When I first entered high school, I did not think I'd come out of it perusing a career in welding. I was going to be an artist. I was going to be in galleries, people would pay just to see my art much less have it in their homes. Some where along the line though, I had an epiphany. Why do people pay to see art? Why is it money that comes down to someone being able to experience something? Why is culture left behind a pay wall, why is the beautifying your home a luxury reserved for those who could afford it? Why did I want to contribute to that? To sell my passions for two grand a slice? It made me fall out of love with the idea, my passion for it died. Without a direction I attended a career fair just to get an idea of what I could do to just feed myself once I got out of high school. There was a demonstration for welding and I thought "why not?". I suited up in sweaty borrowed protective gear, pulled the visor down and when the first sparks flew that's when I realized. I was steadying my hands to make sure all my strokes were purposeful, holding my breath so I could get the details of the weld just right. Hunched over I could have spend day on that piece of scrap metal. Welding is an art, and in that moment I felt a passion for the arts that I had long forgotten. Since I was a kid I had a habit of breaking things. It wasn't on purpose mind, I was deeply curious on how things worked. What made diecast cars go, why did this doll make sound, things like that. It got to a point eventually my mother had to store all the screwdrivers on a high shelf. Guess it was nobodies surprise that I liked science class. Learning how things worked, why the stars lit the sky, why scabs would form on my scraped knees. This overwhelming curiosity I had was nourished rather than sated. Once I got older, I finally put two and two together and started learning to fix things as well as break them apart. Old cassette players, my personal laptop, box fans, I tried my hand at most everything I could get my hands on. It was this curiosity that lead me to a career fair during my sophomore year of high school, and to a welding demonstration. When the first spark flew and I saw metal fuse to metal my mind flew with questions, curiosities. For the first time I was presented with an option that would see my restless thirst for skills and knowledge as a positive rather than a detriment. All this to say, welding is a skill that took two completely separate parts of myself, and clashed them together. They melted like wire on metal and lead me here, writing to a boy I've never met, but who somehow shares the same passion I do. I regret not being able to meet you Kevin, but I hope, in this small way, I can do your memory justice.