Another dumb summer thread...happiest moment of your life...

[cto]

Most people will doubtless cite their wedding day... or the birth of their first child... or something equally as important.

But I will admit it up front. In my pathetic life (divorced and no children), I think the happiest moment occurred on 4/7/03 in New Orleans when SU (and JB) finally exorcized the demons and won the NC. For me (and and my SU generation), it was such a long time coming.

For those who may have (or not) led more conventional lives, I would love to hear your happiest moment.

 

[tee1222]

Even though it's a textbook answer, I have to say birth of my son.
Edit: Sorry, run of the mill answer but it's the only thing that comes to mind right now. Oh, and it was probably the most stressful day too! I took care of my wife, calmed her down, etc, but I was nervous inside the entire day.

But ahead of Yankees championships, getting to see the Islanders win a Stanley Cup live in the 80s behind my cousin's husband's (cameraman at the time, now director with Emmys), NY Football Giant Super Bowl victories...
EASILY my happiest sports moment is Syracuse 2003 National Championship. Wasn't there in NO, but watched it at a bar with a good friend.

 

[Jeremy L.]

-Syracuse winning their first National Title (got to witness it in the Superdome that night).
-Being offered an internship with an NFL team that I'm starting in August

 

[suttree]

Most people will doubtless cite their wedding day... or the birth of their first child... or something equally as important.

But I will admit it up front. In my pathetic life (divorced and no children), I think the happiest moment occurred on 4/7/03 in New Orleans when SU (and JB) finally exorcized the demons and won the NC. For me (and and my SU generation), it was such a long time coming.

For those who may have (or not) led more conventional lives, I would love to hear your happiest moment.

On multiple occasions, my wife has remarked that there were more tears of joy on my face of 4/7/03 than there were on our wedding day. That's about all I'm going to say about that.

 

[tee1222]

-Syracuse winning their first National Title (got to witness it in the Superdome that night).
-Being offered an internship with an NFL team that I'm starting in August

Whoa, nice avatar!

 

[tee1222]

Most people will doubtless cite their wedding day... or the birth of their first child... or something equally as important.

But I will admit it up front. In my pathetic life (divorced and no children), I think the happiest moment occurred on 4/7/03 in New Orleans when SU (and JB) finally exorcized the demons and won the NC. For me (and and my SU generation), it was such a long time coming.

For those who may have (or not) led more conventional lives, I would love to hear your happiest moment.

Cto, not to be patronizing at all, but from all the great stories in the short time I've heard since I've been here, you have an exciting life! Not to mention, you have a ton of family here and family is always there for you.

I moved out to NJ over 9 years ago from NY and I lost so many friends over the years. Doesn't seem like a lot of distance, but it clearly is. Most of them seem to think that Facebook is a replacement. It is not. Hardly ever speak to any of them anymore and it is rough. I am glad that my immediate and extended family stay in touch and we get to see our parents and siblings, albeit not as often as I would like.

Nevertheless, this place is a lot different than FB to me. I have made closer and more loyal friends than so many of the ones I lost over the years. Even though I have only met one from this site, they are more trusting and trustworthy than many from my past.

Sorry to ramble, but you've got a lot of support here and I feel lucky to have this support too.
Plus, we all have a common bond in that we cheer for the best sports program on the planet.

 

[cto]

Cto, not to be patronizing at all, but from all the great stories in the short time I've heard since I've been here, you have an exciting life! Not to mention, you have a ton of family here and family is always there for you.

I moved out to NJ over 9 years ago from NY and I lost so many friends over the years. Doesn't seem like a lot of distance, but it clearly is. Most of them seem to think that Facebook is a replacement. It is not. Hardly ever speak to any of them anymore and it is rough. I am glad that my immediate and extended family stay in touch and we get to see our parents and siblings, albeit not as often as I would like.

Nevertheless, this place is a lot different than FB to me. I have made closer and more loyal friends than so many of the ones I lost over the years. Even though I have only met one from this site, they are more trusting and trustworthy than many from my past.

Sorry to ramble, but you've got a lot of support here and I feel lucky to have this support too.
Plus, we all have a common bond in that we cheer for the best sports program on the planet.

I'm sorry, but I now realize that "pathetic" was probably the wrong choice of words. I probably should have said "unconventional." I am living a great life. It is just unconventional when compared to most people. In any event, it was not my intention to say that my life was "pathetic." As you have noted, it has been quite exciting. But it's been a bit different.

 

[llandz]

Most people will doubtless cite their wedding day... or the birth of their first child... or something equally as important.

But I will admit it up front. In my pathetic life (divorced and no children), I think the happiest moment occurred on 4/7/03 in New Orleans when SU (and JB) finally exorcized the demons and won the NC. For me (and and my SU generation), it was such a long time coming.

For those who may have (or not) led more conventional lives, I would love to hear your happiest moment.

Joyce, before reading your whole post, I went right there also. And maybe it is a good thing that my husband and my kids do not read this forum!!!! 2003 National Championship, no doubt!!
My 2nd is that I went with my youngest son to the Academy Awards for his 21st birthday. Standing on the red carpet with him, and his grabbing my hand (which 21 year old guys don't regularly do) from the excitement of the event is also seared in my mind as a very happy and special moment.

 

[stuckinbig11]

It is not fair that you predicted some potential answers because my first thought upon reading the query was: birth of my first child (not to downplay birth of his sister or brother).

 

[CuseTroop]

I hate that the only thing I can think of is sports related... Giants- patriots Super Bowl. I had just got home from a year in Korea. Watched the game at home with my mom, dad, and brother. My dad and I had some rough times growing up, I hated him for practically no reason. Got my first motorcycle when I was 3, it had training wheels. By the time I was 11 I was on a 500 enduro. Had field cars my whole life (flipped 2 of them) and was handed a racing career at 13. He wasent my real dad, but he's been there for me since I was 2. I didn't appreciate a thing. At 16 I moved out, ending my racing career (which was going really well, and costing the family alot of money) (my dad owned a body shop, was the type of guy that if you needed $5000 worth of work done, but you only had $3000 but you had a couple motorcycles for his boys, or a field car, you had a deal)... Right before I joined the Army, it hit me... This is the coolest guy I will ever meet. The guy that turned my bedroom wall into a huge giants helmet, back when it spelt out "Giants". The guy that made me an SU fan.

Giants- pats Super Bowl. Tyrees catch. The first game I watched with him in years. Giants just won the Super Bowl. We took the whole family to the bar. Little brother, dog, everyone. I remember walking up the street, just so happy, screaming, seeing the look on his face.

During my time at fort drum, I spent every Sunday back in Penn Yan, watching giants games with him. I'd drive home on week nights to watch Syracuse bball games with him, just to drive back 2 and a half hours to drum before PT...

I live in Alaska. I have a wife, two dogs, and am getting ready to close on a duplex. We both have good jobs. I've been all around the world. I've done so many crazy things.

The happiest moment of my life? Happens every time I watch a game with my old man.

 

[cusetown1]

I hate that the only thing I can think of is sports related... Giants- patriots Super Bowl. I had just got home from a year in Korea. Watched the game at home with my mom, dad, and brother. My dad and I had some rough times growing up, I hated him for practically no reason. Got my first motorcycle when I was 3, it had training wheels. By the time I was 11 I was on a 500 enduro. Had field cars my whole life (flipped 2 of them) and was handed a racing career at 13. He wasent my real dad, but he's been there for me since I was 2. I didn't appreciate a thing. At 16 I moved out, ending my racing career (which was going really well, and costing the family alot of money) (my dad owned a body shop, was the type of guy that if you needed $5000 worth of work done, but you only had $3000 but you had a couple motorcycles for his boys, or a field car, you had a deal)... Right before I joined the Army, it hit me... This is the coolest guy I will ever meet. The guy that turned my bedroom wall into a huge giants helmet, back when it spelt out "Giants". The guy that made me an SU fan.

Giants- pats Super Bowl. Tyrees catch. The first game I watched with him in years. Giants just won the Super Bowl. We took the whole family to the bar. Little brother, dog, everyone. I remember walking up the street, just so happy, screaming, seeing the look on his face.

During my time at fort drum, I spent every Sunday back in Penn Yan, watching giants games with him. I'd drive home on week nights to watch Syracuse bball games with him, just to drive back 2 and a half hours to drum before PT...

I live in Alaska. I have a wife, two dogs, and am getting ready to close on a duplex. We both have good jobs. I've been all around the world. I've done so many crazy things.

The happiest moment of my life? Happens every time I watch a game with my old man.

How much is real estate out there?

 

[CuseTroop]

How much is real estate out there?

Honestly depends on what your looking for. 375 for a 4000 square foot duplex on an acre and a half. One half rents at 2800 the other 1600. Or we could by this 8 acre plot of land for 40000, and spend a 150000 building a house, but the VA won't back that

 

[cusetown1]

Honestly depends on what your looking for. 375 for a 4000 square foot duplex on an acre and a half. One half rents at 2800 the other 1600. Or we could by this 8 acre plot of land for 40000, and spend a 15000 building a house, but the VA won't back that

Buy the land and build if you can. You only have to deal with minimal closing costs, only a small one on the construction loan so you save money there (just one of the benefits). But that sounds like a great deal. Would love to live out there someday.

 

[We Are Syracuse]

1) Getting a Scholarship
2) 2003 baby!

 

[chriscory101]

There are three in my life. First two were when I was in high school. One was when my team one the state championship in football up in the dome, came home on the bus in which the bus for an hour faked having a problem which we didnt realize, just so that when we got home we got a parade with all the town watching.

The second happened a week before when my mother who was in atheltics club for parents lied to me for two weeks telling me another player one an award for the football season. Just to be surprised at awards night by my own mother who announced in front of all the fall sports teams that I one the award for football. I honestly teared up and hugged my mom in front of a couple hundred people on stage.

The third one happened a couple years ago when the Giants one the super bowl. For the first 30 years of my life I had been scrapping buy before I finally got a decent job that made some money. Nothing ridiculous but going from 17k a year to 40k is a huge upgrade and allowed for the first time some flexability. That fall I used that money to buy tickets to a Giants football game for my dad, brother and myself. For christmas I gave them each a Giants T-shirt and then waited as they opened them and said thanks. I then also said they will need those shirts for the Giants Cowboys game we are going to next Sunday. Turned out that the game I picked happened to decide which team went to the playoffs and which team didnt. The Giants one with us in the stands and would go on to later beat the Patriots for a second time in the Superbowl. Just being able to do those nice little things for my family who has done so much to me meant everything.

 

[jekelish]

4/7/03 is certainly one, but 4/20/11 is absolutely the happiest day of my life, and nothing will ever top it.

That's the day my son was born. I was a little stunned and didn't really, fully appreciate it at first. And then I went with my son to get his hearing and sight testing while my wife was in the recovery phase, and they laid him down to test him, and he reached up and grabbed my thumb.

Best. Moment. Ever.

Nothing will ever come close. He was 5 weeks early so we were nervous that he may be unhealthy in some way, but he's perfect. And that first time he grabbed my thumb and held on tight was amazing. A close second is the first time I ever made him laugh.

I love my son, if you couldn't tell.

I love him even more because he's projected to be 6-3 and I fully plan on turning him into a point guard for Syracuse right around 2029.

 

[Phillymoose]

I am happily married with 2 children, so I will dispense with the obvious...

I was searching my mind - and certainly the NC in 2003 and countless good football wins have made me happy over the years.
But - in terms of 'best day ever' - - I remember learning that I passed the bar the same day I was heading up to visit my cousin at SU. For the first time ever, I took the train up from NYC, and a friend and I snuck a bottle of vodka on the train, and drank pretty hard the whole way up. We arrived in a very happy state, and I just had so much happy drunk energy that night - there was no way the party was every going to stop.

Add to that the fact that I woke up in a strange bed and there was no need at all for me to chew my own arm off to escape - just made that day/night/morning even better. I acknowledge I will never party again like that as long as I live, nor do I want to - - but I am glad at least I had the experience...!

 

[CuseTroop]

Buy the land and build if you can. You only have to deal with minimal closing costs, only a small one on the construction loan so you save money there (just one of the benefits). But that sounds like a great deal. Would love to live out there someday.

Plan is to get this duplex, and in a few years build something myself. I have a buddy that builds houses, I've done work for him, and he has told me he will help me out. That's what's amazing about Alaska. You are never alone. You need something done, 30 people are gonna offer help. I have a gold claim that I wanna build a cabin on next summer. You ever wanna come do the alaskan experience, we can hike out to it

 

[bballbeadle]

I have had a lot of happiness and certainly some pain in my long-ish life. Two kids, so that's obvious, although the days of their birth were not pleasant. Wonderful vacations. Standing on top of the Continental Divide in Glacier. Canadian Rockies. Redwood forests. Soooo happy when I scuba dive and I'm going to Roatan on Saturday! Love love love being in Maine with huge extended family. Being with my mom in the months before she died. Yes! Much happiness there. I can meditate and get pretty darn blissed out.

But in terms of a single day? Come on. April 7, 2003. A no brainer! I remember lying in my bed at 3 a.m. listening to WAER play "We Are the Champions" over and over. Thought I would burst.

 

[FireballPhil]

Most people will doubtless cite their wedding day... or the birth of their first child... or something equally as important.

But I will admit it up front. In my pathetic life (divorced and no children), I think the happiest moment occurred on 4/7/03 in New Orleans when SU (and JB) finally exorcized the demons and won the NC. For me (and and my SU generation), it was such a long time coming.

For those who may have (or not) led more conventional lives, I would love to hear your happiest moment.

wow, this is a tough one. As others have stated, as well as you Joyce, the birth of children ranks right up there. So I started thinking about the more unconventional. SU winning in 2003 was way up there on that list, but I have decided on a different time, even more unconventional.

In 1991, I was in Desert Storm, and as the war ended, my platoon was told we were to stay in country for a while as part of what was termed the "reactionary force". This was needed, we were told, in case Saddam decided to re-invade Kuwait once all the main troops had left the country. As a result, we were stuck loading ships with other units gear-they would drop their gear and fly out. You name it, we loaded it. Anyhow one of the perks to this was we got to get a bus from the motor pool and drive all over Southwest Asia, visiting different cities. One day we finally got our orders to return stateside, and I was asked to take the bus back to the motorpool-about a 50 mile journey. A fellow Marine would drive one of our hummers and pick me up and bring me back. So we are driving-out in the middle of nowhere-when the hummer pulls along side the bus and is honking the horn while waving at me to pull over. I do, and he comes up and says we have a problem-he had forgotten to put diesel in the hummer before we left and he was on empty! All of a sudden we see a couple of people pop up over a sand dune coming our way. We grab our rifles and take defensive positions. They approach the bus, and call out to us, they say they saw us stop from their farmhouse, and wanted to see if we needed help. We warily told them of our dilemma, and they laughed and said that's not a problem, just follow them to their place. So we followed them from a safe distance, and saw them disappear into a shed, then re-emerge carrying something. Since we had stopped a ways away, we once again took our defensive positions. As they approached, we could see they had some kind of pump in their hands. They said they were going to pump diesel from the bus into the hummer. We watched as they did just that, then they invited us for afternoon tea (A tradition in that part of the world). We accepted their offer, and they told us how happy they were that we had come. They and everyone they knew had been worried about what Saddam was doing, and knew he wasn't going to stop with Kuwait. They couldn't thank us enough for risking our own lives to help save theirs. We here both humbled and proud that the locals felt this way, and grateful that we had this impromptu opportunity to talk to them.We were happy to be alive, happy to have helped been part of a force that stopped Saddam in Kuwait, and happy to have sent waves of relief to all the people in the region.

 

[CuseFaninVT]

Birth of my son in August 2003,
Red Sox win the World Series in 2004,
SU wins in 2003,
and just a couple weeks ago when my wife's doctor confirmed that she does NOT have MS. That whole situation was a lot more scary than I thought it would be. She's fine now - probably just stress induced issues, but the threat of MS was huge.

 

[MSOrange]

Like CTO, I am not married nor have children so I will have to say the April 7, 2003 tops my list also. I am a fan of other teams, both pro and college, but Syracuse is by far my favorite and nothing can ever top that day in the sports world for me.

A couple other come to mind for me that are basically 1A on my list.

Nov. 20, 2009 - I was released from Mayo Clinic after being there for 61 days for treatment of an open wound that developed into MRSA and the infection got to the bone. It was almost a 3 year ordeal trying to deal get the wound and infections resolved - most of which I spent on bed rest living with my parents, except for the time I was stupidly trying to keep working. I hope I never have another day go by when I take my health for granted.

May 10, 1998 - That was the day I graduated from Mercer University in Macon, GA. When I was born with spina bifida, one of the nurses told my mom to seriously consider putting me in an institution. Fortunately I had a fantastic neurosurgeon (the late Dominick C. Adornato - some of you may have heard of him. He was a long-time neurosurgeon in the Syracuse area) who supported my parents and me while we lived in Syracuse. I was one of the first kids with a disability to be fully mainstreamed in regular classes in the Liverpool School District because Dr. Adornato and my parents had confidence in me that I could do it. We moved to GA in the 6th grade and I ended up going to middle school, high school and college in GA. I had no idea that my mom had sent a college graduation announcement back to Dr. Adornato. Who knew he would even remember me? But the week of graduation, I got a page long handwritten letter from him telling me how proud of me that he was. Sometimes I don't give myself much credit, but that really hit home and I could say to myself "you did good Mark!"

 

[tee1222]

Sometimes I don't give myself much credit, but that really made it home and I could say to myself "you did AMAZING Mark!"

Fixed that one for you, my friend.
You sound like you came a long way and keep it going!

 

[Jeremy L.]

Whoa, nice avatar!

Thank you! Can't take credit for it though, not talented enough to make those!

 

[mark79]

Gotta do this a little differently. The birth of my son Matt was a miracle and according to doctors should never have happened. That day / moment was incredible.

Then we went through 7 agonizing years of heroin addiction with him in his late high school an college years, up until last year.

He hit "bottom" as they say and Jan and I, even though we'd been through hell and back remained faithful and prayerful.

We moved to Richmond on what we now know is part of gods plan as the church we were attending were praying for a worship leader to come along. My son has always been religious and went to Berklee College of Music, tried out for American Idol, has performed at Fenway and many other places.

They asked him to play his guitar and sing for them and they just were stunned. They knew he was right for them. A year later he is employed as their worship leader and we now have the pure JOY of watching him lead our congregation in prayer and worship every Sunday.

I am sharing this partly because I am sure there are some on this board who need this kind of hope when life throws them a tragedy. We are experiencing our greatest joy now every Sunday morning.