Happy Birthday, Ms. Query: A Tribute

Twenty some-odd years ago, in a hospital (or perhaps a taxi cab), a little girl was born to two loving parents whose names I do not know. And on that fateful day of November 18, nineteen-eighty-something (or perhaps nineteen-seventy-something), the world changed forever. The young princess Jessica came home that night to her house or apartment, which may have been on Macaroni Street in a small coal mining town in Pennysylvania - a town so small that it had no name. Her favorite color was red, or perhaps purple or fushia, and she enjoyed either dancing or not dancing for hours on end. She was either a tomboy or not, may have tried out for sports -- perhaps even excelled -- and devoutly followed a particular Protestant sect, the name of which escapes me at the moment. She befriended several people with whom I am not familiar, and probably had a falling out with one of them, perhaps in high school. Upon graduating from high school, she met several people who became longer-term friends than those she knew in high school, and I can definitively say that it was at this point that she met one Michael Coughlin. She went on to attend and graduate from Saint Josesph College in Connecticut. Some more time passed, during which she did things that made her happy and probably some things that did not. She was then accepted at and chose to attend Boston College Law School, which was the greatest day of her life. Then she had some people over to play Trivial Pursuit and eat her bruscetta, which was amazing. Then her friends arranged for an elaborate scavenger hunt that ended in a surprise birthday party. Yep, that brings us right up to 11:30pm today, her birthday.

Jessica, congratulations on your twenty-something years. May your next twenty-something be pleasant, plentiful, and significantly less vague.

Ed. note - Getting to know people is a slow process. Next year the biography will be significantly more complete.