[Elspode]

I was going steady with another girl when Lane and I collided. She made it pretty clear that she was somewhat less sexually inhibited than the girl I was with, and it wasn't long before I let her prove it. It was a good move for a not quite 16 year old boy to make, as it turned out.

I won't go into the sordid details of our torrid hippie relationship, but it was life changing for me...and apparently, still is. While we eventually parted six or eight months after first hooking up, we stayed close. Our binding tie was music. In fact, the binding tie with all of the people I've been rambling about was - and is - Music.

Boyfriends, girlfriends, houses, jobs, body parts, friends, lovers...all have come and gone in the intervening years since we were all so young and earnest in our formative GHS years, but somehow, against all odds and defying all reason...we five (and our sixth, Kathy) have remained. Until this particular band configuration, none of us had ever all played together, but each of us has always played with the other, either casually, in a band, in twos and threes and such. In the case of Lane and I, our basically full time partnership now spans 17 years, but again, we've *always* played music together. Between musical efforts, Life has gone on, and jobs, children, deaths, joys, sorrows, crises and triumphs have been shared in some varying measure between all of us. I have helped move these people from humble homes to more suitable digs. They have helped me paint and patch and pack and proceed along my life path.

Lane and her husband Lou were the people who first opened my eyes to Paganism, and now my life revolves around alternative spirituality and the community which follows such paths. That awakening, and creative efforts associated with it is what led to me meeting my wife.
The seeds of my entire beautiful existence were sown in the furrows dug by the people in that last picture.

*Now* do you understand why I am blessed?