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In the 1990's I was a residence hall director on a college campus. My building was 450 freshmen men, four floors, brick, no AC, in Missouri. Aside from the normal parties, fights, fire alarms, vandalism...probably the most nerve racking was a phone call in the middle of the night, my door monitor said there was a resident in the building with a gun(!). Of course we called campus police, state trooper and 911 and gathered my resident advisors. We figured out who it was...and escorted the police to his room. They knocked, but no response...since I had the master key, I got to open the door and get the heck out of the way. Thankfully he was passed out on his bed, drunk.

He had stumbled home, got a BB-gun (that looked very much like a hand gun), and went to the computer lab. Held the gun to another resident's head and asked if he wanted to die today? Not a good move on his part.

Now discovered drunk in his room, the trooper tried to wake him up...he took a swing at one of them, and it was then GAME ON! They had him on the floor and cuffed in no time flat. He got kicked out of the building forever, but strangely was allowed to stay in school. This was probably 1992.

Thankfully no deaths or suicides in my building...I did that job for 5 years.

On the fun side, I later ran campus activities department, and got to be the liaison, driver, "handler" for some really cool people. Dave Chappell (this was well before his TV show and fame...he was a great guy to my students), Jim Lovel, Alan Page, Whitey Herzog and a host of other small time bands. Wycleff Jean did a concert in our arena. He and his manager were jerks.

During the summer while I was in college I worked construction. We had a contract to replace a steam line on a military base. Before digging up the old line, the steam had to be turned off which involved going down a man hole into a VERY hot environment and turning a large valve several revolutions. I volunteered to do it. They strapped a rope around me so they could pull me out if I passed out. I could only stand to be down there about 30 seconds due to the heat so it took three trips to turn the valve completely off. When I was done an older guy said that was probably the dumbest thing I had ever done. I'm thinking why didn't you tell me that before I did it.

I work in shipping so I have my favorite shipping stories. About a decade ago I was asked to pack and ship an official NFL regulation ball inflator. A quarterback who had a place in the Yellowstone Club and in New England wanted it sent home. This quarterback (a real Patriot), was very sensitive about making sure his footballs were properly inflated.

More stories tomorrow but it's bed time.

We watched a tornado go by once. It looked a lot closer than it was.

Two employees got in a fight once. One guy provoked the other one and the guy he provoked knocked him down. An old lady customer saw the whole thing. When she walked up to us she said “ Ive never heard such language in my life “ then she said that boy hit the other boy haaaard. They both got fired , but the one who got hit won the worker’s comp case…

We also had a tech get his finger cut off when he jumped down out of the truck . He had his hand on top of the door frame, and when he jumped down his wedding ring got hung on the lip of the frame…it couldn’t be re attached.