Well, hello. How are you doing? Are you having a good day? Are you having a bad day?
Are you having a bad day or are you having a bad moment? You know, we don't usually have bad days, but we do have bad moments. Hi, everyone. I'm Michael Kroos.
This is, what is, oh, this is the Daily Grateful, and we're going to talk about something fun today. Yeah, something fun. We're going to talk about, well, I have to tell you a little story. Everything starts out as a story.
When I was a kid living in Michigan, my father, for some strange reason that I've yet to understand in my life, decided that his two boys were going to go to Catholic school, and off we went to Catholic school. We went to this little school in Hastings, Michigan, called St. Rose of Lima Catholic School. Now, understand, I have to tell you this story.
Understand that I had not had, I was in fifth grade when I went there. I was in fifth grade, and I had not had my first Holy Communion, so I was old for that, or first confession, and my dad just never mentioned that to them. He just, I don't know, he neglected to mention that to them, because we never went to church. I mean, we went to church at Christmas and at Easter, but he just said, nope, my kids are going to go to Catholic school, you know, raised good Catholic.
So, sends us off to school, and yet I, once again, never had my first communion, never had, you know, the first confession, never done any of that stuff. And I remember first day of school, going there, showing up, walking down the hall. Oh, and by the way, the other thing, it was 11 miles from where we lived in Hastings, and there was no school bus for the Catholic school. We had to ride the public school's high school bus to get to school and come home, and the high school bus arrived, I don't know, 45 minutes before school started at the Catholic school, which was roughly two blocks away.
So, I would ride, I'm, you know, fifth grade, riding with high schoolers who were sneaking cigarettes in the bus and all that good type of stuff. So, I wasn't liking any of this. Anyway, you know, I go, our first day of school, and you have to go to Mass first, okay? So, we go to Mass.
Before school starts, we go to Mass. Now, when I would get to school, Mass was already in progress, but I would come in and sit down, you know, for the Mass. Then we went over to school, and my teacher was named Sister Borgia Ann. This woman terrified me.
This woman absolutely terrified me. And she said, okay, it's Monday, and what we always do on Mondays is we go over to the church because they have a special time for us all to go to confession. And I said, you know, so line up, we're, you know, fifth grade, confession on Mondays, sixth grade, confession on Tuesdays, you know, whatever. All of these different times, you know, different classes.
So, it was time to go to confession, at which point I had to tell Sister Borgia Ann that I had never been to confession before. She said, what? I've never been to confession before. She grabs me by the collar, she takes me to the office where the Mother Superior is, and she said, Mr.
Krause has never been to confession, which means he's never taken his first Holy Communion. So, I'm plopped in the chair, and there is the Mother Superior saying, it's not in your paperwork. I said, I don't know you. I'm just kidding.
And so, she said, I'm going to call your dad. That's when she found out that my dad had not put our phone number on the thing. And guess what? I didn't know our phone number.
Is this a long, drawn-out story? Am I going to cut this out? I don't know. I did not know our phone number because my dad had gotten a, what he used to call, a private, unlisted number.
He wouldn't give the number to anyone. Always wondered about that later in life. But I did not know our phone number, nor did the school. So, that was perplexing.
So, the next thing I know, she's typing up this big letter, and she sends me back to class after everybody had gone to confession. I can, and the kids are snickering because I had not done any of this stuff. So, they immediately don't like me. So, you know, I'm just having a wonderful time there.
And Sister Borgian then started referring to me as young master and my real name and my last name. By the way, Michael's not my real name. Did you know that? And I bet you're thinking, I bet you made that name off for radio.
Nope. Absolutely not. So, anyway, I endured two years of private Catholic school where I had to go with all the young kids into class to learn how to take my first Holy Communion and confession and all of that. And I had to take my first Holy Communion and confession with a bunch of second graders.
So, if that wasn't enough trauma, I made it through all that. And we actually, it was time for all of us to be confirmed Catholic, and I went through and did that. And anyway, right after sixth grade, we moved to Florida. And when we moved to Florida, I decided I was going to do something that was radical.
And by the way, I made this decision instantly. Alright, understand, I am now in eighth grade. I'm going into eighth grade at this point in Florida, in this school. Now, understand, I'm getting ahead of myself, we moved to this terrible little town in Citrus County first for a year because my Aunt Vivian lived there.
It was an awful place. So, I did seventh grade there. And then we moved down to West Central Florida where I continue to live even to this day. So, I go to school, and the first time I get into school, and I meet John Tenuto.
John Tenuto, by the way, Google him sometime. I meet John Tenuto, and John Tenuto becomes my first friend. And he goes, hi, I'm John Tenuto. And I immediately, on that very instant, decided I was done with my original name because of the way Sister Borgia Ann and the Mother Superior and every other nun at that school used to refer to me.
I hated that name like poison for that. Never did before, but by then I did. So, I reinvented my name, I reinvented myself, and I became Michael Kroos. I said, I'm Michael Kroos.
Well, hi, Michael Kroos. And, you know, we had our schedule and I went to my very first class. My very first class was, well, homeroom. And then after homeroom we had English.
Same teacher, but same homeroom and then English. So, she calls me out in the thing using my real name. And I said, no, my name is Michael Kroos. Well, it says here you are.
I said, yeah, I know, but that's not. I'm Michael Kroos. So, she scratches it out before computers, scratches the old name out and puts it in Michael. I had to do that five more times that day to every teacher that, you know, on the roll, and every teacher, without questioning me, without making a big deal out of it, took everything down and made it Michael.
Somehow, all that paperwork made its way to the office. I became Michael. And then, Social Security came to school. And they said, we're going to give you all Social Security cards now.
What's your name? Michael. Not my real name. But anyway, on my Social Security card, it said Michael.
But when I made that change, when I made that change, one of the things that happened almost instantly is I said to myself, you have reinvented yourself. I'm in 8th grade and I reinvented myself. I mean, it was fabulous. I reinvented myself.
Trust me, my family didn't take well to it. My brother didn't care. He was cool. My sister, she was cool.
My father hated it. But he got over it. He got over it and eventually started calling me Michael. And June, not so much.
But my dad eventually started calling me Michael. And I realized on that very day that I totally reinvented myself that I was so grateful that I had done that. Because you know what it did? It opened up the door for new possibilities.
Having a new identity, just a new first name that I liked just made me feel so much better about myself. It was a cool name. I liked the name Michael. It was so much better than the other one.
It was. And I, you know, the other name is still on my driver's license and it's now on my Social Security card. I go through a bunch of stuff to change that. But I really liked the name Michael.
And you know what? It took me on a journey. And I was so grateful for the journey of becoming a new person. Because at that stage of the game, as I reinvented myself, I went from being a member of the school band at that other school to singing in the choir.
I'm going to be a singer, I said. And that's what I did. And I loved it. And, you know, I was grateful for that.
And by being grateful for that, it attracted all kinds of new and interesting people. It just really did. So, now I'm old. And I think it might be time to reinvent myself again.
Am I going to plan it this time? Or am I going to do it instantly? Like I did that time. I'm so grateful that I did that.
I did that in 1965. And now, I'm ready to reinvent myself. Not by the name, but probably by my existence and what I do and how I do it. Or maybe where I live.
I don't know. But it's time to do it again. I've waited all this time. It's time to do it again.
And I'm so grateful that I still have the health, I still have the vitality, and I still have the gumption to reinvent myself. Hang around now. I'm going to make you part of the journey. You know, it could be really cool.
Have you ever thought of reinventing yourself? Have you ever thought of changing your life so radically? I talked to a woman today who is 86 years old, has lived in a condo in Florida here for years. And right now, she showed me a picture of a house in Iowa that she has not seen, but she's seen the pictures of it.
Damn it all, she's buying it. She's moving up there. And she's getting goats. What the hell?
A woman has two PhDs. She's moving to Iowa with goats. Reinvent yourself. Be grateful for it.
We'll see you tomorrow.