Anecdote Assign

John Sagehorn, 22, sat cross-legged in jean shorts and white dress shirt while he recanted old stories about friends and family, but mostly his father.

“My dad is horrible at life lessons,” Sagehorn said while using his fingers to emphasize the “life lessons.”

The six foot tall UW Oshkosh senior nonchalantly corrected his thickened black retro-styled eye glass frames with his right hand and scratching his lightly tanned skin and scruffy face.

His father ignored the usual practice for teaching his children how to drive. John was the first of three children to be taught.

Sagehorn made somatic gestures with his thin hands. One hand held hi RCA remote and the other waved in the air, accentuating his anecdote.

“He’d tell my brother and sister that they didn’t need to look both ways when making turns or that they had to wear seatbelts,” shaking his head in remembrance.

To regulate the car’s speed he’d tell me not to break when going down hill that ended in going up a hill again. I thought it dumb advice as usually and never thought twice about it, until I was driving down a hill.

“That experience with my dad got me thinking about where else this lesson could be applied, academically. When starting a new semester -- going down hill – you cannot brake because your work will buildup and you’ll find yourself from then on in an uphill battle for the remaining semester,” Sagehorn verbal pondered.

This one time he actually gave me some good advice,” his eyebrow jumping up in modest excitement, “well, that and to stay away from farm machinery.”