Tuesday, June 03, 2003

Birthday Tribute--Greg Achten New feature today on Hyperbole: Birthday Tribute. When someone particularly close to me has a birthday, I'll write about them. Today's Birthday Tribute is to Greg Achten. Greg is 32 today. Greg and I had the same first grade class. We went to the same elementary school, then the same junior high, high school, and even college, though Greg mysteriously started elsewhere before transferring to Emporia State University. So that's a lot of time together. And it's a lot of years to have known each other; we're each only 32 but we've been friends for nearly 27 of those years. We've known each other for so long that we can make each other laugh by simply mentioning things, without explanation. For instance, I'll type the name "John Lavin" right here, and Greg will find that funny. We have such a rich history that it's hard to know where to stop with this Tribute. Oh, sure, we haven't always shared all the same interests. Like when I was a Democrat and Greg was a member of the Young Republicans and DeMolay. And then when I was a Democrat and Greg was a socialist. And then when I was uptight and Greg was a skinhead. But we managed to stay close. Over the course of that time, of course, we've each been through a lot, together and separately. And we've helped each other out. Greg knows me as well as anyone, and vice-versa. But I would be lying if I didn't say that the biggest thing we have going for us in our friendship is that we always have fun. And usually we have fun playing games. Games of all sorts. Board games, video games, sports games, games we make up. We used to play tennis, and while Greg almost never (maybe never?) beat me, he could always score some points by acting like a man he knew with a wooden leg. I laughed so hard every time I always double-faulted. In high school, we used to play one-on-one Uno. For hours. And not because it was cool--mostly because it was funny to get 40 cards in your hand and then, on one play, get to say "Draw Two, Draw Two, Draw Two, Draw Two, Skip, Skip, Skip, Reverse, Reverse, Reverse, Draw Two, Draw Two, Draw Four, Draw Four, Draw Four, Skip, Skip, Reverse, Reverse, Draw Four. Uno." We have spent a lot of hours playing Monopoly, Risk, Axis and Allies, various card games including poker, Empire Builder, Rail Baron, Magic the Gathering, Acquire, Trivial Pursuit, Scrabble, Stratomatic Baseball, games for the Commodore 64 (especially Summer Games and Winter Games), endless Nintendo,and I don't even know what else. Whatever was in Greg's Mom's basement, which was were we hung out. In 2001, I flew to California to stay with Greg and his wife Becky for a few days and he and I played five games of Axis and Allies. In one day. It was awesome. One thing that is genuinely funny is that we have this long history of playing video games together--our senior year in high school me may have dropped two grand each over the course of the year in the arcade. So geeky. But at some point it devolved into playing at home on the Nintendo, and more recently into me not playing, but watching Greg play. One summer at debate camp in Michigan (long story about why we had this much time) we spent three or four days in which Greg played Resident Evil while I watched and provided moral support. Last summer, we stayed up all night doing the same thing with Grand Theft Auto III. It was hilarious and awesome. We did other stuff too, but whatever. We always have a fantastic time. In recounting our history, of course, I would be remiss to not mention policy debate; despite debating at the same high school and college, we didn't actually debate as a team until my last year and Greg's second to last. I'll spare the details, but I'll brag enough to say that we were not just a great debate team, but an historically great debate team. Greg now lives in Los Angeles, where he and his also-awesome wife Becky have just purchased a house. Greg is the head debate coach at Pepperdine University and is a big shot in the college debate community that I've now left. He's a debate badass. I'm way the hell over here, and he's way the hell over there, so we don't see each other as much anymore, and not without some planning. But it is great when we see each other. It's one of those friendships that will absolutely always last, even if we don't see each other all that much. In the next couple of years, we'll get together, laugh about something for five minutes, and then get down to business, playing some games. Except now there's usually a lot of beer involved instead of whatever we could find from Greg's mom's refrigerator. Happy Birthday, Greg. 2:35:42 PM    Let's hear it. []