This Is David Staples

Monday, September 9, 2019 The last time I lived in the same town as my brother was 1987, when we still lived in the big blue house in West Palm Beach. First, he went away to school in Boca Raton. Then I went away to school in Orlando. I moved to Tampa while he ended up in Athens, Georgia. He then made jaunts to Irvine, California and Madison, Wisconsin and Tempe, Arizona while I continued to circumnavigate Florida: Tampa, Jacksonville, Orlando again, Tallahassee, Orlando again. We had a brief flirtation with being in the same city once. He stayed with us in Orlando after he decided to move back to Florida. He toyed with the idea of living in the City Beautiful, but the beach won out, and he settled in Melbourne. He eventually went full-circle and returned to West Palm Beach, like most of our family does at some point. Meanwhile, my little clan and I broke free of the Florida eddy and ventured to Columbia, South Carolina; Houston, Texas; and Columbia, South Carolina again. The physical ...

Tuesday, February 23, 1999 My dad turned 70 on Saturday, February 20, 1999. I was working that day, helping out with the youth group’s DiscipleNOW weekend. They were gallivanting all over the place. My job was to head up north of town to a church member’s huge open property and get things in order for the big afternoon activity. I think they were playing Capture the Flag   (or  a church version of that) and doing a bonfire that evening. I didn’t have to stick around for the duration; I just was the person getting things ready. I arrived early and decided to take advantage of the wait to call my dad on my cell phone. I wasn’t the earliest of adopters with technology, but I did get on board quickly on most things. I had a beeper in college - and dealt with all the questions of if I was a drug dealer. Then I got a cell phone pretty soon after college - and dealt with all the questions of if I was a drug dealer. I felt it was a justifiable expense. I lived hours away from my paren...

I was hoping to have finished reading Bono’s book  Surrender , but I have not. I’ve made a good dent in it, and it is definitely a great read. Technically, this is my last U2SDAY for this project. However, I think I’ll go ahead and do one more to talk about the book. I wish I had started reading it a little earlier, but I was caught up in a couple of good books that I couldn’t pull myself away from. I also didn’t have anything else really lined up for this topic. I had thought about talking about my favorite cover songs that U2 performed. Or maybe my favorite U2 songs. But the truth is, I’m not a music expert or music critic. So anything I write will invariably be reduced to   “this  is a cool song” and   “this  is also a cool song” and   “oooo,  this is a cool song.” I can’t even attempt to sound all smart, waxing poetic about Edge’s particular guitar playing or the influence of The Zombies on U2.   (I  don’t know if The Zombies influenced U...