Neighbors

When a human being passes away, friends, family, and the casual acquaintance should attempt to say something nice about their time among us. Even if there's not all that much nice to say. It's the decent thing to do.

But in the event that someone passes prematurely from a god awful disease, leaving behind an immeasurable impression upon the world, well then, we should line-up and take our turn describing the awesomeness that we will no longer have the opportunity to witness.

My friend Jennifer Birch passed away last weekend. And this is my turn.

A case for becoming a Padres fan

 I often look through photo albums of me as a child and I can’t help but laugh. I’m not laughing at the terrible hairstyles my mom allowed me to have (each funny in their own right) but instead, the odd selection of clothing. I see a lot of sports clothing with a variety of teams represented. There’s the mandatory Bears, Cubs, and White Sox gear from my original home in Chicago, Illinois. But the weird things I see are the unusual teams like the Oilers, Cowboys, and Eagles. Steelers. Red Sox. Yankees. Yankees?!!! What was my dad thinking to allow such flip-flopping between sports teams? I guess he was just letting me be a kid.

 Now that I have daughters I’m doing things a little differently. When it comes to sports apparel I buy only Padres (or Chargers) related items and they agree to wear them. We wear clothing and hats emblazoned with the letters “SD” and the name Padres. We wear the stuff that lets people know that we live in one of the best cities in the country.

Reborn

We celebrated my dad's 66th birthday on December 27th. That was five days ago. It was kind of a big deal. Not because he turned 66 but because he had died 27 days earlier.

My dad was born on December 27th, 1947 in Illinois. That very same year Frank Capra released It's a Wonderful Life, a film which became a family viewing tradition each year around Christmas in our home. My lasting takeaway from Capra's film remains that we are all important to someone. My dad is important to so many.