Today was a really good day.. which I know surprises folks to hear. Let me talk a little about Father’s day.. since I know folks are wondering. Of course any ‘big’ day like this looms large in our minds now.. the image of all those hallmark  card dad’s smoking their pipes in their lazy-boys surrounded by their families has been everywhere this week .. in the papers.. on the internet.. on TV .. .Sure… seeing all those happy face stirs up memories for me.. but today is not that much different for me. The fact that Fathers are being celebrated today doesn’t make my thoughts of Sam any stronger. They are always strong I’m thinking about Sam and my family all the time now.. every waking moment.  The think that’s so different about today is that everyone else realizes I’m thinking about him. .. and I don’t mind that at all.  I need … and get… peoples support and energy today.. and everyday.       And .. I handled today the way I try to handle every day.. I tried to make it the best day possible. And I turned out to be a really  great day….

    Thanks to the folks who called and emailed.. I got a really nice picture from Coco of the kids in her class holding SamStones..

 

I also got a pair of spy binoculars to take on my trip to Moscow this week (Mary is pretty sure I’m a spy.. should I tell her the truth ? )

 

   One of the things that made today so fun was that it was Max’s 19^th birthday.

He slept a good portion of the morning because he and Jessie had stayed up at Project Grad.. an all night party held by the school for graduating seniors in Jessie’s class. Diane went and picked Max up at 6 AM, brought him home and dropped him in bed.. then she went and picked up Gabe and shuffled him off an hour away to Middlebury for the final Lacrosse games of the season. I slept in and had a few hours of puttering time.. this is the nicest gift I could have asked for. I went for a great run with Chai, went swimming then went out to weld Jessie a graduation present.

    Around 12 I woke up Max and he and I drove down to Middlebury to see Gabe’s final game.

We got there just in time to see Gabe score.. Life should always be like that. Gabe seemed both happy and sad that the season was over.. 

 

Max left from there to go to a Voices Movie rehearsal in Duxbury .. another hours drive from Middlebury/ Gabe Diane and I headed back home.

   Right after we got home, Gabe wanted to go up tot eh Bolton potholes for a swim. Just as we were leaving, my good friend Juergen from Germany showed up on our doorstep. I knew he was coming to town this week, but I’d assumed that I would miss him because I was traveling. It was so good seeing Juergen.. we had so much work and social stuff to catch up on.  Juergen decided to go with us up to Bolton.. we (Diane, Gabe Scott, Chai and me)  drove up to the Towsend’s and  picked up Ian and Jessie’s sister Jackie  and headed back down to the ‘upper potholes’ . The upper potholes is a series of stream cut pools and caves just below the UVM Outdoors Club house on the Bolton Access road. It’s incredibly beautiful.. and .. today at least.. incredibly buggy. There were some very deep pools gouged out of the rock by the water.. there’s a very cool cave behind one of the waterfalls too.  We spent about 45 minutes swimming and climbing around.

 

One of the best sites is ‘croc rock’.. a natural split rock that some clever person decorated with stone ‘teeth’.. I wish I had thought of that .

 

Around 5:30 we headed back to the house to intercept Max for his birthday celebration.   As we were climbing out, Jessie and her father John met us on the trail.. Juergen and I caught a ride back with Jessie and her dad so Juergen could get to his dinner meeting. I took the chance to give Jessie the graduation present I had welded her.. a 15 pound solid steel graduation mortar board complete with tassle holder. She even tried it on for a picture.. I’m sure it hurt !

 

    We timed our homecoming  perfectly, as  Max showed up just after Jessie and co. dropped us off.  We sho-ed Max upstairs into a room and frantically wrapped his presents in a collection of towels, underwear, and sweatshirts. We all gathered downstairs and summoned him down to begin opening his haul. He made out pretty well. Some of his gifts were practical.. e.g. A new camera tripod.. other’s were just simple essentials.. like this  sparking  wind up nun.

 

Still others needed some explaining.. like this solid marble rock with Max and my favorite made up word, ‘Monkass’,  etched into it.

 

‘Monkass’ is a nonsense word that Max once used in a scrabble game.. then artfully lied about it’s origins (a medicinal plant used in medieval times) and convinced us it was real. Yesterday. Gabe and I stopped over at Homers just to show Gabe around.. and the three of us ended up cutting the word into masking vinyl and sandblasting it into apiece of rock. We put a nice pit of silver paint in the etched letters to brighten it up. It looks pretty sweet and I don’t believe there’s another like it in the world. . Everyone should have a Homer handy when shopping for their loved ones !

 

  

This picture made me think of the three boys together.

After presetns were open, We all piled in the car and headed for dinner..  we also had to drop off the van for servicing.  Plan A was to go to Nicco’s.in Taft’s corners. but we found it closed.. we quickly formed a Plan B around doing take out at Marco’s pizza (the best !)

We dropped the van, picked up the food and Max drove us  back and started watching the ‘Planet Earth’ DVD’s that he had received for his birthday. They are amazing.   Abbot, Carolyn and Tom M where here when we got back which was nice.

 

     After a bit of that, we’d saved up enough room to go downstairs and have cake. We some how found 19 candles.. and proceeded to sing happy birthday. Max wooshed them out with a single breath which created a huge cloud of smoke.. that’s what happens when you start getting up in years 🙂

<br>

..albums/r319/johncohn/jun07/jun1707173.jpg”>

..albums/r319/johncohn/jun07/jun1707176.jpg”>

 

At that point it was bed time… I started doing some prep for my upcoming trip.. I poured myself the dregs from a bottle of tequila I had been keeping.. this last bit had the work in it.. (‘El Gussano’).. I sat there wondering if I should drink/eat it or not…  What would you do  ?

 

Cheers to all fathers out there.. Cheers to you all of my sons.. Happy birthday Max !

 

-dad

 

ps. Here’s the message I got from Sam last night.. anyone out there speak firefly ?

 pss. We had several wierd electrical disturbences in our cars today.. I heard several other firefly and electrical stories.. Sam is near us. 

Very full day.. Diane and Max left early to go catch Jessie’s graduation, which I heard was very moving. A bit later, I went and retrieved Gabe from Dylan’s house. Gabe had two Lacrosse games scheduled all the way down in Middlebury.  We left how around 12:30 and stopped at On the Rise to grab a byte. So many of our friends work and eat there… it’s like home coming every time you step in the door. Today we bumped into Collin.. he was wearing his Sam shirt which I love seeing. Collin still writer’s Sam’s name or initials  everyday on the blackboard  in the entrance of CHMS.

   The ride down to Middlebury was long… Gabe and I talked about everything from snowboarding to nuclear weapons. I lie that car time for catching up. The games themselves were long and hot. Gabe was playing well which is always fun to see. I had brought a book to read (Slow Man by J. M.  Coetzee .. (my same initials !)).. but put it down.. it starts with a guy getting hit by a car.. and I had trouble getting past that.   I busied myself during the times that Gabe was not playing by sleeping and  fiddling with my camera both worthy pastimes.

   After the second game we headed back to Richmond by way of Lime Kiln Road.. where Homer lives.. coincidentally. Homer called me as I was just about to go by his house so we stopped in..  Gabe had never seen Homer’s shop.. Everyone should see Homer’s shop. He has one of every type of tool, and a mad variety of impractical and impressive contrivances.. For example. He built a wireless control to open and close his windows. He also has a sculpture of a mask with chains on it that beats itself when you turn it on.  His favorite project right now is a 6 axis robotic arm that very smoothly move a video camera only inches from the surface of any object The effect is lie  flying over some vast landscape in a hot air balloon. It’s fascinating. Home let Gabe drive the thing over a table full of interesting doodads..

 

Homer’s now thinking of letting people explore a human figure in this way.. Homer has a very interesting  mind.

   While  we were there, Homer worked with Gabe and me on a birthday present for Max. I  have lots of pictures of us making it.. but I’ll save those or tomorrow as not to give it away to max in case he reads this tonight… Once done, Gabe got in the bat mobile and zoomed home. We got there just as Max and Jessie were heading out for the all night Project Grad. I grabbed one last picture of Max as an 18 year old.. He’ll be 19 tomorrow morning.

 

    We washed up and headed up to David’s beautiful log home up on Bolton.

It was a really , really nice evening. There was a small group of interesting folks from different facets of David’s life, excellent food and beautiful weather. It was magical. Towards the end of the evening we noticed a HUGE moth flittering on the  screened window. I tried to get some pictures to give a sense of the scale. Suffice it to say that when it grabbed on to my toe, I was afraid it was going to carry me off J .

 
Well tomorrow is going to be a full day.. Max’s 19t birthday, two more lacrosse games, a voices project script read through and… Father’s day. I’m not sure why thinking about Father’s day is not bothering me as much as I expected.. maybe because everyday is fathers day of a sorts for me. Even so, let me take this opportunity to wish my Father Hugh, my father in law Gabe, My Brother Billy  my brother in law John and all Father’s everywhere the very best father’s day. I’m proud to be a dad… it’s always been my best job…. It always will be. .. G’nite my sons and my dad’s

 -me

ps. Max just called at midnight to spend his turning 19 with us ! I love that kid so much !

pss. A firefly just came in our room and is zooming around. It’s a spark from Sam 🙂

Man.. I have got to change my schedule.. for the 4^th time this week I’m sitting down to write at about 1:30 AM (you may have noticed that I sometimes fake out the posting times to make sure my posts land on the right day). I need to either a)  figure out with how  to add a few extra hours in each day.. or b) I need to figure out how to start earlier. I think I need to work on a).. since b) is so unlikely to happen.  I like being up late.. several of the kids in the house are still up at this time… the thing I have trouble with that  is that I still have to get up early..   I think Diane would let me sleep in.. but Chai would never let me .. Every morning at about 6, I get her giant paw on my shoulder or neck.. and she will sit there until I’ve scratched her for a few minutes.. just long enough to wake me up

I shuffled downstairs and saw Gabe’s new Snowboarding pants and jacket.. Now THAT woke me up !

 

 

I finally did get out of bed today. I had a 7:30 call again.. then calls all the way up until 10:00.  I looked at my calendar and saw that my friend Jleigh had managed to find me 40 minutes  to go visit Williston Central school to make SamStones. Our friend Corrine (Crnn.. how do you spell your real name ? )  had set it up with the help of our friend Lyz (aka Jeff D’s mom aka Ms. Demis the art teacher to them.. ). There were about 25 kids that had made it including the kids from the Vermont Center for the Deaf.  I told them all about Sam.. and about SamStones  and I showed them the SamStones website. . Many of them already new about Sam.. We took the clay and stamps that Lyz had gotten from our buddy Jen and started making them. Lyz put on her Skanky Green music and the kids got to hear Captain Sam .. the song the guys write about Sam. .   It was really , really fun and sad,,, and fun.

    Here are a few pictures I took today.. Thanks to all who helped set it up !

And Crnn

My friend Kate

And her cool communicator thing

There’s Lexi

Hi Ms. D !

The finished products !

A wood cut theat Crnn did for us.

 
That’s all for tonight Sam… Sleep well everyone !

-me

 

 

 

 

 

 

Late night – short report. I had a really full day with back to back meetings at work that went from 7:30 AM until 5:00, 6:00 if you count the phone calls I returned at the end of the day. OK.. to be fair.. the last meeting of the day wasn’t so tough, it  was a reception for some folks at work who’d recently gotten promoted.. They were actually serving beer and wine in the IBM cafeteria.. We’ve come a long way since T.J. Watson !

After work I met my friend and work colleague Garry for dinner.. we were heading towards Mexecali (my favorite).. but their computer was down so thy had to close. We walked over to  Nicco’s instead and sat outside.  The  food was excellent.. and so was the weather. It was really great talking to Garry. He and I are in the same department.. Until recently, Garry was working here in Vermont, but living near Poughkeepsie NY. Every week he’d commute back and forth.. a few months back he was able shift most of his job back down to NY.. which is much better for his family life.. but leaves me as a department of 1 here in VT .The last couple of times Garry’s been up, I’ve been out of town. … so our meeting was long overdue.  We talked about work, people, life, family, and Sam…   Garry’s a thoughtful and wise person.. it was fun to connect.   Mid way through dinner we heard a loud clatter and saw a kid pushing another kid as fast as he could in a shopping cart.,.. it was Mikey  pushing  and Casey in cart… I told Mikey to keep the receipt .. I wish I’d managed to get a picture of them. About a half our later two women walked up to us.. One of them approached me and asked  me if I was me.. I mean.. she asked if I was john cohn. When I said I was, se said something like ‘this is to show how powerful Sam is’ .She told me that she’d never seen me,, never seen a picture of me.. had not seen my Sam button.. but had figured out that  was Sam’s dad by ‘my energy’ from seeing me across the restaurant. She then introduced herself as  Jeannie L.  a new friend of Diane’s . . Our common thread is a sad one. Jeannie’s 8 year old daughter Ila died 3 years ago. Our friend Mark knows Jeannie through a number of connections. Mark connected her to Diane and they’ve gotten together several times to share stories. We talked about Sam and Ila.. and about other parts of our very changed lives. It is such a strange bond we have with others that have suffered a loss like ours.. but it’s such a strong connection. I could have spoken with her all night.   Garry was kind enough to snap a picture of Jeannie, Me and Jeanie’s friend Sue.. (I just realized I didn’t get a picture of Garry !)

  Several months ago Jeannie gave us a very cool picture she call’s Ila’s Moon. It’s a beautiful picture of the full moon .. which was very special to Ila’s life. On the picture is a poem  that a friend ‘s daughter, Alyssa, had written for her.

 

 
Ila’s Moon by Alyssa T
If you are up at half past nine
When the moon is up in the starlit sky.
You will know why the moon is there
To shine a bright glittery trail.
To a place where happiness is all there is
No wars, no guns, no need to fight.
That’s the place I’ll be tonight.

 We have that picture on our ‘Sam table’ downstairs.

 
After Jeannie and Sue left, Garry and I talked for a good bit more then I ran into BestBuy to do a bit of Max birthday shopping. I was surprised to  find Mikey working there looking very professional ! 

At that point it was about 9:30… I decided to go to the Inn at Essex to  meet up with another old  friend Mike (note this is the third Mike for the night… Open Mike Night !)  who was visiting from Minnesota for the day. I’ve worked with this mike for more than 25 years (!!!).. we go way back and have had many good times together over the years..

He was traveling with our mutual friend  Jeff J. the two of them had stumbled into another colleague of ours, Mitani-san from Tokyo,.. It was like old home week at the Inn at Essex….. It was great catching up with all of them..  It was about 11:30 before I headed home.. Now I’m beat and need to sleep..   What a full day..

   I love people.  I love my family.. I love you Sam.. Gnite

-jc