3/4/99

This morning, I shared this essay with the radio family, and everyone seemed to enjoy it so very much. For decades I've had the honor of working to support very deserving people that have to face very difficult challenges in their lives, but his is the best explanation of a parents feelings I've ever seen.     Enjoy it, print it out, and pass it around.

More later....YEAH BABY,

MOBY

Welcome to Holland
An essay by Emily Perl Kingsley

I am often asked to describe the experience of raising a child with a
disability, to try to help people who have not shared that unique
experience to understand it, to imagine how it would feel. It's like
this...

When you're going to have a baby, it's like planning a fabulous vacation
trip, to Italy. You buy a bunch of guidebooks and make your wonderful
plans. The Coliseum. The Michelangelo David. The gondolas in Venice. You
may even learn some handy phrases in Italian. It's all very exciting.

After months of eager anticipation, the day finally arrives. You pack
your bags and off you go. Several hours later, the plane lands. The
stewardess comes in and says, "Welcome to Holland."

"HOLLAND?" you say. "What do you mean Holland? I signed up for Italy!
I'm supposed to be in Italy. All my life I've dreamed of going to
Italy."

But there's been a change in the flight plan. They've landed in Holland
and there you must stay.

The important thing is that they haven't taken you to a horrible,
disgusting, filthy place, full of famine and disease. It's just
different place.

So you must go out and buy new guidebooks. And you must learn a whole
new language. And you will meet a whole new group of people you would
never have met.

It's just a different place. It's slower-paced than Italy. But after
you've been there for a while and you catch your breath, you look around
and you begin to notice that Holland has windmills, Holland has tulips.
Holland even has Rembrandts.

But everyone you know is busy coming and going from Italy, and they're
all bragging about what a wonderful time they had there. And for the
rest of your life, you will say, "Yes, that's where I was supposed to
go. That's what I had planned."

And the pain of that will never, ever, ever go away, because the loss of
that dream is a very significant loss.

But if you spend your life mourning the fact that you didn't get to
Italy, you may never be free to enjoy the very special, the very lovely
things about Holland.
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2/14/99

Thank you for your patience with me last week. I heard from several of you that wished Mama & Papa Moby a happy anniversary. Thank you.

After much work, and much more time than was really necessary, the "Moby" CD is finally coming out. It's called "Moby...Going For The Gold". The weekend of 2/21, all Atlanta area Blockbuster Music stores will be selling it for $10.00, with every nickel of the money going to Georgia Special Olympics. This will sponsor the GSO team who will be attending the world games in North Carolina in June.

There are no parody songs on the CD. That was the main problem that existed when we first began this project almost 2 years ago. Licensing agencies and music publishers find their own charities, and expect to paid in other cases, including projects such as this. A lesson learned, and a fairly expensive one, for you old pal, Mr. Moby.

On this CD, you will find what I believe to be some of  our strongest musical product, both in the form of humorous, spiritual, patriotic, & family oriented material. I'm very proud of it.

From Daddy's Legacy to El Nino...from The Wall to Over The Hill...a total of 15 cuts. Buy one, it's for Special Olympics. Besides, I listened to it, and it didn't hurt me. So, go get one.

There were so many great musicians involved, but none more that Mike Stewart, and our good friend from Nashville, Wayne Moss. 

On the liner notes for this CD, I thanked everybody except those what fed the pickers. Allow me this space to profusely thank Martin & Tom Jenneff, and everyone else at Champs B-B-Q on S. Cobb Dr. for providing supper to hungry musicians that would've turned on me if I'd offered them less.

Also, I updated the email page (From you to me & Back) a short while ago,so while you're browsing through my webpage, you might drop in there for a spell.

I'll update this later. Just let me tell you that I'm glad you've spent this time here.

Yeah baby,

MOBY