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Lou was an interesting fellow. Each of us knew a little part of him and I found his American Indian heritage the most interesting. He helped me understand the difference between spiritual and religous.

Pam is still a cutie. I'm lucky enough to see her about once a week. We walk our dogs at a park on Sunday morning.

Unfortunately, the picture was taken with a cheap camera and lacks the detail. Much was also lost during the scanning process. I'll bring the picture along to Clarksburg in the fall.

When I was growing up I was lucky to be surrounded by creative individuals. On my way to work this morning, I heard "Stormy Monday" by Lee Michaels. Lee Michaels plays the organ, does the bass work with the foot pedals and is accompanied by only a drummer. A buddy of mine, Dave Streeter is a very talented musician. His parents had a Hammond B3 organ in the living room (complete with the Leslie speaker). Dave would put the Lee Michaels albumn cover on the organ, like sheet music, then proceed to play "Stormy Monday". I was always amazed. Dave lives in PA and has never returned for a reunion. I think he mistakenly measured his career in music against the MBA's and felt he was a failure.

Another infuencial person was Ken Gross. Many a night I would sit on a picnic bench next to the Chagrin River and list to him play his Ovation twelve string. I remember the look on his face when I said "Play Stairway to Heaven", usually just to get a reaction. When he played his Les Paul, he could bend the strings as well as some of the greats... no kidding... I think he could have given Clapton a run for his money. Unfortunately, Ken's creativity was consumed when he was force to take a maintenace job to support his family... his unhappiness ended ten years ago when he took a shortcut to the next reality.

When my kids were in high school, I forced them to take some sort of art class. My daughter could draw and won a 'peace poster contest' in 1995. She drew a picture of the earth, then surrounded it with white doves. In high school she discovered photography and developing. I have a couple of her pictures framed in my office and house.

My son was one of the biggest jocks in high school and is extremely creative. He drew a pencil sketch of a baseball bat, old time glove and ball... also a watercolor picture of Jackie Robinson and recently has taken up working with acrylics. A couple years ago he gave me a 'copy' of a Monet; a sailboat in a harbor, next to a bridge. I have many of his items framed and on display at work.

While I can say I like all kinds of music, the first King Crimsom and Pink Floyd's "Dark Side of the Moon" are two of my favorite works. I've owned copied on every media released... LP, 8-track, cassette and CD.

Andy

Dawn,

It's great to have a positive impact on the youth. Even though my son is well beyond his Boy Scout days, I'm still a merit badge counsoler in the area. It's an oppourtunity to expose a young mind to a new topic... music, sports, backpacking, canoeing... the list is endless.

My son was exposed to the financial world though the Personal Finance merit badge. The merit badge counsoler sparked a career as my son majored in Finance and Economics at Bowling Green.

As for first cars... mine was a red 1963 bug. I bought it in 1970 for $35,... the previous owner wanted to get rid of it and that how much the junk yard was willing to pay. The car ran fine for about a year, then I blew the engine. At that time I learned how to remove and install a VW engine in about two hours.

By the time I was finished my junior year in high school, I had completed all but two classes that I needed to graduate. In my senior year I had first period english and second period american history. Took two periods of shop class, lunch then I would ditch out for the rest of the day. Never got caught.

Since I had already taken every instructional shop class offered, a couple of us were allowed to just show up and do what ever we wanted. We tinkered with plastic injection molding a little. I made plastic peace signs. We used a metal lathe and milling machine to create a mold, then clamped a piece of plexiglass so we could watch the injector work.

Another project was the 'custom' shifter knob for my VW. This project was a combined metal & wood project. I made a small pipe out of brass then encased it into a piece of walnut to make the shifter. When the need to fulfill a VW experience existed, the shifting knob could be removed from the shifting rod and transformed into a usefull tool. I remember my shop teacher, who was probably 6-7 years older than me. He was impressed with the craftsmanship and engineering, but could not give me a grade since he could not find a socially acceptable name for my project.

OK... final visit to this topic... at least for tonight.

As my kids grew up, I kept throwing new things at them. We would build rockets then launch them until they blew up, burned up or got lost in a clump of trees. We built simple radios out of a few simple parts. Tumble stones and make jewelry. Build telescopes and microscopes.

In 2003, after my daughter had graduated from Bowling Green, we were driving up I75 from BG to Toledo for a celebration dinner. The night was clear, with many stars, planets and the moon in plain view. My daughter looked out the window and said..."Remember when we used to go to the Polo field to look at the moon and stars with the telescope". She also went on to say, she thinks about those nights when ever she sees a clear sky;... and always enjoyed the outtings.

To end on a light note... during shop class, the teacher would hit the emergency power button to shut down the equipment, usually 5-10 minutes before the end of the class. Each class was required to clean up before leaving. A group of us took an electronic course, simple stuff like removing parts from an old radio and designing circuits. Any way, we would take the capacitors and put them in the wall outlets. Capaciter are designed to store power but if you ground them, they explode. So when the shop teacher turned the power on for the next class, he would be greated by a series of explosion. I can hear his voice now "God dammit Sworan, find something else to do".