Taking the Lead: Lessons From a Life in Motion (2 page)

This didn’t stop us, however, from being a pretty wild family. We were faithful, respectful, and ritualistic—but we could also explode into craziness whenever music started playing. Any time Bruce Springsteen, Bob Seger, or Billy Joel came on the radio, my sisters and I would start dancing around the kitchen, knocking plates and glasses off the shelves. My friends used to tease me about how much I loved oldies music. Truthfully, it reminded me of my grandparents’ houseboat and the times we spent there in the summers. Those were my glory days. We would have huge family reunions there with my dad’s side of the family—all my aunts, uncles, and cousins. At times, there were thirty of us there having a huge party on the lake. We drove twelve hours to reach the boat—my parents, my sisters, and I all stuffed into a red van with a crummy, old portable TV lodged between the passenger and driver’s sides. We’d watch movies driving up and listen to U2’s
Joshua Tree
. Its songs became the anthems of my childhood.

When we arrived at the houseboat, my dad became a different person—someone I barely recognized but loved to hang with. He worked in radio and later started a satellite communications company, so he was often traveling for work. But when he arrived at the houseboat, he was transformed. He cut loose, sang karaoke, acted like a complete dork. I’d sit there watching him and think to myself, Who is this man?

My mom’s job was raising us. She cooked, cleaned, and kept us entertained. I don’t think any of us made her life particularly easy—there were five kids in all: my three older sisters, Sharee, Marabeth, and Katherine; then me and Julianne. Sharee had a very strong personality and was opinionated about everything, probably because she was the oldest and wisest (or at least she thought so!). Marabeth was quiet, and Katherine had a wild sense of humor. We used to call her Lucille Ball because she was always cracking us up. When I picture my older sisters as teenagers, they were the funniest eighties stereotypes: big, curled hair and neon wristbands and headbands. I fell toward the middle of the Hough pack, and you know the reputation middle children have: always trying to get attention, always making mischief. That was me, big time. I remember constantly jumping around, leaping off the furniture like it was my personal jungle gym. We have dozens of videos of me dancing around the living room and ricocheting off the walls like a pinball.

They teach you in church that idle hands are the devil’s workshop. I don’t know about that, but I do know that I always had the feeling that I needed to be
doing
. My mom referred to it as ants in my pants, but it was more than that. I just couldn’t sit still. I worried something important would pass me by if I did, and my imagination never allowed me downtime. I suffered from major FOMO: fear of missing out.

My sisters and I were always making movies and commercials with a camcorder. The slow-motion button intrigued me—I loved to watch myself suspended in midair. I would crank up the music from
Mortal Kombat
and do a running front flip off my bed. I studied the playback: What if I put in a bit more torque or a little more rotation? Would it make me fly higher? Would I stay in the air a few minutes longer? I was very scientific about it. Even though I hated science class in school, the physics of the perfect flip fascinated me. I wanted to be a Ninja Turtle.

I felt like there were kids around me who were much more physical and could do more than me, so I’d try and figure out how they did it. My imagination was on the entire time; I never hit the off button. It felt as if I were living in a movie: from the moment I woke up I could hear the soundtrack in my head, and I assumed different characters. My sisters and I would re-create scenes from movies that we loved, like
Labyrinth
or
Legend
—all the mystical fantasy stuff.

My mom let us have our fun, and she had the patience of a saint with me. No matter where I was, I wound up in trouble—or the emergency room. One time, I was at a playground, racing up and down a metal slide. I was with my cousins on the top of the slide and I called to her, “Mom, watch me! Watch me!” I wanted her to see me barrel down on my stomach. She wasn’t paying attention, and my cousin was losing patience and wanted her turn. So she pushed me. I remember it all in slow motion, and I’m not sure when I blacked out. I fell sideways down the slide, and I remember the pain of my head smashing into a metal bar. There was a lot of blood and my mother screaming. I remember getting stitches in the emergency room and fading in and out of consciousness.

For years, I made a joke about it. If a teacher scolded me for not getting an answer quickly enough in class, I would just shrug and say, “Well, what can I tell you? A piece of my brain must have fallen out of my head when I cracked it open—it’s not my fault!” A bishop, one of our local church leaders, once came over to our house and told my mother, “Your job is to keep that boy alive.” He wasn’t wrong. In retrospect, I was probably hyperactive, but no one formally diagnosed me. I think Mom had her suspicions, and she took matters into her own hands.

She knew that she had to keep me busy. She got me a drum set one Christmas and signed me up immediately for lessons. Every day I had another activity: baseball, soccer, karate, even art classes. Sometimes, she’d have to drag me kicking and screaming to them—I never wanted to stop playing for something as trivial as karate class. I’d pout all the way in the car, but once I was there and into it, I was glad I’d come. My mom knew it might be a fight, but she had to find ways to channel all of my energy and hyperactivity into positive outlets. I give her credit—I was never bored. She has refused to see my hyperactivity as a disorder, so I don’t either. I see it as an advantage. If your mind is always running, all you have to do is train your body to keep up with it.

Because I was the only boy, I was the only one who had his own room. It was at the top of the stairs to the left, right next to my parents’ room (I suppose they put me there to keep an eye on me). My four sisters had to share two rooms to the right, while I got my own space with two single beds. Sometimes I’d get up in the middle of the night and switch beds just for fun. I could open my window and climb out on the first-story roof and lie there, gazing up at the night sky. In Boy Scouts, I learned about constellations, so I’d try to spot the Big Dipper, Cassiopeia, the Pleiades or Seven Sisters. They seemed so far away, yet I could close one eye and balance them on the tips of my fingers.

I covered the walls of my room with pictures of tigers. I was obsessed with these beautiful, ferocious animals. My dad hoarded hundreds of
National Geographic
magazines, so one day I went through his stacks and cut out all the tiger photos I could find to make a giant collage. I don’t think he was too thrilled that I tore up his collection, but he understood my passion. Tigers fascinated me for so many reasons. They’re strong and fierce, but also beautiful and elegant. I remember loving the way they moved, how they were able to control their power. I would spend hours staring at their faces and drawing them: the eyes could display such a range of emotion. I loved that they have no fear. When they walk through a jungle, they own it.

Maybe I wasn’t the most “normal” kid, but in our home, we were taught to embrace individuality and creativity. I felt like we didn’t have a lot of toys, and for a long time I assumed we were poor. But that really wasn’t the case. We could have afforded anything that the rest of the kids in our neighborhood had. My mom just thought it would be better if we used our imaginations and our hands to create things rather than buy them. I remember how badly I wanted a sword to play with. My mother handed me a piece of paper. “Draw it,” she said.

So I did. I sketched out every detail, from the curve of the blade to the shiny silver handle. We had this carpenter’s saw we kept in the basement, so my mom could actually cut shapes out of wood. Together, we worked to bring that sword to life. I even covered it with glow-in-the-dark paint. I thought it was pretty awesome, till I went to my friend’s house and he had the Nerf 3000 thunderbolt lightning super-duper state-of-the-art lights, bells, and buzzers sword—or whatever it was called. That thing was insane! Embarrassed, I hid my makeshift sword behind my back. But looking back, I can see now the value of what my parents were trying to teach us. They were giving us the power to create, the power to see something in your mind and make it real. The lesson was probably lost on a six-year-old, but it did stick with me. Now I’m kind of like MacGyver when something needs to get done.

The Houghs were different, that’s for sure, but I was never embarrassed by that fact. I was glad to be on that side of the fence. South Jordan, Utah, where we settled, was a tight community. Everyone knew everyone, and everyone knew everyone’s business. We lived in a big gray house, the last one in a cul-de-sac, perched on top of a hill. We had maybe an acre of land, mostly trees, surrounding us. I would sit out in the backyard, looking out from the top of that hill, pretending I was Indiana Jones. The mountains in the distance held the promise of adventure and danger. One group of trees formed the shape of a spade, and—like a secret spot on a treasure map—I was confident that a Temple of Doom was buried there. One day, I told myself, I’d hike out there with my backpack and hat and discover it. I wanted to be in the center of danger, to go places people had never gone before. For a scrawny little kid, I had a lot of guts—either that or stupidity.

In the meantime, I had my backyard to tide me over. I would crawl on my stomach through the mud and the dirt. I’d dig trenches and build forts and wield my sword and whip as I made my way through the dark and dangerous forest filled with snakes and ancient curses. As I got a little older, I realized archeology wasn’t as cool as the Indy movies made it out to be. I’d have to go to college and study a lot of boring history instead of tracking down the Lost Ark. So I abandoned that career goal. But I’m still an adventure junkie. I feel so alive when I’m on the edge—always have, always will.

Though I loved danger, I preferred to choose it myself, not have it thrust upon me. We had these neighbors down the road who clearly had something against us, although I couldn’t tell you why. Their sons were big kids who were several years older than I was—and it felt like they made it their mission to torture and torment my family. If I close my eyes today, I can’t see their faces; I think I blocked them out. But what I do recall vividly are feelings—how the hair on the back of my neck stood on edge whenever they came around. I remember the fear and the anxiety. I never quite knew how far they’d go or what they were capable of, so I assumed the worst. I assumed that one day, whether on purpose or by accident, they would kill me.

I wasn’t that far off. Taunts and teasing and dares of “Go ahead, make me!” quickly turned physical. One of the brothers ripped my sister Sharee’s earrings out of her ears, severing her lobes. She came running home with blood pouring down her neck. My mother went over to their house and went ballistic. I had never heard her scream like that before, and I probably never will again. She was a mama bear protecting her young. They insisted it was “an accident” and their mother went along with it. They were playing a game and threw a blanket over Sharee’s head and snatched it away; the earrings simply caught in the fabric. But my mother made it pretty clear that they’d better stay far away from any of us or she’d take matters into her own hands (and it wouldn’t be “an accident.”).

Of course, this didn’t stop them. One day, shortly after, it was my turn. I was about six years old, playing on a trampoline in a friend’s backyard. The brothers strolled up to us and asked if we wanted to play guns. I didn’t like the sound of that and hesitated, but my friend wanted to join in the fun. Before I could say anything more, the brothers dragged me off the trampoline and threw me down on the ground. One of them sat on top of me while the other tied a rope tightly around my ankles. My friend went along with it—or he was too scared to try to stop them. The ropes dug into my skin. I couldn’t wriggle out of them; the knots were so tight, they cut off the circulation, and all I could feel were pins and needles in my toes. They dragged me facedown on the ground. I must have hit my head, because I tasted blood in my mouth.

They threw the other side of the rope over a thick tree branch and pulled it until I was suspended upside down by my ankles about six feet in the air. I remember feeling cold—it was dusk and there was an early autumn breeze in the air. I’m not sure how long I was in this position, only that the sun eventually set and it became pitch dark and bone-chillingly cold. I thought my head was going to explode from the blood rushing to it—or that some wild animal would discover me in the darkness and pick the flesh off my bones.

“Let me go!” I screamed. As I hung there, helpless and terrified, they spit in my face, over and over again. Then they held a pistol to my head and threatened to pull the trigger. “Shut up or we’ll shoot.” I knew the family hunted, so I wasn’t 100 percent sure it was a toy gun. I thought I was going to die; they would leave me there to rot and freeze to death. My mom and dad or my sisters would find my body in the morning. So I screamed. I cried. I pleaded. I begged. Eventually—because I think they got tired of me carrying on—they let me down. My head was throbbing and I couldn’t feel my feet. I was so cold, my teeth were chattering. I stumbled home as fast as I could, ran upstairs to my bedroom, and hid under the covers. I didn’t tell anyone. I was afraid if I told, my parents would want to keep me safe, and they’d never allow me to go back out and play with my friends again. So I never told a soul.

But often, in the middle of the night, I’d wake up screaming from a nightmare. I’d dream that the brothers had strung me up again—or they were following me, guns in hand, planning their next ambush. It was the first time in my life I felt real fear, real danger. Not the kind of fear a little kid experiences when he thinks the bogeyman is lurking under his bed at night, but real fear that shakes you to your core because it’s so real and so close—in my case, three houses away.