After graduating from high school, Ronnie Musgrove works as a roughneck on an offshore drilling rig in the Gulf of Mexico. The 18 hour days and backbreaking work convince him to save his wages to pay for college.
As a kindergartener, George Shelton gets his start in politics, stapling yard signs for the Bill Clinton for Congress campaign. His status as an unpaid campaign volunteer ensures no child labor laws are broken.
Ronnie Musgrove goes to Super Bowl IX in New Orleans ticket-less, but is hired outside the stadium as a photographer's assistant for The Associated Press. He is at mid-field for the game's opening coin toss.
On Ronnie Musgrove's first day at Ole Miss Law School, he chooses a seat next to another earnest young student, John Grisham. Though they become - and remain - close friends, both later report being entirely unimpressed with each other at first meeting.
In keeping with his lifelong love of sports, Ronnie Musgrove began officiating high school basketball games and called five state championships before hanging up his whistle. The experience taught Musgrove there is at least one profession more reviled than lawyer.
In desperate need of spending money, George Shelton accepts a job as a Little League umpire. The 16-year-old Shelton ejects a local off-duty policeman after said peace officer initiated a bench-clearing brawl.
Ronnie Musgrove elected to the Mississippi Senate at age 29, joining his friend John Grisham in the Legislature. While Musgrove focused on governing, Grisham was an inattentive legislator who spent most of his time writing a book he called A Time To Kill (in which Musgrove is a minor character).
George Shelton lands his first “real job” as an unpaid intern at CNN working with the Larry King Live show. His chief responsibility is retrieving the producers take-out Chinese food -- and then picking the cashews out of Mr. King’s Chicken with Cashews.
University of Arkansas wins the NCAA Tournament. As one of the lowest level staffers in the Clinton Administration, George Shelton is chosen to give the National Champion Razorbacks a tour of the White House before their Rose Garden Ceremony with the president. Despite this brush with greatness, Shelton still can’t hit a shot outside the lane.
Ronnie Musgrove decides to run for lieutenant governor with only $5,000 in campaign funds and down by 40 points in the polls against a popular incumbent. The campaign stalls when the engine on the campaign’s borrowed prop-plane dies prior to take off -- and the battery has to be jump started with a golf cart. Musgrove goes on to win 52-48.
