My mom, Aunt Alice, brother and I visited Uncle Roger, Aunt Judy, Brett, Becki and Annie a lot of summers when I was a kid. When my family wanted to learn to ski in the early ‘80s, Roger and Judy lent us their place in Pinetop for three spring breaks. When there was no snow at Sunrise in 1984, Roger hauled us all to Telluride. Brett and I nearly drove him crazy trading Led Zeppelin riffs on our guitars. I still ski every year, I still go to Telluride, and I still have the Telluride sticker on my guitar case from that first trip.

On that trip to Telluride Roger had a conversation with my dad about how much Brett cared for his old Dodge pickup, because Brett had so much time invested in restoring it. That led to my dad buying a ’67 Camaro for us to restore later that year despite my dad and I having no experience working on cars. Eight months later that car was fully restored. I still drive it. I’ve never stopped building and working on cars.

In 2002 I was eyeing a ’55 Chevrolet Nomad that was for sale in Mesa. Roger went and took a look at it and said it was restorable. I bought it sight unseen. We might have had different definitions of restorable at the time. Roger was kind enough to haul it to San Antonio for me when they were doing work at Randolph AFB. Then it was only a day trip and a U-Haul rental to get it back home to Houston. The Nomad has made a lot of progress in 20 years, but it still has a way to go.

In 2009 Roger put together a family reunion dubbed Bieberfest near their place on Canyon Lake, and I got to reconnect with Brett, Becki and Annie who I had not seen for 25 years.

I did not fully appreciate how much of an influence Roger has been until a few years ago. I am grateful to have known him. I’m sorry I can’t be there to say this to y’all personally, but we will see you soon.