Twenty Answers

Hello! Wow, a lot of people participated in this game! I have to try this again another time.

[Sorry for the delay, but my staff meeting ran overtime.]

These are the answers:

1. I am a member of Mensa.
   TRUE: I have been a member of Mensa for over ten years, though I have never attended a single meeting of my local chapter.


2. I am divorced.
   FALSE: I have never been married. Jamaican Queen and Luke Cage astutely guessed this, but others seemed to have been led astray.


3. I am related to a former Governor-General of Barbados.
   TRUE: Through my mother, I am distantly related to the late Dame Ruth Nita Barrow, the first and only female Governor-General of Barbados.


4. I have been to the DMZ.
   TRUE: As part of a 50th anniversary commemoration of the Korean War, my Army unit visited the Korean Demilitarized Zone (or DMZ). They sell barbed wire souvenirs in the gift shop there.


5. I knew Biggie Smalls before he was famous.
   FALSE: I did not personally know Christopher Wallace, the late Notorious B.I.G., however he did grow up in my neighborhood. I have a vivid memory in high school of a chubby, sullen boy getting into an altercation with a crackhead on a crowded C train over nothing. I thought to myself, “What a jerk that kid is.” :)


6. I am Catholic.
   TRUE: Born and raised. I disagree with a great deal of Church doctrine, however. I was greatly disappointed that Pope John Paul II’s successor was not from Latin America.


7. I have had dinner with Barbara Bush.
   TRUE: My company contributed heavily to an Americares fundraiser dinner about five years ago and they were looking for bodies to fill up the table. I volunteered and sure enough, I ended up sitting at a table adjacent to George H. W. Bush and Barbara Bush. I’ll post the picture where I’m cheesing standing next to her. I think she was scared, but she made a good show of it. LOL!


8. I was on the fencing team in high school.
   TRUE: I was on the fencing team for four years. I still have my gear.


9. I lost a tooth playing football.
   TRUE: I was only six, though, and the tooth was loose.


10. I wore an eye patch as a child to correct a vision problem.
    TRUE: Yes, like Captain Typho, I rocked an eye patch back in the day. Do they still do that to kids now? They made me wear it to strengthen the vision in my weaker eye.


11. I once performed in Ringling Bros. Barnum & Bailey circus.
    TRUE: It wasn’t much of a performance, though. My mom took me to the circus and a guy came and picked me and some other kids out of the crowd. They put us in a chariot and we got to clown around and wave at the crowd from the center ring. There were elephants and acrobats all around us. Very exciting!


12. I went to school with former basketball player Mark Jackson.
    FALSE: Completely false! ;)


13. I have a stepsister.
    TRUE: I met her for the first time at my paternal grandmother’s funeral. I was like, WTF? I wasn’t even aware that my father had remarried! (rolling my eyes)


14. I escaped from Manhattan by boat on 9/11.
    TRUE: My office is about three blocks away from Ground Zero. At about noon when the dust cloud had lifted enough so that there was some visibility, two co-workers and I started walking towards the Brooklyn Bridge. As we got towards the water we saw a ferries, tug boats, sanitation boats, personal craft, you name it, lining up to take people to safety! Those people didn’t have to help us. I still get choked up when I think about that.
    
    The evacuation of Dunkirk in WWII must’ve been a lot like that.


15. I have shot a member of my family.
    TRUE: I shot a cousin in the eye at pointblank range with a pistol that used little army men for ammo. I thought he was holding my doll hostage and I was not in the mood to eff around with him, so I popped a cap. Turned out he didn’t have the doll, his brother had it! Oops! Shot the wrong guy! He turned it over quick since he saw I meant business. See, I should’ve been a cop.


16. I started a race riot at a day camp.
    FALSE: I was involved in an “incident” between the black girls and the white girls at a Catholic Youth Organization day camp, but the nuns put both sides on lockdown before we had to represent.


17. I am a Democrat.
    FALSE: I’m not a Republican either. I’m an Independent.


18. My family is from Panama.
    TRUE: My parents were both born and raised in Panama. Their parents came to Panama from Barbados, Jamaica and Colombia to build the Panama Canal.


19. I was deployed to Cuba as part of operation Enduring Freedom.
    TRUE: My Army Reserve unit was sent to Guantanamo Bay about 8 months after 9/11. I could tell ya more, but… you know the rest of that sentence. ;)


20. I graduated from MIT.
    TRUE: I don’t go to any reunions or anything, though.