Another late night, another hurried post. After a very full day… We were a little slow starting today. Gabe was finally feeling well enough to go back to school… here he is looking chipper (?) at breakfast. That’s a ‘dutch baby’ in front of him.. one of his favorites …
After I dropped him at school. Diane and I went up to MMU to meet with the principle, Jen B. about the Sam Scholarships. There’s a great picture of Sam right over her desk.
Jen has been wonderful as we figure out the best ay to keep Sam’s spirit present at his school. She’s always figures out a way to say ‘yes’ to anything we ask of her.. That’s a really great attribute. She helped us put the finishing touches on the ‘Sam Cohn Snowboarding Scholarship’. Then we worked out the details of the ‘Sam Cohn Musical Soul’ award. The Musical Soul award will allow one MMU student a year to get the electric, acoustic, or classical guitar or bass of his/her choice. The way it’s going to work is that anyone (student, teacher, staff) can nominate any student.. including themselves… by writing a short paragraph about why they have a musical soul .. and why they’d like to get a guitar from Sam.. The staff will then select a small set of the most compelling of these nominations and put them in a jar.. One of the names will then be picked from the jar (so Sam can have final say J ) at one of the end-of-year award events. The winner will then go to Advanced Music and pick out their instrument.. the only restriction is that the guitar never be used to play songs by Billy Joel or Barry Manilow.. It’s as simple as that. If you or one of your kids is at MMU.. look for the nomination forms for this year’s guitar in the next couple of weeks. One other bonus about our trip to MMU today is that I spoke with Harry Reynolds the shop guy about the shopbot 3d milling machine.. and he’s excited to take it on.. so we’re going to donate that in Sam’s name as well.
It was both fun and sad being back in MMU in the day time.. as fate would have it.. there was a fire drill just as we were leaving.. that allowed us to go out in front of the school.. and get hugs from lots of the kids.. I love our community
I drove in from there and started my work day.. It was s incredibly hectic… as most are these days.. I was pretty beat by the end of the day… I got home in time to pick up Gabe and Hannah and head back to
I also called Max.. He’s still down at Pratt finishing up his semester.. it sounded like things were going well for him.. I miss him so much when he’s gone..
The meeting we went to was set up by my good friend Kerry B. He’d arranged a brainstorming event at the library to talk about building a lasting fun memorial to Sam in our community. He’d invited several artists, welders and other friends of ours.. Some of the folks there included” Bill .. my mentor for MIT who works in glass and plasma.. Our mutual friend Ezra who’s an inventor at IBM. My good friend Homer who can machine anything out of anything.. Jen K who is a wonderful potter, Kat.. a metal artist I just met, and a bunch of our kid friends.. Nate, RJ, Mason. Abbot, Scott, Kevin, Hannah, Avery RJ, Diane, Gabe and Me. ..
It was a really good brainstorming session.. we talked about kinetic , interactive sculptures, places where kids people can go to create stuff, events (Think ‘SamStock’ that was Gabe’ss name for it!) and all sorts of mixes of those things. We talked about things that moved, lit up, made sounds, spits fire, and all sorts of other things. We’re going to continue our brainstorming on the SamStones website under SamStock Project. If you have an idea for a good and fun memorial to Sam’s spirit.. we’d love to hear from you..
Sam … I could feel you tonight when those ideas were flowing. I know you’re going to like where this goes.. please feel free to give us your ideas.. I love you all
-jc
Ps. there was a cool moon rise tonight !
