That Time When That Chick Stole $150,000 From My Uncle

Debbie never had a chance, even if she was only a gold digger.

Debbie wasn't particularly well-liked by my family (they thought she was trash), but she was a nice enough girl. How she ever agreed to marry my uncle, I don't know. It had to be for the money. This isn't so much a reflection on her as on him and our family.

Garrison Keillor talks about "bachelor farmers," and that describes my uncle perfectly. Not very clean, not really socially acceptable; basically the kind of guy that isn't any women's first choice for a husband.

Unfortunately, Debbie married Roger at a time when everyone suspected there was something terribly wrong with my grandfather, my grandmother was losing her grip on sobriety and our family was spiraling out of control in a way in which demise seemed imminent. My grandma was also unbelievably controlling of Roger, which would be tough on any new wife.

And then the poor girl was forced to live not in the big farmhouse in the grove, but in a trailer next to the cow barn. I remember going in there to help my grandma clean it up (BACHELOR FARMER) and thinking i was kinda cool but mostly kinda gross. It was a lot like Bud and Sissy's trailer in Urban Cowboy.

It was up on a high hill, and downwind from the barn. And that barn wasn't empty. I can just imagine what that poor gold digger was thinking, stuck in a convection oven that smelled like manure.

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Letter to My Daughter: Why I Can't Call Caitlyn Jenner a Hero

I gotta hand it to the Millennials. You're living in an age of unprecedented acceptance of many people; things like race, culture, sexual orientation and disabilities don't phase you like they did past generations. You also tend to have strong morals and understand the nuances of many tough issues like no other generation in history. And not only do you understand them; you are willing to stand up for your beliefs and defend others.

I think my generation, GenX, were the lab rats. We were taught from a really young age that gender and race and disabilities don't matter. It was a little tough for us because our parents and grandparents still used racial and cultural slurs, and it was, and still is, kinda tough to keep up with all the new terms for the disabled and those in the LGBT community.

But let's talk about Bruce Jenner. And yes, I do mean BRUCE Jenner.

Here is a man who, for decades, lived a life of deceit. 

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No Bible Here: The Questionable Science of Evolution

There are two accepted theories that explain the origin of life on planet Earth: The theory of the Common Ancestor, put forth by Charles Darwin in his book On the Origin of Species, which stated that through the process of abiogenesis (the creation of life from non-living matter), the first organism on Earth was created and all creatures that now exist on Earth “evolved” from this first organism; and Creationism, the theory that all life was created by a "Higher Being" using “Intelligent Design."

Like most people, I was raised on a strict diet of Evolutionary Science, ridiculing Creationism at every opportunity. And then it hit me.

I was with my kids in the dinosaur exhibit at the Denver Museum of Nature and Science (a frequent trip and a fantastic exhibit). The Early Life section of the exhibit is on a platform above the rest of the exhibit; it's a little spooky up there in the haze of a fake sunset over a fake beach, the sound of insects buzzing and chirping in the background, life-size models of prehistoric insects dangling from the ceiling on minute wires. It made me think how scary it would be if those dragonflies were real. 

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