The Four Musketeers

Some friends are friends for life.  Here is a picture of me and my best childhood friends (well, that makes them my best friends, period!):

We are 15-16 years old in these pictures.  I haven't seen any of these guys in over 15 years. One is in Germany, another in Texas, a third in Ireland, and my brother (not pictured here) is in California. But a recent funny sequence of events and the power of the internet to keep us all in some kind of tenuous contact despite the distance and time issues has landed a real blast from the past from these guys.

In astronomy, I give the students wide leeway to pick a fourth quarter project to research and present to the class.  As I was allowing students to pick, one said "Carl Sagan" and then another said "Neil deGrasse Tyson" and the MM said "I'll do you, Rideout."  I looked at her incredulously and then shrugged and said "okay."

She proceeded to reach out to friends and family to ask them to relate stories about me growing up so she could make a video out of it for her project.  Very little science but such a gift for me!  Listening to these stories is heart warming and life affirming in a way that is hard to describe.  It reminds me of one of the strange joys of teaching - you have an effect on others that you never get to realize (or you usually don't get to hear them talk about it 30 to 40 years later!).

First up, my brother (Phil) sets the stage:

(You can spot his wife, Ramya, ducking in and out in the background)

Next up, Bill (left-most in both pics above):

Next a series of short from Jack (top in the top pic, far right in bottom pic):

And rounding our the foursome of nerds, Erec (far right on the top, second from the left on bottom).  His video is "OP" as Sebastien would say: a sci fi montage filled with inside jokes that only the others on this post could really get:

We are all turning the big 5-0 next year and I can't help but think that this is some kind of early gift from the Universe!