My Tag Says "Wash in Cold Water"

I hadn't even realized that the "Tag - Seven things About Me - Tag Seven Other People" meme was an internet thing, probably going to show how little I social network either in real life or virtually. I had judiciously avoided the game on gather - where I thought it had originated - even after being tagged by the ghost of Jimi Hendrix, or so he claimed. Anyway, like nearly everything on gather, a semi-huge battle broke out about the Tag Game among various factions for and again' it and, like nearly everything on gather, it was easier to avoid the whole thing by ignoring it... so I did.

But, I've been tagged by a friend, and that makes it a horse of a different color, as the doorman to the Emerald City says. But I got a couple of problems. Uno: I'm not sure I can come up with seven new things. Hell, I mean that's what fhb is all about, and after 3+ years, there's not many new stories left that you O Constant Reader haven't already read - or in Peggy's case, heard. But I'll try. Dos: As I said, I'm not all that much of a social butterfly, I don't think I even know seven people who would understand what this is all about, let alone those who have blogs to continue it. So, I'm afraid that part of the tag game will remain unfulfilled here.

But in the spirit if not the letter, seven (or maybe less) things you probably didn't know about me unless you're Peggy.

1. I'm a 1 1/2-finger typist. Back in the day that they offered typing classes in my middle/high schools, it was considered a "girl's trade," like "homemaking" and not offered to us virile young men-types, who were supposed to take such useful classes as "Shop." I never learned how to formally type, ironic given my trade, doubly ironic since I spent the final days of my Army career as a "clerk-typist." I type with the middle finger of my right hand and use the index finger of my left to press the "Shift" key. The one time in college I tried to learn formal QWERTY typing, I became like the proverbial centipede who was asked how he kept all those legs in order... and never walked again. But, unless you're a professional typist, I'd lay odds I still type faster than you.
   
   
2. I learned how to fly when I was 13 years old. My Dad taught me in a Cessna 180 seaplane on Long Lake in Maine during one long-ago endless summer. We had to put a pad on the seat and blocks on the rudder pedals. I never bothered to get a license because my father had let his instructor's license expire and I would have had to go through all the formal crap and why bother. While I've done both in a seaplane, to this day I've neither taken off or landed a plane on land.
   
   
3. When I was young I was regularly mistaken for Cat Stevens. Now I'm regularly mistaken for George Lucas. Make of that what you will. And I mean mistaken, not "Hey, you look like..." I've had people get angry at me because I wouldn't sign an autograph. In one case, I did. That autograph probably now goes for a few hundred dollars.
   
   
4. My draft number was 79 in 19 and 71. They drafted up to 125 that year. For those of you who don't know what that means, go here.
   
   
5. The first time I ever got drunk was on a vile concoction called raisin jack, which my boarding school roommate and I brewed up after I discovered the recipe in a book about prison. One batch blew up in my closet, forcing me to launder all the reeking clothes. The hangovers would last for days.
   
   
6. My nose was examined by Tom Jones' doctor. So, I'm reaching, what the hell. But it was. Jones had flown the doc up to Maine to treat him for a sore throat. I was in the room next door being examined for a constant nose bleed. The Doc was the leading nose/throat man on the East Coast, and came over to express his opinion. Tom himself later stopped in to shake my hand, not an easy task leaning far back in an examination chair and covered in blood as I was.
   
   
7. The first story I ever wrote was titled "Screwy the Screwed-Up Screwdriver." I'm not sure how old I was, but young enough to bemuse my teacher with it. It's somewhat frightening to me that I can still remember not only the title but whole sentences from something written around 45 years ago, but can't remember whether the cat is in or out five minutes after I've seen him.

So there you go, Miss K/M. Realize I wouldn't have done this for just anyone.