When I was a freshman in college in 2003, it was the first time I really had decent internet service. Sure, my family had a net connection the last year or two that I was in high school, but it was slow and unreliable. I also had to take turns with everyone else in the family on the computer. But in college, I could go to the library anytime I wanted (it worked horribly in the dorms) and surf away. Due to this newfound freedom, I would end up e-mailing random people to see if they'd respond. One of those ended up being Bobby "Boris" Pickett, the guy who sang The Monster Mash. He was very nice. But my favorite was my brief e-mail exchange with The Ultimate One. I had read that Warrior was travelling around the country talking to various colleges about his conservative beliefs. While I didn't share any of those beliefs, I still wanted to get him to come to our campus. So, I reached out to him, telling him he should visit us sometime. To my surprise, he wrote back. We exchanged a couple of e-mails about how we could make that happen. It was my first time having any correspondence with any wrestler, and it was absolutely surreal. I told everyone I knew that I had e-mails from The Ultimate Warrior. Those who knew who he was were impressed. Due to my lack of motivation (and overwhelming shyness) at the time, I didn't approach any Republican group on campus to try and make it work. I felt like I failed The Warrior! But to this day, it remains a fond memory of mine that one of my boyhood wrestling heroes took just a little time out of his day to respond to a young mark like me.
As Rust Cohle from True Detective said "Life's barely long enough to get good at one thing. So be careful what you're good at."
Sadly, I can't solve a murder like Rust...or change a tire, or even tie a tie. But I do know all the lyrics to Hulk Hogan's "Real American" theme song and can easily name every Natural Born Thriller from the dying days of WCW. I was once ranked 21st in the United States in Tetris...on the Playstation 3 version...for about a week.
Follow along @AndrewSoucek and check out my podcast at wrestlingwithfriends.com
