Greatest Accomplishment

[Bang]

In the months since I last posted, I've been contacted by National Lampoon about writing a book for them. I'm working up a few proposals for some fun ideas, and things look good.

So hopefully in the next few months I can add "published author" to my list.

~Bang

[The 12th Commandment]

I don't know how I missed this thread the first time. It's a great idea.

Making it to 40 is a surprise to me. I never imagined it and frankly, I still feel like a kid.

My biggest accomplishment would be quiting a good job with state gov. in 97 to return to college at 30. I got 'r done and, while I did it mainly for my folks and grandmother, I wound up getting a huge amount of satisfaction from it myself. It really is never too late and the career change was the best thing I've ever done. I love my job now and I hated it before. Let that be a lesson for you youngsters.

Physically it would have to be catching a fish bigger than me. In '99 I caught a 160lb sailfish in Acapulco. I was down there for a month in Cuernavaca studying spanish so I have my return to college to thank for this one too! I've only done that once and I hope to change this to catching a 1000lb. marlin one day. That's one of my dreams. I'm a simple man.

[Burgold]

That's huge and wonderful! Major congratulations!!!! It is great to see hard work and talent pay off!

In the months since I last posted, I've been contacted by National Lampoon about writing a book for them. I'm working up a few proposals for some fun ideas, and things look good.

So hopefully in the next few months I can add "published author" to my list.

~Bang

[ldysknzfn1]

I just wanted to say your post touched me. When I was a young kid, a cub scout in fact, one of the kids I respected the most (his name was Andrew Lee) was killed. He was at a neighborhood kid's house and the kid went to 'show him' his dad's gun. Shot him right in the chest. Myself and other kids in our cub scout troop helped carry his coffin at the funeral. One of the saddest memories I have.

Now, being a Dad of a great son and daughter, I can't imagine what you've gone through - its every parent's worst nightmare. Bless your heart. Good for you that you've been able to carry on and make something positive out of it. I think thats nothing short of amazing, and makes my meager 'accomplishments' pale by comparison.

What a wonderful person you must be.

Thanks for the compliments and sentiments as well. But I'm just an ordinary person who happened to lose her son in the most tragic way. My son (his name IS Derrick)was sitting on our split rail fence that nite talking on his cellphone to his "girlfriend" and a friend of his was standing close by next to my car. A car rolled up to the end of our street and 2 of the young men in the car pulled guns and started shooting. The front passenger had a pistol grip pump shotgun. From what I can piece together by his friend that was shot also but lived...Derrick turned to look in the direction of the car and was hit in the head with a single buckshot. He died 19 hours later from massive brain injury from bleeding. He was in his own yard minding his own business. The 3 young men, I later found out, had a beef with someone they "thought" lived on our block from a week earlier. In fact that person just happened to be in the neighborhood the day of "beef"..he didn't live in this neighborhood. The 3 young men are in jail...2 got 15 years(yep..only 15 and one of those was the actual shooter) and the other got 69 years b/c he made a deal instead of taking his chances in court. He ended up with the short end of the stick so to speak. Anyway...yep...a few of Derrick's friends were his pall bearers and they did so well. They still come and see me from time to time.

So for those of you who have children...spend as much time with them as you can...love them like there's no tomorrow...and make sure they know that...it can all evaporate in seconds. Take nothing for granted.

Thanks for your kind words Tarhog. Sorry for your loss of your friend even tho it's been years...you remember. And as long as you remember...your friend never ceases to live. Thanks for giving me hope. My biggest fear is that my son's friends will forget him...but now I know...that won't be possible. Thanks for that.

God Bless

[ldysknzfn1]

In '99 I caught a 160lb sailfish in Acapulco.

:thud:

:1stplace:WOW..that fish would have pulled me to China and back!..

[LiveStrongSkins]

To me so far it has been surviving cancer. I was diagnosed right after my 19th birthday. It was a rare form of cancer called rhabdomyosarcoma. That rare cancer has two subtypes: Embryonal and Alveolar. Alveolar is deadly. I had stage 4 and alveolar. Was in the chest, abdominal lymphnodes, and a tumor in the prostate. I went from a happy college athlete in love to a kid who thought he had no future and wondered who would be at his funeral. My doctor told me I had a 25% chance, but everything I saw on the internet was worse then that. With that cancer... two years in remission and oncologists consider you as cured. That two year mark was last month. I'm in paramedic school now and if I maintain my 3.5 gpa throughout the remainder then I will be fast tracked into the bachelors program of Health Systems Managment at Mason where I'll have my bachelors after 2 semesters. To be able to recognize the fact that I have a future is a huge accomplishment for me. I'm still with the girl who stood by me throughout it all and I've been contacted by the lance armstrong foundation to speak at national survivorship conferences. I did my first one last summer in Fairfax. I love spreading hope to the newly diagnosed. If you have hope you have all you need.

[LiveStrongSkins]

In the months since I last posted, I've been contacted by National Lampoon about writing a book for them. I'm working up a few proposals for some fun ideas, and things look good.

So hopefully in the next few months I can add "published author" to my list.

~Bang

Bang,

Your story is an inspiration. You should be proud of yourself. Your son is a lucky kid.

[Cdowwe]

By the way, I call total bull**** on the restrictions - being a great husband and Dad is beyond question my life's greatest accomplishment. That its not 'good enough' for this thread really doesn't matter. In life, WHO we are to the people we love is really all that matters. If you think differently, I feel sorry for you.

I figured everyone would say parent/husband/wife... thats the reason for the restriction. Dont need everyone posting the same thing...since being a parent/husband should be the greatest accomplishment

[Henry]

How did I keep missing this thread?

There are some really amazing stories in here. I don't really have much to compare to saving children or leading troops into battle, but I'll do my best:

Earning my black belt. To be honest, I was never that good at Tae Kwon Do. I would chug along competantly, yet unspectacularly, while stronger more athletic kids who started after me would advance through the ranks faster than me and get their Black Belts before me. It's not easy to keep going when some punk who started when you were a green belt becomes an assistant instructor when you're a red belt. After failing my Black Belt test the first try, I almost quit. But I didn't and passed the test six months later. Eventually I became an instructor myself.

Getting a spontaneous applause for my part in a play. When I was in college I decide to try some stage acting and signed up for the theatre department's play for that semester. I ended up getting a few one line parts. You know, Waiter #2, Footman, Policeman #3 ... stuff like that. Well, one of my parts had a funny line, but the director wasn't sure how it should be delivered. He had me say it in a way I thought was not very funny, so when I went out onstage I said it the way I thought it should be said, and the crowd burst out laughing, then applauded. When I got off stage the director came up to me with a big smile and said "Looks like you were right."

Running the Marine Corps Marathon. I never been a runner, but I decided to train from scratch and run a marathon, just to see if I could. A month from the marathon I got a bad case of runners knee and went through some phyical therapy to try and get it stable enough to run on. Race-day my knee was heavily bandaged, but I managed to get through the whole 26.2 miles on it. Afterwards my doctor told me he didn't think I'd make it.

Of course, all these pale in comparison to my wife and kids, but we're not supposed to talk about them.