I think I was given a gift: you tell me a year and I'll tell you everything that happened.  For some people, years may run together, but I have a fairly photographic memory as to the things that took place during each calendar year.  At random, I chose 1998 for the first year to focus on.  Things that come to mind are the home run chase of Mark McGwire and Sammy Sosa; my first taste of success on the basketball court; being plagued by the monster known as acne; and long summers spent in front of the TV watching Little House on the Prairie and Three's Company.

The year began with me as a 15-year old in the second semester of my freshman year of high school in good old Willow Lake. Try as I might, I can only remember one class I took that year--Intro to Computers with Cheryl Berens. That was the year Willow Lake added a computer lab. Checking out of study hall to browse the internet for 45 minutes was the big craze. Guy LaMont, Jesse Van Heukelom, and I even took the big step towards getting a Hotmail account. We shared it three ways and got junk e-mail from Wheel of Fortune and the Pittsburgh Pirates.

The real story of school days at Willow Lake were on the basketball court, where I finally got some playing time towards the end of the season on the JV team. In a 9th-grade-only tournament, our team took home second place out of a huge bracket, but should have won it all if I hadn't missed an easy lay-up at the buzzer in the finals. Nevertheless, I did score 13 points in a game in that tournament, the first time I scored more than 4 points in a game in my five-year career. I ended the season with 89 points total.

That summer was spent mowing the lawns at Richland Township Cemetery. This was just a small cemetery near our house that needed to be mowed once every couple weeks. Days of playing baseball were over, since Little League ended after 8th grade. Three or four days a week I would be asked to help with some sort of work out in the field with Dad, usually moving hay bales. One of the few farm chores I didn't dislike was when we baled the little square bales for the sheep. We'd drive down the row and stack them on the flatbed. It was kinda fun to ride back and forth down the road on the giant stack of bales once we were done stacking them.

When I wasn't doing some sort of work--which was most of the time--I could be found in front of the TV in the living room, watching TBS from 7am to 11 every weekday morning. After all, Little House, Three's Company, Who's the Boss, and other great sitcoms of old were on. Sometimes we'd watch Price Is Right, but I never got into that quite as much. Mom would stop in to deliver the mail on her route around 9:09 every morning, and I'd rush to the kitchen hoping that by some off-chance I actually got some mail.  In the afternoon, I'd catch the talk shows like Maury, Montell, Springer, etc. By late afternoon, Seinfeld and Simpsons reruns would come on the local stations. Then at night I'd watch the Twins games on MSC in my bedroom. I'd estimate 50% of all free time was spent watching TV. 

I may be wrong, but I think we got the Internet at home by the end of 1998.  It was terribly slow dial-up.  Regardless, lots of time was spent browsing the internet as well. 

There was one trip that summer, when Brandon Hanson invited me and Jesse to go along with his family to Minneapolis for a couple days. Back then it was a huge deal to go to the Twin Cities. We hit up a Twins-Cardinals game, where McGwire hit his 38th of an eventual 70 homers. I also went to Valleyfair, my first trip there. Who knows, I may have seen some future co-workers while there that I didn't realize I'd ever know. And my first trip to the Mall of America was on the agenda. Good times were had by all.

In the fall, school started again, where I began my sophomore year. Back then, I was involved in essentially every activity offered. From the class plays to band and chorus to sports, I did it all. The previous three years, I didn't play football. In fact, I hated football so bad my seventh grade year I vowed to never play again. But after a pick-up game that summer with a bunch of guys from the team, I decided to give it another try. Things were going pretty well at first. I actually made it into every game in the early goings, and caught a couple passes. The team was exceptionally good that year, as pretty much every male in the high school joined the team. One day in practice, Nick Williams, the one black kid on the team, was late, so the coach let everyone take a turn tackling him. As luck would have it, I would be the one to break my leg that day in practice--not Nick. On a simple pass route, I was tackled by Randy Froke and broke both bones in my lower left leg. I was rushed to the Huron hospital where I was put in a cast from hip to toe. I watched from the sidelines as our team went 9-2 and made it to the second-to-last round of the playoffs.

Another highlight that year was the return of our girls' basketball team to the state championship game in Aberdeen. Again, I lodged with the Hansons and we took in all three games. I painted my cast purple and gold for the Pirates as we rooted them on to yet another runner-up title.

I guess that sums up the year 1998 for me. I remembered all of that stuff off the top of my head, so just imagine if I got out the old photo albums and yearbooks and did some research.