Yesterday, January 20th, was Tommy's 18th birthday. It was a bit of an odd day for him.
The day started off pretty well. I woke him up with a family joke. A few years ago, before she literally took his brother Johnny and moved to Ohio (without telling him...or me), his biological mother told him he was "too young to have an opinion." I can't remember the incident but that's the way she reacted each time someone disagreed with her point of view. So I slid open the pocket door to his bedroom, turned on the light and said, "Quick, tell me your first opinion!" His eyes opened to barely a squint and he started to laugh.
He turned on the television as he got dressed for school and the cartoon featured was celebrating the birthday of the main youthful character. Later he turned on the radio and not only were they playing his brother's favorite band, but they were playing his favorite song. In the age of rock, the song was ancient - four or five years old. In the kitchen, he opened a gift sent by his Aunt Elena...the only one of three who remembered him or who acknowledges us as part of our parents' family. I wish she and his Uncle Bob could have seen the grin on his face as he showed me their present. Someday I'll devote a post or twelve on this blog to each of them. Needless to say, Bob is a character anyone would value highly as an uncle...or brother-in-law.
Tommy's a thoughtful person. He cares deeply about friends and family. He's not impulsive. So for the past two years, since the death of his brother, Johnny, he's been thinking about how to memorialize him in a very private and personal way.
Let me say this about the family within which I grew up: we always had a house full of alcohol, beer etc. When Michelob was first introduced - in the dark days before boutique and imported beers hit the U.S. shores - dad brought home a bunch. My sisters immediately started using it as a hair wash agent.
My point is that we really didn't drink alcohol but we had it if we wanted it...no questions asked. We also were not much into fads. Dad never had arm ink etc. from the war.
So when Tommy said quietly one day he wanted to get a tatoo of Johnny's name placed over his heart it caused a bit of anguish. Still the thought was one that I could not argue against. He got it. He also got his favorite restaurant meal: tuna sashimi and coconut rum pie at Bone Fish Grill - the direct influence of my great friend David Wills.
So what about breast cancer? My sister Elena is a survivor. David's wife is now undergoing treatment in Houston for the most viral form: triple negative BC. Triple negative means that all of the receptors in a person's body that allow traditional chemo protocols to work are missing in hers.
At dinner, Megan brought up the 30 mile Avon two-day walk for breast cancer being advertised over the radio. Not to be confused with the 60 mile three-day Susan Komen walk being promoted at virtually the same time. Megan and her boyfriend Matt (Polar Bear Plungers for the Special Olympics - as is Tommy) wanted to try the Avon walk. I've toyed with the idea of doing the same with Mary and Tommy. Here's the kicker.
Megan asked a friend who has done the Avon walk and found out (I hope this isn't true but she insists it is) that each participant is expected to contribute via pledges $1800. That's stout! She said if you don't get that much in pledges, the sponsors have your credit card on file and debit the balance from your card! 'Scuse me???? That's not charity. Gave me indigestion.
On another note, the shrimp are growing in Texas. Our demonstration model built on five acres at Port Isabel outside of Brownsville is up and running. We built it at a quarter scale to show the technology (and what we've been doing for the past ten years) so we can get funding to build full size commercial production facilities. We are hoping to build two "greenhouse" modules capable of producing a million pounds of 45 gram and larger shrimp per year. That's U15 or 15 shrimp per pound. Actually we may be producing 70 gram shrimp as we did in South Africa for 3 years once things really get rolling. One aquaculture expert said "You're not growing shrimp! You're growing lobsters!" No they were shrimp for sure...and they taste better than anything being farmed or taken from the sea anywhere in the world.
Our long range goal over the next three to five years is to build enough modules to let us hit 10 million pounds per year. That's a million pounds more than all of the open-pond farms in Texas raised at the height of the industry and Texas back then produced more than 70 percent of all U.S. farmed marine shrimp. Texas' (and the world's) shrimp farming is in a real crash because open pond technology is prone to disease and pollution. Our system is enclosed, treats and recirculates the water so nothing is discharged back into the environment once our grow-out tanks are filled. We have the potential of putting 2000 people to work once we build a dedicated processing plant at the 10 million pound mark. No exaggeration. If you want to see first hand the future of shrimp production fly down to Brownsville. We'll give you a tour.
No comments:
Post a Comment