My best friend of all time and space, Benjamin Joseph Perron, 42, passed away unexpectedly on Thursday, April 23, in Plattsburgh, New York, and of natural causes. 

Born in Carthage, New York, on Feb. 9, 1984, Ben came into this existence full of curiosity and mischief, something that never left his heart, soul and antics throughout his life.

Hello from Room 323 at the Hyatt Place in downtown Athens, Georgia. A quiet Monday morning here in “Bulldog Country” with the hotel right on the edge of the campus of the University of Georgia. Lots of thoughts are ricocheting around my mind, especially with the Boston Marathon currently on the TV. 

Hello from the front porch of my humble abode apartment in downtown Waynesville. I just finished playing a little bit of acoustic guitar, sunglasses on, as the last of the Monday sunshine washed over my body, heart and soul before it disappeared behind the Balsam Mountains cradling the town.

In this moment, I realized what a great day, well, today was, and remains.

It was watching my father putt on Hole #14 at the Maggie Valley Country Club last Monday afternoon when a vivid thought appeared across my field of vision — don’t forget this moment of spending quality time with the old man. 

A few feet from my 84-year-old father was my mother, age 77, and also one of my best friends, age 66.

Hello from Room 8 at the Atlantis Inn, located in downtown Tybee Island, Georgia. It’s Monday morning and I’m currently sitting on the small balcony attached to the room. Sunshine overhead, the ocean just a block away. 

This is the final day of an extended road trip down to Saint Augustine, Florida, and back to my humble abode in Waynesville. I’ve been gone for the better part of the last three weeks, albeit working remotely and unrelentingly, as per usual.

Hello from the Trade Winds Lounge in downtown Saint Augustine, Florida. It’s 10:10 p.m. and I just finished my first Coors Light at this second stop of the evening, and right when classic rock/country gold tribute act Jackhammer finishes up its second of three sets tonight. 

What was initially an old-school tiki bar when it opened decades (and decades) ago has now morphed, more so melted in the hot Florida sun, into a beloved dive bar of legendary proportions.

Hello from my folks’ farmhouse out in the countryside of Upstate New York. It’s been mighty frigid here in my native North Country since I arrived home last week. At one point, ‘round midnight on a recent evening, the temperature dropped to around -22 degrees. Daytime temps hovered at zero for several days, with wind chills from the Canadian Arctic making critters outside hide and remain silent and those inside huddled near the fireplace, waiting out the cold.  

Hello from Room 322 at the Fairfield Inn, located in Binghamton, New York. Exactly one year ago, I stayed in this same room. No joke, this is where I was placed. And, oh, how much has changed and, well, come to pass in this last calendar year since I laid down in this bed, since I opened up the drapes and looked out the same window onto the interstate traffic below. 

I only met Bob Weir once. It was backstage at the long gone Gathering of the Vibes music festival located on the shoreline of the Long Island Sound in Bridgeport, Connecticut. It was the summer of 2009 and I was 24 years old, myself an aspiring journalist for a now-defunct music magazine. 

It finally happened. Exactly 10 years in the making, my daily running streak officially celebrated one decade of continuation on Dec. 31, 2025. End-to-end, that span of time is 3,654 straight days. The mile I’ve run? Countless. I can’t even fathom the total distance jogged throughout that time period, although I have kept a running log since “The Streak” started. Someday I’ll calculate it.