Baseball America's Prospect Handbook

Outfielder Mike Trout of the Los Angeles Angels organization makes the 2012 cover

The end of January always brings a sense of excitement for baseball prospect geeks such as myself as we await the arrival of perhaps our most anticipated publication of the year. Today in my mailbox the yellow package arrived from the folks at Baseball America. Contained inside was their annual Prospect Handbook product, the Bible for following baseball prospects.

Published annually, the Prospect Handbook contains the Top 30 prospects for each organization in Major League Baseball as evaluated by the staff of Baseball America. The book contains a full page spread on the #1 prospect in each organization, shows a thumbnail photo of each of the top 10 prospects, with a bio and brief scouting report on every one of the 30 listed.

A new feature with the 2012 edition is the inclusion of both a scouting numerical "grade" and a "risk factor" for each evaluated prospect. The scouting grade will reflect the state of the player's current physical skills. The risk factor will show whether that player is more likely at this stage of his career to maximize those skills and to reach his potential.

The scouting grade is based on the traditional baseball 20-80 'OFP' (Overall Future Potential) formula in which players are rated on their power, hitting ability, arm, base running/speed, and fielding ability. The highest ranked players, those in the 75-80 range of the scale, are impact talents that can change the face of an organization. Most prospects will fall into the 50-55 range. You will rarely see players at a 30-35 or lower level make it into the book.

The risk factor was developed by the folks at Baseball America, and includes ratings of "Safe", "Low", "Medium", "High" and "Extreme" that will reflect their opinion as to how likely it is that a player with a certain skill set is to maximize his potential and translate those skills to the big league level. A "Safe" player is one that has already demonstrated they can play in 'The Show, and only four players were given this rating in this initial roll-out of the designations.

At the current time, almost all talent evaluators in baseball would be in agreement that the top 3 prospects in the game overall are outfielders Bryce Harper of the Washington Nationals and Mike Trout of the Los Angeles Angels, and pitcher Matt Moore of the Tampa Rays. Trout and Moore were 2 of the 4 players awarded the "Safe" designation, because each player has performed at the MLB level and has shown that his skills do indeed translate to that level of play.

The highest-rated overall prospect is Harper of the Nats. Well known by baseball insiders for years, and by even the most casual fans by this point, Harper was a Sports Illustrated cover subject back in June of 2009 when he was just 16 years old. Now still just 19, Harper is poised to become the latest teenage phenom to take the big league stage. His prodigious power and overall skill set have led Baseball America to hand him their only '80' grade. Coupled with a "Low" risk factor, only some freak injury would appear to be standing between this young man and baseball immortality.

Baseball America is the single most respected publication in the game today in the area of young player information. The writers and researchers key on the minor leagues, college and high school ball, the business side of the game, stories of general interest in the sport, and even into foreign leagues to keep fans and insiders alike abreast of the latest news and information on players and teams. Of course, there is some Major League Baseball coverage as well, particularly when it comes to the annual First Year Player Draft.

The 2012 Baseball America Prospect Handbook is available at this time through their website at www.baseballamerica.com for the price of $32.95, and ordering through them also gets you their upcoming 'Top 100 Prospects' issue and a bonus supplement showing extra prospects for each organization that just missed the Top 30 lists.

The book will be available in a few weeks through places such as Amazon and in book stores. Wherever you prefer, if you are a baseball fan, make sure that you pickup the book, and while you're at it, get a subscription to the magazine, the website, or both. The input of Will Lingo, Jim Callis, John Manuel, J.J. Cooper and others from BA will undoubtedly increase your own knowledge of the game. Baseball America and it's publications are must-haves for anyone who wants to call themselves a true baseball fan.

Rallying 'Round Romney

I've been a fan of Newt Gingrich for a long time. At the same time that Gingrich was leading the Republicans to victory in the 1994 congressional elections with his "Contract With America", I was making my own shift from lifelong liberal Democrat to social conservative Republican.

Gingrich is a brilliant man, a superb debater, and perhaps the single most informed individual in the entire Party on the entire range of issues. His performances in the early candidate debates were outstanding. So it was with hope that I began to support his candidacy for the Presidency last year, and with excitement that I watched him bolt to the polling lead a month or so ago.

But as the weeks pass, the first states begin to cast their primary and caucus ballots, and the candidates are exposed to one another in more focused debates and to the press and public at campaign stops that now matter more than ever, Mitt Romney has taken a commanding lead. The former Massachusetts Governor became the first Republican in modern primary history to capture both the Iowa caucuses and the New Hampshire primary.

Romney's doubleheader sweep in the Heartland and in New England show that he has a wide range of appeal. That has always been one of Mitt Romney's strengths. He has never been considered an ideologue, never been considered a part of the 'Vast Right Wing Conspiracy', never been beholden to the 'Tea Party' or any other particular group. He appeals to many people on many issues, and makes almost as many wary on almost as many issues.

The problem for Republicans like myself who label ourselves as true Conservatives, and who have been searching for a candidate to face off against Barack Obama in the fall, is that we have been looking for "Super Conservative" - a candidate who fits that label on both social and fiscal policy issues. We want a candidate who paints a stark contrast to Obama's near-socialist liberalism.

But in our haste to find the perfect candidate, we need to remember two very important things. First, that candidate does not seem to exist. No one is perfect.  When viewed from the standpoint of true Conservatives, all of the contenders who actually want the position as the Republican nominee have weaknesses ranging from personal to experiential to their past legislative and governing records.

The second thing that we need to remember then becomes the single most important - we need to get rid of Obama. As the single most liberal President in American history, Obama has blown the deficit through the roof, stagnated the economy, threatened taxation increases on the very people and businesses that drive that economy, bailed out large corporations with our tax dollars and on the backs of our grandchildren.

God help us all if he actually gets to appoint a Supreme Court Justice this year. The damage that individual is likely to do over the next few decades, for many of us covering the rest of our lives, would be unimaginable.

The most important thing that every Republican across the country, especially every Conservative currently backing Gingrich, or Rick Santorum, or Rick Perry, or Ron Paul needs to remember is that we simply cannot allow ourselves to be pulled apart by our differences. We have far too many more similarities to let that happen. More importantly, we have far too many differences with Obama and his socialist-style cronies to allow our nation to suffer through another four years.

I have backed off my support of Newt Gingrich and thrown my hat fully into the camp of Mitt Romney for the Republican nomination and for the Presidency of the United States because I believe that he legitimately offers the Party the best chance to defeat Obama and socialism. I also believe that, with a Republican congress supporting him, Romney will produce a far more truly Conservative administration than any in the last twenty years.

From his own website comes the Romney vision: Mitt Romney will rebuild the foundations of the American economy on the principles of free enterprise, hard work, and innovation. His plan seeks to reduce taxes, spending, regulation, and government programs. It seeks to increase trade, energy production, human capital, and labor flexibility. It relinquishes power to the states instead of claiming to have the solution to every problem.

Romney is also born again hard on a number of social issues, including continually emphasizing of late that he has become staunchly "pro-life" in his view on abortion. On military matters, Romney has stated publicly that he wants to grow the defense budget to allow for modernization of the aging Navy and Air Force fleets. He has attacked Obama for not doing enough to counter the greatest military threat to ourselves and our allies, a nuclear Iran.

Mitt Romney has earned a record as a 'moderate' Republican. However, he is leaning towards more Conservative positions now. I believe that is not simply due to wishing to earn the nomination, but also because he has genuinely grown or been pushed towards those positions. Either way is fine with me, all that matters is where he is now, and where he will take the nation.

I am asking any one of my fellow American Republicans currently supporting another candidate, or currently holding back their support for anyone, to strongly consider throwing your full, outward, vocal, strong support to the campaign of Mitt Romney for President of the United States.

Low Times for Catholic Highs

(Originally published here on 10.10.09)


The Archdiocese of Philadelphia announced the other day that two of its long time iconic high schools, North Catholic and Cardinal Dougherty, would be closing at the end of the current school year.

The reaction from students and their families at the two schools, which were each once the largest Catholic high schools for boys by attendance in the world, as well as from alumni of the two schools, came swift and strong.

Many of the students had dreamed of graduating from North and Dougherty, some of these students as 'legacies' who were the sons and grandsons of alumni. The loss of the schools would break family traditions going back for generations. There would also be issues for the students such as new travel arrangements to new schools and trying to fit in socially in a new environment.

For alumni the issues included the loss of tradition and a perceived elimination of a large slice of their own teenage memories. These former students and graduates had walked the 'hallowed halls' at North and Dougherty, competed for the sports teams, participated in the clubs, attended the religious services, and got their groove on at the dances and proms.

When North Catholic opened in 1926 it enrolled approximately 450 students. By the post-World War II years the school enrollment had swelled to more than 4,000 young men. By 1953 the enrollment was over 4,700 students, and North Catholic was recognized as the largest Catholic high school for boys in the entire world. It was all downhill from there as far as attendance figures.

By the late-1970's with the school celebrating its 50th anniversary, total attendance fell to about 2,700 students, and then dropped below the 2,000 mark by the early 1980's. Though there are now approximately 40,000 alumni of North Catholic high school, the actual 2008 attendance had plummeted to 750 total students.

The story is similar at Cardinal Dougherty which opened in 1956. By the 1960's, Dougherty enrollment had swelled past the 6,000 mark as the school took over the title of largest Catholic boys school in the world. But attendance plunged in the same way it did at North, and by 2008 there were just 784 total students at Dougherty.

When you consider these figures, it is really not that hard to figure out why buildings and facilities that were originally created to hold between 4,000-6,000 students and now hold a little more than 700 each can not continue.

But many students and alumni are placing the blame with other things, including the rise in tuition costs and the cost of legal defense for Catholic priests accused and convicted in the sex abuse scandals. These Catholics are completely missing the real reasons why enrollment has plunged to the point that schools need to be closed.

For the America of the 'Baby Boomer' years, in particular the two decades immediately after World War II, the Catholic Church was a major institution and a concrete part of family life. Families were still together, large, and thriving as well. Divorce was almost unheard of, and a typical Catholic family would have 4-5 children or more. These kids grew up to attend the neighborhood Catholic elementary and high schools as a matter of course.

Tuition in the 1960's was approximately $200-250 per student at most Catholic high schools in Philadelphia. Today those figures have risen into the thousands, in some cases to more than $10,000 per year. But of course, people who earned a salary of $5,000 per year back in the 1960's are now making $50,000 in those same jobs today. Few people ever consider this fact when harping on tuition rises.

The fact of the matter is that costs have soared for most of the same inflationary reasons that salaries have soared over the past five decades. Catholic schools have an additional burden in that they continue to provide the best educational opportunities in teachers, facilities, programs, and overall learning environment. The cost of providing that quality is, however, now spread out over hundreds of students rather than the thousands of students attending in earlier generations.

There is one major reason for all of the problems that have led to not only the anticipated closings of North Catholic and Cardinal Dougherty high schools here in Philadelphia, but also to closings and mergers of other Catholic elementary and high schools in recent years. This one major reason applies to the merger of my own alma mater, St. John Neumann boys high school in South Philly, with St. Marie Goretti girls high school in 2004.

The one major reason is that Catholic families have fallen down on the job.

Catholic families began to have fewer and fewer children, to the point now where most Catholic families have approximately two children rather than the half dozen or more kids that was common a half century ago. Reproductive demographics is only a part of the problem,  just a symptom of the bigger problem that I personally believe is spiritual in nature.

Catholic families have not drifted away from the Church over the decades, they have sprinted away. According to the results of a Gallup Poll released in April of 2009, attendance at Catholic churches has leveled off at approximately 45% after falling slightly below that figure in the immediate aftermath of the priest abuse scandals. In 1955 that figure was a full 75% attendance for weekly Mass services.

The fact was, if you were a Catholic in our grandparents day, you went to Mass on Sunday - it was obligatory. The sad fact today seems to be that people take Mass attendance far too casually. Where in those previous decades the idea of divorce was almost unheard of, today approximately 21% of Catholic Americans have been through a divorce according to religioustolerance.org figures.

The combination of the deterioration of Catholic family size, structure, and practice is at its core a spiritual problem. Many Catholics have become more self-centered, more materialistic, more cynical and more willing to surrender to or flee from the problems posed by evil in the world rather than standing by their faith and fighting back. They have fled to other Christian denominations, or to no religious practice whatsoever, and have taken their smaller families along with them.

It is easy for people who want to assign blame, whether it be in the current struggles of the Catholic Archdiocese of Philadelphia or in any other area of life, to point at others. There may even be some validity to such accusations. But those same people need to sincerely look themselves in the mirror and ask some hard questions of the person looking back at them.

Do you go to Mass every week, or at least most weeks? Do you make it a priority for you and your family? Do you receive the Sacraments, especially Communion, but also including Confession/Penance? Are you committed to your family, and especially if a young Catholic, are you committed to growing that family in number and raising your children as strong Catholics? Did you, do you, or will you send your children to Catholic schools? Do you find a way to support the Church outwardly and proudly despite the shortcomings of some of its leadership?

If you can look yourself in the mirror and answer all of these questions positively, then congratulations, you are not really a part of the problem. But unfortunately you are also not in the majority of American Catholic families over the past few decades.

The answer to the problems which are now requiring the closings of North Catholic and Cardinal Dougherty, that required the merger of Neumann and Goretti, and that have required the closings and mergers of other Catholic elementary and high schools can be found within ourselves, not in protest or in demonstrations. We the people who make up the body of the Church need to return to our basic fundamentals of faith, prayer, and support for the Catholic Church.

If we are not willing to do that, then more and more Catholic schools will meet the same fate in future years. The official school motto at North Catholic is "Tenui Nec Dimittam" which translates to "What I have, I will not lose" which should be taken on as the new motto of all Catholics in Philadelphia and all across the United States of America.

At Penn State, Joe Had to Go

Sandusky and Paterno

It's a sad day in Happy Valley, the home of the Penn State Nittany Lions, a University now rocked by one of the very worst kinds of scandal. Former assistant football coach Jerry Sandusky stands credibly accused of raping and sexually molesting a series of young boys, some at least as young as 10 years old, and of doing so in some instances inside the football facilities while he was still a coach.

Sandusky stands to be judged on his own for these heinous, monstrous actions. But now comes the important issue of who else knew, may have known, or where made aware of what was going on, and did little or nothing to protect these children.

Last night that fallout spread to school president Graham Spanier and head football coach Joe Paterno, both of whom were fired by the university board. For Spanier it is the end of a 16-year run, and for the iconic 'Joe Pa' it marks the ignominious end to a 46-year head coaching career.

I could write all day long on the circumstances that led to this point, and the guilt, culpability, and responsibility that Sanduskay, Spanier, and others hold in this situation. But I'll leave that to the countless articles arleady out there, already well written.

Here, I want to cover a couple of simple points about Paterno, points that highlight the reasons that for days my own mantra was "Joe must go!" Now that he is rightly gone, the issue of his responsibility needs to be addressed.

At the time of the raping of children inside the football team facilities, Paterno was the head football coach. The man doing the rapes was a good friend of Paterno, and fellow coach on his staff. Paterno was given specific information about the rape of a young boy, that information coming from a credible person. Paterno took this information to his Athletic Director.

In taking the information to the Athletic Director, Joe Paterno did the right thing, to that point. It's what he did not do next that got him fired last night. Joe Paterno is a coach and teacher of young students. He is also the iconic face of the football program. He had a responsibility to not simply do the least expected of him by law, but rather to continue to research and investigate his program and specifically the accused coach.

But Paterno chose to simply leave it at that. 10-year olds raped in his locker showers, and he tells somebody, and that's it? Sure that was it. That was it because anything else would destroy his football program in general, the reputation of his good friend in particular.

The problem is that Paterno's loyalties were misplaced. The problem is that by his position, he was obliged to do more. Maybe not stand at midfield at halftime and call out Sandusky, not call a press conference. But he should have stayed with the accusations, followed up with the AD as to what specifically was being done.

Had Joe Paterno and others done the most, which is what needs to be done when accusations are that children are being raped, then perhaps some children would never have been harmed. And perhaps being more pro-active, he could have looked heroic personally and saved some of the University's reputation as well.

People do indeed have an obligation to step forward when they see crimes and wrong-doing. They also have an obligation to report allegations of such things brought to their attention. Further, when those allegations are so heinous as to be potentially endangering of our children, people need to not simply do the minimum, but need to aggressively pursure truth.

In the outstanding Tom Cruise/Jack Nicholson/Demi Moore military courtroom drama "A Few Good Men", the two accused Marines, Dawson and Downey, are found guilty at the end of the trial and face Dishonorable Discharges from the military court martial. Downey self-righteously shouts "We did nothing wrong!" Dawson replies "Yeah we did. We were supposed to fight for people that couldn't fight for themselves."

Exactly. And that is what Paterno, among others, was supposed to have done.

What happened at Penn State was cover-up, concealment, and enabling, by Paterno and others. Everyone who knew, or should have known, needs to be fired. Some may need to be prosecuted along with Sandusky. But one thing is obvious, that Joe had to go. Now he is indeed gone, and it's only the beginning of this sad state of affairs.

Meeting Jessica

Jessica Liversidge was just 18 years old when she laid down to sleep in the early hours of Sunday morning, October 23rd. She never woke up. She was my niece through marriage, the only child of my wife Debbie's sister, Vickie, and Vickie's husband Joe.

I had only seen Jess in person twice since she was a very little girl, both times in her pre-teen years. Once their family visited our home in the Somerton section of Philadelphia. Another was at the funeral for her maternal blood grandmother, Alma Marshall, Debbie and Vickie's mother by birth.

I say "by birth" because the whole family relationship story is kind of unique, reminiscent of an "Oprah" episode where family members who were long estranged or never knew about one another are suddenly united or reunited.
Alma had 4-5 children already when she discovered that she was pregnant with Vickie.

This was the early 1950's, still the post-World War II years, and times were tough in the household. Knowing she was carrying a life inside of her, but believing they could not afford another child, she and her husband Bob decided to give Vickie up for adoption.

Incredibly, it turned out that Alma still wasn't done with mothering. About two years later, my wife Debbie came along, and the couple decided that it must be God's will to keep expanding their family. They kept Debbie, and even ended up adding two more children to their family after that.

Vickie was adopted by what all accounts seem to indicate was a wonderful couple who raised her in the area in and around Downingtown, Pennsylvania, about 40 miles to the west of the Marshall home on Huntingdon Street in Philly.

I am not sure of the exact circumstances, but from what I have learned, a part of the adoption agreement directed that the records would not be opened until Vickie's mother had passed away, or until Vickie had a child of her own. Both of these events ended up happening within a short time of one another.

Meanwhile, back in Philly, Vickie's older brothers and sisters were very young at the time of the pregnancy, and were kept out of the plans. Vickie's birth was not known by them, and was never made known to them. The same happened when my wife Debbie and her younger siblings came along. It was simply a chapter of life too difficult for Alma to talk about.

Debbie and I met in late spring of 1992, and so I was around the family when suddenly one afternoon in early 1993 a phone call came to the home of Deb's younger sister, Arlene, one of the kids born to Alma after Vickie's adoption. It was from Vickie, breaking some pretty big news to the family - the "Oprah" moment.

That phone call began a series of telephone and in-person meetings between Vickie and her blood family, Debbie's family, the Marshalls. When Deb and I got married in the fall of 1995, we asked Vickie to be in the wedding as one of our bridesmaids. It was a great period of getting to know one another, and a part of that was Vickie's husband, Joe, and their beautiful little daughter, Jessica.

Jess was an always smiling little bundle of sunshine and light. She would always seem to skip into a room, often bobbing her head from one side to the other, blond hair bobbing back and forth as she walked. I am sure she was a challenge as she got older, but around our family as a little girl she was always a joy to be around.

We saw their family at our home, at Arlene's home, and at a number of other family social occasions over the next few years. Jessica wasn't exposed to the drama of the family reunion situation as a young child. She knew our family only as what it was, hers, from the time she was born. She was around us pretty regularly right up until she was about 7-8 years old, maybe a little older, when visits got less frequent.

Lots of things happen with family and friends as our kids get older, and our lives gravitate more around what the kids are doing. When you live any kind of distance from one another, it makes those visits even more difficult and less frequent. We just simply didn't get together much, and didn't seem to have major family events come up.

Vickie and Joe fell into some marital problems that resulted in a separation, and eventually Vickie began a new relationship with a man named Bob. We saw Vickie and Bob at a couple of family functions, and eventually it just seemed like another casualty of modern family times. But somehow, and I don't know most of the details, Vickie and Joe ended up drifting back together, which was something that our family was happy to learn.

By the time early 2010 rolled around, I probably hadn't seen or heard from Jess in a few years. Then one day out of the blue I received a message at my Facebook account from her. She asked if I remembered her, and began to ask me for some law enforcement advice (I'm a Philly cop by profession.)

My first response was that, duh, of course I remembered her. She was my niece for God's sake (said in completely humorous tone with the requisite :) internet smiley face.) And I took her "my friend recently got in trouble, what should they do?" question as most cops do when confronted with this kind of thing, wondering if the "friend" was actually Jess herself.

I answered whatever her question was as best I could, we did a little chit-chatting to catch up, and then both said that we would talk with our respective families about getting everyone together soon. Over this last year and a half, I have probably had that same kind of exchange with her on Facebook 2-3 other times, but we never did actually get the family together.

Having Jessica as a Facebook 'friend' was a bit of a challenge for an uncle in that the language used and the pictures displayed by her and her friends was not always, shall we say, family appropriate. But I always took it as simply a young girl growing up and finding her way in a new-media world.

I got to know some things about Jess through those words and pictures that would often pop into my Facebook feed. She was obviously a pretty, fun-loving girl with many interests. She loved hanging out with her friends, and she loved her parents even as she challenged them. She seemed to flit effortlessly between her life at home in Pennsylvania, and up in Maine where her father Joe's family was from, and where she spent a good amount of visiting time.

There were pictures and descriptions of her waterskiing, and she talked about loving opportunities to go flying with Joe, who is a pilot, as well as boating with the family. From these pictures and her writings, I was largely able to fill in a representative picture of her life in the few years since I had last seen her.

Then just a couple of weeks ago, I happened to be off from work and in my bedroom in the morning when I heard the phone ring. Our daughter, Melissa, who is Jess's cousin and who, at 25, always seemed closer in age with her than the 7 years that actually separate them, walked down the hall from her own bedroom to answer the phone.
I knew that she wasn't going to get there before our answering machine picked up, and she didn't, and I heard a female voice leaving a message. I couldn't hear the words at all, but when Melissa started to break down crying out loud I knew that it could only be one kind of message.

Vickie and Deb's father, Bob Marshall, is now 86 years old, and so when I realized this message was the worst kind of news, Bob was where my thoughts went. I looked at Melissa and said "Poppy?", but she shook her head and said "No" through her tears. That probably made me even more worried, and then she told me it was Jess.

I played back Vickie's message, which was heart-breaking. I find it difficult to leave any kind of message on someone's answering service, let alone trying to pass on a message to my family that my teenage daughter had just died. I called Deb, Arlene, and their sister Joanne. Then I passed the word to my two older daughters from my first marriage, Chrissy and Kelly, who also knew Jess. I let the message spread out to the rest of the family from there.

Last Saturday, Deb, Melissa and I drove out to Downingtown for the open-casket viewing and the funeral service. No matter how professional a job a funeral home does, and this one did well, they can never capture the glow of life found in a teenage girl. The service after the viewing, however, was a completely uplifting experience.

Directly next door to the funeral home is the Downingtown Friends Meetinghouse. Vickie was raised there, went to school and attended their services. Personally, I had never been to a Quaker meetinghouse for any kind of ceremony. My first impression, with the bare walls and the stark, old benches, was cold and skeptical. Boy, was I wrong.

The premise of the Quaker ceremony is to celebrate the life of the descedent through anectodal recollections of times shared, events celebrated, and life lived with the person who has passed. A moderator stands and gives a brief introduction, and then invites others to begin sharing, should anyone feel moved to do so.

At first, just a young cousin of Jess' got up and shared a pre-written piece on their lives together. It was very warm and heartfelt, recalling a relationship that was obviously close between two young girls of the same age growing up together. The young lady obviously took time to think about what she was writing, and did an outstanding job both in her writing and in telling the stories through her tears.

A lengthy period of silence followed, and I started to get a little uncomfortable. I looked over at Joe and Vickie and hoped that someone would find something more to share. There were dozens of people in the hall. Someone had to have something to share about Jess.

When it wasn't happening, I decided to get up myself. I spoke on behalf of Deb's family, mostly recounting the things that I've now shared here in this piece. I ended by imploring her young friends and family members present to realize how precious is this gift of life. I asked them to realize that, even if on the wrong path now, or making some bad choices now, they still can make changes. Their whole lives are in front of them. I hope even one person that might need such a message was listening, and took it to heart.

Slowly, more and more got up to speak. At first it was older family members, and parents of her friends. But more and more her younger family and friends got up to speak. Many of the stories brought Jess' spirit back to life in that room, and filled it with warmth, even putting a smile on our faces and filling the room with laughter a couple of times.

One young female cousin told the story of how Jess had taught her to drive: "I was 12 - and she was 11." The place cracked up. She went on to share that Jess told her that the peddle on the right was for the gas. When the girl asked which one was the brake, Jess said "You don't need to know." That was Jessica right there, full speed ahead, no brakes.

In her lifetime, I probably spent no more than two weeks worth of days in the actual company of Jess. But she touched me with her loving spirit, which from the stories I heard that day was nothing unique. She touched everyone that way.

Jess had a substance abuse problem. She used drugs, and she drank, and she partied far too much. Her family tried very hard to get her help, but in the end it was not enough. We lost her from her own choices, there was nothing anyone else was going to be able to do. But as one uncle related, she lived life on her terms.

Jessica Liversidge left us with many memories. She left a warm spot in the hearts of those of us who got to know her on any real level. She lived her life in a way which taught us lessons, good and bad. She made a difference, she will be missed, and she will be loved. And it was really nice getting to meet her again in that Quaker meetinghouse.