The Pencil

                In the forgotten timeout corner, she sat through gym class, sentenced there for not participating. Her eyes peeked through arm-wrapped knees watching everyone pine for just a small piece of the glory that was Orlando. She had walked out of the gym unnoticed moments after his heroic goal.

She found it exactly where she knew it would be. It sat on Orlando’s desk like a crown upon a throne of neatly stacked books and paper. Its silver, no, platinum color was inlaid with metallic blue squares and seemed to shine with its own source of light. She held it, smooth and cool and heavy enough that she knew it was more mechanical pencil than she could ever own. She rubbed the skin of her leg through the hole in her pants just above her knee and pulled the blue denim apart until she heard a small tear. One more glance around the room confirmed she was alone. She slipped the pencil into her pocket and scurried back to gym class.      

                In the classroom she wrote—triangle, triangle, triangle—three times, neatly, her best cursive. Practice your spelling with muscle memory, Mr. Crouse had told the class. She felt smarter with her new pencil, the point of the r, the loops of the l and e, cross the t, dot the i, two more times. 

Meanwhile, Orlando dug through his backpack, he spilled the contents of his neon pencil box across his desk, a glance at the floor and his effort gave way for a larger search party and the assistance of Mr. Crouse. She heard only a few words of Orlando’s appeal—pencil…birthday…ten dollars—and then Mr. Crouse louder, clearer, “Have you checked everywhere?” A nod. “In your desk? Backpack? Where did you last see it?” More exasperated pointing, nodding. Slyly, she glided the pencil into her pocket and replaced it with a dull, eraserless, tooth-marked yellow Dixon.

                She hated Orlando. His good grades and good athletics and good friends, Orlando, whose mom picked him up every day after school with a big smile in her bright red car and hugged him and never yelled at him in public and spent ten dollars on a pencil for his birthday. She was happy to see him crying as she gently pulled the frayed denim of her jeans.

                The bell rang. School was over. Mr. Crouse claimed to dismiss quiet students first, but she never made a sound and always went close to last, silently invisible in her own corner of the room unrecognized even for her strengths. She approached Orlando, still slumped over his desk after his dismissal, her hand clutched the pencil, pushing down and piercing the seam of her pocket, she could feel the smooth metal on her leg. “You’ll find it,” she whispered with empty sincerity peering into his deep-brown, bloodshot eyes, the glistening memories of tears, dry river beds, tracing his olive cheeks. He nodded and rose.

                From across the street she watched Orlando’s mom hug him, watched the woman’s smile morph to sympathy, watched her pull him closer until he broke free and sullenly climbed into the bright red car and they drove away, together.

She threaded the pencil through her pocket seam, scratching her leg with a graphite line, out the hole just above her knee. It rolled from her fingers to the ground and then she kicked it into a storm drain. She listened for the bottom, a sound to break the emptiness, but never heard a thing. Facing the brisk wind she walked, alone, to her cold, lonely apartment.

The Countdown by Alecia

                The countdown for having my own baby began for me when I was old enough to hold one.   No infant could move past me without my deer-in-headlights gaze, no toddler could escape my standard but effective stooge face.  Conversations often were put on hiatus while my puppy dog attention magnetized to the small nearby human begging for a smile.  Though I eventually grew out of my desire to birth ten kids simply for the sake of having children all around me, I still find that my best audiences are often children.  Perhaps that is why I am an elementary teacher. 

                I laugh now at my childhood plans for how life would unfold.  Married by 21, pregnant by 22, a house, a car and a job as an astronaut/botanist/pediatrician/etc. by the time I reached 23.  College slapped me in the face, however, and I awoke to find that my actual dreams had much more substance to them than the lifestyle many young girls dream about.  The world called to me, inviting me to live in unfamiliar places, take life-changing risks, and see my surroundings in new dimensions.  I learned to be an independent caretaker of myself, pushing the idea of motherhood way down the priority ladder, extending my countdown even further.  Of course I still took advantage of overwhelming any baby passing through my day, but I still had so many places to conquer, so many people to meet, so many ways to grow.

                Love slipped into my unsuspecting life one day at a Jamba Juice in Tucson.  Jason won me over so quickly that it took me off guard.  It turned out that the more I stopped trying to make my life into a romance movie, the more it became one.  Each new day of our six-month dating period spun our lives together in an intricate and mesmerizing tangle that I never needed to unwind.  Before I knew it, I was standing hand-in-hand in front of our Puget Sound alter, salty tears slipping into my toothy smile, marrying my best friend.  I now had a companion to share my baby countdown with, and I couldn’t have picked a better soul.

                Spending my days with the man of my dreams made me selfish for a while, however, and I savored every moment, every adventure, every touch between the two of us, just the two of us.  We could talk about our dreams without hesitation or embarrassment, and though we both were excited to produce a mini-Jalecia, we decided to accomplish some life goals first.  We bought a house, adopted a cat, canned fish for extra funds, explored Vietnam and Cambodia, trudged through a Master’s program, achieved National Board status, and enjoyed each other’s company along the way. 

                One Tuesday evening last June, I sat in the bathroom staring, not believing that the digital word read “pregnant” on the stick in front of me.  Had I known there had been any chance of this happening, I would have found a more creative way to present the news to my best friend upstairs, especially since he is so gifted in the art of romantic gestures.  But excitement and my childhood dream of being a mother left me sputtering the good news as I bounced on the bed next to him, the beginning of a night of no sleep but big dreams. 

The end of our countdown began to creep closer.  It was dotted with so many vivid and important memories: fruitless battles with nausea, tear-stained cheeks of future grandparents, a hasty extermination of caffeine and wine in my diet, my new favorite pair of maternity jeans, a new house to fit our new family, ultrasounds that clearly showed a penis, over-the-moon kisses from Daddy as we turned off the lights and snuggled close, and baby, baby, baby everywhere.  We inherited a garage full of kindness from mothers and fathers moving into new chapters of their child’s lives, and used it all to prepare our future son’s new room.  Dresser drawers overflowed with onesies that read “Tough Like Daddy” and “Bananas for Mommy.”  Toys and spoons and bottles and little socks and blankets and stuffed animals and books and miniature hats and more expanded our little house with happiness and love for the small person yet to come.  There was no better way to count down the days.

At midnight on February 15^th, the countdown spinners began to move at rapid speeds.  Mind-blowing contractions two minutes apart threw us out of our comfort zone and our warm bed and sent us out into the cold, clear night.  I tried to savor the quiet moments in the car between the volcano eruptions that started in my lower back, reassuring my worried husband that the pain only meant that we were one step closer to being parents.  I will never forget the look in his eyes that night, with a furrowed brow, wide lids, and concern illuminating the air around him.  He wanted nothing more than for me to feel no pain.  It was a look of pure love for his wife.  He was ready to move mountains for me, stop freeway traffic for me, carry me up the slopes of Mount Doom.  Sadly, none of this would have alleviated the mounting pain from my abdomen, but his look was enough to keep me strong enough through socializing with batty triage nurses, the painful ten minute process of finding my veins for the saline flow, the terrible urge to push our son through my seven centimeters of dilation, and the final administration of the epidural once we were safely moved to our new room.

As I settled into my numbness and our heart rates both fell to a reasonable count, we were able to enjoy the remainder of the baby countdown.  At 6:30 a.m. after a slight nap and some time to digest the early morning events, Dr. Heshmati ignited the final process in my delivery by breaking my water.  I began to push in increments of ten seconds, and I can remember so clearly the final countdown.  Ten… nine…eight, shouted the doc.  Seven… six… five…four, Jason shakily whispered into my ear.  Three… two… one, I screamed in my head as Elliott Morgan Aillaud escaped the darkness and came into view for the first time.  The countdown was finally over. 

                As he screamed his first breath, Jason clutched my hand tighter, and we cried together, knowing that this accomplishment meant that a whole new series of countdowns had just begun.  There will be short countdowns; 100 more rocks in the chair before I can move his curled up body to his bed, twenty more minutes until his soft, round belly needs to be satisfied, counting back from three as he decides not to make that really bad decision.  There will be longer countdowns; nine more months until he says his first word, two to three more agonizing years until he is trained to pee in the toilet, 16 years until he learns to drive a car.  And there will be more life-changing countdowns; eighteen years until I wipe away the tears as he drives away to college, waiting for the day he finds his best friend to marry, counting down the moment until I get to be a Grandma.  As Elliott was placed against my skin and Jason caressed both my face and our son’s soft back, I only felt happiness and love for the two boys in my life, and I looked forward to the next countdown.

Three O'Clock in the Morning

                Three o’clock in the morning is a time of day I used to have very little experience with. Sure, there was the summer at the salmon cannery when Alecia and I held the 10:00 PM to 2:00 PM shift and got to behold three in the morning in all its glory every day, but the monotony of that job made it different, just a blip on the shift-clock reminding us we still had eleven hours to go. There also, of course, were college parties that would occasionally keep me up to and sometimes past that hour, but 3:00 AM has never felt like this before. For the first time it feels truly important.

                Elliott Aillaud was born at 6:59 on the morning of February 15, 2013 at Providence Hospital in Everett. When the sun rose, it was a beautiful day, the kind that keep people living in rainy Western Washington and it brought with it feelings and emotions that can be explained endlessly, but never fully understood until they are experienced. We had brought into the world a new little human who will depend on us for love and support, nurture and care, and on that day the whole idea of giving him everything still didn’t seem like it would be enough.

                Seven weeks have passed and so many things that everyone says before the birth definitely come to fruition. There absolutely isn’t as much sleep as there was before. Parenting is, undoubtedly, exhausting. In fact, the entire day changed for me. I used to function pretty much from 6:00 AM to 11:00 PM and the hours in between were more or less a void. Now, I feel each of the 24 hours.

There are absolutely A LOT of diaper changes. We’re currently averaging about twenty a day and will occasionally get five-minute periods with three new diapers—or worse—a diaper change followed by swaddling, sitting down and rocking for twenty minutes calming Elliott to sleep and just about the time everything seems peaceful enough to go back to bed…the explosion.

Our lifestyle absolutely has changed. We haven’t been to a movie or to a show or to a sporting event. As a matter of fact, these days 8:30 feels pretty late and 9:00 seems like it’s well past bedtime. It’s unusual for us to make it through a one-hour TV show without interruption. Just watching two episodes of Game of Thrones was a week-long process. When we get Elliott down, it’s time for us to join him. There’s really no telling how many hours he’s going to give us, so we take it while he’s offering.

Those are some of the things people told us and I think, for the most part, we were ready for them, perhaps with the exception of the sheer magnitude of diapers. But there is so much more that I had no preparation for at all.

To meet the gaze of my son’s curious dark eyes already searching for meaning and discovery in his surroundings and feel the most powerful, boundless love, closeness, and attachment. There is a seemingly desperate need to keep him safe and make him happy and comfortable. The feeling of warmth and joy I get touching his soft skin and seeing his little smile or the excitement I feel when he tries to mimic facial expressions. Or simply the overwhelming feeling of looking at him sleeping, his huge butter cheeks, tousled red hair, tiny chest rhythmically rising and falling as tears begin to well in my eyes knowing we brought such a beautiful little person into the world. There is nothing that quite prepared me for all of that.

It’s at three o’clock in the morning every day when it all hits home. After the diaper change. After the feeding. When rain or wind is the only sound and I’m rocking Elliott slowly back to sleep my eyes heavy, feeling his breath on my skin, his head in my hand, that’s when I feel my heart, my soul, and the entire world all wrapped up in this tiny human being. Despite the exhaustion, the diapers, and the early bedtimes three o’clock in the morning has never held so much meaning or so much love. 

A New Path

This may be it. Our last weekend as expecting parents. We had our final doctor appointment on Friday afternoon. During that time, the doctor told us he thought the pregnancy would go past the due date, but he was very careful to accentuate that was only his thought and that in a pregnancy anything can happen. He advised me not to go anywhere more than an hour away from the hospital without Alecia and told a story about a couple he knew that nearly split because the husband was planning on taking a business trip to the other side of the country while his wife was at the same stage Alecia is now. Needless to say, there is no way I am leaving the state and probably not even South Snohomish County without Alecia there with me. So while technically, with the due date set at this Thursday, February 14, it may not be our last weekend as soon-to-be parents, there is a strong possibility that it will be.

                Yesterday, we walked the Green Lake trail, a very nice three-mile circuit perfect for a little exercise as well as people and dog watching, in Seattle with our friends Keri and Tracy. We started by the Green Lake Pitch and Putt on the south side of the lake. There was a 5K race just wrapping up as we arrived. We watched some of the runners—many of them costumed—finishing up and milling around and we started walking clockwise around the lake past the rowing stadium toward the Seattle Canoe and Kayak Club.

                It was in early June 2012 that Alecia broke the news to me. I was tired and had gone to bed. My eyelids were heavy and I was just about ready to let the day go when I heard Alecia coming up our creaky stairs. “I have a surprise for you!” she said, and my exhausted brain thought it had picked up a hint of sarcasm in her voice. “Great,” I replied, “where’d the cat puke this time?” But instead of Clorox, she showed me the positive pregnancy test. Although I was still tired, I didn’t sleep much that night and the next day I felt I was teaching on a cloud. I was going to be a dad!

                When walking the Green Lake trail there are all the usual and expected people and sights, but there’s so much unexpected, too. There will be a lot of people of all shapes and sizes and there will be almost as many dogs. There will be a dodgy-looking guy holding a sign that says he offers “Free Spanish Lessons” and although he may have some linguistic genius that would allow me to learn an entire new language in a matter of minutes, his outward appearance shouts “STAY AWAY” in a universal language without words. But there is also always something new and interesting from a group of twenty-somethings wearing Snuggies and riding golf clubs like Quidditch brooms while participating in a scavenger hunt to a toddler racing down the path dragging a full-sized suitcase with his mother in hot pursuit.

                Such were our feelings with this pregnancy. We knew the basic stages and what we’d find there and we knew what the end result would be, but what were we going to find on the path?

                A few weeks after Alecia’s announcement that the cat hadn’t barfed, we took a trip to Alaska to visit my parents and share our exciting news. We were at a city park in Anchorage and had wrapped two of my favorite books as a toddler, Goodnight Moon and Cars and Trucks and Things that Go and had written inscriptions that would leave no doubt as to the news we had to share. We took a video of the event and it’s one of the happiest I’ve ever seen and can still make me tear up. Their reactions were priceless.

                Alecia was a trooper during that first trimester. Riding a float plane into Katmai National Park to see grizzly bears in a natural environment that felt very Jurassic Park-like (in the best of ways), searching for a new house that would be more conducive to raising a family, and taking a surprisingly grueling hike to reach Lake Twenty-Two off of the Mountain Loop Highway among many other things, all the while battling terrible nausea.              

                During those first few months, we met our doctor, bought all the important books, and downloaded an iPhone app that filled us in on what to expect during each new week of the pregnancy. We listened and read and watched videos so we would know exactly what point on the trail the “Free Spanish Lessons” were being offered.

                We continued on the shore of Green Lake past the Bathhouse Theatre, past the wading pond that is filled with happy, squealing children during the summer months, past people of every shape, size, and ethnicity including several other pregnant women making their way around the lake in the opposite direction.

                The second trimester of the pregnancy found us renovating our old house (with extraordinary help from my brother, Brian, and friends Tim and Ann) and moving into our new one, a cute little three-bedroom within a half-mile of the elementary, middle, and high school our son will be attending. It has parks nearby and a green belt beyond the backyard at the end of a nearly silent col-de-sac. We started another school year with new fifth grade classes filled with fifth graders who can hardly wait for our little one to be born. We also had the ultrasound that revealed our baby’s gender. We found out and immediately called my parents so they would be the first to know. Alecia’s dad, Kim, found out by opening up a gift we had bought for him at a Chevron station on the way home. The gift? A hot dog. We were going to have a boy!

                About two-thirds of the way around Green Lake there is a Starbucks. We decided to stop for a snack and to warm up after being out in the cool-dampness that is Seattle’s winters. Inside was a friendly atmosphere with people laughing and chatting and there was a smiling young couple with an adorable one-year-old baby boy.

                It was during the third trimester when all the questions started. Is he here yet? Where’s that baby? Is she nesting? Are you ready? How’s she feeling? Ready for your life to change? Has she dropped? Has she lost her mucous plug? There is also incredibly touching generosity from friends, family, and co-workers. After Alecia’s baby shower it took two carloads to get the gifts to our house. We had them all spread out in what will inevitably be our playroom. They were organized into groups such as toys, clothes, utility items. Colorful and cheerful and humbling we could feel the love of our wonderful family and friends as we looked at all the thoughtful gifts imagining the people most important to us at the store picking the perfect present for our new son. A preview, I am sure, of the intense and immensely powerful love we will feel for who will soon be our most precious person in the world.

                We left Starbucks warmer and continued and as with any circuit trail we ended up back where we had started the journey. The Pitch and Putt, near the stadium, the finish line of the 5K race that had now been cleared, all the debris piled neatly in plastic bags. But our other journey will not leave us back where we started. We will finish it and start on an entirely new path where Alecia and I have made a new beautiful little person who from within that tiny package will redefine importance, fear, admiration, triumph, setback, exhaustion, frustration, but most importantly love. I am overjoyed at the thought of our next walk around Green Lake from behind a stroller as we introduce the precious little love of our lives, our son, to the world.

Electrical Pole

               In Alaska, it takes a long time to get anywhere. Need a doctor? Round trip: four hours. McDonalds? Three hours. Any resemblance of a real mall? Sixteen hours. As a kid, my brother Brian and I endured countless hours pinched behind our parents in the backseat separated by a pile of snacks, Mad Libs, crossword puzzles, and Game Boy paraphernalia. It was a small space to be confined next to a sibling for so many hours.

                Often, boredom led to bruising car games. Our favorite, and most often played, was called “Electrical Pole”. In most places, kids in the backseat can play “Popeye” or “Slug Bug”, where one gets popped in the upper shoulder at the sight of a car with one headlight or a Volkswagen Beetle, respectively. Unfortunately, in rural Alaska, there are not enough Beetles to ever have an effective round of Slug Bug and, honestly, cars are usually too few in number to play Popeye, one headlight or otherwise.

Electrical Pole, on the other hand, was a much more suitable and entertaining game. By all accounts, it was really just an excuse to hit each other. Hard. The rules were simple. Anything that could be seen out the car window was fair game. “Moose!” BAM! “Lake!” BAM! “Tree!” BAM! Moose, lakes, and, most notably, trees are all quite abundant in the Alaskan wilderness. The game earned its name because on the occasion that electrical poles were spotted, the nukes could be brought out and the dreaded “Boom Crane” punch could be used in an all-out assault. Most of the time, this game began with friendly sibling rivalry, but could escalate to full-on war if any invented rule happened to be violated and could end in black and blue shoulders, thighs, and feelings.

                On one trip, we were coming back from Whitehorse, which is the capital city of the Yukon Territory in Canada. A small town, by most standards, but for two Alaskan children it was a variable burgeoning metropolis. We had crossed back in to the United States, and were speeding down the Alaska Highway en route for home when the first Electrical Pole punch flew. “Mountain!” I shouted, followed by a swift right hook to Brian’s shoulder. I almost always sat on the passenger side of the car, which gave me a distinct power advantage since I was able to use my right arm more freely, despite this, retaliation was never far off. “River!” he shouted and whipped back with a mini-crane punch, which was kind of a back-handed thump that pivoted around the elbow. After a few volleys, a fragile truce was called so shoulder and leg muscles could take a break from the beating.

                About five miles down the road a trestle bridge came into view. It was gleaming in the Alaskan sunshine like a silver invitation for gratuitous attack. “Bridge!” I exclaimed and let loose the biggest, most powerful Boom Crane punch I could muster.

                “Ouch! You Moose Turd!” Brian yelled, “You can only do the Boom for electrical poles!”

                Not responding to his protest, I shouted, “Yellow line!” followed by the second most powerful Boom Crane released in the last ten seconds. Clearly this aggression would not stand and reprisal came in the form of a series of quick and brutal punches to my thigh.

                “Hey Turd Clown, you can’t hit without calling out an object first,” I replied valiantly followed by a hard clout to Brian’s shoulder.

                “Then you can’t either!” he hollered slamming his fist into my upper thigh.

                It was about that time we noticed the car was no longer moving forward. “Why are we stopped?” Brian and I asked simultaneously. My parents gave each other a glance that could mean nothing but trouble for both of us. A sly smirk formed on my dad’s lips.

“Get out,” he said, “you’re walking from here.” Brian and I looked at one another dumbfounded. We were easily 75 miles from the closest thing resembling civilization. Quickly we formed an allegiance as if we’d just left a United Nations council, but the front seat dictators would hear no testimony. We stood silently on the shoulder of the Alaska Highway as we watched our only hope of transportation, the white 1987 Ford Aerostar crest a hill and then disappear into the Alaskan wild lands. We were on our own in the wilderness with no choice but to walk while trying to ignore how many moose, bears, or other vicious beasts were lurking in the forest just beyond our field of vision.

We began our hike with me in front, the highway’s white line to our left and throngs of magenta fireweed lining the asphalt to our right. It was a bluebird summer day, rugged mountains rising on either side of the highway spread forth their majesty like crowns, patches of snow clinging to their crevices like white jewels. Trees filled the valley between their limbs reaching outward as if in reverence of mountain kings. Robins and chickadees sang and an eagle circled above our heads and we walked through that wonderland into unknown. The war that had caused our plight drifted into distant memory, as if its causes, its failed truces, its escalation, and eventual reasons for deportation were from a time so remote they may not have even occurred.

On we walked following the endless white line of the highway until we too eventually crested the same hill where we had last sighted the Aerostar. Below us and perhaps a half mile ahead sat the van waiting like a carriage drawn by white horses and driven by angels to give respite to our weary legs. We knew further consequences would likely ensue upon reaching the van, but we ran forward feeling the wind in our hair with cushioned seats on our minds. We had just about reached the rear hatch, when, to our horror, the van pulled away from our grasping hands. This time it stopped still in sight, but at least another half mile ahead.

Our walk continued for another ten or fifteen minutes. This time less appreciative of the surrounding natural beauty and more focused on the goal at hand. When we finally reached the old Ford, we lunged forward gripping the bumper like shipwreck survivors clutching surrounding flotsam. Afraid to let go, we stood there until we heard one of the front doors open. “Are you guys done?” we were asked.

“Yeah,” we responded sheepishly, “but we’re afraid to let go.”

“You’re invited back in, but the next fight you’ll be walking even longer!”

We climbed into the car and collapsed onto the seat like subdued prisoners and silently stared out windows in opposite directions. For about an hour, Alaska’s unspoiled wilderness blurred by as the car passed, but then we saw far on the horizon, a long line of repeating electrical poles.

                

Here's To Life

                We were on roughly Hour Six of the long drive to Anchorage when I first heard it. I was fifteen-years-old in the backseat of our then-new Ford Explorer wedged between the interior of the rear-passenger door and a mountain of convenience store foodstuffs and other forms of entertainment separating me from my brother, Brian. By that point, most civil forms of distraction from the monotony of car travel had been exhausted and Brian and I had resorted to the inevitable game we called “Electrical Pole”, which was really just an excuse to hit each other as hard as possible in the shoulder or leg. Think “Slug Bug”, only anything was fair game. “Tree!” BAM! “Mountain!” BAM! “Asphalt!” BAM!  The sight of an electrical pole could bring the dreaded “Boom Crane” punch, which probably would have resulted in permanent shoulder damage for both of us had we not grown up in rural Alaska where large electrical poles were about as common as Volkswagen Beetles in other parts of the country.

                Anyway, it was during a brief and precarious truce that we had convinced our parents to turn on the radio and had them navigate it to Anchorage’s only alternative rock station. It was then that I heard Banditos by The Refreshments for the first time. Both Brian and I loved the song. It was catchy and funny and we immediately wanted to hear it again. The problem was it was 1996, before the days when the internet was in everyone’s pocket, and after hearing the song the first time we didn’t even know who the artist was. It wasn’t until finally arriving in Anchorage, heading to Sam Goody, and embarrassingly having to sing a few lines to several record store employees that we found, now one of my favorite albums of all time, Fizzy Fuzzy Big and Buzzy.

                For my last birthday, Alecia bought me tickets to see Roger Clyne and the Peacemakers. Roger Clyne was the front man and driving force behind The Refreshments and when the band broke up following disappointing sales of the release of their second studio album, Roger and drummer P.H. Naffah, formed RCPM. I’ve been to many RCPM shows and, as usual, this one rocked. Roger always performs tirelessly, pouring everything he has into each note, pounding one tequila shot after another, encouraging crowd involvement as he mixes harmonica and mariachi solos into his heavily guitar laden 90’s-style alt-country anthems. Sets at his most popular show, Circus Mexicus, which he does twice annually in Rocky Point, Mexico can literally last upwards of five hours. And although his style may not resonate with everyone, to me it’s beyond fantastic.

As we were walking out of the show with adrenaline pumping and ears ringing I began thinking about my life and how, through everything, there’s always been Roger’s music. There are other musicians I have grown to really enjoy, but no one for quite so long or who brings up quite so many memories as Roger. I’ve met friends through the common interest of being Roger fans, reunited old friends at his shows, traveled to Mexico several times with different groups of people, introduced his music to new girlfriends, listened to his music after break-ups, drank to it, sang to it at the top of my lungs, shared an appreciation for it with my wife, my brother, friends from college, and friends from work. In a sense, no matter what has gone on in my life, Roger has been there. His vigor on stage and his obvious love of life are inspiring to say the least.  He is living evidence that it’s completely possible to do what you love and love what you do.

I am thrilled to be entering a new stage in my life, that of fatherhood, with many monumental events ahead all of them occurring with just a little bit of Roger’s soundtrack in the background. And because I really can’t end this any other way, here from Roger’s Mekong, “As cliché as this may sound I’d like to raise another round and if your bottle’s empty, help yourself to mine. Thank you for your time and here’s to life! Here’s to life!”