Dear Friends and Family,

Welcome to the 17th annual Thanksgiving Missive. Once again, this is the time of year that I subject you all to me bearing my soul and declaring the reasons for my gratitude. This tradition started in 2006 as I was about to begin a new, and what turned out to be, final adventure in my very diverse financial services career. The message that year was to say “Thank you” to family, friends and colleagues who were part of that journey.

          Annual Caveat

          For those of you who have been part of this tradition, (some of

          you from the very beginning), I hope that I have not bored you

          with my narcissistic babble over the years. For those who are

          new to this tradition I say, “Welcome!” As always, if anyone wants

          to be excluded from these annual emails, please let me know. I

          will not be offended, I promise.

“We can never touch people so lightly that we do not leave a trace.” I have used this Peggy Tabor Millin quote often in my writing, because it resonates with me in a big way. To me it is the definition of legacy. Each of us impact the people who are around us, however fleeting our acquaintance, who in turn impact others with their presence. This concept of interconnectedness inspires me to attempt to be a person whose impact is a positive one. This is never truer than when it comes to friends and family. In past years I have penned my gratitude about family, and I am always beyond grateful for the love of Jeanmarie and our girls and their partners. Obviously, their impact has been so much more than a trace. This year it’s about being grateful for friendship.

I imagine I am not alone when I look back over the years of my life and I break them down by stages and milestones. Childhood, high school, college years, marriage, children, career and now retirement. The people I have met in each of those periods have shaped who I have become, the most profound are those who have left the most indelible traces. I am grateful for all of those traces.

There are so many friends over the years who have left their traces. Many are recipients of this annual missive. Some of you have come into and out of my life briefly while many of you have been a part of my life for many years. These relationships are all important. How could they not be? Each one of has brought me joy and have taught me something about the world and about myself. Unfortunately, it is not unusual that these relationships are taken for granted at times. We assume our friends will be with us forever. However, life, and sometimes death, can have other plans for our relationships. Years can go by without being in touch with friends that we hold so dear. One of the benefits of social media is that, if we desire, it has given us the ability to re-ignite friendships that have faded due to the passage of time. While I have many issues with social media, I am grateful for this aspect. If you are as fortunate as I am, there are those few friends who have remained a part of your life since the time you first met them. One such friend, for whom I hold so much gratitude, is the man I call my “Rock and Roll Hero”.

I met Scott on the first night of our freshman year of college when he tried to pass me a joint when a bunch of strangers were hanging out in my dorm room. I was mortified, appalled, and very afraid. I had never seen a joint up close, never mind smoked one. He was cool, though, and said “just pass it along.” Scott lived across the hall and was a fellow business major and diehard Yankee fan, but we could not have been more different. He was gregarious, loud and fun and I was introverted, shy and basically afraid of being on my own living away from my sheltered life back home. Scott love rock and roll, especially Bruce Springsteen, and I was an AM radio top-40 geek (and Chicago fanatic) who thought that “Born to Run” was an ok song, but that Springsteen couldn’t sing at all. In Scott’s eyes that was a sacrilege so egregious it was beyond comprehension. As we became closer Scott would open up my sheltered world, mostly around music and culture. It wasn’t long before I was playing air-guitar to songs such as “Grass and High Tides” by the Outlaws and started listening to the Doobie Brothers, the Kinks, the Stones, The Who, The Band, etc. (I never was able to appreciate the Grateful Dead, ironically). I even learned to play the guitar. While Jeanmarie taught me my first few chords and my first song that I ever played on the guitar, Helpless by Neil Young, it was Scott who inspired me to keep on learning. (I think we need to have a “Mops” reunion tour – sorry inside joke). 

 Then, of course, there was my education about Bruce Springsteen.

 Right around my birthday in 1978 Scott insisted I go with him, and others, to see Springsteen at the Spectrum in Philadelphia. Springsteen had just released his long-awaited album, Darkness on the Edge of Town, and was touring to promote it. I reluctantly agreed (Scott can be very persistent). It is possible that he bought the ticket as a birthday present, but I’m not sure. As is the case for almost any Bruce Springsteen fan, once you see him live you become a fan for life, and I was no exception. Thank you for that, Scott. BTW, even after seeing Bruce live, I still didn’t think he was a great singer, but we came to a fragile truce by agreeing that he was a great rock and roll vocalist.

Our relationship over the years has grown beyond our connection around the Yankees and music. Scott and I have grown very close, as close as brothers. We have one of those rare relationships where we can go without seeing each other, sometimes months at a time, and we just pick up where we left off. We’ve been friends for over 46 years, and even worked at Deutsche Bank together for a few years. We’ve had a ton of laughs and our share of tears. We trust each other without doubt. Recently we spent a weekend together going to bars and clubs in Austin, TX for the first of what we hope will be other music trips. I love Scott Linden and it is my hope that everyone has at least that one relationship outside of family that is as special as ours. I am so grateful for his friendship as well as all of my friends, past and present.

One more Scott/Tom story…. In our senior year of college Scott had his car on campus. The morning after our last night (when there was some pretty intense partying going on), we were driving home together leaving Glassboro, NJ behind us. It was a boat of a car, the gas guzzling 1966 Pontiac Catalina (I believe), the Big Green Machine. The rear bumper was now at almost a 90-degree angle as a result of an incident the night before. The details of which I think are still part of campus lore. It was probably the reason why I was driving and not him.  It was a beautiful spring day, and we thought, “Hey, what else can we do now? Except roll down the window and let the wind blow back your hair.” There was a six pack of Molson Golden Ale between us on the bench seat as we drove up I-295 to the adult life that lay before us, and of course, we “got rock and roll music on the radio”.

Everyone, please have a safe Thanksgiving and holiday season. Please be kind and civil to one another. Any may your “traces” bring you joy!

In gratitude and love,

Tom (a/k/a TK, Tommy, Kernsy, #papakerns, Hit Man, Grandpa, the Professor, Face, Mr. Bean, PT (poor Tom), Timbo, and of course “Tickles” – don’t ask).

p.s. For those of you who are new to this tradition and would like to read past “missives” I have created a blog and have posted all of the missives going back to 2010 (I still have not found copies of the missives from 2006 through 2009. If anyone has them, I would be grateful if you would forward them to me. They were sent from work emails, and I never kept them, thanks).  Here is the link to the missives in the blog, https://www.papakernsblog.com/thanksgiving-missives

Also, if you do visit https://www.papakernsblog.com you will see that I have begun to write about different things. I don’t intend to add contacts or notifications to the blog (mostly because I don’t know how to do that yet), but feel free to check back I see what I’ve written, if you are so inclined.  - PapaKerns