My pops was a poor farmer, if being a vehicle mechanic in the Air Force constitutes farming. I traveled around a lot, seeing the world one military base at a time, until finally my father retired and became a professional clown. Really. From then on career day at school was a nightmare.

Most of my life, I’ve been recklessly interested in extreme sports, devoting my time to rock climbing, rappelling, and cliff diving. I was always considered the class clown. Actually, in my year book I was voted class clown. This was a prestigious award as evidenced by the picture they put in the yearbook of me hanging from an extremely large pair of underwear.

For some reason, I feel like I’ve always had an innate ability to get into trouble. I can be hyperactive. Sometimes I can be insensitive. My weaknesses bother me, but sometimes I think we’re born with them for a reason.

I’ve never really liked sports. The whole hand eye coordination thing seemed like too harsh of a requirement. I played football for a while, but I got the impression that the coach would rather that I dry the ball with a towel than catch it. I figured that out when the coach told me, “Jon, I would rather you dry the ball than catch it.  Here, use this towel.”

There were some rough things I went through growing up. Sometimes it felt like things would never get better. One night in a theme park by the bumper boats, a friend told me that I could have a relationship with God. That changed everything. I still struggle with some of that old stuff, but now I have God to get me through.

I really enjoy my life these days and am looking forward to the future. I have some dreams, and one of them is to one day write a book. Even if nobody reads it, hey, at least I wrote a book.