By MONTE DUTTON

Some of the cooler things I’ve ever done:

No particular order.

Watching part of the Rolex 24 in Daytona Beach, Fla., at midnight from a Ferris wheel.

Driving the Pacific Coast Highway in a car full of scribes when we pass a restaurant on the water. Out front, a man is cleaning fish. “Pull over,” I say. It becomes an annual visit.

Sitting next to John Prine on a short connecting flight. He’d played a concert. I’d covered a race. After a brief conversation, we both went to sleep.

Seeing Richard Petty win on dirt … twice.

Jarrett winning my first race. Ned Jarrett.

Meeting Jimmy Carter twice … 25 years apart.

Interning in the office of eccentric Strom Thurmond and thinking he was old. He served for 22 more years.

Playing on a state championship team and later watching my brother do the same.

Picking up a guitar in my 40s and learning how to play it badly. Giving up golf at the same time because a man can take a guitar on a plane, and he can take golf clubs on a plane, but he can’t take both. As much as I suck at guitar, it’s a considerable improvement over golf.

Seeing Furman defeat South Carolina in football, one day after one of great personal anguish.

Beating North Carolina State (twice) and Georgia Tech weren’t bad.

Writing about Jeff Gordon’s first win and Dale Earnhardt’s last. The former was the source of my first NASCAR writing award.

Sitting two rows behind Jerry Rice at Wrigley Field and a row in front of James Spader at Fenway Park. I didn’t speak to either.

Waiting for a table at a Las Vegas restaurant, I remark to my friend that it is the favorite of Jerry Lewis. She says, “You mean, like, ‘Great Balls of Fire’? I say, no, that’s Jerry Lee Lewis and imitate him: ‘Hey, lady!’” That’s when I see Lewis standing five feet away. He wiggles his fingers and makes a goofy expression at us.

Walking by the ABC building in New York City, I’m wearing a Furman jacket. Howard Cosell walks by in a tan, camel’s hair overcoat. He says to me, “David Whitehurst, Furman University.” Whitehurst was quarterbacking the Green Bay Packers at the time. Cosell had broadcast his first start on Monday Night Football.

Watching Furman’s basketball team beat North Carolina and N.C. State back to back in the North-South Doubleheader in Charlotte.

Reading in the New York Times that Art Baker had left Furman for The Citadel and was being succeeded by Dick Sheridan.

Covering Clinton’s state championship victory over Barnwell last year. What I will remember most is 3,000 Red Devil fans in Orangeburg on a Thursday afternoon. I believe the 2A title game had the biggest crowd of any state final.

Playing my guitar and singing, as many people do when they visit Luchenbach, Texas.

Riding around in an SUV interviewing Pat Green in the area of New Braunfels, Texas. I met Ray Wylie Hubbard the same night.

Being the master of ceremonies for several years at Pawlessfest, a small music festival in Gainesville, Texas. Late one night, I sat in a circle swapping Jerry Jeff Walker songs around a campfire with others. We didn’t quite see the sun come up.

A road trip to Austin before a Texas race weekend in which a sportswriting friend and I saw both Charlie Robison and Billy Joe Shaver for the price of a plate of fish.

Twice playing Pinehurst No. 2 on trips to Rockingham, N.C. The only times I ever had a caddy and the only times I ever needed one.

After a Furman basketball game in Charlotte, a road trip through the night to Cincinnati to watch Furman’s Stanford Jennings play for the Bengals. I drove.

The Paladins winning the Southern Conference Basketball Tournament for the first time since I went there. Grown men cried. I didn’t, but it always takes me months to cultivate tears.

Watching scholarship-free Presbyterian defeat not-similarly-hindered Wofford in football.

Being in Atlanta-Fulton County Stadium to see Hank Aaron hit his 715^th home run. It was my birthday.

My favorite quotation came from a favorite songwriter, James McMurtry, when I asked him if he’d ever tried writing fiction like his father, favorite writer Larry McMurtry. “Ain‘t got the muscle,” was his reply.

Writing about every playoff game of Clinton High’s advance to the state baseball championship.

Being quoted in the New York Daily News by Jimmy Breslin, with whom I chatted while in line to see Hubert Humphrey lie in state at the U.S. Capitol.

Watching Bo Jackson play three baseball games for the Memphis Chicks against the Greenville Braves.

I’m sure there are more. As usual, I just wrote till I had enough.

The book I wrote about music, True to the Roots: Americana Music Revealed, is available along with most of my books on Amazon.