By Vinnie Paul - My Anniversary Gift ^_^
Most of you know that on Friday Ms. Kelly and I celebrated our 24th Anniversary. Our son Vinnie came out to the house and took us to a wonderful dinner and we had a great evening together afterwards. Before going to dinner, Vinnie pulled out a big envelope. It has a ribbon and bow painted on it with red marker and even the tag was drawn on saying To: Dad From: Vinnie.
Was very kewl the way he did that because he knows I am the biggest fan of his style of artwork. Vinnie was a natural born sketch artist and would re-illustrate every children’s book read to him as a little boy. Anyway, I reached into the envelope and pulled out this Jethro Hill “Goose 4 Sale” characature drawing. I guess you would have to know me as well as Vinnie to fully understand just how perfect a gift this is and how special it will always be to me. Although I can’t find the words to explain all that, let me at least explain a few things about how “Goose 4 Sale” came to be.
Vinnie does not have internet access at his home. In fact, his computer is still here at our house in his artroom/office. The point is that Vinnie does not have a facebook account or a Farm Town farm.
One evening several weeks ago he was here visiting and we were talking about the fun we have had doing the Farm Town Weekly talkcast and telling him about some of our farming adventures with this community. We played part of an episode of the show so he could get an idea of what it was all about and he seemed to get a real kick out of listening. Nevertheless, that night was the only time he has ever had a chance to listen to the show and of course we had to explain a few things to him since he don’t have a farm himself.
If you have listened to the past few episodes, you know about the death of Ms. Kellys goose and that whole ordeal. The number of versions to this story is growing incrementally to the number of people telling it. If you have no idea about Ms Kellys goose, you will want to go back and listen to the show and catch up with the rest of the class.
For those that have been listening or have at least been told one version of the story or another, keep in mind that Vinnie is neither on facebook or Farm Town but he does work at the same place as his Mother, Aunt Nuneese, and several others that are also Farm Town Farmers and Farm Town Weekly fans. Because of these connections, Vinnie has been getting bits and pieces of the goose story at work. Remembering that my Jethro avatar has headphones and is wearing oversums, he was armed with enough imagination to create “Goose 4 Sale” just in time for our Anniversary. It took him a week of test drawings and toying with different ideas he said, and he also offered to do more drawings of Jethro if I had any requests. What a great guy Vinnie is and such an amazing talent. Like me, he is looking forward to seeing what graphics I might be able to create from his drawing.