A Prequel to the “Farmer’s Almanac” - Chapter 1

It all began with Sing Song.

In the fall of 2001, I went to ACU without a care in the world… I also went not knowing a soul. Okay, I knew a couple people from Camp Blue Haven (CBH) and a couple of my sister’s friends who were seniors.

I was blessed with a wonderful (potluck) roommate, Cheryl. She was quiet at first but we really hit it off. Cheryl and I hung out a lot with the girls on our hall. I honestly didn’t have much interaction with a lot of freshman guys. I actually went on several dates that first semester but nothing ever came from them. Many times I didn’t want to go, but Cheryl always talked me in to it. She would say, “If they are going to get up enough courage to ask you out, you can’t say no… and it’s a free meal!” I would go and have fun, but I could always find some little something about the guy that I wouldn’t be able to get over.

I ate dinner a couple times a month with one of the guys I knew from CBH. He was nice but I honestly didn’t know him that well. He had been in my brother cabin a couple times and we won the “Best Boy/Best Girl Camper” award our last year at camp. During one of our dinners he asked me if I would be interested in helping him direct (I ended up mostly organizing things) the freshman act for Sing Song. I immediately said yes. I knew it would be really good for me to step outside of my comfort zone and meet A LOT of new people.

The week before finals we scheduled the try-outs for Freshman Sing Song. *For those of you who aren’t ACU people, Sing Song is huge and mostly everyone wants to participate, so you have to have try outs to whittle the numbers down. Try-outs were held, over a three night period, in the Gardner dorm. I sat in on every audition and ranked everyone as to how well they sang and how good their ‘Sing Song’ face looked. I’m going to be completely honest… I don’t really remember much about those nights, I don’t remember meeting Blake, but he does remember meeting me. I do remember not really caring about how people sounded but looking for people I thought I could be friends with. Totally shallow, I know. (Sorry to any of you reading this that did not get chosen… obviously we’re friends now, so it doesn’t matter, right?)

Christmas break happens. Blah, blah, blah. As soon as school starts we have our first practice. This first practice gives CBH guy and I a chance to see who has what it takes to stand on the front row. I (of course) put myself on the front row, and guess who stood just one person away?