25 random facts can paint a complete picture

Twenty-five random facts about myself:

1. If one thing truly surprises me when I look back at the first 68 years of my life, it's that probably the thing I did better than anything else was being a dad. I never knew my birth father and when my mother remarried and gave me a dad, I had tremendous conflicts with him from about age 11 on. Not his fault, mine. Kids don't get to make the rules.

2. I can be weird about songs I like, especially when I first discover them. If I've got one on my iPod, I'll keep paging back to the beginning and listen to it five or six times before moving on.

3. Little things can be some of the biggest things. One of the five best moments in my entire life came when my daughter Pauline (technically my stepdaughter), who had always introduced me to her friends as "my stepfather," introduced me as "my dad" at Christmas 2006.

4. I think my kids might be the two best people in the world.

5. I love movies, and they don't always have to be good ones. I've probably seen "Hanover Street," with Harrison Ford and Lesley Anne Down, 25 times. "Think of me when you drink tea."

6. Golf can be so frustrating ... and so amazing. Within the space of 15 minutes, I can practically whiff on one shot and then hit a nearly perfect one. Same ball, same club.

7. My three grandchildren -- Madison Nicole, Lexington Wesley and Albanie Yvonne -- are the greatest proof to me that there is a God.

8. I have never been able to sing.

Here's hoping a long friendship will last a lot longer

All that hair.

I remember it was June 1981, 36 years ago and the end of one of life's journeys for me. A group of us who had worked on our college newspaper together were celebrating the end of it all at the Kings Dominion amusement park north of Richmond, Va.

Five people in a log on a flume ride. Me in the back, two women I had dated, a fraternity brother of mine with whom I never really got along.

And Tara in the front.

Fun fun fun in '81...

I don't remember when Tara Hagenbrock Johnson first appeared in the newspaper offices. I'm pretty sure I was already editor in chief. I spent three years -- six semesters -- working on the paper, and the last year and a half I was running things.

George Mason University was growing fast, and Broadside took a couple of giant steps forward. During my three semesters as editor, we were honored as the best college newspaper in Virginia. Maybe even more significant, in my final semester, we purchased and used the first computer system the paper had.

All those years ago.

My three semesters as editor were coincidentally the first 18 months of my separation from my first wife. A tough time, and I spent a great deal of it dating the most important woman that I didn't marry. She's the one sitting in front of me in the log, and she still means a lot to me.

Maybe my golf game isn't so hopeless after all

Me with fraternity brother Jim Eglin after the recent Sig Ep golf tournament.

Sometimes wonderful things seem to happen completely unexpectedly.

Seriously.

I have played so little golf in the last two years that when I do get out on the course, great shots are about as rare as Donald Trump apologies.

So you can imagine how I felt after I signed up to play in a charity golf tournament my college fraternity was hosting.

Add to that the fact that I rarely play well the first time on a course and Oct. 20 was looming darkly on the horizon for me.