Behold the meatless wonder

It's the Pitts
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    “Do not condemn the judgment of another because it differed from your own. You may both be wrong.”   — Dandamis
    The biggest problem I had when leaving high school was that for four years the FFA had consumed my life and then, suddenly, I had nothing to hold my interest. Collegiate livestock judging filled that void. I liked the competitive nature of it and loved giving reasons. I was good at it, if I do say so myself. So much so that my grandpa thought I should be a lawyer arguing before the Supreme Court, but I objected and appealed his decision on grounds that I didn’t want to spend the rest of my life looking for loopholes.
    I also loved livestock judging because I got to go places I’d never been: Chicago, Fort Worth, Kansas City, San Francisco, Portland and Denver. It was because of all this traveling that I learned something important about myself: I hated big cities.
    I’ll never forget our flight home from Chicago because it was my first time on a 747 and because it was a Playboy Bunny flight where Playboy Bunnies served the first class flyers drinks and dinner. I kid you not. We got fogged out of L.A. and had to circle for a couple hours and while we waited, drinks were on the house. Needless to say, things got a little rambunctious, and the Playboy Bunnies ended up being locked in the cabin with the pilots. I think the Bunnies got permanently grounded after that.
    One reason I liked giving reasons so much was I grew up in a house where “the views and opinions expressed were strictly those of management.” Judging was the first time in my life I was allowed to express my opinion and the grown-ups had to listen and not interrupt.
    My coach, Bill Jacobs, was only 10 years older than I was, and our deep friendship was based largely on one thing: I taught him how to shoot pool. I had grown up shooting pool in my grandpa’s house and had become fairly proficient at it. One time on a judging team trip, I introduced Bill to the game and he immediately became infatuated with it, so much so that if a student wanted to reach him after class they knew where to find him: at the pool hall.

 

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