Alright. Stephen and Tony have tagged me on one of those list things. Speaking of lists, when you were in middle school, did you ever have what we called “Slam Books?” If that doesn’t make sense, you probably didn’t. That, along with turtle necks, slap bracelets, and those brown leather jackets with the world map on the inside came to mind when I began thinking about how to fill out this weird list. So here goes.
Six Weird Things About Me
1. (This might explain a lot things) I am the unfortunate recipient of multiple head injuries throughout my life, not the least of which was being hit with a hatchet during the summer between my 7th and 8th grades. We were out in the wilderness building a fort and almost died due to blood loss. By the time we made it to the closest house, we were having to squeeze the blood off the shirt used to stop the bleeding. I had a scab for four months. And oh, my parents did not find out until two years later. All I remember after the event was waking up and walking into the bathroom freaked out because my friends allowed all the blood to dry up on my face and neck. I felt like I was in a Freddy Kreuger movie or something and it was all a dream . . .
2. I am a stud on the ping-pong table. In fact, I own a professional paddle (Butterfly carbon fiber blade and Tackifire rubbers), carrying case, rubber cleaner, and a pack of 3-star (that’s the really good kind) ping-pong balls with me in my car whenever competition comes my way. Forrest ain’t got nuthin’ on me. 🙂 By the way, have any of you ever played Robo-Pong? Very addictive.
3. You will almost never find me without a highlighter and pen on me, including times when there’s no reason purpose for carrying them with me. Having to deal with the usual questions about the highlighters, I came up with a way to share the gospel through them, to bore people with philosophical pontifications, and appease others who wanted a short little answer like “You know, there are some things worth highlightin’ in life, and if you don’t stop to mark the moment, it will soon pass you by.” And oh, everyone at our wedding received highlighters as a gift on which “Tim and Dusti Brister” was written. I think my dad is still using them today (apparently being the economic guy that he is, he saw an opportunity too good to turn down).
4. Mainly because of my dad, every year during elementary school I won the Flag Day contest with the highest kite. We usually carried with us around 6,000 feet of string. I still have the newspaper clippings for the nostagia of it all. Kites are the bomb.
5. I can hike a basketball through my legs the length of the basketball court (and make it in the goal). I attribute this feat to the late night lock-ins when I was a student minister. Speaking of that, probably even weider was the night two of my youth and myself went to a bowling lock-in where we had our own lanes and bowled 32 games in a row (from 11:00 p.m. to 6:00 a.m.). I could not walk the next day. I like bowling. A lot.
6. Last but certainly not least, my mother is from Tehran, Iran (who grew up speaking four languages). My father is from Yahoo City, Mississippi (who grew up speaking one language). I am from Ft. Walton Beach, Florida. We are the Bet-sayad’s and the Brister’s. My oldest cousin I considered my big brother, until I realized that we had taken him in after my uncle and aunt sent him to the States to avoid having to fight in the Iran/Iraq war. I still consider him like a big brother. His family was the last to make it in the States as they sought refuge in Brussels, Belgium until 1987 when, by an act of the U.S. Congress (literally), our family was finally united. My grandfather was killed in a car accident in Iran, but I have a biography of him in my library written in Farsi which includes our family tree spanning back several hundred years. In fact, our ethnicity is Assyrian (the Old Testament kind, not the country Syria), and our family speaks the language still (and a little Farsi). So I guess you could say I am Assyrian-American. Talk about being in the minority!
Well, I guess that’s enough weird things about me. I must say, that was almost cathartic. Not quite.
So I am supposed to tag some other people I think are weird. I pick Joe Thorn, Brent Thomas, Owen Strachan, Mark Driscoll, Marc Heinrich, and Mark Dever. Mark, Marc, and Mark: no pressure to respond. Joe, Brent, and Owen: you better.
Not so cathartic: rather cool, actually. You don’t expect a head-banging pong jock with a highlighter and a high kite hiking cross-court b-ball goals to have an Assyrian heritage, especially with a name like Timmy Brister.
Fun post!
Wow. I didn’t realize putting all that together created such an idiosyncratic profile. I’m glad I filtered out the really weird stuff. I’m glad you enjoyed it.
Ft. Walton Beach is my families favorite vacation spot. We always rent a condo on the island. Funny connection.
Do you have that photo of you and the Iranian president? That would be a nice touch for #6.
Tony,
I do have that photo, I think. I will see if I an put it up there. Funny thing is that my SiteMeter is telling me that I am have several visitors from Tehran. I wonder if we’re related . . .
While at Ft. Walton Beach, I would have you know that I won third place in my kindergarten “Turkey Trot.” It was my first trophy. I was a happy kid.
Okaloosa Island is a beautiful place. Too bad it has become so commercialized. Back in the day Destin was just a fishing hole. Now you can’t get up and down Hwy 98 between there and Ft. Walton Beach because there is so much traffic.
Dude, you make my life look tame. 😉
Ft. Walton Beach – that’s where my church youth group always took Spring Break. I went exactly once and decided I didn’t care much for it.
That’s it. I’m never doing one of these things again! 🙁
Just kidding. It’s okay if you don’t lie Ft. Walton Beach, though I’m surprised you didn’t say anything about the motherland . . .
BTW, have you noticed how many people go to Florida for their spiritual highs? One would think they would go to Bama, since it is the “high place”
“(I said to them, What is the high place to which you go? So its name is called Bamah to this day.”
Ezekiel 20:29
You know what’s not funny. (1) This is an actual joke used against Auburn fans. (2) It is on Bama t-shirts with proof text and all. Ouch.
Tim,
I didn’t know you were into pong. Let me know when you want to demonstrate your skills to me.
Brother,
I am ready in season and out of season . . .
except when I am trying meet deadlines on papers at the end of the semester . . .
maybe in a couple of weeks then…
Yeah man, no problem. I’ve definitely been low on my ping-pong fix. I don’t know if you remember or knew this, but we had a ping-pong table in the kitchen of our “house” back at UM which was kept in the kitchen. Some of the biggest crowds in attendence were on Wednesday nights when we had our little campus “block party”. Good memories.
My mother-in-law has a ping pong table in her basement. Perhaps this summer we could tempt you and your wife to dinner and doubles?
Dinner maybe, but I don’t think Dusti would be down with the pong. She’s a great cheerleader though.
Timmy, thanks so much for including me. Lots of fun. I too had some rather serious head injuries, though I didn’t include that in my list. I still have amnesia about that skateboarding accident.
Well, I appreciate you for being a good sport. Honestly, I am not good that these tag things, so to see you respond kept me from going into depression. Not really, but I’m glad you did it anyway. 🙂
I do remember that table! I believe Jeb and I played a couple of games on it
That’s great. Man, Jeb was a great ping-pong player. In fact, Jeb was good at just about everything he did. I don’t know whatever happened to that table. I think Rob may have taken it.
Timmy, last year my brother became senior pastor at the SBC church in Niceville, Rocky Bayou Baptist, next to Ft. Walton Beach. Check him out the next time you’re home to Florida. You will find him a brother in the passion for truth. His name is Carey.
And also, my retina specialist is Assyrian and we have some very interesting exchanges about that. He is a very good man, and an excellent doctor. He has had a hand in some relief efforts. His father-in-law was an Assyrian/Evangelical pastor in Chicago. I have learned a lot in the exchange.
Dana,
How cool is that?! Our relatives are predominantly located in San Jose, CA and Chicago. My family travels up to Chicago all the time.
We are heading down to Destin/Ft. Walton Beach in about six weeks. It would be great to meet Carey.
Thanks for passing the info along!
Hey Timmy…I noticed something this afternnon whilst looking around the web. You look a lot like this guy (at least in the photo you use for identifying yourself on the blogosphere).
http://home.bellsouth.net/s/editorial.dll?pnum=1&bfromind=7406&eeid=5195424&_sitecat=1505&dcatid=0&eetype=article&render=y&ac=1&ck=&ch=ne&rg=blsadstrgt&_lid=332&_lnm=tg+ne+topnews&ck=&cntp=beta
That’s it! I’m changing my profile pic! I thought being an Ahmedinejad look-a-like was bad enough!
No seriously, I need some decent photos before people start presuming things . . .
Love ya, Timmy.
Love you too man.
(You know I was kidding with you in my last comment, right?)
I will confess that I not good at communicating levity and humor on the internet. That’s why I don’t do it often, and well, I’m just not a really funny guy if you know what I mean.
Timmy,
That’s funny. I mean really funny. I ALWAYS think I’m being funny (okay, not always, but frequently) on this thing. Mostly it is received as just odd. So I can relate. I would try to put some sort of emoticon after things that are meant to be funny or cute or not obnoxious, but I can’t figure most of them out.
(Yes, I knew you was kidding.)