Goof troup

The very first time I met Chris Casler he was holding a marching french horn. It was my senior year of high school and his sophomore year. I knew who Chris was just from conversations with his sister who was also in band but had just graduated. I'm pretty sure she told me something like not to give him a hard time and yet somehow visions of "Dazed and Confused" kept on coming to mind.

I however was almost as skinny and goofy as Chris so there was no hazing to be done. That year he and josh became pretty good friends and since then Chris has become fondly thought of by everyone in the moorhead clan. I mention all this because I spent last weekend with him and possibly this one as well. It's another one of those moments where I cant help but think, had anyone told me this was gonna the case when chris and I met, I don't think i would have believed it.

Casler is out here in Japan for a month long intensive Japanese language course. He's doing a home stay somewhere in Osaka and from everything we talked about last weekend there's no doubt he's having a blast.

I like to brag on Chris cause he just graduated from the Air Force Academy. Without fail every time we get to hang out we wind up talking about his 4 years there. Its a school lifestyle I'm glad I didn't have realize but at the same time proud that someone I know went through it. ( I actually know two, my uncle graduated from there as well)

For the most part we just tooled around friday night and all day Saturday. Alittle karaoke here, some Mosburger there and a sloppy joe night where a bunch of friends came over to the apartment. But then Sunday was the Matuse English Festival that the Lions Club sponsored and we ALT's worked. It was a day of various activities designed for 3rd year junior high students. The overall goal is just to let them have some fun while talking with us, and really i think Sunday was a huge success. The ALT's were divided into workshop presenters and group leaders. Chris was going to just shadow me for the day and get an idea of what it is we do until I got a phone call.

One of my peers came down with a pretty contagious sickness and Chris was asked to fill in. The man did and I think he had more fun with that than any other thing or sight I could have showed him that day. As group leaders, Chris, other ALT's and I, took different groups of 12-15 students, all from different schools, to the different workshops like Christmas cookie making, dramatic acting, irish dancing and creative story writing. We also ate lunch with the kids and continued to ask them questions getting them to talk as freely as they could.

At the end of the event, I was standing with him talking about the day when a gaggle of girls came and asked him to write personal messages on the pictures that each student had received of their group. Chris is still a goofy fellow but just funny to sit and watch him more or less signing autographs for his new fans.

The skinny kid with the French horn.