Shameless Brag About Your Kid(s) Thread

[rollhead]

That's great. Does she have a particular interest in oatmeal?

Lotsa fiber

[john williams]

I just wanted to share this with people who know me here.

In the early 1990s I was involved with a woman who’d recently separated from her husband. The whole thing was a big mistake on my part but good things can come from bad. She became pregnant but left me three months into the pregnancy and returned to her husband. She had a daughter Jessica in early February 1991. I never saw Jessica and was told by the family to stay away and that I was not Jessica’s father. I had no support from my family whatsoever so I felt alone and let it go. At first I was convinced she was my daughter but gradually talked myself out of it. I was devastated and never spoke about it with anyone until this week. I received a phone call on Saturday from a woman asking my name and if I’d ever lived in Adelaide. I was worried it was to be bad news regarding a family member from one of her friends in Adelaide so I answered the questions. After asking if I was the son of xxxxx xxxxxxxx the phone went dead. The voice didn’t sound threatening or strange in any way but I was sure something significant was about to happen.

My Partner, Leeanne and I were starting to get concerned but 15 minutes later the phone rang again and a different woman was on and began to ask the same questions. I said I’d just answered all those questions and been hung up on. The woman introduced herself as Ann and said she was the sister of the woman I’d been involved with years before. She then told me the person who phoned me earlier was sitting opposite and was my daughter. To cut a long story short, Jessica had suspected something wasn’t quite right and was so different to the rest of her family so believed she was adopted. She is close to her Aunt and so confronted her with some questions about her past. Jessica was worried about her Mother’s current behaviour and knew something was buried in the past. She asked her Aunt that she’d heard how her Mother had behaved badly over the years and thought there was something the family was keeping from her. Her Aunt eventually spilled the beans about me and Jessica immediately confronted her parents who flatly denied it. Jessica then got together with her Grandmother and Aunt who told her about me. Jessica convinced her dad to have a paternity/DNA test. He reluctantly agreed and it conclusively proved he could not be Jessica’s genetic father. This all happened late last year and it has taken Jess and her Aunt up until now to track me down. They did eventually get some answers from Jess’s parents and used electoral rolls and asking neighbours near Mum’s old house in Adelaide. My daughter Jessica is now 20 years old. Over Easter we’ll travel to Adelaide so we can meet. Both Jessica and I have spoken and exchanged many emails and are very keen to meet and catch up on 20 years missed. Jess is very much like me. My brain is like jelly this week.

[steve(thelil)]

That's an amazing story, John. Thanks for sharing it. I wish you a wonderful future as Jess's father. Wow.

[Cem]

Congratulations, John! It will be great fun to catch up and start anew. It must be so exciting!

[Ron Thorne]

What a wonderful story, John. Congratulations to you and Jessica, especially her for the remarkable tenacity. Wow!

Enjoy, enjoy, enjoy.

[john williams]

Thanks all. I'm so thrilled. I never had any other children and am approaching 50 now so this is especially significant as my choice not to have children was beginning to trouble me.

Yes, Jess is my new hero. Her bravery and determination is astounding to me.

Thanks again for all your kind words.

[Ron Thorne]

Photos, John. We'd love to see some photos of you and Jess, if you'd allow. If not, for privacy or other reasons, we'll certainly understand.

I can only imagine what's going through your mind & body right now.

[Monte Smith]

That's a remarkable turn of events, John. It's like a big holy boomerang of love. May you bless one another's lives.

[stonemonkts]

John - Amazing and I hope it brings all of you joyful experiences (yeah I'm really bad at this). But seriously, I'm glad for you both.

[Uli]

Congrats, John!

[walto]

Wow, that is really an amazing story, John.

[john williams]

Thanks again everyone it so lovely to share this news.

I'm not sure about the photos yet Ron but I'll ask.

[rollhead]

My son in law, Rob, wrote a blog piece about work he did repairing an attic vent at the Shelburne Museum.

You can see his work here.

[rollhead]

CONWAY, Ark. (April 26, 2012) - Hendrix College honored students for exemplary academic achievement, campus leadership, and community service at the 2012 Honors Day Convocation on Thursday, April 26, in Staples Auditorium.

Environmental Studies

The following students will be graduating with distinction in environmental studies:
• Wyatt Dillon Blankenship '12
• Andrew Jameson Carty '12
• Eva Lorraine Englert '12
• Karl K. Heinbockel '12
• Dana Marie Rumph '12
• Ellen Marie Waggoner '12

[LennyH]

Congrats, rollie!!

[Jimmy Cantiello]

My son works for a non-profit organization in Philadelphia called Back On My Feet. Part of his job entails running. He's currently preparing for a fundraising run. Good kid. Nothing like his old man.

http://www.active.com/donate/BoMFPhillyBSR12/ECantie1

[Ron Thorne]

Evan's doing good work! You have every reason to be proud, Jimmy.

[rollhead]

Oldest passed her nurse practitioner board exams. Earlier this year, as an EMT crew chief, same daughter saved a woman who was on the back of a Harley involved in a head-on crash. Her husband, the driver, didn't make it.

[rollhead]

Middle daughter is now working as a "junior editor" for the English language publication of the German Chamber of Commerce in Shanghai. The first issue of the "Ticker" with one of her bylines it it just came out (Page. 29).
http://my.page2flip.de/469967/1044644/1044645/

[steve(thelil)]

I never mentioned before that Elle McPherson and I had a love child. But she has made me very proud in this video.

[rollhead]

Really? You told me that your love child was the "Pastafarian" recently arrested in New Jersey.

FEBRUARY 20--Police were summoned this month to a Motor Vehicle Commission office when a New Jersey man refused to remove a spaghetti strainer from his head before posing for a new driver’s license photo.

Aaron Thelil claimed to be a “Pastafarian” and told state workers that “his pasta strainer was a religious head covering and it was his right to wear it for his license photo,” according to a South Brunswick Police Department “suspicious incident” report detailing the February 2 incident.

http://www.thesmokinggun.com/documen...e-photo-687452

[steve(thelil)]

I don't have any kids and I didn't want to start a separate thread about a kid I met last night that impressed the heck out of me. I volunteer for an organization called Musicians on Call which sends musicians to hospitals to perform bedside for patients. The organization sends out a volunteer "guide" with each musician. The guides let the administrators know we're there and go into each room and explains who we are to the patient and asks the patient if they want to hear a song. Last night I had a gig playing at St Luke's Hospital and was advised of the name of my guide. I googled her name and the first thing I saw was a picture of what looked like a beautiful woman with Nelson Mandela. OK. you've gotten my attention.

I show up at St Luke's and go to the lobby where I'm to meet my guide. There to meet me is the same girl in the picture. It turns out she's only 15 years old. MOC has adult guides, but made an exception for this kid for obvious reasons. She leads me through the floors where we are to play, with all the confidence and poise of any adult. And everyone she meets falls in love with her. In chatting, I find out that her father is South African and came to the US after getting out of jail for teaching black kids. Her mother is a midwife, I also find out that she sings, and is in a band organized by her school. She only tells me this because I asked her if she was a musician, and with no sense of ego or bravado.

I ask her if she wants to sing in one of the rooms and we agree to do the Beatles' song Oh Darling. She sings it and lights up the room that has 2 patients and several guests. The cell phones all pop out to record her and there are shouts of "Go Girl, etc." Naturally, I ask her to sing in other rooms too. As we chat between rooms she mentions that her school rock group has played at Arlene's Grocery and the Bitter End and that she has a YouTube Channel. So I go home and look at the videos and she just kills, on all types of songs. This kid is going places, musical or otherwise.

Here's some video from Arlene's. Her band sounds a little raw on these, but you can tell that this 15 year old kid is special.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8cdxhvZlIAk

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2tSbKRLA33s

[Ron Thorne]

Unmistakable talent, charisma and poise, steve(thelil). Thanks for sharing those links. Wow.

[steve(thelil)]

Unmistakable talent, charisma and poise, steve(thelil). Thanks for sharing those links. Wow.

You're more than welcome. The more I watch the more I can't believe this kid is 15 . Try this one. (The only clue to her age is that she attributes the song to Betty White instead of Betty Wright. Betty Wright is way before her time. Betty While will outlive everyone)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KoY6vFpJiPw.

[rollhead]

I've been shamelessly bragging with folks from OSC that I have a friend who volunteers for Musicians on Call.

[steve(thelil)]

I've been shamelessly bragging with folks from OSC that I have a friend who volunteers for Musicians on Call.

That's nice of you to say. Shamelessly bragging, I played for 98 patients, guests and staff at my most recent gig. I think 40 is considered a good number. It's mostly just the luck of the draw: happening to come upon several groups of people in rooms and a high percentage who chose to hear music. The charming, pretty and talented girl guide who I shamelessly bragged about (knowing) was the person who went room to room asking whether people wanted a song. This just might have had something to do with that.

Do you really still talk to old friends from OSC? After several years of keeping contact with old friend/co-workers there (I left in '04), I've been basically out of contact in the last year or so.

[rollhead]

I am in regular contact with Al Brooks, who is retiring from OCS in May.

And I had lunch the other day with Bill and Tim Murphy, both now retired.

Am also still in regular contact with at one other person at OSC.

I just sold Al my last good saxophone, a beautiful Yanagisawa 901a, the proceeds from which I am going to use for piano lessons. I had to give up the various instruments that I have tried (and generally failed) to play because I drove my wife nuts. The digital piano I can "play" (term used loosely here) with headphones. The only thing she hears when I practice now is a metronome, which is able to do something I can't do: Play with a steady beat. I suppose I could rig up something that would allow me to hear both the piano and the metronome through the headphones.

Goal is to play piano with Al on sax and my bride, a public school string teacher, on bass.

I am 60 now. Hoping to be able to do that by the time I am 70.

[walto]

My older daughter just committed to a college--Northwestern. (We acted fast in case their acceptance was a mistake.)

[rollhead]

Congrats, Walto.

[Ron Thorne]

Congratulations to your daughter, Walto! Good for her.