I came across your writing while searching for another story by Ian. Your description of how your initial response to his inquiry was changed once you had the chance to meet with him does not come as a surprise to me. I first met Ian when he was about 3 years old and had recently been given a kid-sized drum set (set up where the dining room table had once been). His dad, a marketing and public relations specialist by day and still that long-haired (now conservatively cut) New Jersey (now Flint Michigan) rockin’ guitar player by preference, was becoming a fast friend of mine. I’m pretty sure it was that loud rockin’ music background that not only allowed for a drum kit in the dining room but also, on any number of occasions, resulted in adult conversations coming to a halt when Ian climbed up behind those drums and began an inpromptu solo, inevitably ending with a flourishing cymbal crash and applause led by his parents. I think it was then that those seeds of creativity and open-hearted curiosity were planted.
His parents separated not long after and while I got to keep his dad, Ian moved south with his mother. Now and then, I’d hear of his progress, see a photo or, on rare occasion, drop in to his dad’s house when Ian was in town.
But mostly, for nearly 27 years, I had no contact with him. Then this past February, his dad called me and said Ian was coming to Milwaukee in search of a story and said he’d told Ian to look me up. And he did. So the first night he was in town, I met up with him at a small, old-time classic Milwaukee bar and it was as if we had been meeting at that bar for at least 10 of those past 27 years (though now 30, I gotta figure Ian would have figured a way to “bluff” his way into that establishment a couple years early…).
Toward the end of our time at that (first…) bar, Ian and the owner/bartender began a lively banter that rose to the level of a challenge on the part of the bartender/owner that should Ian come back with that same hair style, he’d sit him down and give him a real hair cut. To which Ian replied “that’s a lot of big talk…let’s do it right now!”. A little more back-and-forth (the bartender/owner was, shall we say, fully engaged in the effects provided by distilled malt beverages and probably not entirely certain if this New York kid was messin’ for a fight, messin’ with him in general or actually calling his bluff), and in short order, Ian was sitting in a bar chair with a cloth napkin around his neck and a well-fueled bartender/owner-now barber standing behind him with a sharp object in his hand. I started thinking “there will be blood”…
But, the sheer genius exhibited remarkable stability and even greater eye-hand coordination and a couple minuted later, he had successfully removed the pointy portion of those offending follicles, snapping the cloth napkin as he removed it from around Ian’s neck.
We both agreed that was the perfect moment to leave that establishment and as we walked down the street to our next destination, Ian said to me “I don’t know what it is, but that kind of thing happens to me whereever I go”. I told him it is because “you comport yourself in a manner that is very ingratiating to others”.
While the flourish of my reply may have been overly influenced by the influence I was under, after reading the account of your encounter with Ian, I believe it was justified. He is a delightful individual, honest in his approach, fully engaged in the moment.
And I have no doubts he will always talk about that apple pie.

Best regards and thank you for allowing Ian to write such a moving story about your son.

Dave Standridge

I think Ian did a great job on the story… I hope you all do as well. Love you, and happy early birthday.

Love you all very much! Bug

Happy Birthday, tomorrow! (19th)

My blogging friend at Don’t Ever Put Down The Pen! lost his son in the Global War on Terrorism last August. I first met Ed Kirkpatrick online when he read something I had written about Forward Operating Base Falcon. Both of our sons were …