One of the items on my to-do list upon returning to the US was "getting in touch with the gang". There has been enough progress in that area to move the item from 'to-do' to 'getting-done'.
This is the gang. Well, some of it.
We were always a mess of adopted, foster and family-born kids as we grew up. I left home in 1978 and, as predictably as unfortunately, lost contact with a lot of the guys. It's been almost thirty years and at this stage I still don't even know where some of them are. That bugs me.
But, like I said, I'm working on it.
I touched base with another member of the gang last Sunday. Jamie is such an incredible guy that I figured he deserved a mention on the blog. Born with cerebral palsy and put up for adoption, he's had more obstacles to surmount in 35 years than lots of us will see in a lifetime. Now he's got his own apartment, his high school diploma, a job (something to do with paperclips) and is going to community college.
As a kid he always had a very contagious laugh. His whole body would tense up and his arms and legs would jerk around as he cracked up, totally out of control. We would come up with all kinds of really dumb stuff just to get Jamie to "spaz out". I like to think that he enjoyed it as much as we did...Anyway, Sunday night, I just couldn't resist. Yeah, it's been a long time and I probably should have tried to catch up on stuff with him.
Yet I deliberately went for the spaz-out.
Hilarious.
Now that we've hooked up there'll be plenty of time to talk about stuff. But nothing beats a little spazzle-dazzle. Right, Jameser?
