Return of Friday's Feast

Friday's Feast, 24 June 2005.

Appetizer What time do you usually wake up each day? If you could choose your wake-up time, when would it be?
My body usually wakes me up between 6:30 and 7:15 each morning. And that's generally okay; it fits well with my work, school, and church schedules. But there is the occasional morning when I wish I could sleep until 9:00 or so.

Soup When was the last time you bought groceries? What store did you go to? Name 3 things you purchased.
I went shopping at the local Dan's Foods store on Tuesday morning. I bought some bread, as well as some canned mushrooms and an onion for a recipe I was making.

Salad How many books have you read so far this year? Which was your favorite and why?
Reading? You mean for recreation? Sounds like fun. Most of my reading this year has been textbooks.

Main Course What is something you consider to be very elegant? In particular, what about that item/place/person conjures up the feeling of elegance?
I have a friend that I always think looks very elegant. It's mostly in the way she dresses, very classy and always very modest. But a lot of it is the way she carries herself, too. She's very confident but not a showoff. That strikes me as very elegant.

Dessert Who taught you how to drive?
My parents, and I want to say it was mostly my dad. He was the one that ultimately made the decision that we (my brother and I) needed to learn to drive. Here's the story:

We were loading dirt into the pickup one day when I was about 11, and he told me to move the truck to a different spot. It was a 1976 International Harvester pickup with a really stiff manual transmission. I'd never driven it (or anything else) before. He told me to let up on the clutch as I pushed down on the gas. I tried three different times and killed it each time. Dad then yelled at me to get out and told Aaron (then 8) to do it. He did, and got it on the first try. Unfortunately, since we had backed up to a little berm to get the dirt, it was still in reverse. The pickup lurched backwards into the side of the hill and bent the open tailgate down around the rear bumper. Aaron and I both thought Dad was going to blow up. Instead, he just stared at the scene for a second, then said in a soft voice, "Well, I guess I should teach you how to drive." Out first lesson, drawn in an H-shaped diagram in the dirt next to the berm, was how the gears were laid out in a manual transmission, i.e., how to tell if the last driver had left the truck in reverse.