Let me tell you about my niece Erin Janine Turner (Erin, I sure hope you spell it the way the actress from Northern Exposure does, cause that’s what I went by....Tanga says its Jeanine), sometimes referred to as Erineenee in our immediate family. When she was little they would ask her where she was from and she would say: “Scouat County” (roughly that anyway, give or take a syllable or two).
If you read this, please do so as fast as you can; as a tribute to Erin; since she thinks fast, talks fast, does everything fast; except drive (I hope?). In fact, Erin can usually pretty accurately finish your sentences for you if you don’t talk fast enough to suit her.
If Erin had been born the daughter of someone connected to Hollywood, she most likely would have been on the Academy Awards this past Sunday night. She has the talent, but in show business; you have to know somebody. Her father was (is) a thespian too, but also one without the right connections. Listening to the two of them talk must be a little like listening to a father and daughter from the film industry, without all the messy fame and fortune. When they talk to each other there’s bombast and bravado, subtlety and soliloquy, poetry and poignancy.
Erin was born three weeks before Kentucky won the NCAA title in 1978, so don’t believe her if she says she remembers it. However, I don’t doubt much else she claims to remember. For example, she can name the make, year, model and color of every car Tanga and I have owned; and since August, 1979; Erin and us have not lived in the same state. If you are thinking: how neat a little girl she must have been to remember all her uncle and aunt’s automobiles, then I just caught you being neat; because only a neat person would see how neat that is. (Now you know something of how I define neat people.) Apparently while her peers had their noses in Super-Mario Brothers, Erin was watching what was going on in the world around her.
Erin appreciates the differences among people, caring most deeply for those who struggle to fend for themselves; a compassion not currently in fashion in the United States. Erin is cool but indifferent to prevailing opinion, she keeps up with the latest entertainment-tonight sort of information; but uses it mainly as a source of amusement, preferring to catalog and make sense of what happens to her friends, family and acquaintances. Erin is one of those rare three-in-one characters Malcolm Gladwell describes in his book The Tipping Point: a maven, a salesperson and a connector; that is, she gets deeply interested in minutia/details of events/situations, enthusiastically discusses what is going on with others and serves as a connector between different interest groups.
I have a suggestion. The next time you are feeling your oats, invite Erin for lunch and engage her in a political argument. Before you do, I must warn you. Erin was an award-winning debater, and as her dad says with all the sarcasm he can muster (and nobody musters sarcasm the way he can); “Erin is the shy and retiring type”.
Erin, there is so much more I could write about you, but Kentucky is about to win the SEC, so I must repair to a TV set. I will just wrap up by saying, Happy Selection Sunday, Happy Birthday Patrick Patterson and Happy Birthday, Erineenee.
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