this time of the year every year I often find myself thinking back to 1995... this was back when checking your "voice mail" didnt mean picking up your cell phone and pressing a button. It meant that I called back to my apartment, and did a press of a button to get the digital answering machine... well, I called back from Poole where I was down in the basement playing a MUD on the mainframe and heard a message from Dr. Hosler saying that he had heard some disturbing news and for me to call him ASAP... To be honest, a lot of things were set in motion that day.

Dr. Hosler told me that he had just gotten a call about Scott and he wanted me to confirm. Well, obviously it was true that he had been in an accident. And i will never forget calling all the brothers and telling them (and the reactions...) In many ways that time made a bunch of people who were already close closer.... and i have mentioned before that I would have probably not been as involved in Kappa Kappa Psi had Scott lived. That involvement also fostered my relationship with Dr. Hosler and my extended time in Clemson. that extended time also saw a couple of friendships happen with people that I consider to be close friends.... My son's middle name is Scott. I am not sure where I am heading with this other than I often think of him, especially during this time of the year. Certainly i was not as close to him as others... but he was a good friend. And his absence as the years move on is still large as far as I'm concerned...

And I was thinking about him when I met with the chapter after a rehearsal last week. About those great times and moents of that timee.. this time... of the year. I could see in their faces the excitement in the air. Seeing your friends again.."where are we going after practice... where is the party tonight?".. I miss a call from someone asking "if we could go play?"... the excitement of making new friends.... and renewing the old ones. I looked at their faces and as I was talking to them I was seeing Josh and TJ... Erik and Jamie... and Scott. And I realized odds are that we will probably never all be at the same place/room/town again. And a tinge of sadness was with me as I dismissed them and heard the laughter and joking and excitement...

... oh as I have said before, I would not want to go back... my wife and kids are so important to me now. And all of the people I think about are almost all in similar situations with their own spouses and children. But man I would love to spend a couple of hours ( or 4 ) sitting at Huddle House talking about... now what exactly was it we talked about?