Happy Birthday, Gregory

Today is Gregory's birthday. He is now 20. We rejoice that last week, Thursday, we were able to celebrate with him here in Pretoria. Then, on Saturday at around 5:30 pm, here, he started his trip back to Beaver Falls and Geneva College. He arrived at the Pittsburgh airport just before midnight on Sunday. He traveled for about 38 hours to get back. We are glad that he is so young. On Sunday, he was still a teenager. Now he is 20. Soon he will start feeling the effects of such long travel. Now, he started classes on Monday morning.

Of course, he wasn't as young as the photo above. One of the problems with being on the field is you don't have all the photos you want. I'd love to put a baby picture up but unfortunately we don't have any with us. I had a couple of old photos in my wallet, though. Believe it or not, he still looks like this, more or less. The more is the beard, of course.

One of my favorite stories of his birth was my encounter with Eric when I arrived home from the hospital. Nancy and Gregory were still at Hopkins. Emily was at the Cheeks house. It was kind of late. Eric lived on our street and had a substance abuse problem. At the time, it was mainly alcohol. When I got home, Eric was standing on the street corner. I shouted across the street to him that Gregory was born. He was happy along with me and crossed over to my side to offer me a drink from his brown paper bag. I politely declined but was touched he wanted to share with me.

Anyway, Happy Birthday, Gregory!
Love, Mom and Dad