“My father went to Chaminade High School with Martin Sheen, who went by Ray Estevez back then!” I invariably tell anyone and everyone I ever meet from Dayton, OH.
And such was no different when I met the Crocketts from Dayton on top of Stone Mountain.
The Three L’s I quickly dubbed them, Lori and her two daughters, LeAnna, 16, and Lexi, 12. I’d stopped them to photograph LeAnna in her “ Follow Your Dreams” T-shirt and learned they were on a girls’ road trip to Orlando, where LeAnna would compete in an elite 16-U volleyball tournament, and they had stopped for the night to climb the mountain and see the Laser Show. More than that, though, they were bonding after losing Lynn, Lori’s husband and the girls’ father, last May to a brain tumor (he’s also survived by two sons, Lance and Logan, two more L’s).
“The sky almost looks like Heaven up here today…especially with that eagle flying over,” said Lori, and I was not going to be the one to tell her that was probably a turkey vulture and ethereal summer smog. But I got the chills, because the mascot of Chaminade High School was none other than an eagle. And at that moment, my script about Dayton slightly changed as I told the Crocketts of my own father’s passing and how he’s being perpetually prayed for in the masses of the Marianist monks right there in Dayton, thanks to one of his oldest friends that still lives there.