November 3, 1995
(10/08/26 - lightly edited this 'post' (blogs didn't exist back then) - added some photos; changed Suzie to Suzanne, etc. Note: Suzanne certainly doesn't agree with some of the recollections outlined below!)
Hi baby! Well, when you are reading this, however far in the future that is, you'll have a name, whether it's Kevin or Jennifer or something else your mother and I come up with in the next 5 weeks. You know, you're due on December 11th. Well anyway, you might be wondering why I decided to do this. I don't know, it seems like a good idea, keep a diary until your first birthday, and then give it to you when you turn 18 or some such date way off in the future. I get to say things to you now, and you get to see how your mother and I lived during the first year of your life.
Well, that's the idea, at least.
I also hope to get off my butt and finally do a detailed genealogy, put it in some kind of computerized format so that it can be preserved forever. When you get this, you can pester me and see how far I've come.
Today was a pretty normal day in the life of Suzanne and I. We went to work, we both left a little early so that we could go see a movie (Get Shorty)....
...went to Costco and bought a down comforter, some chicken breasts, some bath towels for the main bathroom, had a slice of pizza in our car afterwards (I had two, with pepperoni, if you're curious). We came home, your mother is watching TV (Picket Fences), we have a fire going, and well, I'm a typing-to-you, my future daughter or son.
The last year has been quite an eventful one for the two of us. If you had told either of us last year at this time that a) we would be married, and b) we'd have a child by the end of 1995, I'm sure your mother and I would have both laughed. But, nature intervened (along with some pretty sloppy birth control methods, if the truth be known) and well, here you are.
Please don't take the above paragraph the wrong way. You are a very special person, and no matter how things started, your mother and I can't wait for you to get here.
I guess over the next week or two I'll tell you about myself, and what I know about your mother. The stuff about myself is me the way I choose to see me, and well, the stuff about your mother, well, we'll see how that gets written out when I write it. I'll tell you about where we are at in our lives, and I'll try and let you know what we are doing each day, to give you a glimpse of the past, so to speak. I'll also, once you arrive, tell you about you as a baby, so that you have something other than a dry old baby book recording your first days and nights on this earth.
Let's start off with me, Scott Garrett Hutsell (if you're a boy, you're intimately familiar with the Garrett part by now), born April 23, 1969. I currently am employed by Golder Associates (who I've worked with since I graduated from college) in Seattle. Actually, Redmond, but, more about that later. I'm 26 right now, and well, getting ready to be a father, learning to be a good husband, and well, just trying to be a hell of a guy!
This isn't fair, you're going to get to laugh at me in the year 2015 or some such nonsense.
I guess maybe a good beginning is to explain my relationship with your mother from the very beginning. Which, as you may or may not know by now, is a very long time ago. Let me see, we first met each other in either 5th or 6th grade at Stanton Elementary School in El Paso, Texas. Both of our fathers were in the Army and stationed at Fort Bliss, Texas. We lived on the northeast side of town, not on base, and went to a school that was a pretty racially mixed school, for that day and age. I guess the first activity I really came to know your mother through was a Music Appreciation Club, where students in grade 6 were given the opportunity to be exposed to classical music. As I recall, we were both pretty good at it (I remember the only mistake I made was misspelling the name Greig, and I don't know if I spelled it right this time either)
This was the beginning of a long, tortuous, and sometimes downright weird relationship, as you'll find out.
Suzanne and I really came to know each other as friends in junior high, at Crosby Junior High for 7th and 8th and at Magoffin for 9th grade. We, being the super intellectuals that we were, participated in all of the academic activities that the school offered, and I guess the one that we both remember the most, and the one where we really got to know each other the most, was Math Club. It's still a subject of debate who was best at it, I tended to win more often, I think, but Suzanne won the big competition, when it really counted, so, it's anyone's guess. To this day, we remain pretty competitive.
We never 'went out' with each other in junior high, in fact, Suzanne used my obvious attraction to her against me in some very nasty ways. I still get her about the time she went out with me just to satisfy her best friend's bet, I know at this late date she can feel pretty guilty about that. But, we did spend a lot of time together for two kids, I remember walking all around the area we lived one day, and I remember stopping by her house while walking my dog, and I remember her coming up to my house and playing Hide-n-Seek with me and the neighborhood kids. We went to all of the local high school football games in our little 'group', spent almost all of our school days in the same classes, did the same things after school and even in the morning before school.
It's not a stretch for me to say that I was in love with your mother from the very start. It's funny, if you look at women I dated later on in high school and college, you'll see a fair number of redheads in there. I used to daydream early in college about running into Suzanne again for some reason or another, and finding that the love I had for her was returned at last. I don't know how much of this translated into me making repeated attempts to contact your mother in later years.
I was, and still am, a sap.
Eventually, the whims of the US Army decided that Frank Dayton needed to go to Thailand, and Suzanne moved off to California, and my Dad, after 20+ years decided to retire and move the family back to my mother's home, Pittsburgh. Suzanne left El Paso during the summer of 9th grade, and I left shortly after the start of 10th grade. I think we exchanged letters once or twice, but, pretty much fell out of touch as high school progressed.
Who was I in high school? I was a nerd, a geek, certainly not the most socially adept person in the entire world. I was athletic, but never good enough to be involved in a sport, and moving to a new high school, well, it took me until the beginning of my junior year to finally find a group of friends who I felt comfortable around, and by then, well, my image was set in the minds of everyone else pretty securely.
Part of this comes from my awkwardness around alcohol, and we'll talk in depth about the impact my father has had on my life later on.
We lived in Bethel Park, a suburb of Pittsburgh, and lived in a nice 2-story house. I enjoyed those times, once I got involved with the 'Crumb-bums' as one of my friend's mother called us, I had a lot of fun and met some people that even to day I keep in touch with on a fairly regular basis. My father's alcoholism cast a pale on everything, but, I grew up a fairly normal teen, I guess.
Well, that's enough for this day, my fire is being a royal pain, and I must go work on keeping that a-burnin'. Hopefully, you'll kick a bit, and I'll get to put my hands on your mom's belly tonight and feel you moving around.
It's the first time I'm going to get to say it, so, here goes.
I love you.
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