In that number

They used to call it "throwing a bone."

Back at the newspaper I used to work for, in the career I used to have. Back in the day when the Men in Ties had money and resources and didn't care how they used them. Back at the old Times-Picayune, when we had a whole lot of sports reporters and everybody had their beats --  Saints. LSU. Tulane. State colleges. Boxing. Baseball. Recreation. Fish. And Preps. (Pretty much in that order, too.)

After I wormed my way from agate clerk to day time clerk, I became the recreation writer. I was the Queen of New Orleans softball for a while. Then I moved to Preps, and to the Arctic Outpost known as the River Parishes Bureau, where I spent 21 years covering high school sports in St. John, St. Charles and St. James parishes -- or, as I like to call them, The Other Saints.

And that's what you did and who you were. The Saints guys went to the Saints games on Sundays. The college guys traveled all over Tarnation covering LSU and Tulane. The Outdoors writer went duck hunting and fishing and got paid for it.

Me? I got to go to tiny burgs like Iota and Famerville and Vacherie, eat all the jambalaya I wanted, freeze my ass off with all species of spiders and bugs, get heckled by disgruntled grandmothers and cover high schools. I also got to interview the likes of Eli and Peyton Manning,  Mike Scifres, Laron and Dawan Landry and Ed Reed before they were millionaires.

But occasionally, one of the six sports editors we had over my 26 years there would "throw a bone" and ask one of the college guys to cover a Saints game, or ask one of us Preps guys to cover a college. Or, the rarity, ask one of the Preps guys to cover the Saints. But never me.

No. Not one of the six Men in Ties who led the Sports Department in my career ever looked past the room and to the Arctic Outpost and said, "Hey Lori! How 'bout you come cover a Saints game on Sunday?"

Super Bowls. New Orleans Bowls, LSU baseball games. Zephyrs baseball games (which I absolutely loved but everybody else kind of hated). Crescent City Classics. The Dick Vitale Sound-Alike Contest. Beach Volleyball. Soccer.  Yes. But never the Saints.

So last week when a sports editor buddy of mine in another city -- and I don't know if he wears a tie or not -- asked me to string for him and go cover last Sunday's season opener, I said --- "Are you kidding me?"

I didn't exactly jump at the chance. It's not that I was afraid of the work. I know I can write a story about anything. On deadline.  Hell, two weeks ago I wrote about wood pellets for the Louisiana Forestry Department. It's not that I've never been to the Mercedes-Benz Superdome. I've been there plenty of times and I know my way to the press box.

It was just, well, intimidating. I haven't been to a Saints game since about 1992, back when they weren't very good and tickets were cheap and easy.

But after mulling it over for a few days, I decided -- Oh, why the hell not? I've never done it. I don't know how many chances I'll get. This was the Saints vs. the Falcons, the biggest rivalry in the NFL. The season-opener.

And, well, did I mention that I AM unemployed?

So after swallowing butterflies for days, I was up and early on Sunday morning to await the arrival of a fellow sports writer -- a veteran -- who was bringing me my press pass and agreed to let me ride with him to the Dome. Two hours after his announced arrival time, he did, giving us about an hour to fight New Orleans traffic and get to the Dome before kickoff.

Yeah. We kind of made it.

At one point along the way, my companion handed me my pass and I busied myself  attaching it to my self-made freelancer's ID lanyard and watching outside my window as the sea of black and gold Who Dats made their way to the Dome. And watched the clock.

At about 11:55, we finally got into the parking garage where my companion promptly didn't find his spot but one with some of the numbers on his parking pass. Close enough. So we got out and ran to the media gate, me in heels; him not.  I kept running, even after I hit a hole in the chipped concrete and rolled an ankle. The workers at the gate were very accomodating, recognizing that we were very late. So they wanded us quickly and checked our bags. (Yes, reporters are exempt from that stupid clear plastic baggie rule.)

Then we had to get past the press gate, where they checked our passes. My companion went ahead and breezed through. Me? Not so much. The security guard scanned my pass and said, "It's expired."

"Excuse me?"

Turns out, my companion had handed me a pass from an already-played pre-season game against the Kansas City Chiefs, not today's game against the Atlanta Falcons.

Yeah.

My companion then busied himself taking the blame for the mistake and urging the security folks to replace the old pass with the right one which, he explained, was in his car. (He didn't tell them it was parked in the wrong spot, however.) They did.

Meanwhile, Saints Coach Sean Payton was leading the traditional Who Dat pre-game chant with beloved former Saint Steve Gleason, who is living his life with ALS and teaching us all how to stop bitching about ours. It was very, very loud.

The next few minutes were spent taking the sloooooooow elevator ride up the press box and finding out where I was supposed to sit -- Auxiliary Press Box. I was lucky to be seated next to my sports buddy Chris who works for my hometown paper and is my Facebook and Twitter friend.  Then I tried to catch my breath, stop sweating (I thought everybody said it was cold up there), rolled my ankle to make sure it wasn't broken and get my bearings. Whew. I was there. Here.

If you lean forward, it's just like being there. Really.

I looked around and saw a bunch of folks I knew --  the press box crew I know so well from my 22 years of covering high school championship games in the Dome, local media folks, former co-workers, the PA announcer who tells all the press what's going on because nobody's watching the game, fellow members of the Louisiana Sports Writers Association and a few people that sports diehards would consider famous. I spent most of halftime hugging and kissing old friends, many of whom knew it was my first Saints game as a reporter thanks to a Facebook status that got 94 likes.

I watched the game, I took some notes, I watched the big screens as the Who Dats danced and acted silly,  I thanked the stats guys as they handed me updates after each quarter, I stood in line at the one ladies room, and I tried to get my stupid iPhone to work, but both my Twitter and Facebook apps were frozen. I did take a few photos and chat with Chris.  We talked about how, the Friday night before, I had covered one football game for three different outlets -- two newspapers and a web site. I do that just about every Friday night.

"You're a beast," he said. And it was a great compliment.

Everybody else had their laptops open. Some of them were working, but from my vantage point on the top row, it looked like most of them were watching their fantasy football teams. I texted my husband, who asked if I was having fun.

"It's just like high school but more of them and they're better dressed," I replied.

Then I realized that half of the people up there probably could not do what guys like Chris and I do on a Friday night -- carry our own equipment up to Row Z in the stadium, fight the spiders and the bugs and the TV and radio people who like to spread out, keep their own stats and play-by-play while live-tweeting, Facebooking and blogging, get their own post-game quotes, add it all up and knock out a story from inside their car on deadline with sweat dripping in your eyes. Some of them just have hair and makeup people.

(I know this is getting long, just bear with me. There's more!)


So, the game winds down and I figure out what my little sidebar story will be (Marques Colston) and I see folks rushing toward the elevator. Unlike on Friday nights, I don't really need to rush. But by the time I get to the elevator, there is a line. A long, long line, of men and women (mostly men), famous people and grunts like me, trying to get down to the bowels of the Dome. They let us in about eight at a time (depending on who's in there), but we do get bumped for the Falcons coaches (who do not look very happy), some NFL officials and other people much more important than us.

Eventually, I do make it down to the bottom, following my old editor Ted and my friend Chris to where, I presume, I'm supposed to go.  At one point, everybody takes a right so I do too -- right into the Saints locker room.

Now, I've been doing this 26 years. I've been in locker rooms, mostly empty ones. Interviews with high school kids are done on the field after the game and in the coach's office or the training room before. College players and coaches are brought to the interview room. The Zephyrs used to let me stand outside the locker room in a little cubbyhole we called my office. Everybody was happier.   I don't even go in my husband's locker room. They smell. Like locker rooms. And there are naked men in there. Yes, there were. I really didn't need to see that. I just wanted a few quotes.

So, I extricate myself as delicately as possible with help from the Saints PR guy, who says, "Since you're new, you might want to go to the interview room down the hall."

Yes. Yes I would, thank you. So I did.

An hour or so later, I head back up to the press box armed with a digital recorder full of quotes. An hour or so after that, I'm done with my little story on Marques Colston becoming the Saints all-time leading passer. An hour after that, I am so hungry I could eat a Superdome hotdog without regret as I wait for my companion to finish his second story of the day.

But I take a moment to appreciate the fact that I got to do this at least once, even if it did take 26 years.

It was worth the wait.



You can read my story here: Marques Colston's record breaking catch gets Saints back in the game

The truth hurts

When I was about 6 years old, my mother entered me in Houma's Little Miss Merry Christmas pageant. Actually, I was in it twice.

 I don't remember much of the first one. I remember the gorgeous dress my mom got me. It was midnight blue velvet with rabbit fur trim on the bottom and had a matching bonnet and a white rabbit fur muff (which I think I still have in my old keepsake trunk).

I didn't win.

The next year, I wore the same dress. Without the bonnet and without the muff. I wore white elbow length gloves instead. I remember a little more about that one. At one point we walked around in a big circle so the judges could see our "poise."  I made the finals. Then we had to stand on the stage, under the hot lights for the longest time, smiling. Just smiling.

Future reporter that I was, I watched the judges very carefully. I watched one man judge and one woman judge actually argue over me. The man wanted me to win. The lady wanted another girl to win. They argued over it for a long time -- it actually got a little heated, in fact. I know I was really starting to get tired. My mouth ached from holding my pageant smile forever.

I was the first runner up.

Later, when I told my parents and my grandmother about what happened, they kind of smiled at me and nodded indulgently.  They didn't believe me. And it broke my little heart

Well, how would they know? They were in the audience. BEHIND the judges. I was in front of them for what seemed like an eternity. And I swear that really happened. I became extremely frustrated that no one believed me. That might have hurt more than the fact that I didn't quite meet someone's standards of beauty and poise.

As my prize that night, I got a nice shiny loving cup and a dozen plastic roses (Yep. Still have both). I also got a lovely little Christmas charm bracelet that I absolutely adored.

Some time later (months? a year or so?) I very proudly decided to wear it to school. But at some point during recess, the clasp came loose and it fell off my wrist. A little while later, I noticed it on the wrist of an older girl. A Mean Girl.

I asked her to give it back. She said it was hers.

Near tears, I went to the teacher on duty, told her what was going on. She went to the girl and asked about the bracelet. The Mean Girl told the teacher that it was hers, that a relative had given it to her. I told her it was mine, that I had won it in a pageant.

The teacher didn't believe me. The Mean Girl actually laughed at me. Like I could ever be in a pageant and almost win. She didn't even know that two judges had nearly come to blows over me.

And it broke my little heart.

I remember both of those incidents as if they had happened yesterday. I can almost still feel the pain  of watching that girl walk away with my bracelet, knowing that I had lost, knowing that an adult had chosen her truth over mine. Once again, I didn't measure up.

 It hurt like hell.

Still kind of does, in fact.

Now, I'm not going to say I've never lied in my life. Sure I have:

I turned in my book report!
I don't know what happened.
Of course I'm old enough to drink.
I was home all night.
The check is in the mail.
I'm a size 10.
Yes, this is my natural color.
I'm busy.
It was great.
Even, "I love you too."

And I was believed.

But more than once, when it really, really mattered, I wasn't.

Just as I was told it would happen.


So I've told these stories to my own daughter, who is still in that "let's see what I can get away with" stage of adolescence. The child has looked me in the eye and said she didn't have homework, she did clean her room and she didn't drink the last soft drink in the fridge. I tell her that one day she's going to be really sick at school and need me to come get her and I won't. I try to tell her that she needs to tell the truth now so I'll believe her later. Trust is hard to gain, easy to lose and even harder to get back.

But the fact is, someday she will tell someone the truth about something that really, really matters,  and they won't believe her.  Someone will choose another truth over hers and break her heart.

I just hope it won't be me.





.

Her name was Samantha

All I ever wanted was for her to be safe.

From the day I left her mother sitting in an attorney's office and clutching the hand of the man she loved, I never knew if she was. I had no chance.

Just 19 days before she might have become ours to care for, her mother returned to her father, the man who had abandoned her, who left his partner and his unborn child to fend for themselves in a strange town, with strangers. It was left to us to care for them, as best we could, making sure they had a home and food and clothing and proper medical care.

But when he came back with promises of love and forever, we were lost. And so was the baby girl we would have named Elle and had already started to love.

We spent the next 12 years not knowing. Anything. How she was, where she was. Were they taking care of her? Was she safe? Was she happy?

Until one day last year when, on a whim, I typed a name into a search engine and found her mother. And her. Not Elle, but Samantha.  Blonde, blue-eyed, beautiful, about to turn 12 just like our daughter. But most important, safe. And seemingly happy.


My mind and my heart could finally rest. I knew she was well. I could wonder no more.

Until, for some strange reason, this week.

I searched again. And found another photo. This one of the same young girl, Samantha, lying in a hospital bed, her blond hair pulled back behind her on the pillow, her blue eyes closed, a tube in her mouth. And prayers from her family to their angel. In heaven.

The girl who would have been Elle died on June 12 in a hospital in Alabama. She had been riding a bicycle when she lost control. She received internal injuries, which led to sepsis, which led to her death one week after her accident. She was still 12 years old.

And my heart broke a little.

It broke for the young girl, just one month older than my daughter, who left this earth much, much too soon, who had so much of a life left to live. It broke for all the pain and suffering she had to endure. It broke for all the promises that were broken.

And it broke for her mother, the woman who almost gave her baby to me, who said time and again that she didn't want that baby, didn't need that baby, couldn't care for that baby.


But things happen.  Some say they happen for a reason. Maybe it was meant to be. Maybe I wasn't supposed to have Kim's baby. I was supposed to have the one I have. Maybe Kim was supposed to have hers, keep hers, love hers because it only would be for a little while. 

All along, as we danced around the potential adoption, all we both ever wanted was for that baby  to be safe.

That's the one thing we didn't get.



Click to read the blog post: Her name was Elle

Already

 My friend Daniell is counting days.

In just a few short weeks, she and her family and wealth of friends will mark the one year anniversary of the death of her husband, Brandon. He was one of two St. John the Baptist Parish Sheriff's deputies killed in the line of duty last August, murdered by madmen with machine guns for no apparent reason.

Although she needed no reminder of the date, the last time I saw my friend I tried -- gently -- to get her to prepare herself for the inevitable onslaught-to-come of anniversary stories on the news and in the newspapers. And, because I know how we work, the slew of media interview requests sure to come as the date approaches.

"I can't believe it's been a year already," she said.

Me neither.

But a year has indeed gone by. A year of birthdays, holidays, and just plain old Mondays. And they have flown by, seemingly in an instant. But not the grief. The grief goes slowly.


I have been amazed by her grace every day of the last year, including that one. I imagine myself in that situation. On the floor. Screaming. Never wanting to get up. I feel that way sometimes now and all I lost was my job.

But she got up that day and every day since. She goes to work. She smiles at strangers. She holds their hands and makes their nails look pretty. She rubs my feet (when I let her). She runs (a lot). And she helps the world remember her husband. 

But the grief never leaves.

It was 12 years ago today that I got that dreaded phone call in the middle of the night, telling me that my big brother had driven off a lonely highway and into a bayou down in the toes of Louisiana's boot. He had been on his way to the annual Grand Isle Tarpon Rodeo for a weekend of fun and fishing. Then he took his eyes off the road for just a second. And he wasn't wearing his seat belt.


I have spent the last 12 years trying to remind the world - or at least my blog followers and Facebook friends -- that I did, indeed, once have a big brother named Rhett, who picked on me and teased me and made me believe in the Boogie Man. That there once was a man who loved rock and roll and played mean drums on his dashboard. And fishing. And his wife and kids. I never want him to be forgotten.

Some may get tired of the annual ode to my brother and my memories of him. If so, feel free to move along. It's how I remember him. And it's how I grieve. And I still do.


He was my brother. The man who walked me down the aisle at my wedding, who stood there and said (enthusiastically) "I Do," when asked "Who gives this woman?" Who got sick later that night (heh heh). Who held my head the first time I threw up after drinking too much. Who drank vinegar and pickle juice. Who laughed when I fell in the bayou and told me the alligators were going to eat me. Who made my uncle let him jump ship the night we said farewell to our father, so he could be by my side.  Who showed me the shooting star across the sky. Who dropped everything to come to the hospital to wait with me as another woman gave birth to my child.


And he was gone much, much too soon.

So we have a date on the calendar, circled. Marked forever. And this weekend is the annual Tarpon Rodeo in Grand Isle, forever reminding us of where he was going, what he should have been doing.

But we need no reminders. It's only been 12 years. Already.

Solve for x

 

Since being laid off from my job as an erstwhile news and sports reporter/overqualified clerk for The (some) Times-Picayune roughly eight months ago, I have pondered my future.

According to those who employed me for 26 years, it isn't very bright. The newspaper business is dying, they said. The digital age is destroying it, they said. And I can't keep up, they said.

Or else I'm too old.

And there aren't very many other games in town.

So I've had to take stock. Consider my options. It may be time to change professions.  There is a Dollar General across the street from my house. A deli next door. A Subway around the corner.  I did consider going into the funeral business. I mean, they'll never be put out of business. Right?

The truth is, a part of my heart has always wanted to teach. From the time I was a little girl who played school with my grandparents in their kitchen, I was drawn to teaching.  I pretended to be my own elementary school teachers -- well, some of them.  I imagined my classroom with bright bulletin boards. I imagined the bright faces of my students. Later I imagined a book-lined office in a college hall.

Although I always wanted to be a writer  -- a journalist -- in the back of my mind I also wanted to teach. So, after switching my major from Communications to English, I minored in Secondary Education.  The only thing I didn't do was student teach and take the old NTE exam.

I should have.

Because now, if I want to teach (and I really, really do), I have to pass the Praxis exam.

And I can't.

No. Seriously. I mean I really can't.

Oh. I breezed through the English and writing portions with no problems, getting my required 175 (plus) on the first try. But the math is another story entirely.

On my first try, I got a 173 -- just two points shy of the requirement. One more good guess and I might have made it. I actually felt pretty good about it. I mean, I knew there were some that I got right. I'm not a total idiot. But some of the questions were completely foreign to me.

 I had to wait 30 days to try again. In the mean time, my husband, The Coach, The Special Education Teacher/Coach, and my 12-year-old daughter tutored me. Mostly, they just laughed at me and my inability to solve for x. Or y. Or z. Or just about anything else for that matter.                                                                                                       \
 I just can't do it. I look at the graphs, the charts, the x's and the y's, and it might as well be written in Russian. (I didn't say Greek because I actually took two semesters of Greek and can read it a little.)  I just can't wrap my brain around math. It makes no sense.

I mean I can add (a little). And substract (some). I can even multiply and divide.  I have been figuring out yards per carry, batting averages and time of possession for two decades. But when somebody asks me what time Train A traveling at 50 miles per hour and Train B traveling at 70 miles per hour are going to meet, I ask, "What time is deadline?"

And ask for Cool Whip if you offer me "pi."


And yet, the Powers That Be at The Times-Picayune put me in charge of the cash drawer in the River Parishes Bureau. Sort of explains why now they are The Sometimes Picayune. But I digress.


This is nothing new.   I started to struggle in math in elementary school. My mom got me a tutor in junior high.  I still failed Algebra I. And II.  Thank God there were no LEAP tests in my day or I might still be in the sixth grade.  I did have to take the ACT, of course. I scored a 34 in English! And a 13 in Math. Thankfully,  I only had to take one college math course, and I think the professor gave me the D I got.

 

I had told my husband these stories, and he certainly knew I was mathematically challenged. It's why he took over the checkbook long ago. But he really had no idea of the depth and breadth of my problem until we sat together at our dining room table with the Praxis book and the practice tests. I won't try to recreate the conversations here. I'll just tell you that, on more than one occasion, he gave me that look that says, "Seriously?"

Seriously.

And on my second attempt, I got a 169. Yes, I went backwards. And I knew it even before I hit the "report scores" button.

But, apparently, there are Powers That Be who think I can't teach young children how to punctuate and capitalize their sentences unless I can find x and y. So I must try again for that elusive 175. And again. And perhaps again.

But there is hope. Today my husband came home and told me that he has found me a tutor, one who (I hope) will not give me "that look" or laugh at me when I can't find the x. That's probably a good thing, otherwise the Coach might become one.

                                                         

Saints

This is a Saint.

In the first few months after The Coach and I adopted our baby girl, we were giddy. It wasn't just that we had this absolutely adorable new baby in our arms and I had no stretch marks to show for it.  It was because after years of trying, years of disappointment, years of infertility treatments and millions of tears, we had gotten the payoff.  A baby. Our baby.

So we had a tendency to shout it from the rooftops for a while; "We adopted! We're so lucky!"

And sometimes, a lot of times actually, people would say, "Y'all are such good people for adopting that baby."

Wait. What? 

No. We're not.

We're a couple who wanted a baby. I am a woman who couldn't have one. So we turned to adoption. And we were fortunate enough to find a wonderful woman who was willing to allow us to have hers. What a miracle that is.

I mean, no one tells regular parents how "good" they are for having a baby, do they?

Do they?

What we are is persistent. And determined. Certainly creative in the way we went about it. And very, very lucky.  Because adoption is hard. It's expensive. It's emotionally draining. But it's so, so worth it in the end. Even when that adorable pink moppet grows up to be a snarky tween who refuses to come out of her room.

But it does not make me a saint.


People tell me that sometimes, though. Now it's because,  for the last eight months I have been the primary caregiver for my 82-year-old mother-in-law, who moved in with us after her assisted living home determined that she needed too much assistance.


Yes, while my husband went of to teach and my daughter went off to learn and the newspaper went from printing seven days a week to three,  I have gotten her out of bed, gotten her to the bathroom, made her breakfast, cut up her pancakes, fixed her oatmeal just the way she likes it, gotten her dressed, put on her bra (but I refuse to cup her boobs. That she has to do herself), washed her hair, given her her pills, fixed her snacks and, three times a week, taken her to and from her dialysis treatments. Sometimes I have had to pick her up off the floor. Sometimes I have had to clean her up.

And people have told me that, because I am doing all of those things and "allowing" my mother-in-law to live with us, I am a saint. Or, at the very least, I am earning my angel's wings and securing my spot in heaven.

I guess I hope that is true. But I am not a saint.

I have not always done the above happily. Or willingly. Or sweetly. Or gently.

I have been angry.  I say the "F" word. A lot. I have yelled. At her. At my daughter. At my husband, who at least had the distraction of baseball to keep him sane. I've got nothing but a 40-minute power walk in the morning.

I have some people thinking I have become an alcoholic. I have developed a taste for Vodka and I have reacquainted myself with Jose Quervo, whom I broke up with after one really bad night in college.

And I have become a shut-in. I don't go places. I don't do things. Sometimes, I feel trapped in my own home.

One day as The Coach walked in, I walked out.

"I have to go somewhere," I said.

"Where?" he asked, truly bewildered.

"Anywhere," I replied.

I went to Big Lots. And cried.

I have resented the hell out of her -- for invading my house, for ruining our family time, for demanding my time, for making me wait on her, for wanting peanut butter instead of the delicious meal I just cooked. Even though I know that none of this is her fault.

So while people are telling me I'm a saint, I'm feeling evil and mean and ashamed of myself for wishing that she wasn't here. That we didn't have to do this.  That I didn't have handrails on my toilet. That I didn't have to listen to her TV instead of the one I am trying to watch in the living room. That I didn't have to hear her in the bathroom because she can't close the door when she goes. That I had never bought that fucking beeper she uses to summon us. That it wouldn't go off  just as my husband and I are about to get busy. Or in the middle of it.  That my husband, my child and I could go do something -- anything -- together as a family, but we can't unless she have a "sitter." That we had one we could count on. That our lives would go back to normal.

And that those who are pinning wings on my back won't think less of me for admitting it.

Because I am not a saint.  But I wish I was.

Anniversary

D-Day.

Minus one.

One year ago today, we all were summoned. Told to report to the Mother Ship. There we would be told, one way or another, if we were to be kept and brought into the digital age, or not. If we were needed, or not. If we were valuable, or not. Necessary, or not. The answer to be revealed in a large white envelope.

One by one we were led to "the slaughter." That is what it was. A slaughter.More than 200 were severed. In more ways than one.


Today we are remembering that day, what it felt like, what it looked like, what it sounded like. The sobs, the tears, the hurt. The anger.  Still mourning what we all lost, the greatness that once was. We are revealing what we did after. What we've done since.

Some have been healed, moved on, gotten over it. Some have put themselves back together again. Some have managed to walk away from closed doors and found open windows -- or closed windows and opened doors. Something like that.

Some believe it when we are told we are better off. Some are happy about that. Some are believing the promise of better things. Hoping.

Some are still floundering. Like me.
 
No. It's not the worst thing in the world, even though at times it feels like it and sometimes I want to have a pity party for myself. And I have had a few of those.

It's no fun what I do now, searching for a job, for a new career, for a new direction at 51. Seeing others do what I should be doing. Not being wanted. Losing faith. Losing confidence.  Losing a life, an identity and a career all in one fell swoop. Needing two more stupid points on the stupid math test. And catering to a stubborn, hard-headed 82-year-old mother-in-law with a beeper.

But I still got to write. I gave up my life of crime and returned to sports. I got to go on some amazing new adventures with some great new people, introduced myself to a few new readers, and a few new athletes. Did some good work.

And today, as I began yet another pity party, I got a message from a colleague. One I know mostly by name. One I now will never forget. Because he took the time to tell me this:

"As journalists we often look up to certain people along the way, and you were one of them for me. Obviously this type of message doesn't get you back doing what you'd like and are meant to do, but I felt compelled to share it with you. I always considered you a top-notch pro in your field. Because of people like you I've learned to appreciate every opportunity I'm granted to cover a sporting event or tell an athlete's story. While the circumstances surrounding your departure from the Times Pic was completely unfair, please understand you made a positive impact on some of us whether you knew it or not."

I do now. And it means more to me than anything.

Thank you, my friend, for the anniversary gift.