July 28, 2023 (Song #2036): T-6*: Celebrating the Eagles: “Lyin’ Eyes”, “Peaceful Easy Feelin’”, “Take It To The Limit” (featuring Randy Meisner, who died yesterday) and “The Last Resort”,
T-6 brings me to 2016, the year that Mannasses Ogutu graduated from Staples High School. “Manny” came into our lives through Eric Seidman and the A Better Chance program.
When I asked my kids to describe Eric they immediately said: he is kind, funny, a great conversationalist, knowledgeable on a million subjects, always interested in everyone around him & tall.
I met Eric at Colgate my freshman year in 1981; from the moment we met, I thought of him as an older brother-from-another-mother because we share so much in common: a love of skiing (Eric spent a year skiing in Alta the year after I did), a love of music (we both sang in the Colgate a cappella groups), a love of people and, particularly, a love of Leslie Seidman (see SOTD from June 25th) (ok, we love her in different ways, but still). Eric is also my personal memory bank: if I ever can’t remember anything that happened to me, I just ask Eric.
Eric is the kind of guy who makes it hard to say no to him: he’s incredibly smart and charming and can basically persuade a person to do anything, which is how we fell under his spell as he told us about a program for which he was volunteering in Westport: A Better Chance. We were completely blown away by the mission of this organization and then he said: “You guys need to be a Host Family” (ABC scholars live in a group home during the week and spend each Sunday and one weekend a month at their Host Families’ homes). Wait-a-whoa… What?
We were fascinated by the idea, though not actually ready to dive in until 2013; man, oh man, are we glad we did. In the fall of 1993, Rose started her freshman year at the University of Maryland and Bennett was a junior at Staples; we went to the ABC house in Westport to meet Mannasses Young Ogutu and his father, Nahashon and cousin, Lydia (a few months later, we also met his mom Stephanie). To say that it was “love at first sight” sounds crazy, I know, but it was. The minute I hugged Mannasses I felt as if we were bonded for life. Eric, of course, was right.
Today’s SOTD is one of Manny’s favorites (along with apples and anime), which reminds me of another one of my favorites (“Peaceful Easy Feeling”), that I used to sing with my friends Kevin & Ed (see SOTD from June 20th), and, I may have gotten this memory wrong (Eric?), but I think one of Eric’s favorites is “The Last Resort”. Enjoy, Big Er. xoxo