Thursday night – 12th night

Hey  ho – the wind and the rain… that’s a  song I’ve  always liked from Shakespeare’s 12th night.. the play Gabe’s class put on tonight.. and a good song for tonight.. both windy and rainy. It was really nice seeing Gabe and his class perform Shakespeare. It’s amazing that these kids can memorize and act long sections form these complex plays. It’s also always amazing to me to see that Shakespeare’s plot’s are still funny after more than 400 years. Gabe played one of the guys that attends Count Orsino… I saw him out there tonight looking so tall and so  grown up and beautiful… I was very proud of him.

   The play was in the Camels Hump Middle School library.   It was nice walking around the middle school this evening before and after the play.. there are so many memories I have from all three kids coming through this school. I can still feel Sam’s presence in here.. This handwritten sign is in the entrance way as you enter the building. 

I also found a poster of Walt Whitman (I think) ..  Does he look lie anyone that you know ?


   Not much else to report on today I spent the morning working here at home.. then went in for a long day of phone meetings….. sort of the story of my life right now.  I’m really enjoying working at home. Here’ s me in the bell tower working yesterday… As I said.. it’a a great pace to work.. and to think

Here’s the bell.

And here’s the Christmas light that we keep burning since Sam died.. It’s a peaceful place up there..

   Tomorrow the day that all four of us got to MMU to do the first Sam Cohn Musical Soul guitar giveaway. I’ll write about hoe it goes tomorrow… Gnite all.. gnite Sam..

-me

ps. My cousins Martha and Sam just left a SamStone on the relics of the Berlin Wall.. Check these out:

 Pretty cool.. no ?

Wednesday night – warped

Today was interesting. We had one car in the shop, so I opted to stay home and work. It was a beautiful day, so I chose to work in the bell tower.. It’s a great place to work… It’s comfy, the view is great, there’s always a breeze, cell phone  and wireless reception is good and there  are few distractions. The only catch is that it’ a long way down to get a drink.. or to get rid of your last one.

    I spent my whole day on the phone. For some reason it was one difficult call after another. Each call had some element of conflict.. it was pretty weird. One thing I realize about myself after Sam’s death  is that I just can’t ‘do’ conflict anymore.  I have always  had a pretty high tolerance for.. conflict… which is good because I’ve always  enjoyed helping get folks to agree around difficult concepts..   Now.. I find that any conflict at all.. even  the most minor technical disagreement at work.. makes me instantly intensely sad..  I have no control over it.. and it’s hard to work through. It’s almost as if some wires are crossed in my head. I think what’s happening is this huge shift in perspective I’ve gotten since Sam died. When I feel  people getting personally agitated over ‘little’ stuff it just brings me down. I want to take them and shake them and get them to learn form our experience.. that these small things are not worth fretting over.. really., really, really . they’re not…

    Anyway.. the whole thing kinda wore me out today.. at about 6 Diane called  up for me to come downstairs.. she’d left me a hot bath.. and that turned the day around for me.. Not only had she    done that. But she’d bought me my favorite Dr. Bronner’s peppermint soap which  she hates.. You know you have a great mate when they buy you stuff that they themselves don’t like…    Dinner was fun.. Chris, Scott, Mary, and Mason happened to be over.  Max cooked steaks (yes. The kids eat meat !) while  we ate veggie burritos.. Diane made her first Rhubarb crisp  of the ear out of fresh ‘barb from the garden. It was our first grown edible for the year..

    One cool thing we did was mess around with ‘photobooth’ on Mary’s computer.. it gives you an interesting slant on reality…

Technology is wonderful.. actually… on that topic.. I got a really cool myspace msg  from Lucie tonight asking me if I would be interesting in talking about the positive aspects of technologies like MySpace and how they help kids. families and communities.  I’ll let everyone know where that goes…

   OK.. off to bed now.. Oh..  one reminder. The first ‘Sam Cohn Musical Soul’ gutar giveaway is going to be this Friday morning at the MMU underclassman awards ceremony.. Be there or be be quadrilateral. Hopefully  every MMU kid who’s interested in the possibility of getting a guitar from Sam has gotten someone to nominate the, It’ll be fun to see who gets it.   Sam.. remember, you’re selecting the winner from the bunch of finalists…    See you there…

-jc

 

Tuesday night – grafitti

I must admit that the emotions and activity around yesterday’s birthday / remembrance for Sam has left me physically and emotionally exhausted. I’m also surprised ot find that I’m feeling peaceful and happy-ish.. in that kind of new bittersweet joy that we get in our lives more and more now. It’s hard to describe why I feel good.. I just know that yesterday’s party was exactly what Sam wanted… I felt that all day yesterday.. and knew it in my heart when I woke today. That’s how he speaks with me these days.

Yesterdays’ blogging also drained me and my camera pretty completely.. I reached for my camera today to take a picture and found that my poor camera was out of juice.. The picture was to have been of the new site for the replacement septic system that it looks like we need to install.. (now there’s a picture you don’t want to have to take) ,. From what we gather it’s not that we exude more waste than other people.. it’s just that we have so many other fun folks coming through our house… It’s like that old Irish blessing…. ” If your sewage system must fail … .. may it be because you have too many friends.” (Well it should be an old Irish blessing.. don’t you think ?)

I just tried to convert that blessing into Irish Gaelic by using an online translator.. . but I couldn’t find one.. I did, find this helpful bit of info, though

dúthshraitheanna a dhéanamh ar an láithreán sin, gach séarach, draein le húsáid i ndáil le sláintíocht foirgneamh diúscairt iarmhair a dhéanamh;
means
the construction of foundations on such sites, all sewers, drains for use in connection with the sanitation of buildings or the disposal of waste 

in Gaelic… I think it’s good to keep that in mind.

Now.. how did we get on that topic ? I must be tired.. Time for bed.. Alas.. I’ve no pictures to post today.. but I did get this picture from our friend Phoebe.. Yesterday during Sam’s party Phoebe and her friends wandered under the Bridge Street bridge while we were all swimming in the Winooski.. She took this picture. I absolutely don’t encourage or condone vandalism or grafitti.. but I think this is beautiful.

Actually..let me take this opportunity to ask folks to please help us stop the  graffiti.. We’ve started getting complaints from the town, the police, and the bus drivers about folks writing Sam’s name or initials in public places like in the town center, on the school busses and on the side of the band stand (which I’m going to offer to repaint)  We absolutely love that everyone wants to remember our Sam… at the same time, we don’t want his name to be associated with vandalism.  Please help us protect Sam’s memory by helping us stop activities that mar public property.  Try writing his name in the sand..in the snow .. in metal or in rocks .. on your shirt.. or  in your spagetti sauce… I think Sam would appreciate that more. What do you think Sam ?

-jc

ps. Thanks to the 60 or so folks who posted to Sam’s MySpace for his birthday. That menas so much to us !

pss. I’m stil lookign for leads on finding the high powered rocket we launched on Monday. If you happen to see a three foot talll white rocket with bright decorations and a yellow ‘chute… please let me know. There’s probably not  much left of it.. but It’s got sentimental value to me anyway. Thanks

Monday Night – Happy Birthday Sam

May 28th,.. today is/would have been Sam’s 15th Birthday.. we’ve been thinking about this day for months.. and it was finally here.. and it was a good day..   a really good day. There were tears and laughter.. much more laughter..  All of us woke up feeling good and strong. We’d planned lots for the day to remember and celebrate Sam.. we were all pumped.. Each of us had our own private time with Sam.. I was happy and sad at the same time.

   As soon as I woke enough to work, I started building the large rocket for launch at the park. My brother Billy had given me the rocket many years ago and I’d never gotten around to launching it.. Sam always was interested in it.. so here was the chance. Paulo had spent the night over.. so he helped me build the launch setup wile I assembled the rocket.. Now.. this was no ordinary tiny Estes style  rocket.. this was a whole different class. You need to be at least 18 to buy the G size engines and you need to  get clearance from the FAA to fly them (I never did … bad on me).   Anyway.. the thing came together smoothly. Gabe did the initial decorating

   While we worked on the rocket, Diane gathered up food and supplies for the party… Around 12 we all piled into cars with cakes, ice drinks, musical instruments amps, rockets, Frisbees. Shirts and about a dozen kids and headed down to Volunteers Green.   

There a group of kids lead by Tyler P taught the rest of us how to play Ultimate Frisbee..    There were only four grown-ups in the pack.. but  even so.. we had about 4 teams of between 15 and 20 folks each. I never had played Ultimate before.. I loved it !. Lots of running… which I’m reasonably good at.. and lots of throwing and catching which I suck at.. so it averaged out.   We had  two games going.. at first.. when those ended things started to dissipate a little.. a few people started leaving.. but then Tyler got us going in a second set of games, and the energy level came back up.

Unforuantely.. aboout 10 minutes into the first game..our good buddy Kevin twisted and dislocated his knee!. It reall lloked like it hurt. We called rescue and his folks..

They took him to the hospital,doped him up and had him back on his feet.. sort of in time to to get back to the party. I felt so bad for him !

By 3Pm we were all pretty pooped. We shuffled up to the band stand and gathered around the many cakes that folks had brought.

We all grabbed Red Bulls and sand a happy/tearful Happy Birthday for Sam.. that was the hardest and sweetest part of the day for me..

After the first round of cake and ice cream had been gobbled, we started in to the music.  First up was band that Max and Scott had organized just yesterday.. they were excellent even after having only 2 hours of practice..  As I took this movie clip, I cold see Sam’s beaming face reflected from my short in the viewfinder .. I knew he was enjoying Max, too

 

   After that we had Sam’s old band, Black Night Vengeance.. these guys are sounding really, really great.. they got the crowd moving.. that’s for sure.. I ended up on the ground looking up into the circle of headbangers.. it was awesome…

   Next came Skanky green and their wonderful originals.. I got really choked up when they sang ‘Captain Sam’.. the song that they wrote in honor of Sam.

“…You might just have some fun

You take it all so serious.. you might not live it down.

To take the plunge, you might have to take a dive

That’s what he would do if he were still alive ”  those  lines from that  song.. always, makes me smile and cry .

       Just after ‘Captain Sam’ , Max took the stage again and held up a small boat that he’d made of balsa wood and glue. Inside he’d made a watertight pocket  which held a letter he’d written. I’ll try to get the words to it and post them.. they were beautiful. They  told whoever found the boat about Captain Sam..  and his legacy. Max asked Gabe to launch the boat into the Winooski. A bunch of people got up on the bridge to  watch..  It was a really cool concept.. I really loved it…

    At that point.. I started to hand the rocket around for people to sign…  Everyone put their birthday wishes to Sam  all around the rocket .. it looked pretty cool.

We walked the rocket way back out in the field.   I didn’t really expect to recover  the rocket because of the high winds today.. so I just wanted the launch to be safe. We all gathered around the rocket.. which stood about 3 feet high and 3 inches in diameter. I put a SamStone in it just for fun.

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Gabe and Max did the honors on ignition. When Gabe hit that button there was a huge roar, a tail of flame and the thing took off … like a rocket !.. it went up and up.. through the clouds The first SamStone in Space.. (well.. almost) . it was amazing.. I’ve never seen anything that big fly so fast or so high. This is 3-4 times as high as those model rockets you can buy in the stores.. I think with the load I had it would have been about a half mile high.. and this thing was Big !..   We finally saw it drop back through the clouds.. a bunch of kids gave chase.. but with the winds.. it probably made it halfway back to Jonesville. I’m hoping someone sees it and finds the address we put on it.. we’ll see..   I like thinking that Sam saw the whole thing.. maybe in a way he did..

    My last official act for the day was to jump off the Richmond bridge.. Gabe had done it a bit earier in the day for the first time and came out relatively intact.  I’ve lived  in this city for more than 25 years and I’ve never jumped the bridge.. If Sam were here.. he’d do it … it felt great.. As I was dropping towards the water I was thinking about how much more I’m living life since Sam died.. life is certainly weird.  A few minutes Max did it for the first time.. we’re all now in the Clan of the Bridge… real men ! Grrrrrr !

 

     Around 6:00 there were still some folks around.. we did a few last cleaning passes.. then got in the car and went home. It had been a really good day.. lots of fun.. and lts of thoughts of Sam.. I know that Sam would have loved it.. I hope he did ! I know it may seem strange to some that we choose to make this day into a party.. but the way we figure.. We’ll have the sad times…no matter what…. we each had our share today.. if that’s going to be  the case.. why not put in some fun and celebration.? It was good for us.. and good for the community.. It would truly have been harder not to do it.

 

The last thing we did to day was to go up to the Kenny’s for a quick dinner and a regroup on the ‘Friend of Sam’ progress for the day. We’d donated the Sam shirts (you see them on everyone  in the pictures) and the Frisbees to the Friends of Sam to sell for their fundraising.

By the end of the night they’d raised  more than $3900. All of the money is going to the Tyler Eklund fund .. to help offset the expenses of the 14 year old Oregon Snowboarder who broke his neck and was paralyzed in a boarding  accident April 1st. The money will help his family make their house wheelchair accessible.  The Friends of Sam kids are so amazing.. I’m really, really proud of them 

   

    As we were sitting around at the Kenny’s one of their lights magically turned on without anyone having touched it.. it was just a reminder that Sam was with us today and every day … I love you so much my boy.. Happy, happy birthday.. you live on in our hearts.. and in the hearts of all your friends… we love you.. we love you .. we love you so so much.

 -dad