The Archive - Heather

I’m going to try to give you a summary of how I met various people that will pop up on this Blog. This is basically the back story for the show, maybe a flashback episode or something of the sort. The first person I will start with will be my good friend Heather.

We’ll go way back to February 9, 1992. I played disc golf in Baltimore (the weather wasn’t too bad for February) and I wasn’t happy with the living arrangements at home, so I went to Chesapeake Bay Seafood House. It was Sunday evening and it was kind of crowded. I got my usual meal (the All-You-Can-Eat Whitefish), and shortly there after, I am approached by a lovely young lady and asks if I went to Severna Park High School. I said I did and we proceeded to talk about High School and the like. I finally get up the nerve to ask for her phone number.

A couple of days later I called and we decided to go to a movie. I was trying to impress her. So I actually went to see Wayne’s World the week before we were suppose to see it. I thought it was pretty funny, so we saw it the following week (February 21, 1992). To try to impress her, I actually dressed up a bit (tie and jacket). We walked around the Annapolis Mall for a little while, then I hit on the idea to show her where I worked (as you can see, I’m not great at these original ideas). Heather did seem impressed. Heather was finishing college and about to enter the professional world of work. She found the office environment interesting enough. She impressed me by sending me a post card from her vacation to the Outer Banks that she took with her family. We dated a couple more times in March.

I asked if she wanted to go with me to my Grandmothers 75^th Birthday party. I don’t think she was expecting the type of parties that my family has. We had a great time and all was good. She was kind of busy with college graduation, and I don’t think we spoke much in April. I did help her move back from college, and she told me she was starting to work in Annapolis, not far from where I worked. We agreed to carpool together. This is where the trouble started.

Carpooling isn’t always the most pleasant thing in the world. You see each other everyday, and we stopped dating for the most part. We went to a couple of concerts (Grateful Dead, U2, and Springsteen) but I think we got sick of each other. And things weren’t too great on my home front at that time anyway. So we kind of grew apart. She wanted to date people out of the college scene, and I was looking for a relationship. We still talked occasionally, but didn’t date each other.

Over the course of 1993-1994 we still remained friends, but the carpool ended and I moved out of my Mothers house. In 1995 Teri and I moved in together and eventually bought our first place, a townhouse in Millersville. Heather helped me move into the townhouse. The condominium that Teri and I moved from was owned by my friends Dave and Cindy. Heather wanted to move out of her parents’ house, and a deal was brokered where Heather moved in. I helped her to do so.

Heather was working a Baltimore at this time, and I got a job at the District Court in Baltimore, a couple blocks from Heather’s office. We went to lunch a couple times a week, and we actually became closer friends. I meet her future husband Jim on a lunch outing (and he still married her). I left the Court and we didn’t see each other much soon after as I started a new job with Computer Curriculum Corp and this had me all over the state. Also I was busy getting married, which I think may have pushed her in that direction, which pushed some of her friends to get married, and so on.

After we both married, we all went out ‘double date style’ a bunch of times and started celebrating New Years together. We became pretty good buddies to talk about life and all the stuff marriage brings and changes. It’s good to have someone who you can ‘compare notes’ with on being married. We also continued to take in a couple of concerts each year together (Def Leppard, Boston, etc.) that our spouses had no interest in attending. We also found we each liked to fish, and started going on a couple of fishing trips each summer.

In 2002, Springsteen came out with The Rising CD and tour that followed. After watching a couple of the fan based videos that were made, I complained on some of the Springsteen message boards. I was told in so many words “…if you don’t like it, film it yourself…” In July 1, 2003, I was laid off from Cambridge Positioning Systems with a nice severance package (basically, 3 months pay). This gave me time to find a job, and new hobbies. Springsteen was going to start the stadium portion of The Rising Tour at Giants Stadium in New Jersey. This was my time to document the event. But I needed an accomplice. Heather was up to the challenge!

With video camera in hand, it was off to New Jersey. We filmed the 7/15/2003 show and it turned out well. I filmed the 7/17/2003 show as well (solo), but that story is for another archive. It’s kind of addictive once you start. We also filmed the 12/8/2003 show in Asbury Park. At this point, this is a joint hobby. The Rising tour ended in the fall of 2003. In 2004, Springsteen joined with this group called Voters for Change. This is the tour that needs proper documentation.

We began at the opening show in Philadelphia. After arriving a little late, we got seated and filmed REM (who was on the bill). At this point, we actually are using two video cameras. Things were going well with shooting Springsteen and John Fogerty when, disaster. We are busted! We had to go to the security office and give them our equipment. All in all it wasn’t a big deal. We could have gone back into the show, but we think the people behind us turned us in and we were kind of pissed. We just left the show.

Heather and I shared a joke: A good friend will bail you out of jail. A great friend will be sitting in jail with you saying, “…man that was fun!” On the way out we turned to each other and said, “Man, that was fun!” The next day we followed the tour to Cleveland, then Orlando the following weekend. Both Cleveland and Orlando turned out pretty decent. The VFC tour wrapped up 10/11/2004 at the MCI Center in DC. No sense shooting this one as it was broadcast the Sundance channel.

In 2005 Heather became interested in the Middle East culture. Her interest took her on a couple of trips the Morocco and some other areas of Africa. She continued to visit these areas and became involved with people in that culture. We’ve exchanged many text messages while she has been overseas, but we don’t spend as much time together as we had in the past. But life happens that way.

Most recently Heather is trying to figure out what life is all about and what she wants to do. I’m here to support her in which ever endeavor that she chooses, and we’ll just take it a day at a time.