Seven.

I got tagged by my friends DC Rainmaker AND Jade Lady to come up with seven weird facts about myself that no one probably knows. Rainmaker is a longtime runner blogger (all right, he does some dark-side stuff too AKA biking) who is pretty accomplished, and Jade Lady is a newcomer to running blogging who is...pretty accomplished. (She also knows Shirley real well.) Okay, here goes.

7. I like number 7. Mickey Mantle's number. John Elway's number. When I was a boy, I used to hide two dollar bills in books on page 77, for later retrieval on that proverbial "rainy day." Why page 77? Because I could always remember it thanks to the then-current TV show 77 Sunset Strip.

6. The number of children my parents had. And no, we're not Catholic.

5. At one time all three of my sons wore number 5 at the same time for their select soccer teams. Jimmy was 5 on the McLean Sting, Johnny was 5 on the Arlington Force and Danny was 5 on the Arlington United Strikers. I had a little hand in getting those last two numbers assigned since I was the manager for the Force and the equipment manager for the US.

4. My social security number ends in 4. I like even numbers much better than odd numbers. It would be hard to get a social security number that was all even numbers, and I'm cool with that, but I was mightily pleased when my first two children got social security numbers that ended in even numbers. I was bugged when my last child got one that ended in an odd number.

3. The number of children I have. Although I was delighted with three boys, I always wanted a girl.

2. The number of children we had help in conceiving. We worked hard at it for a long time, you know, coming home in the middle of the day, that sort of thing, before we sought intervention in our thirties. Is it accurate to say that a child got conceived by a man with a cup in a stall in the men's room at a fertility center? I dunno, but those two look like me in many regards. The other child was definitely a surprise, at least to me. He looks nothing like me or anyone else on my side of the family.

1. I coached a team to first place in the recreational soccer league once. Danny's team, and Jimmy was an assistant coach and Johnny was an assistant to the coach on that team. This was harder than it sounds because we were a suburban team from Falls Church and we had to play urban teams from South Arlington with players who are immigrants from South America where they grow up with soccer and, apparently, they don't keep real accurate birth records. Some of those kids were shaving. And they were rough. The few times we got a breakaway going I winced because I knew what was coming. A brutal takedown from behind that was going to leave the kid writhing in the turf. But we went 7-1-1 one season and finished first. Danny was my rock on that team; booming kick, could score a little, pass a lot, and could and would go into goal.

Happy Birthday, Danny. I love you and miss you.

I tag...anyone who reads this and wants to continue the meme.