Friday, November 02, 2012

30 years ago today

Friday Questions follow later this morning, but first I wanted to take a few minutes to wish my son, Matt a happy 30th birthday.  He's still a great kid even if he's now at the age where he can longer be trusted.  Matt Levine has always been a good luck charm.  How much of a good luck charm? Matt was the first CHEERS baby born. The evening he came into the world I arrived home to find a message on my voicemail. It was from James Burrows. CHEERS was in its first season and doing horribly in the ratings. Cancellation was a real possibility. But the message from Jimmy was, “Congratulations. Announcing the birth of nine more episodes. We just got picked up today.” The rest is history.

Proving that apples do fall far from the tree, Matt is an engineer at Apple Computers. His father is a technology imbecile. But the good news is he’s there to provide tech support anytime I need it. And you know me. I’d never abuse that privilege.

Photo by Matt Levine
More important than his many accomplishments (he’s also very funny, a terrific photographer, and a good athlete (again, not getting that gene passed down from me), is the fact that he’s such an awesome person. Great to his mom, great to his sister, his beautiful wife, his friends (many of whom flew from all over the country to be at his wedding), and he tolerates me.

Happy Birthday, Matt. You make me proud every day to be your dad. I love you, always will, and cherish the time we spend together. I’m excited about your future and know you must be too now that the Red Sox have fired Bobby Valentine. Have a great day and thanks for arranging the CHEERS pick up.

15 comments :

Brian Phillips said...

Happy Birthday, Matt!

Michael said...

He's like a good looking version of Ken! Congratulations Ken and Happy Birthday Matt.

Ken, my oldest son turned 21 on Oct 1. When he was three days old he went to the last game at Memorial Stadium - remember that day? What made your baseball book special was that the season tracked my wife's pregnancy and we were huge fans of the radio broadcasts. We even visited the booth that year and met you and John.

sérgio said...

Happy birthday!!! Cheers, Sérgio (Portugal)

Mike Botula said...

Wishing a "Happy Birthday" or "Buon Compleanno" as my Italian in-laws would. I commend you both (and mom, too) for you reaching the "Big 3-OH!"
BTW, Ken I'm still reviewing the '60s a chapter or two a day. After reading the top stories on various web sites,(the new news stand), I find that a few pages from your book with my morning coffee and OJ is just the ticket for getting my day off to a good start.

Mike Botula said...

tandque 381

John said...

Happy birthday to your son. Our original edition Apple Time Capsule has been backing up our system flawlessly since we put it in (albeit after a brief struggle with the wireless backup confusing the G4 server). Matt and the other engineers in his department did good work.

Mac said...

Happy Birthday, Matt.

Be grateful for your old man; mine's a pain the arse. Mind you, he says the same about me - so one of us probably is. Or we both are a bit. Anyway cherish your old boy - you got one of the fun ones.

Wendy M. Grossman said...

He looks amazingly like you. If you ever have to take meetings with the kind of person who thinks anyone over 50 is OLD, you might consider fitting him out with an earpiece so you can feed him lines and sending him in your stead.

wg

Johnny Walker said...

Very sweet indeed!

Michael said...

Happy Birthday Matt.

Did your dad gave you a copy of his book as a gift?

Jeffro said...

Happy Birthday, to the young(er) Mr. Levine. And many happy returns of the day!

Breadbaker said...

Ken, I love how you always support your kids in your blog. Both Matt and Annie seem like they're pretty easy to say nice things about, but too often writers will take the cheap shot for a laugh. If you make a joke involving your kids, it's always aimed straight back at yourself.

Storm said...

As my lovely Southern Great-Grandmother would have said, "Good Lord, look at him! He's the spit right outcha mouth!"

Cheers, thanks a lot,

Storm

Richard Y said...

It warms my heart to see that kind of relationship you have with your children. Don't ever lose it.

al said...

happy belated birthday to your son, but that open parenthetical is going to bug me all day