Ned Henry March 13, 2021 · nedhenry.medium.com

3:30 PM — So I’m feeling ok today. A little tired but OK. Talked with my nephew Stephen on the phone today. He lives outside of Portland, OR. When he was 15 in 1996, I flew 3 nephews out to Atlanta to help me move from my old house in the suburbs to the smaller house and much better location inside the perimeter as we call it in Atlanta. Quality of life in this city is much better (in my opinion) inside the perimeter. It’s a long story but what the hell. So I had this girlfriend, Colleen. We were pretty serious. I had gotten my marriage to Violet annulled and Colleen and I were looking at houses and well I thought I’d get married again until I decided not to marry her and walked away from the relationship. When we were together though, I decided to buy tickets to the Olympics in 1996 for something every day. I wanted to throw myself in te middle of it as much as I could. So I bought 4 tickets to something every day of the Olympics. The plan was that Colleen and I and 2 others we would invite would go experience the Olympics. Well we broke up and I still had the tickets which you had to buy 2 years in advance. So I made a deal with Stephen (age 15) and 2 other nephews Daniel (age 15) and Thomas (age 14). I think I got that right. I deliberately put myself in the company of 3 boys going through puberty. The deal was that they had to help me move and get settled in the new house and I would take them to the Olympics. At the time I was carying 2 mortgages. The old house in the suburbs wasn’t selling but I found a house I liked inside the perimeter so I bought it. These were the years I was in sales making sales money which was pretty good. I just took 2 weeks of vacation for this Olympic/moving adventure. Just thought about this after talking with Stephen on the phone and getting some of his memories of that time which I had totally forgotten. Daniel and Thomas are the 2 oldest of my sister Ronna’s. Stephen is the oldest of my sister Jan. I think culturally they could not have been more different. Stephen had a strong work ethic and really dug into what needed to be done whether it was shlepping boxes of doing electrical work at the new house. He was and is much handier than I am. It did just occur to me that maybe I told this story before. I hope not. I hope I am not losing my mind. The chemo is definitely affecting me but after talking to Stephen it felt like a good time to write. I am taping some college basketball now to watch later. This is a big weekend for college basketball and since I played that game until I was 45 and I love the game, I’m interested. I’m going to go photograph some pictures so you can see these folks I’m talking about. I haven’t put any pictures up since the chemo made me so tired. And I think the pictures help tell the story.

3/15 — I’ll pick this story up later.