Blast from the Passed: Choir Tour 2003

Before I begin the substantive portion of this post, I just wanted to remind everyone that the title of the post series--involving the word "passed"--is totally intentional. My upcoming career depends on people having faith in my ability to distinguish between the homophones "past" and "passed." As explained in the first entry of the series and somewhat in another post (referencing The Power of Positive Thinking), I'm trying to take little steps to convince myself that the bar exam is a done deal--that I've already "passed" the test. It's not as clever as I first intended it to be, but it's too late to jump ship . . . in more ways than you know.

Now, today's post is a series of photographs from Samford University A Capella Choir Tour in 2003 (the same week the U.S. started to bomb Iraq for their supposed weapons of mass destruction; remember that?). On our choir tour, we got the privilege of staying in people's homes (and eating most/all of their stored rations). Usually, this was a great experience, but there were some homes along the way that freaked us out. First picture:



In 2003, one of the homes we stayed at took in four guys: me, Greg (pictured below), Terrance (pictured above), and Brett. The family that took us in for the night had a great home, but, while touring us around, they showed us the son's room where Terrance would be sleeping--complete with a confederate naval flag hung above the bed. Next picture.To give the son some credit, he had a lot of various flags in his room. So, while we were a little creeped out (particularly at making Terrance sleep in that bed), it might have just been part of his collection. We soon found out that the kid also had a fairly expansive collection of sharp blades to go along with it. Next picture:

I've given the kid a happy face and some anonymity in case he grew up and changed. I wouldn't want his life to be ruined just because he retained his boyish face. After a while, the kid kept showing us a bunch of weird stuff, and we would take pictures and video of every minute of it. The next picture of the kid, the samurai sword, and Terrance's hilarious face is one of my favorite pictures ever.

The kid also had an extensive collection of various guns whether they were hanging on the wall or in a built-in-china-cabinet-turned-into-a-gun-rack. The weaponry just never stopped.

My next favorite picture comes from when we were hanging out with the entire family. The kid was needing some attention, and he really wanted to show us his favorite knife. He was so fascinated by Terrance and made sure that T saw every knife he brought out. It was just a weird night, but I always love having these experiences. They're like the choir boy version of war stories. There are tons of others. Perhaps I'll share more in some other post.