Friday night – Boston

Hello from Sherborn MA. Diane and I are at my parents this evening. We wanted to see them and my sister who is visiting with my 2 and a half year old niece Elery and my nine month old nephew Jake.

The day started very, very early.. we woke around 3:30 AM and got on the road by 4. Our goal was to make a Father’s Forever group meeiting thatr started at 7:30 in Newton. Diane drove the enitre way while I slept (that you Diane !!!!)/  I woke up around 7 AM to see this glorious sunrise… Seeing the sunrise for me usually means I’ve stayed up too late. // not woken up early.

We got to the Newton Mariot about 20 after 7.. plenty of time for Fathers Forever meting. FF is a loose group of guys who have all lost kids . (They say that they are the club with the highest cost to enter) This was the largest meeting they’d ever had with 12 people.

We went around the room, and told a little about ourselves. . our families and the child we’d lost. It felt so free to be able to talk to other folks in roughly the same situaaion that I’m in.. There were guys who were there 5-6 years after loosing there kid and there was one guy there who’d son had died of Luekmia in September We talked for 2. 5 houra about our families and kids, our communities, our  path through healing, our greatest challenges. and about what we wanted to do as a group. Most folks agreed that just coming together was a great start,   The storis from Herbert, me, Craig,Mike, Steve , Peter, Sala, Denis, Mark, Gus, David, Niel and our love of our kids Sam, Amelia, Charlotte, Jarred, Christopher, Kermim, Alex, Micah, Gus Jr Natasha, Derry were both unimaginable sad and uplifiting. I really resonated with these guys.. They all had such different stories  I’ve never felt more connected to a group of random guys.
 I really feel compelled to reach out to some of the guys in the group who don’t have much of a support group 

There were so many common themes.. the way our loss had changed our lives:  our thiking, our communities, our relationships. It was nice not feeling like talking about your loved lost cild was going to freak other folks out. We were all in the same strange space.
   One really cool thing I notice was the similrity in the ways we chose to keep our lost kids close. I saw that many of us were wearing memorial bracelets of one form or another.  

I asked all the band wearers to pose for this picture. It’s an amazing testimate to teh lasting bonds of love.. no ?

After the fathers meeting I was pretty drained and happy. Our next stop was to see our nce Elizabeth who’s working as a nurse in Framinghman. We went to her apartment in Brighton and sepnt a few hours with her. She had this wonderful place..alll bright and sunny.. It was a perfect place to live for a new graduate. It was so cool to hear how she and her roomantes were using their new freedom..


Ekizabeths from Levenworth Kansas.. it’s a big adjustement to Boston {

Her frisge reminded me of home

She had this great picture of her,eSam and her brother Michael. Made me happy to see it

From there we made our way to Sherborn and my fols house. Only my dad was there when we arrives. We talked a bit. then I took nap 3 for the dy. My mom and sister and her two kids arived (I’m told) an hour later.

Jere’s my nephew jake…

Diane and my sister Mary are in opposite but mathcin colors.


My dad an I went to the store.. We found this so I felt compelled to take a picture of ‘paw-paw’ with pa.


It wa great holding Jake.

Eventually beutiful ellery woke up too.

Here’s my mom …


And my dad. …

Around Sunset.. my mom lit the Chanukah candles


She relaized sh was using the last match form a book she’d pciked up at the htel when sthey were up for Sam’s memorial Service. That realization gave us all some good tears.

My mom showed us some old things she’d kept inclufing my sister Mary’s old baby dolll… and

My own sterling silver baby rattle.

My folks had a ton of great sam and family pictes. Bother wonderful and hard to see.


Ellory and I had some fun with soem of here disassembleable Barbi’s

OK.. I had an amazing audio expereince today. but it wil take more strength to describe than I have wakefulness tonight. I’ll take that up tomorrow. For now..Good night all.. Good night Sam

-me

Thursday night – gotta sleep

Friends…
    It’s about 11:40 at night and we’re driving away to Boston at 4AM.. so this will be really short.

I woke up feeling miraculosuly whole afeter a night of high fever.. I had a 7AM call with my firends in India.. so I got right in to that.. and completely missed Gabe going to school .     The rest of my morning was spent on the phone.. until I managed to get iin a shower and drive the car to the Toyata service place.. It was one of those beautiful snowy mornings..


I dropped the car off around 11 and workied inthe Toyata places lunge.. it was quieter and better appointed than my office. I liked working there.

The car still wasn’t done at 2 so my firend Ray at Camplain came and picked me up for my meeting at the Emerging Media Center (thanks Ray) . I had a very exciting meeting there with a group of studets who are helping me with a prject on explaining why video gamingin is a great reason to be interested in math, scinece, and technology . I was totally blown away witht he thinking these guys had done on the prblem. They’d wrritten code, flowcharts, etc. I swear these guys are as innovative and effective as any proffessiona; industry team I’ve ever worked with.   I love wroking with them.. We have lots to get done by our deadline in Feb.. but these kids are so sharp.. I know that we’re goign to do something very cool.

After that mmeeitng, one of th students, Iiian  gave me a ride up to teh Rushfords Chirporcti place.. I’m always happy to see that they have a SamStone prminnantly displayed.

From there I caught a cab tback to the toyota place to pick up the car.. only to find that they’d not been able to fix it. It truly is possessed. The battery is constantly draining which requires us to jump the car every time we want to go somewhrer.e It’s goign back in next week for them to try again to find he cause. . Maybe it is my wierd enrgy field that’s screwingit up ?

I finally got home at about 7L15.. I’d bene looking forward to getting home and hanging out some with Gabe.. This week I’ve kept missing him.. and I’m needing to hang out with him so badly.. When I got home, he and his bud’s were out on the sledding hill behind the house.

A couple of his friends were staying for potatoe pancakes. Unfortunatly, I had somewhere else to be. I say unfortunaltly, but I was happy for the invite. My friend Joe, our famly doc, had invite me and his friend Dan to see Paul Geramia at Good Times Cafe in Hinesburgh, I said goodbye to Gbae and his friends and headed to Hinesburgh to meet up with Joe .

and Dan..

Geremia was an excellent musician.. He was playng slide 12 string guitar.. some old delta blues, some originals. it was my knd of music.

This guy Duker and his wife Josephine were sitting next to us.. Duker is an artist and drew this amazing protrait of paul while he sang..  Isn’t that cool ?

Around 10L30 I decided I hat to head home.. we’re leaving at 4.. so I need my beauty rest..   In that interest. I’m going to say gnite right here.. gnite all. gnite Sam
-me

ps. Happy Chanukah folks

Wednesday night – sick as a dog and old freinds

Ughh..   I was supposed to be out withsoem of my Richmond Father’s buddies on our annual beer drinking/shopping crawl through Church street.. Instead  I’m lying on the couch like a wet rag.. Running a fever and feeling as creeky as our attic door.
I’m pretty bummed to miss the shopping.. but it feels pretty nice just chilling on the couch..

Not much to report on today… I woke up feeling pretty creepy but figured it was a pulled muscle..or soemthing. By midmornign I felt fine..

 I managed to get the Prius in to Road Res-q   to get the Snow’s on . (subliminal message… take all of your cars to Road Res-q.. they’re excelgreat ).   Shawn and Phil let me work in gas  station while they swapped the tire..   I care..ved out a cool little office in the back. It’s cozier than y own office, I think .   They got the tires on..   and I drove off.. or at least tried to drive off. The Prius is possessed .. whenever I get in, the battery goes haywire and it drains, I need to jump it with a tiny battery I carry for that purpose. I’m taking it in to Toyota tomorrow to have it exorcised… they’ve tried fixing it three times.. but no luck.   The energy dsissrupr waves from my brain are jsut too powerful.  By the time I did make it home, I relaized I was really sick. I drove into the driveway and immediatly felel asleep in the car for 45 min with the motor running.. (outside)  I’ve been on the couch ever since.
   Hmmm.. what else to report ? … Ahh.. I have had an interesting increase in the freuency of out of the blue contacts from old friends. Yesterday I spoke with Chip, my junior year roomate from Vienna Austria.. We haven’t spoken since 1976.. .. but it was just like old times.  He’s running a folk and blues magaziine out of DesMines has a great family and travels to folk festivals all over the US. Playing music and working his magazine. He lists himself as the ‘Tribal Cheif’ of the opreation.   I remember that he and I used to buy whatever we could find for cheap and mix it all together in a pan.. we called it ‘Lizard Slime Death Mold’.. and I still call it that..   . I loved talking to him.. He found me on the Web.. and found out about Sam  and called me. We’re goign to find a way to get together somewhere sometime to talk old times.

    I also heard from my other frien Murat in Vinna. He and his wife Laura and baby Murial and I have stayed in touch pretty welll.. but it was still good to hear from him. I tried to convince him to go to a Robotic Bartending show that was being held in Vienna last weekend..He calls himself a wood doctor. , and only beleives in stuff made of wood … so he didn’t go.. Can you beleive not  being interested in robotic drink mixing 🙂

Today I heard from my old friend Greg P.. He wsa in the high school class ahead of me in Houston. He and I worked on a coule of geek projects together.. One I remember was a little air puck that worked suing car AC Freaon. It floated on a small cusion of the gas so it cold move frictionlessly on tables floors, etc. That was a few years before the connection between freon and the ozone hole were established.. I’m sure theres a lasting ozone hole over memorial high school to this day given the amount of that stuff I vented off.   Greg is now the CTO of Sun Microsystems (which is a big deal)… We were trading email on how much we owed to the science teachers… One in particular Mike Saathoff…  in helping us get in touch with our inner geeks and find our true passion. I just proposed to Greg that we track those teachers down and tell themm.. maybe go give a talk down there.. I’ll let you know
   For those of you kids reading this.. think about the teachhers you have now.. the ones that are really passionate are probably helping you decided what you want to do with you life.. Do me a favor and thank them now… so you don’t have to go find them  30 years later…

OK… Gotta go sleep this off..
Love to you all.. Love you Sam

-me

   

Tuesday night – 1st night of Chanukah

Home again after a very good trip to NY. It’s so nice coming back to Vermont.. and back to my family. I still feel it hard to walk in the house after being gone. Sam’s absesne is more concrete when I step in that door. That feeling passes once I’m inside and with my family.

As soon as I walked in, Diane started converteing the potatoes I’d brought in into Latkes for tonight is the first night of Chanukah. Gabe and I sat around smelling them cooking with our mouths watering.. It was torture. Once they were made, we sat down and lit the first lights of Chanukah. I suspect most folks know the drill.. You start wuth one candle and add one every night foreach of the eight nights.. There’s also and extra one,. the Shamus… who looks after (and light’s) the others.  It’s names after the guy who looked after the synagogue.Shamus is also the Yiddish word for ‘detective’ or ‘private eye’ .. I always thought that was cool,

Chanukah commenmorates the uprising of the Maccabees against the Greek ruler Antiouchus IV in 167 BC (or BCE as we say).  The deal is when they drove the Greeks out of the temple, they found that there was only a tiny bit of the oil needed to keep the everlasting light of the temple (Ner Tamid) lit.. in fact there was ony enough left to run it for one day.. somehow the small amount ended up lasting 8 days… not much of a miracle.. but  enoguht to make a holiday. (I’ve had that sort of thing happen on my cell phone.. only one bar of battery.. and it lasts a whole conference call. )   Anyway.. the theme of the oil goes throughout Chanukah .  You’re supposed ot eat oily fried things like donuts and fired potatot pankaes called Latkes.  Note the bubling oil around these delicious latkes…

Gabe lights the first chandles

Note the reflection of the ligths on the latke plate.. now that’s oil !

We said the blessing over the candles…

Blessed are You,
our God, Creator of time and space,
who enriches our lives with holiness,
commanding us to kindle the Channukah lights.

On the first night of a holiday, it’s  also traditional to say the Shehecheyanu, the prayer that celibrates the safe arrival at the holiday. I couldn’t bring myslef to say it this yoear.. we’re not all here safe…    I remember choking up on that last year. at the wonderful Skate benefit that our firends Hannah and Dave had in Sam’s memory last Chanukah just 2 weeks after his passing.

Oy !

After dinner we got down to some good old traditional gambling with a Dreidel..

‘Nun’ – nothing

‘Gimel’ – wins all

‘Shin’ – put one in

‘Hey’ – take half

Gabe ‘poned’ us… We didn’t even have  a chance..  

OK.. I’ve been up and driving since 5:30 AM .. time for me to get some sleep..
Chanukah Sameach (Happy Chanukah) everyone.. Gnite all.. gnite Sam..

-me

ps. Our firned Gary sent us a picture of the SamStone he put on the bell in the tower of the Round Church where Diane and I were married. .. Pretty cool. Thanks Gary !