8 Random Facts About Me...

Ishtar tagged me for this back on July 28. I made my list of facts right away, but got sidetracked in the posting by my recent move down here to Valdosta from Athens, Georgia. In any case, here are -

THE RULES:

1. Post these rules before you give you the facts
2. List eight (8) random facts about yourself.
3. At the end of your post, choose (tag) eight people and list their names (linking to them).
4. Leave them a comment on their blog letting them know they've been tagged!

Now for my eight random facts, about which I will be adding more information and links in coming days.

1. I am an Eagle Scout and member of the Order of the Arrow. As far as the Eagle rank goes, I just stuck around long enough. I loved camping and getting all the merit badges for outdoor stuff. I recall being a bit embarassed about scouting in front of my longhair school friends, but my dad was the scoutmaster and I really could not get out. The Order of the Arrow was a bunch of hooey from what I recall, although we were sworn to secrecy about all of it.
2. At the end of my family's stay in Nigeria, I contracted the tropical parasite schistosomiasis. I was cured by a series of treatments with antimony at Walter Reed hospital. There had been relatively few children treated prior to that, and I was very fortunate to be living in Washington, D.C. where the Walter Reed staff was actively researching the parasite because it was endemic in South Vietnam. There are less debilitating treatments available now. One of the leading researchers on schistosomiasis, Dan Colley, now teaches at the University of Georgia.
3. I was an art major for my first two years at New College in Sarasota, Florida. My paternal grandmother and aunt, Tabea and Melita Hofmann, were both published illustrators. The John Kieran and Ethel Hinckley Hausman books on wildflowers illustrated by grandmother frequently show up on internet bookstore sites as also does my aunt's book, A Trip to the Pond.
4. In 1982, I worked in the last year of a long-term archaeological research project on Black Mesa in northeastern Arizona. If you have seen the Chevy Chase movie "Vacation," then you may recall Black Mesa as the black cliff in the background when his station wagon breaks down in the middle of a hot, dry wasteland. The money for the archaeology on Black Mesa came from the Peabody Coal Company, and at the time Peabody seemed to be trying to do the right thing in terms of both environmental protection and negotiating with the local Dine (Navajo) and Hopi owners of the land that contained the coal they have been mining. Curently, there are bad feelings between the Dine and Hopi, and between both tribes and Peabody Coal.
5. I have always secretly liked Elvis Presley records, particularly "I Can't Help Falling in Love" and "Hunka Hunka Burning Love" when my testosterone kicks in.
6. I lived in Nashville as a teenager during the same time frame that Robert Altman was filming his movie there. Although I hated the movie at the time, I have to admit that it captures much of the variety of the Nashville scene at the time.
7. My last name is very common in Saxony, the southern part of east Germany. My father and I traveled there together several years ago but were not able to find any direct relatives. We did visit the Volkerschlachtdenkmal, however, designed by the architect Clemens Thieme and found a charming bookstore in Leipzig, Antiquariat Thieme
8. I have been singing in amateur choral groups since I moved to Athens in 1994. I am looking forward to a church choir rehearsal tonight here in Valdosta, as a matter of fact.

I now tag the following eight bloggers with this same meme:

1. Imnakoya
2. Akin
3. Pamelastitch
4. Shinade
5. Sabine
6. Carol
7. Heidi
8. Decrepit Old Fool

I will be emailing all of you and adding links. This is a very busy time for me.