I was up against a dozen fifth graders and we were on a stage in front of what I think must have been some sort of PTA meeting.  (I remember that it took place "at night" so it was a big deal. Kinda like The Love Boat.)

I don't remember much about the evening (thanks to stress-induced repressed memories) but I do remember that I was one of the final three or four remaining kids and my word was "mother." (Sure, it's an easy word for you as you sit there in your cushy computer chair, but that's because it's spelled out right there on teh screen!)  Well, I had the lady use it in a sentence but I still could not determine if the "m" should be capitalized and I wasn't even sure if they cared and.. "Oh fucking Christ C'mon!  I know how to spell it but I'm just hung up in the details here!  What do they want from me?.. I'm like nine!"

I took off running.

most embarrassing moment:  as a sophomore in high school, my english teacher assigned us to write a "mood creation", a poem or short prose that sets a specific mood.  we were to accompany our in-class reading of this with a song of our choice (smashing pumpkins, natch).  now, being a sophomore in high school, the mood i chose to write about was depression.  during my reading, all the cute girls were putty in my hands.  they were hanging on every painfully well-written word.  i was baring my soul, and those chicks were totally digging it.  then my voice cracked.  in the span of on minute, i went from class heartthrob to class laughing stock.  i never dated until college.

I think that I shall never see     
A poem lovely as a tree.     

A tree whose hungry mouth is prest     
Against the sweet earth's flowing breast;     

A tree that looks at God all day,             
And lifts her leafy arms to pray;     

A tree that may in summer wear     
A nest of robins in her hair;     

Upon whose bosom snow has lain;     
Who intimately lives with rain.     

Poems are made by fools like me,     
But only God can make a tree.

Gotta love the lesbian imagery...

I find it hard to pick a favorite tree or a most embarrassing moment.  There are so many of both.

Hmmm...when I was a bright-eyed young college freshman, I attended an engineering college on an Air Force ROTC scholarship. The ROTC units were based in the armory/gym.  They gave me a uniform and told me to go try it on in the locker room. There were two big locker rooms on either end of the hallway.  The one on left was labeled "Men." The one on the right was not labeled, but I assumed it must be the women's locker room, and went in.  I hid in a back corner, behind a bank of lockers, to try on the uniform. When I realized there was something really wrong.  The lockers were those metal mesh kind, and I could see through them enough to see that the other people in the locker room were distinctly male.  Most did not look in my direction, but one guy was staring as he walked by, probably wondering why that guy in the corner was wearing a girlish shade of lavender.  Luckily for me, he wasn't about to come check it out when he was wearing only a towel.  I threw on my clothes and ran out of there like a bat out of hell as soon as the coast was clear.

It was an engineering school, where men are men, women are scarce, and sheep are very nervous.  The actual women's locker room was basically a closet under the stairs.  I would later learn that this was typical for this school, which had been male-only until the '70s and has an extremely skewed gender ratio to this day.  Finding the ladies' room in some buildings was nigh impossible, and would usually turn out to be a converted janitor's closet.

I would also find out that the sergeant who didn't bother to warn me about the locker room situation was a first class pervert.  He was always trying to spy on the female cadets while they were changing, and would grope your boobs or butt while pretending to check the fit of the uniform, etc.

As for trees...as a kid, my favorite tree was the magnolia, because it was so easy to climb.  Like a ladder.

All Things Bubba: Because how can you not love a baseball player named Bubba?