This time DowneastMike asked me;
1) How would you describe your religion/spirituality?
2) When/why did you become a vegetarian?
3) What inspired you to learn to play guitar?
4) How did you name your son?
5) If you could choose one superpower, what would it be and why?
Answers follow below.
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1) How would you describe your religion/spirituality?
Not easily. I would say I’m an agnostic, with some soft spots for various beliefs and wisdom i’ve garnered from various religions. Hard to say if I ‘believe’ them per se, guess I’m too much of a ‘question authority’ rebel mixed with the ‘show me the proof’ scientist, but when I hear something that ‘makes sense’ to me I grab on to that. So thus, I ‘believe’ in the ‘inner light’ from the Quakers, or on a broader definition, I believe that ‘god’ is in all of us (UU), and that the inner voice, the conscience, is god’s voice. Some friends explained to me once what they believed regarding auras and healing touch and that made some sense. Also, at YRUU Conference I went to in Jacksonville, FL once in 1989 they had a presenter there explaining what she believed, most of which I heard as wishy washy new age stuff about crystals and such (no offense intended to anyone reading this, it just didn’t sync with me a the time), but then she talked a while about ‘spirit guides’ .. now that made sense to me for some reason. I don’t remember what she said exactly anymore (I was half awake, we drove down to Florida for the conference… FROM OHIO, so we didn’t arrive until that morning) but she explained that she believed there were these spirits, maybe some people call them angels, maybe souls of people who have passed, whatever.. these sprit guides are looking out for us, like a spiritual support team. Each person has these guides, and they don’t have any special powers, but they can help guide us, give us advice, be that ‘inner voice’ (see quaker reference above). Some people listen to them some people don’t, there is no right or wrong. I’ve also said ‘prayers’ to ‘whom it may concern’ at different times in my life, not with any real expectation that anyone was listening but (back to the agnostic reference) .. what if someone/something is listening? Couldn’t hurt right? There are other things that don’t come to mind right now but it’s a hodge podge of stuff. I describe myself as a UU but consider myself a ‘quaker’ too.
2) When/why did you become a vegetarian?
Hmm.. lets see now…Summer 1989, I went on the Environmental Field Program (EFP) at Antioch College. (I wrote a brief description on my site here.) Since it was run by crunchy granola hippy types, we ate vegetarian food all summer. I just kept up with it after that. But really that’s more of just when..why? Well first off, growing up a UU and Quaker, and then going to Antioch, I was surrounded by vegetarians. I hadn’t become one up until then because nothing pissed me off more than a preachy vegetarian, you know the types ‘do you know WHAT is in the Hot Dog?’ so I took some evil teenage delight in saying back to them ‘Why yes (chomp) it’s the (chomp) left over parts of the pigs (chomp) and probably some rats (chomp) that they couldn’t sell anywhere else
3) What inspired you to learn to play guitar?
I guess credit goes to my father. Growing up I never played any instruments but my father always played the banjo, guitar and some keyboard and fiddle even. We went to folk music weekends, he came to my grade school and would make up songs with all the kids names in it, and would always sing songs that he wrote.. unbeknownst to me this creeped into my pscyhe. I never got into playing music, my younger brother got into that role when he was very young so of course I had to rebel from it to assert my difference, and then when I was a teenager I was rebelling even more and didn’t want anything to do with being like my parents. However, I always played around on my fathers banjo and guitar when I was at his apartment, just cause they were around and I liked ths sound, and in the spring of my senior year I asked to take home his older banjo and some tablature. Surprised he didn’t have a heart attack then and there. This may have been part of the ‘rebellion’ phase since my mom absolutely hates the ‘dueling banjos’ song so that was the first thing I learned to play (poorly) So then off to college in Ohio, and I took the banjo with me. My roommate in January – April 1988 had a guitar, and I learned how to transfer the little banjo I had learned over to that. Then in summer 1988, while working on Star Island my father bought me my first guitar and have played with it on and off since then. As I mentioned above I have written some songs, lots if you count all the ones I made up on the fly and never wrote down. However I don’t really consider myself a ‘musician’, I certainly don’t have the skill, patience or attention to the detail that my ‘real musician’ friends do. I also don’t practice much, which kind of reinforces the above.
4) How did you name your son?
We had a hard time with this, all the ‘family’ names didn’t really do it for us (George, Emery, Houghton, Harry, Dudley, Thomas, Cameron, Gilbert). So then we started talking about names we liked.. finding ones that both Emily & I liked was difficult, usually if one of us liked one the other would veto it for some reason ‘Oh I knew a (insert name here) in grade school and really didn’t like them’ or ‘No way that name is way too popular’ So eventually our short list finally came around for 4 or 5 names and somehow Owen just stuck. We weren’t ‘sure’ about it up until close to when he was born. The name Owen ended up on our list because Emily had a friend in grade school she really liked named Owen, and I knew an ‘Evan’ who lived down the street from me. Both of these kids were friendly and likeable.. so if the name helps to form the person, like those wacky Kalabrian’s believe, then we figured this was a good sign.. and it’s fairly unique (compared to many names at least), and we liked the way it sounds. Here’s what the Kalabrian’s say about Owen
As Owen, you are spontaneous, happy-go-lucky, and you enjoy the company of others–the more the merrier. You make friends easily as people are attracted to your warm and generous nature. However, you have to watch that others do not take advantage of your generosity, for you are apt to be influenced by hard-luck stories and give when it might be more prudent not to. You are ever on the watch for ways and means of making some “easy money” because this name spoils initiative and ambition, producing an easy-going, come-what-may nature which attaches value to money only for the self-enjoyment it can offer.
5) If you could choose one superpower, what would it be and why?
Fun Question.. So many choices.. How about the ability to stop time, like that old made for tv movie with the stopwatch (or the cheesy kids movie a few years ago, Clockstoppers)? Always liked that one.