Ok guys, write a caption for this photo..

Piggy 3
Originally uploaded by 3rdcoop.

Time to get creative guys, who's got the best caption? post them in the form of a comment to this post.

If you click on the picture, it takes you to the flikr website. Once you're there you can see other pics from Lillian's first Halloween and some of us just farting around the house (you know how WE do it!)

Breaking the Silence

What's up guys!

I haven't posted in a while. As you know I've been busy, and I have a bit more miles on my pickup these days. As far as Thanksgiving goes, we will be in Houston for that. James and Mike, I'm really looking forward to hanging out with you on this happier occasion. Rob, we'll miss you guys. After I get back into a routine up here I want to plan a time to get down there to check out your place in Galveston. Jen & Enrique can't stop raving about it.

Speaking of them, I wish they were coming to Houston for Thanksgiving too. Rob, you're absolutely right about Aunt Gay. When I lived in Chicago, she always urged me to come down to St. Louis for Thanksgiving (and Christmas if she could get us to). I felt more than welcome; I felt wanted.

Jen brought up the whole hotel deal to me, which to me seems like a minor missunderstanding being blown out of proportion (with most of the blowing being done by Mom apparently). She got the charge removed from her card, which is good. She wants to come down to Houston to hang out with us guys but she feels unwelcome. They need to resolve this. Jen wants to go down there herself sometime which I thought was a good idea.

ANYWAY, James what was that whole girl from JV thing about? Why did Robbie's jaw supposedly fall off? I GOTTA KNOW!! I JUST GOTTA!!

Turkey Day

As of right now, it looks like we are going to head towards Little Rock for Thanksgiving. Nice. Not thrilling, but nice.

While on the subject of the Holidays, I just want to say that it irritates me that Mom is so adament that it be just us and our families, i.e. Jennifer and Enrique are NOT invited. It's not like they don't know that they are being left out. How do you think it makes Aunt Gay feel? How would she treat us if we lived in Mizzouri? You betcher ass she would make sure that we had a place to spend Holidays. I could go on, but the bottom line is that Holidays are not the time to circle the wagons. It's a time to think about reaching out to others that don't have their families close by.

You know, both of our parents have good points to be copied and others points to be observed and avoided. Say what you want about Dad, he was a giver who always shared what he had with others; family, friends, friends of family, dogs! I hope the same can be said about me.

This Thanksgiving

Hey everyone. Hope you’re all well.

What are y’all’s plans for Thanksgiving? We’ll be going to Mom’s house this year. We’ve done Turkey Day the last few years at the in-laws’ place so this year is Mom’s turn. I sure hope y’all are going to be there too. Since by this time next year, my family and I will likely be in Jacksonville, this may be the last time in a while that we can all do a holiday together.

Mikey, I hope you enjoyed New York. Do you think Paychex will relocate you or have you been assured of staying in Houston? Like you, I’ve been having fun watching A&M creep up on everyone in the Big 12 but unlike you I think they have a major reality check coming up. A&M reminds me of last year’s Dallas Cowboys; a solid if unspectacular team that is benefitting from gritty play, solid coaching and good luck. To wit, look how the Cowboys seem to be coming back to earth this season. I’m not saying A&M won’t be great again, I just don’t think the ’04 Aggies are quite there yet. Still, it is fun watching them win again.

Well, Aunt Dorothy called me the other evening. I was watching UT (now there’s a good team, I hate ‘em but dammit, gotta give credit where it’s due) bitch slap Texas Tech all over their home field when she called me. In case y’all didn’t know, she also has the ramble-on-for-hours trait that dad had and that I have. In fact, she went on for so long that I had to ask her to stop. I just didn’t feel like talking about it and doing so with her was darkening my mood (see my last post to what a good weekend we had). She did tell me that she is now of the opinion that dad did not consider Centex to be community property. Fat lot of fucking good that does us, I thought. Oh well, I really don’t care anymore. At this point I think I’m just content to let Susan buy me out when all of this is said and done. That’s the way I’m thinking right now anyway.

Lastly, we had Megan’s senior pictures made at Glamour Shots the other day. Ho-lee She-it. All I saw were the little B&W thumbnails they sent Erica home with but even from those little things I can tell that they’re going to be devastating. As pretty as Megan is, she’s the type who comes across even better in photos. In fact, they came out so good that the manager of the store called Erica and asked her if she would mind him making a 17”x20” copy of one and putting it on the store wall. We should get them this week and we’ll mail copies to y’all.

Our weekend

This weekend was Megan's Senior Homecoming. Here she is with her friend (no, not boyfriend, though Mom questioned him pretty sharply as to why he wasn't dating Megan) Peter. She's Marilyn Monroe and he's supposed to be JFK. Here they are with two more of their friends who are supposed to be Danny and Sandy from Grease:




We had Mom and Joe, Sandy and Kacy, Eloiza and Wes (Erica's sister and her boyfriend) and a lot of Megan's and Courtney's friends over. It was a nice time.

On a lighter note

Because things have been so heavy and serious of late, I thought I'd give y'all some humor recommendations. First of all, if you haven't yet, you all really should see "Team America." I don't have the time to do a review of any sort and I wouldn't want to spoil any of it anyway. All I'll say is that I almost broke a rib laughing.

Secondly, I found a hilarious website to waste my time with. The guy's a gifted cartoonist, that much is obvious, but his real talent is in taking other peoples' cartoons and inserting his own dialogue. Here's a link to an index of old Spider-Man newspaper comics that he has done this to.

Get ready to have your jaw fall off, Robbie

Do you remember Neely Burbank? She was JVHS class of '87, if you don't. I remember her as a rather mouthy kid from high school (she was a freshman when I was a senior) and, because she liked to talk shit, Scott Orr dubbed her "Nymphy." Not too clever, I know, but Scott wasn't exactly famous for his wit. I remember her mainly because she and I worked together at TGI Fridays back in 1990 back in my first desperate post-college years. Anyway, while wasting my employer's money perusing the jvalumni.com website, I happened across her profile.

Log on and read it, Rob. Really.

Checking in

Hey guys. Hope you are all doing well this week. Mikey, if you can, try to post from New York and let us know what it's like up there. I hope you're enjoying your training for your new job.

Mark, good talking to you the other day. One day at a time does it. I don't know what help I can give you, just know that I'm here.

I had a long talk with Abercrombie the other day and it's looking more and more that we're going to end up going to Florida after Megan finishes high school next year. ASG is completing the purchase of another independent adjusting firm that will give us an immediate footprint, and a large one too, in the Jacksonville market. I'd be sent to run that office. We'll see, a lot can still happen between now and next summer.

Robbie, if you email me photos of the beachhouse, I'll post them.

Later.

Here at the same job.

James, your post was very eloquent. Something has forever changed. For me, I have been so busy dealing with other things in life that I don't think it has hit me with full force yet. Like you, I am trying to take things as they come and not suppress any emotion.

I haven't had time to miss Dad yet. He used to always start our phone conversations asking me "How's your business doing?" Then he would listen patiently for 20 seconds until a slight pause in my sentences before his 30 minute disertation on the philosophy of foundation repair would begin. I am going to miss those talks. Really. It will be hard on me after my next sale to not have Dad to call and share my exitement.

Mike, study hard. The Lord loves a working man. Don't trust Whitey!
Mark, Thank you for what you are doing. It feels good to know that a Cooper is still running CHL.

See ya boys,

Here at the new job

Hey guys. Wow I dont really know where to start. I'm here staying busy working at Paychex. It's really like summer school back in college. I'm studying my ass off and taking tests on the internet all day. I'll be in Rockchester NY. in a week from now. I cant really say I love it so far, but I'm sure once training is over it get alot more exciting.

James, although I'm probably not as good at articulating my feelings about this as you are, I certianly am having my issues too. I just know that nothing will be the same.

First post

Guys, as a way to acknowledge the obvious, and to put out there how I'm feeling right now, here is an email I just sent to a friend that spells out as best as I can write the emotions swirling around inside me. I would imagine that y'all are going through the same thing.

Hi Kev. I hope you're well.

To get this out of the way, yes I watched the debate last week though I had a hard time concentrating on it. And for what it's worth, I thought Kerry did well, and probably even "won" the debate, inasmuch as anyone could be considered to win in such a scripted format. Hell, I even liked him better afterwards, and felt better about the idea of him being the commander in chief. It looks like Bush's lead in the polls is evaporating too and it should be interesting to see if Rove & Co. will be able to hold off Kerry in this final month of this campaign. So, kudos to your guys.

But . . . I just can't make myself give a damn anymore. All the old websites I used to read obsessively and all the old political manias that used to preoccupy me so just don't interest me right now. Hell, I probably won't even vote next month. I just don't care. It doesn't seem important anymore.

I know you're probably worried about me so I'll tell you what it's like to lose my father. I'm not really emotional by nature so I'm not wailing and rending my hair in public. I like to keep a cool and calm facade and deal with my emotions on the inside. My brothers are all the same too. In fact, many people remarked how all 4 of us were able to keep our composure when we spoke in tribute of my dad at his funeral last weekend. All of his other friends were blubbering and wailing like a bunch of Sicilians. That's how my dad raised us.

It's hard to put into words how I feel on the inside. My closest brush with death before this was when my grandma died 11 years ago. But she was sick for a long time and when her time finally came, it was time. We all had had time to prepare for it, even though when it happened, it still hurt. But it didn't feel like my dad's time. He was only 62 and died of heart failure. I don't understand it. I though he had the strongest heart in the world, being how active he was. This was a man who loved nothing more than driving his grandchildren around his neighborhood on the back of his Harley and who had just celebrated his 62nd birthday 4 months ago by going skydiving. My dad was very much a Teddy Roosevelt "live the vigorous life" type. He taught us (i.e., me and my brothers) to be bold, to be brave, and to always have the courage to look at life with a clear eye. There were few things in life the he had greater contempt for than excessive sentiment or wishful thinking. Though he was undoubtedly a sonofabitch a lot of times, and like all humans was rife with contradictions, he was also in many ways a great man. He was my role model and, though I sometimes hated his guts, I also worshiped the ground under his feet. He was that kind of man.

But as to how I feel, I can't say that the full impact has sunk in on me yet. Everything still feels really surreal to me. I have times when I get emotional and in fact they seem to be occuring more often lately. I think this is probably natural too, so I'm not fighting it. I have a feeling that it would be deeply unhealthy to suppress this so I just let myself give into it in my private moments. I am having trouble concentrating at work too.

The way I phrased how I feel - and one of my brothers agreed with the analogy - is that I feel like somebody has cut me open, cut away some of my guts, and sewed me back up. I feel like I'm "incomplete," if you know what I mean. I also feel like I have just come out of this surgery and the morphine is beginning to wear off. My dominant emotions right now, when I do "get emotional" - are anger and sadness.

I'm still working out regularly and I even attended a Toastmasters meeting in Mobile last week. I did this both as a tribute to my dad, who loved TM, and also as a way to combat the depression that I feel is lurking nearby. When I was active in it here in S.A. I always felt better after a TM meeting no matter how sour I may have felt before I went into it. It's a wonderful organization full of very positive people.

That's how I feel right now. I hope you're well right now, too.

James

P.S. Did you go to the reunion last night? I did not. Kristin Holt, formerly Kris Mayfield, contacted me thru jvalumni.com and tried to change my mind but I told her that though I was flattered she wanted me to go, I would not. Too far, too expensive, and I am in totally the wrong frame of mind to do something like that right now.