Nothing But Love :: golf blogger

Happy Birthday, Matt!

So, there we were on July 8, 1981. This baby was clinging to one of Stacey's fallopian tubes and refused to come out after 28 hours of labor ... and this was labor with contractions a couple minutes apart for a whole day. The exhaustion and pain was well worth it, however, (Stacey was exhausted; I was in pain from her slugging me in the face after I told her that the pain of the contractions "isn't so bad.") because in the delivery room, a healthy baby boy finally popped out, fully formed with all his fingers and all his toes.

Stacey named him Matthew. I did have some input in the naming process, but she was the one who filled out the birth certificate info; so, that ended up what he was named.

He grew. By 11 months, he had taken an early interest in hockey:

He liked Sesame Street and wanted a Big Bird cake on his first birthday:

At age 2, he was already learning to be a man:

Time flew by. He incurred the wrath of his first grade teacher by pointing out that she had spelled "Arctic" incorrectly. He had to point out that she left out the first "c." His second grade teacher brought to our attention an alarming developmental problem ... he made his "g" backwards. His mother turned to me and asked me if I new any adults who made their g's backwards, to which I had to admit that I didn't.

I would be remiss and subject to inhumane torture (laughter on the soundtrack, please) if I did not record for posterity in the ether of the Internet that Stacey introduced Matt to his first desktop computer, an Apple IIC, and taught him the concept of RAM, among other things (I should also point out, for extra credit, that she explained the concept of "consideration" as applied to contract law; so, (for the BONUS, Gene) neither Matt nor I would be where we are today without Stacey.). And he was the first kid on the block to have a Palm Pilot, long before they became known as PDA's:

Although hockey was what turned Matt on to St. Edward High School, Stacey and I were happy he would be going to the school because of the academic atmosphere. Despite not being raised a Catholic, he was the student director of the spiritual retreat program, spending a lot of time in the wilderness of Pennsylvania or West Virginia, encountering bears and withered-faced, toothless men with automatic weapons on occasion:

He graduated from St. Ed's near the top of his class, went off to college, graduated; and now he's married and starting on his Ph.D.

Where did the time go? Looking up ahead, I admit that it looks like a long road; but when moving at break-neck speed, the scenery goes past quickly and, sometimes, it's a little tough to keep it on the road.

Happy Birthday, Dude.

Posted by Bill at July 8, 2004 04:26 PM