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The fact that I have even heard of the Bed Intruder song is a tribute to the birthday boy. But I digress. I'm here today to write about The Legend.
The Legend of the Chase
Now that Chase is getting older, I want him to know more about his origins, or at least, what we imagine his origins to be. The whole truth may never be known.
From what we can tell, Stinky, as I affectionately call him, was born in the Mark Twain National Forest in the late fall of 1995. We believe he lived his first month of life with a pack of blonde wolves. His mother and I found him with his head stuck in a log near the Finley River while on a brisk country hike.
Once loosed from his from his fallen tree, we saw a smiling boy with a headful of blonde hair. Valerie, who has an undying love for all of God's creatures no matter how ugly, insisted that we put the poor animal down. But, for reasons that are unclear to me now, I put my hand in front of her gun, and I said, "no, we can raise him as our own."
As he got older, we worked hard to make him just like a normal boy. We gave him regular daily haircuts and eventually weened him off of squirrels and toilet water. He is, in many ways, our greatest work.
Those who know him today would hardly believe that in the first grade Chase ran the mile at school on all fours (4:52 is still a Missouri elementary record), or that when he was 9 he nearly replaced Hugh Jackman's prized role in the X-Men movie series. Today, Chase is on the debate team at Parkview, and he plays basketball with real kids. We are so proud of how hard he's worked!
Over the years, I have taken the boy I call my son back to the forest many, many times to see if he might stay. But, his yelps of fear always told me, "Don't go, daddy. I'm one of you." And looking at how far he's come now, I can honestly say I'm glad he always managed to catch me before I got back to the car.
Happy Birthday, buddy! We don't hate you!
I am glad they kept you Chaser!
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