Brandt Dodson’s interview

» Posted on Dec 30, 2008 in Blog | Comments Off on Brandt Dodson’s interview


If you want to be entered in either of the drawings or both of them, please leave a comment with your email address or email me at margaretdaley@gmail.com. The drawings for Daniel’s Den by Brandt Dodson and Mommy’s Hometown Hero by Merrillee Whren will end Sunday evening.

A hero interview from Daniel’s Den:

1. Daniel Borden, tell me the most interesting thing about you.

I like dogs. Secretly, I wanted to be a veterinarian because I’ve always felt that dogs were my best friends. They accept you for who you are – no restrictions- and remain loving and loyal until their dying day. I didn’t have a dog as a child because my parents told me we couldn’t afford one. But my uncle Ray had one, a collie named Duke, and I can remember playing with him on the occasions we would visit uncle Ray or he would visit with us.

2. What do you do for fun?

I’m a bit of a fitness buff. I do a hundred sit ups, followed by a hundred push ups every morning before I complete a three mile run. Now I don’t want to mislead you. None of this is fun. I do it because I feel compelled to do it. My father died of alcoholism and my mother died at a young age too, so I’m running from the demons in my genes – literally. But my desire to stay healthy has lead me to a variety of sports. I’ve played basketball, tennis, and ran track in high school. These days, though, I’ve developed a love of racquetball. I play with a co-worker three times a week. He’s tough, but that helps me keep my edge.

3. What do you put off doing because you dread it?

Cleaning the house. I’m talking about deep cleaning. I work 60-70 hours per week so I have little time for doing more than running the vacuum or washing a load of laundry. But sooner or later, the dust bunnies will get you. I do as little of it as I can.

4. What are you afraid of most in life?

Loneliness. I’m an only child of an alcoholic father and a workaholic mother who held down two jobs just to keep food on the table. I wasn’t allowed to have pets and I had few friends, mostly because we moved a lot just to stay ahead of the bill collector.

I want a family of my own, someday, but until then I’ve found Elvis. He’s a black Lab I rescued from an animal shelter.

5. What do you want out of life?

A family. I want to meet a woman who loves me as much as I love her and I want to have children. I’m not really hung up on whether we have boys or girls. That isn’t important to me. I just want to have children on whom I can pour out my love. I want to give them the life I never had.

6. What is the most important thing to you?

Security. I’ve worked hard to avoid the situations I often found myself in as a child. I lived in poverty, alone, struggling to attach myself to something or someone that would give my life meaning. Now, as a very successful securities analyst, I have a career I truly love and that provides me with enough financial security that I no longer have to worry about sliding back into the abyss from which I sprang. There are times, though, that I wonder if I’ve given too much away in order to have security.

Can too much of a good thing be wrong?

7. Do you read? If so, what is your favorite type of book to read?

I read a lot. Non-fiction, mostly. I read biographies. I’m interested in learning how others have lived and about the choices they’ve made. I’ve tried hard to make as few bad choices in my live as possible, and I’ve learned how to learn from others’ mistakes.

I read some fiction, the classics mostly, although I enjoy a good spy novel too.

8. If you could change one thing about yourself, what would it be?

Part of the thing that has driven me toward success is my Type A personality. It continually drives me upward and onward like a rider spurring a horse. Although it has left me in a position that is better than the one my father was in and better than the one in which I was raised, I’ll admit it would be nice to open my hand once in a while and just let go of the reigns. You know? It would be nice to just … smell the roses and find a different definition of success. But I suspect there are a lot of people like me.

9. Do you have a pet? If so, what is it and why that pet?

Yes. I have a black Lab named Elvis. He was mistreated – neglected, actually – by his previous owners and was eventually rescued. I adopted him from the shelter when he was not quite two years old, shortly after my transfer to New Orleans. He’s my best friend.

10. If you could travel back in time, where would you go and why?

I would go back to a time when I could reach my father when he was still a little boy. I would show him what kind of a man he would become if he didn’t change the path of his life, and I would show him how his negative influences had robbed me of the childhood I deserved.

He wasn’t a bad man. He was just a man who made the wrong choices and allowed his family to suffer the consequences. Sometimes I wonder if my drive for success – a direct outgrowth of his failure in life – isn’t causing me to make some bad choices too. I hope not.