My brother Ben has certainly paid his dues in Laramie, Wyoming. Although I know he enjoyed the mountains, the scenery, and the outdoors there, 5 years is a long time to spend in the country's least populated state, in a place where it can snow even in August and water boils at 199 degrees Fahrenheit. (I'm pretty sure his wife Holly agrees.) He certainly deserves his forward step as the new diving coach for UC Berkeley.

Congratulations, Ben! We look forward to visiting.

Over the holidays, I was playing Tetris (or some Gnome equivalent) on our laptop while I was ripping a few CDs. My 5-year-old niece, Mecca, was very curious.

"What are you doing?"
"I'm playing a game."
"Can I play?"

I showed her how to move the blocks left or right and how to drop them, but I figured rotating them was perhaps too advanced. I told her it was fun to make different stacks with the colored blocks, so that's what she did. When it said "GAME OVER" I said, "Good job! You built the stacks up to the very top."

She quickly figured out by observing me that she needed to press CTRL-N to start a new game. And by accidentally pressing the key to rotate the blocks, she started building more intricate stacks, always pleased when she put several blocks of the same color together.

Her younger brother, Lennox, age 4, hates to be left out. Very polite, Mecca said, "Can Nexy play too?"

Mecca would start the new games for her brother, and tried to show him which buttons to press. He didn't really care about the buttons and was perfectly happy to watch the blocks slowly fall, delighted by pointing out identical shapes. The slow pace frustrated Mecca, but I told her to let him play his own way. Eventually the blocks reached the top and the "GAME OVER" message was displayed. Lennox raised his hands into the air and said, "I win!"

I was reminded of their father, who at that same age could be entertained quite perfectly at Pinball Pete's, Chuck E. Cheese, or Gumball Express, merely by putting him in front of a Centipede arcade machine. The words "GAME OVER" were meaningless to him, but the trackball and the moving sprites were endlessly fascinating.

But Mecca looked at Lennox like he was a fool. "Nexy, you don't win or lose. It's not that kind of game. You're just supposed to stack the blocks."

I felt a little bad that I hadn't explained the game to her properly, as she could have possibly handled the additional complexity. At the same time, what a joy it must be to explore a game without rules, without concerns for the impending end, and where the words "GAME OVER" signify that you have reached your ultimate goal, a cause for exaltation!

My mom told me that when she was in Florida, attending her mother in the hospital, that her mother received a round-robin letter from her friends.

"Huh?" I said. "Please explain."

It turns out that during W.W. II, my grandmother and some other girls had a tight-knit group of friends in Lima, Ohio, where they lived and worked. After the war ended many of the women got married and moved out of town, so they decided to stay in touch by creating a letter circle. Each envelope contained a letter from every member of the group. When you receive it, you've seen none of the letters but your own from the last round, and so you read all the letters and then replace your letter with a new one and send it on. Each letter is really a missive to the entire group, and it saved both time and expense and sending individual letters.

Apparently they had been writing on a regular basis for 60 years, although my mom pointed out that the circle had gotten smaller. My mom asked my grandmother what she wanted to say in what would undoubtedly be her last letter to the group. She declined to dictate anything and merely said, "You know what you need to write." My mom composed a letter letting them know their friend was not long for this world, and that it was wonderful that their letters arrived when they did and could be shared.

I am impressed and fascinated by this. I had never heard of a round-robin letter before. An unbroken circle of communication and friendship, 60 years and running.

When I think Laramie, Wyoming, I first think of Matthew Shepard.

Then I think of the buffalo burgers at the Chuck Wagon, just off of I-80.

But now I will also think of my brother Ben, who just moved into a house in Laramie as he takes his first post-college job as diving coach for the University of Wyoming.

I teased him that, at an elevation of 7163 feet, he'd need a pressure cooker to make mac & cheese. Congratulations, not-so-little brother.

I'm an uncle again!

Lennox Nathaniel Muhammad Herdt
5 pounds, 6 ounces
November 27, 2003

I held him yesterday. He's a tiny, tiny baby & completely adorable. Congratulations, Nate & Dawn.

My brothers kick ass:

• Nate's moot court team wins first place at Pepperdine. The tall zombie holding the award is Nate--get some sleep, man!
  
• Ben was named Big 10 Diver of the week November 6.
  

Would somebody please give me an award so I don't feel like a slacker?

My younger brother Nate and his wife Dawn decided they should get their baby moving in time for a September 10th birthday, rather than an ominous September 11th birthday. A big shot of some drug or another, and voila! out pops Mecca Medina Collette Herdt at 7 pounds, 10 ounces.

Nate said that he and Dawn watched Monty Python's Holy Grail throughout pretty much the whole labor ordeal. Maybe that's supposed to start the kid off with rock solid foundation for a sense of humor?

(I'm glad that she was born on a Tuesday. Had it been a Saturday, Sunday, or even Monday, I'm sure Nate would have been watching football.)

I'm sure I'll go up to East Lansing this weekend to see the little bundle of joy and the rest of the happy family!