Seven Weird or Unique Things About Me

Techfun tagged me for this meme. I’ve already done Eight Random Things, but there ought to me more stuff that is both interesting and fit to print.

1. I have a PhD and teach at university. During my undergraduate career at Dartmouth, however, I actually left school for a time, because I had no idea why I was at college.
2. Job opportunities in Chocorua, New Hampshire (a part of Tamworth) were limited in 1983, so I joined the army as an enlisted man, not a common move for someone at an Ivy League college. Even less common, I joined the field artillery. They offered a good bonus for a four-year enlistment, and there was no waiting time. I could be off to basic training in less than two weeks and then overseas three months after that.
3. I was never a jock in high school, more of a nerd really. (Big surprise, I know.) But I did run cross country and track, and I was on the ski team. I also did massive amounts of hiking.
4. I spoke and acted differently than the guys in basic training at Fort Sill, so they decided I was gay, which I am not. I thought they were kidding until I got paired up with a thirty-something biker from Chicago. After we had put up our tent, each using the half tent he carried, and were inside, the biker drew a line in the dirt running down the middle and told me that if I crossed it, he would kill me. Of course, I’m stupid and engaged him in conversation. That’s when I found out everyone really did think I was gay.
5. In the coming weeks I cured people of their obsession by complementing them on their asses and making other lewd and inappropriate remarks. Talking the talk, that is, talking shit, was an important survival and bonding mechanism in this all-male, working-class environment. Things were a little more civilized after basic training.
6. My first summer there, two women from my coed fraternity at Dartmouth visited me one Friday evening, and then we headed down to Munich where a couple other Dartmouth types were. There would be nothing remarkable about this, except that I was still relatively new in the army and saw nothing wrong with smuggling them into the barracks and finding a place for them to stay in a vacant room. I knew I had to avoid not only my sergeants, but also the other soldiers, but only later did I realize how much trouble I could have landed myself in for acting like a college kid.
7. I did a lot of hitch-hiking in Germany. My longest trip, though, was from Wertheim, Germany to Edinburgh, Scotland in about 24 hours.

And now I tag some guys with military service in other countries, Chris, People, and Uri, though Chris doesn’t have a personal blog and might not be game.