Chris Mortenson:  

Life Became an AF Officer in '91, a husband in '93, a Dad in '93 & '96; we moved to back to Colorado in '07... far from the stomping grounds of Northwest Baltimore where I grew up. I am proud to be serving my country in a time when it needs me, but my family is grateful it is state-side. I have several military friends who have been and/or are deployed, and we are praying for them and their families. Were I called to go, I would not hesitate to put my life on the line to protect the interests, way of life, and lives of my fellow Americans. We have lived very well in this country for a long time, and we need to appreciate what we have and how we got here. To those who are serving and have served overseas and the families and friends who support them, THANK YOU and God bless you for all you do! May God continue to bless all who read this. School I can't imagine who would read this, but since you are here I owe it to you to write something relatively entertaining. Just when I think I have a chance of being normal I realize just how forgettable the normal people are, and who wants to be forgotten? I did some interesting and strange stuff at Woodlawn, particularly when working on the Tech Crew. We worked in and had access to the auditorium after school and some weekends. We literally climbed the walls and clambered onto the catwalks, jumped off the catwalks onto the high-jump mats on the stage, went into the air shafts under the auditorium, went onto the school roof... oh, and there was the "trapeze" we set up on the stage. Lucky we didn't get hurt or even killed doing some of that crazy stuff and others. Don't tell Mr Terry. Socially, I was probably seen as a little shy to those who didn't really know me. Those who actually know me can tell you that I could be a little wild and crazy. As both a gymnast (I was on a gymnastics team at a private club near Martin's West) and distance runner, athletics were my real talent in school. If you want to know about some of the standard (frankly boring) things I did you can look in the '83-'86 yearbooks at the cross-country pages, and track in '85 & '86. My best finish was 1st in the 800 meters in the Baltimore County indoor track championships ('86), and my best race was the same event in the outdoor championships, when I actually came in 2nd, but I came back from last place in a field of 10 after the first (of 2) laps--ask Mike Young about it. March of 2006 I had my second of two minor knee surgeries so far... see where all that fitness gets you. I'm able to run again a little, but I'll never be competitive like I was back then. The 1986 annual (Yearbook) shows me in the honor society, theater, PTSA (I'm in the shades and embarassingly short shorts), and a few other places. The bottom line about school is that, although I felt like I wasn't really "popular", I liked high school. It allowed me to do many things all at once and I was pretty good at some of them, if I may say so myself. I was able to do some more cool stuff in college including running cross country, singing and dancing in a show choir, and ROTC drill team type stuff, but I haven't had time to do more than one at a time since then. Now my options are much more limited--my body is getting old, and I won't take too much time away from my family to do MY thing... at least until my kids are in high school. All-in-all High School was good to me. It wasn't the best school around, but I made the best of it and have no regrets. College College was another good time for me. A year at UMBC allowed me to compete in cross country at the collegiate level for a year. UMBC was a commuter school and not what I was looking for, so I stayed only the one year. I transferred to Virginia Tech and joined Air Force ROTC. It seemed like a good idea at the time. By the second night when I was calling home in tears wondering what I had gotten myself into (and if my hair would grow back or not). I looked around at the some of the mouth-breathers tha...Expand for more