Happy 18th brother Brown!

In addition to doing what's required and wishing you a happy big day, I thought I'd briefly reflect on a memory that we shared together. And btw, I realize there are other, potentially more meaningful occurrences to which I could make reference, but hey, this one's not too shabby. Here it is:

The group spent the first half hour of the practice sharing reflections and thoughts on the first chapter of the "How to work as a team in sharing God's spirit" book. Of course, during this time, you and I didn't say a single thing considering how out of the group of eight, we were the only ones to have conveniently not been given copies of the book. However, from the book club session we were able to gather that the chapter had, in lots of different ways, repeatedly stated the importance of good listening and cooperation in any successful team. Not sure exactly why we hadn't been given a copy, or why the band leader had expected us both to have had them handy for the session, we were more than excited when the playing-music part of the practice began.

After going through a couple identical sounding songs, we began playing another one. About half way through the song the keyboard player non-chalantly leaned over and said into the mic: "Hey Rich, uh, I think we have to turn up the amp. Seb can you hear the amp? Yea, Rich, yea, let's just turn that up." I jumped in "the amp volume is fine." She continued "O, I just thought, you know, cuz you were having some trouble staying on rhyt, yea Rich, let's just turn that up." I insisted "you really don't need to, the volume is not a problem." After having Rich go through with the command, she motioned to the band to pick up where we had left off. Once we finally finished the tune, Rich turned around to face the band and asked, in keeping with what we had all just learned from our group pow-wow session, if anyone had any suggestions for improving the song. Everyone emphatically shook their heads when you interjected, "Well Rich, we could try going accapela on the one verse and then, measure by measure, have everyone come back in to build the suspense. This would also strengthen the ending with the contrast presented between just the single piano melody and whole band playing together." "O, OK, great idea. Isn't that a great idea guys," he responded, eliciting unanimous head nods.

After seeming to have really internalized your comment, he turned on his mic, tapped it twice and said to the keyboardist "In the intro, lift your pinkey off the middle-c." She thought it was a great suggestion and then made some comment about how you were so brave to speak up with your true feelings, and how when you did, you were listened to. Kind of.

Happy birthday bro.

NOTE: As you might have noticed, the post appears to have been published a day before your actually birthday. The fact is that I didn't get your birthday day wrong, I only started the post on Saturday night so I guess that's why it appears as having been published then.