{"id":462,"date":"2007-01-18T07:54:00","date_gmt":"2007-01-18T11:54:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/johncohn.org\/base\/2007\/01\/18\/wednesday-evening-2\/"},"modified":"2007-01-18T07:54:00","modified_gmt":"2007-01-18T11:54:00","slug":"wednesday-evening-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/johncohn.org\/base\/2007\/01\/18\/wednesday-evening-2\/","title":{"rendered":"Wednesday evening"},"content":{"rendered":"
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\t\t\t\t\t\t It’s five below zero out and we just got back from Bolton<\/st1:placename> Valley<\/st1:placetype><\/st1:place>. Tonight is the first night of the Wednesday Night Rider’s ski and snowboard competition up at the mountain. We’ve been going up there every ride-able Wednesday for the past couple of years with Sam. If you’ve never been to Night Riders, you should try it… It’s a great time.. .. the competition is fun and the prizes are great. Over the years Sam has won countless boards, bindings, goggles, hoodies, backpacks, annual passes, etc.. It’s worth checking it out.  <\/span>This time Gabe competed for the first time  <\/span>.. wearing Sam’s number and Sam’s lucky Spam lounge pants.    <\/span>Most of us grownups were wimps and stayed inside because of the cold while the kids froze their tails off outside. The guys started tonight’s contest with a moment of silence for Sam. Our buddy Zach who runs the Night Riders program announced on the park loudspeaker that this years series was in Sam’s honor.. Everyone in the bar toasted Sam.. Oh.. I missed him so  <\/span>much at that moment.   <\/span> <\/p>\n

 <\/span>Even so.. it was good being up there with all our friends.  <\/span>We’ve spent the past two months grieving with this same crowd.. and it felt good to be able to party with them a little on a different topic.  <\/span>We’ve come to love all of Sam’s Bolton<\/st1:place> friends  <\/span>so much that they’re like one big goofy extension of our family\u2026  <\/span>We slummed inside the cozy bar as long as we could until it was time to go downstairs in the relative cold  <\/span>for the awards\u2026.. Gabe pulled a 3rd<\/sup> in his age group.. (Yo Gabe !).. He had a great night. All the prizes were gone by about 9 and we left. <\/p>\n

   <\/span>On the way home I was thinking about Sam so much.. I cloned his IPOD unto mine the other day so I was listening to some of his music to feel close. I drove home with Sam’s death metal (Killswitch Engage) at full volume. Not the kinds of music that normally brings tears to your eyes.. but tonight it did.<\/p>\n

   <\/span>It was the kind of evening I needed after one of my first really busy days back at work. I was pretty much back-to-back in phone meetings today. Every one of them starts with a sweet and awkward ‘I don’t know what to say’ from the folks on the phone.  <\/span>Same thing happens when I see friends in the hallway at work.  <\/span>It’s strange to hear these brilliant and articulate folks rendered speechless by our loss. Our experience of losing a kid hits such a universal nerve. It touches everyone deeply.  <\/span>I’m learning to recognize their struggle for what to say as a sign of their caring. <\/p>\n

   <\/span>Speaking of good friends at work.. I’ve been amazed at some of the cool tributes that some of my buddies at work have come up with. My friend Kerry., an IBM genius and a good welder has been talking to a few local sculptors about creating some sort of cool statue of Sam for our town. He’s organizing a group of welders and artists to brainstorm on the project.. let me know if you’re interested. Also, my  <\/span>good buddy Jim in Poughkeepsie<\/st1:place><\/st1:city> called me yesterday very excited with another really great idea.  <\/span>A  <\/span>college friend  <\/span>of his has created a program for doing service jobs for poor rural communities in Nicaragua  <\/span> <\/span>(my grandfather and great grandfather lived in Nicaragua  <\/span>for many years)  <\/span>Jim is interested in organizing a group of 10-20 folks to go down as a team in early August  <\/span>to do a project in Sam’s name.   <\/span>I love the idea \u2026 if anyone is interested in learning ore about the idea.. please let me know.. <\/p>\n

   <\/span>Well.. it’s going to be a another cold dark night.. I need to go stoke the fire. Stay warm everyone.. You too Sam. <\/p>\n

-jc<\/p>\n

ps. For the third (!)  <\/span>day running, the lights in the IBM parking lot have blinked off over my car as I drove towards home.<\/p>\n

Pss. Does anyone have a still picture of Sam doing the ‘Wonder Boy’ routine at Camp<\/st1:placetype> Abenaki<\/st1:placename><\/st1:place> last summer? It’s the one with him wearing a cape and sticking his stomach out. I need a copy because our friend Coco<\/st1:place> want to do a painting of it..   <\/span>I have a video of the whole thing which I could capture a picture from.. but I don’t think I’m ready to watch the movie again yet.. <\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

It’s five below zero out and we just got back from Bolton Valley. Tonight is the first night of the Wednesday Night Rider’s ski and snowboard competition up at the mountain. We’ve been going up there every ride-able Wednesday for the past couple of years with Sam. If you’ve never been to Night Riders, you … Continue reading Wednesday evening<\/span> →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-462","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/johncohn.org\/base\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/462","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/johncohn.org\/base\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/johncohn.org\/base\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/johncohn.org\/base\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/johncohn.org\/base\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=462"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/johncohn.org\/base\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/462\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/johncohn.org\/base\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=462"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/johncohn.org\/base\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=462"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/johncohn.org\/base\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=462"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}