When I was 17, I was one of 10 high school seniors from Omaha who had the opportunity to go to Baltimore for the American Academy of Achievement Conference. The idea of this yearly event is to bring together 400 high school leaders with successful people from various walks of life and allow them to interact as peers. The year I went, Colin Powell, Barbara Bush, Warren Buffett, Ron Howard, Tom Clancy, and Cal Ripken, Jr. were among the “successes” who attended.
The trip started off on a down note when our flight was delayed for over 4 hours. This would mean that we would definitely miss the opening ceremonies. I wasn’t too concerned. This gave me a chance to catch up with two of the other students going on the trip who were friends from elementary school that I had lost touch with. Ryan played on virtually all of my sports teams from 3rd-5th grade (he was better at soccer, me at basketball) and introduced me to the wonders of Sega Genesis. Madan and I were two of the three founding members of the Lothrop Elementary School Chapter of “GirlBusters”. Our mission was to keep all girls away so that we could only play with other boys at recess. Shockingly, we were very successful. Yes, I am also amazed that I didn’t turn out to be gay.
Fortunately for us, our sponsor for the trip was Warren Buffett and he would not hear of us missing the opening ceremonies. Within an hour of being notified, Buffett had arranged transportation to a private airfield where we boarded his personal plane. Instead of sitting in the middle seat of a United 747, I flew to Baltimore on a private plane seated across from Tom Osborne and his wife, Nancy. Tom Osborne is pretty famous nationally with football fans, but in Nebraska he was worshipped as a minor deity. In 1997, he could have defeated Jesus in a gubernatorial election. Talking to him for a couple of hours was one of the highlights of my young life.
Once we got to Baltimore, the amazing stories kept on coming. My roommate was the nephew of the president of Mexico. On the second night, we attended a banquet at the Aquarium complete with multiple ice sculptures. That was where one of the girls from Omaha embarrassingly gushed to Ron Howard that she loved being involved with theater at her school but didn’t do anything important…she just directed. The next day during a free period, I played a 4 on 4 pick-up game with 7 of the other high school students…including future NBA players Baron Davis, Shane Battier, and Jarron and Jason Collins. I didn’t shoot too much. On the last night, four of us were thrown out of the hotel during the closing dance for constantly running up the down escalator. One of the other people thrown out was the winner of the Miss Junior Miss Pageant.
I’m on the road back to Baltimore right now, after a fun two hour ordeal at the car rental place this morning. Emlen got a job offer this morning so she won’t be coming back to Balls4Play* (Yeah Em!) and celebrated this news by quitting her driving shift after 20 minutes (Boo Em!). We have rough plans to meet up with Truong’s brother and go to the Red Sox-Orioles game tonight.
*New S4K Name Pending Trademark
Songs I’m Listening Too - Slow Show – The National, Percussion Gun – The White Rabbits, & Orange Shirt – Discovery.
Next Stop – Baltimore (then camping somewhere in the Blue Ridge Mountains)
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