As I read a few blogs, I see many that include an “About Me” page. So here I am, pondering what someone reading this blog may want to know about me, what might be interesting, how can I properly introduce myself?
Well let’s start with a Bio. I was born at Shaw Air Force Base in Sumter, SC. My father was in the Air Force and that’s where I showed up. As usual for me, I showed up a little late. Had I decided to join the party a day earlier, I would have been a birthday present for my mother. She didn’t seem to mind too much getting her birthday gift from me a day late though. What can a newborn give his mother on his first day of life outside the womb? Plenty I tell you. No more stiff backs, swollen feet, not having to pee every half hour… just to name a few. See how thoughtful I can be?
So I didn’t stay long in South Carolina. My dad shipped off to Taiwan to spend a year so mom and I moved back home to the booming metropolis of Sellersburg, Indiana. For those of you who have not memorized their small town locations of the US, Sellersburg is just a smidge north of Louisville, Ky.
My family was Catholic, well at least my mom’s side, dad wasn’t too interested in any religion but he “converted” so he and mom could marry in a Catholic church. I spent the first 8 years of school at private Catholic school. One thing I can take from that whole experience is that as far as Catholicism is concerned, I’m all stocked up. No need to go back to that store anytime soon. I remember during my confirmation class that a nun told me in order to be confirmed, I needed to do a certain quantity of community service hours withing something like two weeks. When I asked her just exactly how I was supposed to do that given that I went to school and worked 25 hours a week after school, she replied I would either figure it out or I wouldn’t be confirmed. Needless to say, that was my last day as a practicing Catholic.
A couple things that you might need to know about me at this point are 1) I don’t do well with authority figures or ultimatums and 2) Sarcasm is perhaps one of my greatest superpowers.
Fast forward a couple years and I found myself dating a girl that I met at work. I was taking a break between high school and college and it was certainly one hell of a year. It was during that year that my daughter was conceived. If there are any young folks reading this, let me tell you that it certainly does only take one time without protection to make another human being! Things never worked out relationship wise between my daughter’s mother and I so we never got married, but to all those guys out there who have a child with a woman that you aren’t involved with, you can still be a dad without being a significant other. There are far too many children in single-parent homes that don’t have to be. It takes a real man to step up, get past your differences, and work with the mother of your child as a team to raise that child. I give a lot of credit to my daughter’s mother to get past our differences and raise our daughter as a team. And believe me, my daughter knew from early on that she wasn’t going to play us off each other.
While attending college, I worked for Papa John’s Pizza. Now for those of you unfamiliar with the history of Papa John’s, the company got it’s start in Jeffersonville, Indiana which was just a stone’s throw away from my town. I worked with the Papa John, John Schnatter, when he only had about 4 stores. I spent several years with John while in college and when I finally left after graduation, I think he had just passed his 1,000th store. I still make homemade pizzas with my wife as it’s one of my favorite things to do in my past time. I’ll tell you, there have been times when I’ve considered going back to making pizzas for a living, that’s how much I enjoy it.
After college, I began working for a somewhat national drug store chain. Initially, I was running a store but then the regional office called asking for volunteers to travel and train people on some new systems being pushed out. I had just gone through a rather ugly divorce and decided that traveling would be very cathartic. I spent the better part of a year traveling the country and training people. It was during this time that I realized how much I enjoyed passing my knowledge on to others.
At the conclusion of the program, the corporate office needed someone with technical abilities to relocate to their offices in Pennsylvania to help support the program. It ended up being me. I still remember packing up my stuff in my truck (remember, the nasty divorce? I didn’t have much to take with) and driving to Pennsylvania the day after Christmas in 1999. I spent a total of almost 15 years with the company. During that time, I met my wife, Amy, when she attended a training class that I was presenting on Microsoft Access. I didn’t realize at the time, but this would be a pivotal moment in my life, more so than just ending up married.
Amy and I decided to marry, but neither one of us was religious at the time. I had always been interested in the philosophies of the East ever since I had studied Shaolin marital arts in high school. I had been reading about Buddhism for a couple years before Amy and I met so I quipped how cool it would be if we could get a Buddhist Priest to marry us. Amy did some research and found a center not too far from home that could do just that. So on August 5th, 2006, Amy and I were married by a wonderful Buddhist Priest named Ginny.
As we had found this center, we started more intensive studying and even enrolled in the seminary program spending almost 3 years in that program. Through a disagreement with the director of that center, we left with just a couple months left to complete the program. The technology of these times is simply amazing. Through social media, we found a new teacher close by who not only accepted us with open arms, he also recognized our time spent in the seminary program and the vows we had already taken. On April 8th, 2011, Amy and I renewed our monastic vows and received our Dharma names in our new order and are licensed ministers now.
My beautiful daughter has grown into an independent, bright, vibrant woman and I am so proud of her. Next month she graduates from the same college I attended (go IU!) and as I watch her embark on her path of life post-college, I feel confident that she will find the path suitable for her.
So, how did I get the name Bubbha? Well, while working at the pharmacy corporation, my boss would joke that the Mason-Dixon line should have simply been drawn across Indiana from the Pennsylvania/Maryland border instead of following the river. Had that been done, I would have been in the south. Since I grew up near Louisville, there is a bit of a southern type accent that I possess. By boss would joke with my by saying every time I would go visit family, it would take him a couple days when I came back for my accent to wear off so he could understand what I was saying! So he started calling me Bubba. He actually got almost everyone in the company to call me that before I left which is no small feat in a company with 80k+ associates! When I became a Buddhist monk, it just seemed fitting to modify that to Bubbha, same pronunciation, but a play on the structure like the Buddha. An embracing of the new and an accepting of the old.
So is this sufficient for an “About Me”? If not, post a comment and I’ll take feedback or answer other questions!
Peace,
Bubbha
