From Patrick Kirchner

Tom:

It's been pleasure getting to know you, exchanging social and political ideas with you, and, of course, swapping music recommendations. You've introduced Abby and I to some wonderful things, the least important but most delicious of which are those fake vegan chicken wing thingers with the dowel rods. But those are another discussion altogether.

Over the past couple of years that I've gotten to know you, I've admired your exceptional professional talent, yes, but moreover the tenacity with which you approach everything you involve yourself in: art, teaching, music, activism, vegeterianism, connecting like-minded people, the Phils, the Birds, etc., etc., etc. Strangely, even when you're just hangin out and kickin it, you seem to do it with a full-on commitment that heretofor I've never seen. And I've grown to really appreciate that about you. Well, that, and the fact that you're on heck of a nice, interesting dude. You're like the vegeterian punk rock older brother who left Lancaster then decided to come back that I never had. So thanks for bringing your awesomeness back to the East Coast so that I could get in on it, too.

So here, on your 40th birthday, please accept my warmest birthday sentiments. But please--with all due respect--don't ever act like you're 40. Or 41. Or 42. Keep it young, awesome, and killer.

Happy birthday, buddy.
-Pat Kirchner