I'm writing about a book written by a British writer... Yeah, I don't know where I was going with that. That's what I like to call "going off on a tangent."

This installment of The Chronicles of Narnia was so much better than the last book, The Silver Chair. Even in the first chapter I knew this would be a better story. Something about it was just more exciting, more gripping. I actually got invested in these newly introduced characters and genuinely wanted to see what happened to them in their adventures.

We meet a boy named Shasta. He doesn't live in Narnia, but he's not from our world either. He's from Calormen, a country far to the south of Narnia. After eavesdropping on a conversation between his fisherman father and a Calormene nobleman, he discovers that he's not really the fisherman's son. The nobleman's horse turns out to be a talking Horse from Narnia who was kidnapped years before. So the two form an unlikely friendship and decide to escape to Narnia, where they are apparently both from.

Along the way, they meet up with another talking Horse and the daughter of another Calormene noble, Aravis. They, too, are escaping to Narnia. For a while they get separated in the Calormene capitol of Tashbaan. Separately they discover that the prince is plotting against the lands of Narnia and Archenland (a small kingdom bordering Narnia). Once they meet up again, they race across the desert separating the countries and help to save the kingdoms in a battle against the Calormene prince and his small army.

Aside from the typical children's book adventures that the main characters have, there is also the underlying theme of the book. I could be misinterpreting things, but I think a message that comes across in The Horse and His Boy is that everything happens for a reason. Aslan makes several appearances to our heroes and each time he reveals a little about himself and them as well. Each event that happened in Shasta's life happened to get him to where he was for a reason. Everything that happened to each of these characters happened by Aslan's design.

C.S. Lewis is pretty famous as a Christian apologist. And it's so easy to find the story of God's love for His children within the pages of these fictional children's books. Aslan's design for a greater purpose, I believe, parallels God's own design for us. Shasta couldn't see the big picture when he was treated so poorly living with the fisherman throughout his childhood. Bree (the Horse) couldn't see the part he would play in bringing Shasta back home to Archenland when he was kidnapped from Narnia. All these characters could see was the small piece of the puzzle that was right in front of them. They had trials and tasks that they had to face, but they couldn't understand the whole story.

It's the same way with God in our lives. And, yeah, I'm talking to myself here. We can't see the big picture. We can't even fathom it. All we can see is what's right in front of us. But God knows the beginning and the end of it all. The things that we face each day are just one tiny thread in the middle of an enormous and beautiful tapestry. God knows the design and he knows the importance of each thread that makes up that design.

Like I said, so much better than The Silver Chair.

Greek

I don't have the cable. In some ways it's good. It means I don't watch that much TV anymore. Which, I guess, is a good thing.

But, due to having no cable options, I resort to using Netflix instant viewing to watch TV when I sit down to watch something. This is a very good thing. Because Netflix has the rights to stream lots of those cable TV shows that I've never taken the time to enjoy in the past. Even when I had cable, I had the tendency to stick with network TV for my entertainment needs.

I have friends who have tried to get me involved in some of those shows from the USA network. I've heard good things about Burn Notice and Psych. Both of these are available online. And I hope to get around to them soon.

Recently I've been watching the ABC Family program, Greek. Mock if you will. The show features Kelsey Grammer's daughter, Spencer, as one the leads, and revolves around the lives of several members of several fraternities and sororities on the campus of the fictional Cyprus Rhodes University. It's really not that bad. I think it's kind of a fun show. And you know, Spencer Grammer, kinda easy on the eyes.

The whole fraternity/sorority thing got me thinking about Greek life at my own alma mater. I never got involved with a fraternity at Bluefield College. I toyed with the idea once or twice, but decided not to pledge anywhere. It just wasn't for me. My reasoning was pretty simple. Bluefield was a small school. And when I say small, I mean tiny. There were only so many people populating the campus. So for me to pay dues to hang out with guys I was gonna see all the time anyway seemed kind of a waste to me. I'm not judging anyone who did join the Greeks. I have several friends who were very active in their respective fraternity or sorority.

It just wasn't for me. Now, if I had been at a larger school, the odds of my getting involved would probably have increased. From what I've seen in movies and on TV, it seems pretty cool to have a house that you can go to to hang out with these friends that you've managed to form a real bond with. I can see the appeal of that sort of thing in a large university. At a small college, like Bluefield, there were only so many people to go around. As introverted as I am, I didn't want to limit myself to one group of people.

And then there's the argument that you form brotherly relationships. Or sisterly relationships where the sorority is concerned. That kind thing would hold a lot of appeal for me as a freshman in college. You're away from family for the first time in your life, so the Greek system would be a great way to find people with whom you have a lot in common.

I don't think I missed out on anything by not joining a fraternity. I made friends in college. And these friendships have grown and have lasted long past graduation. These are people I considered to be my family while I was at Bluefield College and they're people that I still consider to be family, despite the distance between us. We still keep in touch and let each other know what's going on in our lives. We share in the joy of a new birth and the grief of the passing of a loved one.

I can't speak for Greek alumni and how well they keep in touch with other members of their pledge classes, but I think we've done okay without knowing the Greek alphabet.

AFI 93 - The French Connection

The French Connection

1971

Directed by William Friedkin

Netflix sleeve: Violent, foul-mouthed detective "Popeye" Doyle (Gene Hackman) pursues a suave French drug dealer (Fernando Rey) through New York City with Captain Ahab-like zeal. Featuring a legendary car-vs.-train chase scene that stands the test of time, the film won the Best Picture Oscar. William Friedkin's groundbreaking crime drama that portrays cops and thugs in a similar light took the genre down a gritty, realistic path that influenced filmmaking for years.

Before now, my only exposure to this film was from the movie Big. Tom Hanks was watching it in his hotel room not long after the 13-year-old turned 30 and went to the city. And now, having seen the movie, it's one I could take or leave. It was all right, but not great, in my opinion. Although, that car chase that the Netflix sleeve talks about was pretty fantastic. Not that I'd ever heard anyone talking about the great chase scene from The French Connection before.