It was a fall day in Heidelberg. Trees were turning, air was misty, streets were a little dampish; the kind of day MamaCharlie and I have referred to as a "Heidelberg Day" for many years now. In the same building where Patton died, my son was born. My first son. I remember the first time I saw him, an orangy-peachy color with lots of dark hair. The first time I held him I thought to myself, "This changes everything." And it did. I moved up the evolutionary ladder from resonably responsible young man to totally committed father. I would hold four more newborns in my arms and experience the awe of it, but Matt was my first. And it did change everything. It changed my sleep patterns, my aversion to baby crap, but mostly my estimation of myself. I became a larger person, more aware, more compassionate, more tuned into the needs of this little person and his mother. I became more...I became better...I became...a Dad.
In the years since, many things have caught my attention and many accomplishments have come my way. I climbed up the chain to my professional goal, to be a First Sergeant. Each promotion and award I received brought more respect and admiration. The world has seen the development of computers and all they have done to and for us...technology has changed our lives over and over...phones lost their dials...then became smaller...then mobile...then smaller and more mobile...now you can have a computer that plays music and calculates the tip and takes a picture and fits in your shirt pocket...and oh yea, it's a phone, too. Rockets have landed on the moon, space shuttles have blown up, the internet was established, cars lost horsepower and gained MPG until they got their horsepower back and kept the MPH (my wife's Grand Prix is a V6 that develops 200 hp and gets 32 MPG on the highway!). Two presidents have been impeached, countless senators and congressmen have been scandalized, and a black man has been elected president. I have been in many strange places, taken troops to war and returned, and have held five of my own beautiful newborns that I love dearly and thirteen grandchildren on my lap. And so much more has transpired that I can't even recall. But in all that I have experienced and all that I have seen and felt. Nothing has ever overshadowed that misty Heidelberg Day when I held my "Peeky Boy" in my arms and for the first time became a father...25 September 1969. Happy Birthday, Matt.