January 12^th, 2004. I can still remember this day as if it were yesterday.  I was given a ticket to my company’s Luxury Box at the Fleet Center to see the Boston Bruins play.  My manager gave it to me for participating in a contest.  They host a series of games every year called “Tech Jeopardy”, and I was lucky enough to make the team that year.  This was a reward for my team, because we made it as far as we did.

My fellow teammate, coworker, and friend “E” and I decided to ride down to the game together.  I had told him about a great BBQ/beer place that was on the way, so we planned on eating there beforehand, then parking at the Museum of Science and walking to the game.  I picked him up at his house, and we headed out for what turned out to be one of the best nights of my life.

Our first stop was Redbones BBQ in Somerville, MA.  It is my favorite rib joint of all time.  They have 25 beers on tap, most of which are imports.  “The Wheel of Beer” is there for those who just can’t decide on which beer to start with.  I say start with, because it takes more than one to make it through the piles of swine, beans and rice that they bring to you.

Stepping into Redbones makes you feel as if you are in a backwoods town in Louisiana, not a suburb of Boston.  Drinks in Mason Jars, piles of paper towels, and kitschy blues memorabilia that cover the walls add to the authenticity.  It doesn’t feel like a cookie cutter T.G.I.Factory-Produced, sterilized for your enjoyment experience.   This is flavor country…

I always enjoy the experience of initiating a true food lover like myself to Redbones.  “E” was an excellent candidate.  An ex-chef and aficionado of that which may be affectionately referred to as “The Sauce”, he was looking forward to the stop as much as I was.

Sitting at the bar, we began the event.  For me, there is a finite set of rules that go with the visit.  Drinks always begin with a pint of Hoegaarden, a spicy smooth Belgian Wheat Beer.  This was a lucky find one trip, while tempting fate with the “Wheel of Beer”.  Let me explain the wheel, by the way.

The “Wheel of Beer” is a wheel they have behind the bar that looks like the Wheel of Fortune up-ended.  It is split into 25 parts, each of which is numbered.  Each tap is assigned a number.  If you can’t decide on what to drink, the bartender spins the wheel and you end up with a glass of whatever it lands on.  Sometimes it’s good, sometimes not so much…

Several Hoegaardens and a plate of ribs later, “E” and I were ready to continue on our trip.  Truth be told, we both would have been happy trading our Box Seat tickets for more beer and BBQ.  Considering that the tickets were a gift from our boss, we decided that our fate that night was not at the bottom of a glass at that bar.  “Next stop, The Museum of Science”

             So, there is a trick to the parking at the Museum of Science.  If you come back for your car after the parking attendant desk closes, which is usually around eleven o’clock p.m., then there is no one to pay.  They leave the gate open so you can just leave.  This was a little something that I learned that night.

A short walk later and we were at the Fleet Center.  This was my first time going to the Fleet.  It was also my first time getting a treat like box seats.  They really make you feel special when you ascend that escalator to the Suites; part of an elite club, even if only for a few hours.

The attendant for our Suite greeted us at the door.  Several people from our group had already arrived.  I think we were actually the last to arrive for the event.  The game hadn’t started, so all was well.

              After greeting everyone, we headed for the beer fridge and food.  We had just eaten ourselves sick at Redbones, and now we were back at it.  The way that I saw things, was that it was all part of the experience.  For us not to eat and drink would have been sacrilegious to the whole experience, like spitting in the face of the achievement that put us in those seats that night.  All of us there had studied so hard, and did our best in the Jeopardy tournament.  This was the reward for our effort.

              My supervisor came up to us with exciting news.  “Do you know what tonight is?” Dave asked.

“No,” we replied.

“It’s Cam Neely Night.  They are retiring his number,” he said.

The night was getting better and better as it went along.  Dinner at my favorite place, a hockey game in the box, and we are going to see Cam Neely’s Number retired.  It just seemed that the night was building toward something amazing.

              So, the Bruins didn’t win it that night.  At that point, the game was a side note to everything else that we had enjoyed.  We all spent more time enjoying each other’s company than the game.  At work, everyone puts on a mask that hides their private self from you.  Things like this allow people to take those masks off and expose their private side without fear.  I felt lucky to get to know some of my co-workers a little more intimately.

Tired and full, “E” and I made our way back to the car.  We both had such an excellent night and felt fulfilled.  We saw a legend of Hockey’s number retired.  We got to sit in a luxury box for a sporting event, which at the time I considered to be a once in a lifetime event.  And, we got FREE PARKING in Boston!!!

              After a weary drive back to New Hampshire, I dropped “E” off at his house.  We had talked all the way home about how great the night had been.  The next morning we both had to work, so we were ready for rest.

I headed over to my Mother and Father In-Laws’ house to sleep for the night.  Sunflower, my wife, had spent the night there so that she wouldn’t be alone.  Our house at the time was a one hundred and fifteen year old New Englander that had quite a personality.  It would talk and creak all night, so we decided that it would be easier for all to stay in Manchester that night.  It cut twenty-five miles off of my trip.

When I rolled in it was around Twelve Thirty in the morning.  I quietly slipped into the sofa bed with Sunflower and thought about the night I just had.  I knew that it would be something that I would never forget.  I drifted off to sleep feeling that all of my work on the Jeopardy team paid off.

“Honey”

“Yeah,” I said.

“My water broke”

“Huh,” I said groggily, “Are you sure?”

“Yeah, I am sure.  The bed is soaking wet.”

I looked at the clock, when I could force my eyes open.  The clock read two-twenty a.m.  It took a minute for the gravity of the situation to set in.  Then there was panic.  Oh, my god.  I have to get her to the hospital.  I have to get everything together.  I have to wake my In-Laws.  This is it.

              “Calm down, honey.  We have plenty of time.  I am going to go take a shower and get washed up.  You get things together and wake my parents up.”  Her calmness instantly set me at ease.  If she was calm, and she was the one who had to deliver the baby, then I had no reason to panic.  I am usually the calm one in the midst of a crisis.  The roles were reversed, and I was perfectly fine with it.  I let her tell me what she needed to bring my first child into the world.

              I gathered our things and woke her parents as she had asked.  The car seat had been installed for about a week, because we knew that the time would be coming soon.  With the help of my amazing Mom and Dad In-Law, we were packed up and on the road to the hospital.  Amanda was a high risk pregnancy, so we had to go to Hanover, NH to the Dartmouth-Hitchcock Hospital.

Sunflower and I in one car, her parents in the other, we began the trek to Hanover. Two Forty-Five in the morning.  It was so dark and clear out as we headed up I-89.  We both were full of new emotions.  The kind that one person cannot express to another, unless they have shared in the experience of bringing a new life into this world; something that is a piece of both of you, yet unique and its own being.  With Mae on the radio, not another soul on the highway, we took the next big step in the rest of our lives.