One of the activities I have been encouraged to try by those I am taking advice on this new career is the writing on the blog for 30 days straight.  So far, the blogs I have written have been long, in-depth, with great purpose, and with a humorous voice.  That type of blog seems like an impossible to write on a daily basis.  So I decided to borrow from my early days of teaching.  It was called a free day.  At my first school many teachers gave the kids a free day in class every Friday.  Don’t fret, that practice soon went out of fashion.  However, having finished my career teaching where most time in the classroom is spent on teaching to the test, I would contend that the kids were learning just is much, or more, when they had a free day.  I have no evidence to back that up, it is just my own opinion.

So I am appropriating the title Freed Day for a written blog that really has no purpose or message other than to write the blog.  Mostly general observations of the day.  When I taught English, journaling was the big thing.  One thing we told kids was if you don’t know what to write, just write that.  “I don’t know what to write.”  Fill up the page.  I won’t subject you to that.

This day had a couple of highlights.  First was I contacted the bride of my first shoot, Mallory.  Since this is all new to me, every thing I do with regards to photographing my first wedding is new, fresh and exciting.  I like it, but I can’t wait for the comfortable feeling that comes with the routine.  Thinking back to my first year as a varsity football coach at Apollo High School, I remember how nervous I was before the first game of my varsity football career.  It was a heck of a year for Apollo.  We made our one and only appearance of Apollo in the state championship game against St. Mary’s  We won the game for the first 46 1/2 minutes.  Unfortunately, the game was 48 minutes long and we lost a heartbreaker.  But during that season I was a nervous wreck before games.  I couldn’t eat.  I had several rituals  I did before every game, including banging my head on a locker sometime before the game.  The day of the state game there was one ritual I did not do before the game.  I am convinced to this day that is why we lost

Quite a contrast to my last year of coaching.  Gone were the rituals, the inability to eat, the banging the head on lockers (hey, a man only has so many brain cells)  I would usually take a nap, sleep like a baby and grab something to eat right before the game.  Apollo had a great year that year, too.  9-1 and lost in the second round of the state playoffs.  I do not blame the loss on not following a silly superstition.  The opposing team had Superman playing for them.  I couldn’t figure out how to stop him, unless it was to trip him on the way out of the locker room at halftime.  That last year I was still as excited about coaching the game as I was that first year.  But at the end there was a calmness that comes with confidence and experience.  I am anxious for that time to come in my photographer career.

The other highlight of the day was my friend Dave called and suggested we meet.  We went to Gallagher’s, had lunch and played the bar trivia game on those little game boxes.  Back in the day, about 15 or so years ago, when bar trivia was quite the rage, Dave and I were a rather formidable team.  The game was played against bars all over the country.  Our login name was Trax.  There were several games where Trax had the highest score in the nation and was ranked #1.  The wife of a fellow teacher was a flight attendant.  One night in Kansas City, she was at a bar that was on the trivia game network.  She looked up at the TV screen and saw #1 Trax, Famous Sam’s 29  Phoenix,AZ.  She tells everyone at the bar she knows that she knows us. Good times.  No, correction, great times.

FREE DAY! CIRCA 1981

I AM NOT SLEEPING, I SWEAR.

IT WAS CASUAL FRIDAY.  SERIOUSLY.