Joel Sullivan:  

My dad worked hard for a living and took care of what he had; he took pride in what he owned; he treated people with respect and expected the same in return. My dad also took pride in his car. When we went anywhere in his car and parked, we always parked out in the boonies, away from any other parked cars if possible and under a tree, also, if possible. My dad was a quiet man, he spoke mostly through his actions. One summer day when I was a child, maybe 10, I went with my parents in the car to a store where my mother went in to shop and my father and I remained sitting in the car, parked in the boonies,in the shade, with the windows down, just enjoying the pleasant day. My dad was sitting behind the wheel and I was sitting in the front passenger seat when this car pulls up next to us on my side. Undoubtedly this person wanted the shade too. I looked over and saw that it was a middle aged guy. He turned off the engine, got out of the car and in the process bangs our front passenger car door with his door. Then heads towards the store. I watch my dad immediately get out of the car, walk around the back of the car and over to my car door, he opens my car door, bangs it against the guys car door, closes my door, walks back around to his door and climbs back behind the wheel. While he was getting out of the car I noticed in the mirror that the other driver turned back and was watching my dad. He saw my dad go around the car and bang the door against his car. I was watching this guy and when my dad banged the guys car with his door, the guy just kinda flinched, turned and walked away towards the store. My dad never said a word the whole time. He just climbed back in the car and we just sat there in silence like nothing happened and enjoyed the quiet, pleasant summer day while we waited for my mother to return. That little episode kinda framed my whole outlook on life. My dog once bit me, he was about 3 years old,so I crabbed his hairy paw, put it in my mouth, and bit him back, I didn't chomp down too hard, but hard enough to make him yelp. That dog never bit me again as long as he lived. When I was in 8th grade I had to wear glasses. On the first day that I wore my glasses, I was in the school hallway at my locker when I heard two of my classmates snickering about 20 feet away from me. When I looked over I noticed that they were snickering and pointing at me because I was wearing glasses. Now I was always one of the 3 smallest kids in my grade, but I am Irish, and I learned from my dad's actions a long time ago. I closed my locker nice and quietly, calmly walked over to my two classmates, reached up, grabbed a wad of hair from each head, and smashed their heads together. I never said a word, I turned and walked away in to the classroom. Its who I am. "How do you hope old friends remember you?" Well, I hope people remember me as a "Jolly Good Sh?t!", as Hans Rindelaub use to call me because my initials were/are JGS. (I had to edit my sentence after Jolly because of potentially inappropriate language, hopefully, you can figure what the "?" stands for.) If I didn't change this I couldn't save this. "Who am I really?" There is no easy answer for that...all I can do is add stories to this and you will have to figure that out for yourself. As I said, before, I was always one of the smaller guys in school, so most of my early and I guess later life was affected by this. Some people always thought I was skinny, my Mom always said I was healthy, I was just slim. When I was about 12 I would go on the beer route with my Dad, mostly in the summer but on many holiday vacations also. My Dad was a Grainbelt Beer salesman/driver. We would go from town to town delivering beer and taking orders. One morning we were over in Woodlake, my dad had gone in the beer joint and I was left outside to unload the truck. Well, these two older guys (older than my dad and they had gray hair)stopped and looked at me as they were headed in to the beer joint. One of them said,"Gee son, it looks like you need to eat a few more spuds." they both chuckled. I just stared at him while I reached my right hand into the truck, grabbed the bottom case of a stack of 7 full cases of beer and pulled the whole stack forward. The guy with the mouth's eyes bug out, he rubs his chin and says,"well, then again, maybe you don't." My arms were strong because my friends dad worked for Appleton Silo, the guy who built silos, and he had lots of ropes and he gave me one and hung it high up on a tree branch for me and I used to climb that rope often. I really enjoyed climbing rope, especially without using my legs, just hand over hand. When I was in high school, after I got do...Expand for more