Our Story, Part I

One day, I would like for my kids to know the story of how their parents met. And I'd like for it to be relatively clear to them, not muddled up in their minds (like the story of my parents is - they met under a beer garden table? Huh?). So my plan is to bore the heck out of the 9 blog readers I have, and write Our Story - in installments. Humor me, okay y'all? It's for my babies!

So... here we go!

I grew up in Georgia, in a suburb of Atlanta called Marietta. It's the Home of the Big Chicken. Yep. It's a "big chicken." Really. (We're pretty descriptive in the South.) Anyway... this is not My Story, is it? I'll try to move quickly onto the "Our" part, but you gotta have a little background to understand the "how."

I decided I wanted to be a journalist when I grew up, and work in TV news. So I went to the University of Missouri-Columbia, the best broadcast journalism school in the nation. Ahem. I had lived my whole life in Georgia (with the exception of my first 3 months or so), and heading off to school in Missouri without anyone nearby was both terrifying and exciting. I had no one to answer to but me. Yeehaw! Here's a photo of me and some of my "posse" (ha!) on the day I left for Mizzou:

I went through sorority rush, and pledged Alpha Omicron Pi. Those first few months were a blur for me, going a little wild spreading my wings and finding myself. I remember lots of parties, sorority date nights and meeting so many new people. About a month after school started, my sorority participated in the Phi Kappa Psi philanthropy event. A philanthropy event is the fundraiser for that sorority or fraternity's cause. (My sorority's cause is rheumatoid arthritis.) Each Greek philanthropy lasts about a week, during which there are silly events for raising money. The Phi Psi 500 required participating sororities to do things like an obstacle race, buy event t-shirts, perform serenades & skits, and decorate our sorority house. This is a photo I took of our house the week we did the Phi Psi 500:

When a sorority does a fraternity's philanthropy, they get two or three frat members assigned to them as their "coach" or liasion or whatever. When AOII (my sorority) did the "Phi Psi 500," we had three coaches assigned. One of them was this guy named Dan. I think he was only our coach in title, not in presence because he was busy that week with school work. So I didn't meet him until Friday night of that week, at a party on the Phi Psi house front lawn. This is where the "Our" part of the story starts.

Check back later for Part II.