Johnny Mein

I am 1 of 4 grandchildren, 3 girls, 1 boy. We are like stair steps in age, and I am the baby. The step above me was my cousin John. We were only 6 months apart, and consequently, we were very close. He was the closest thing I had to a brother. He and his sister lived in a town called Seaford, VA just outside of Hampton, VA, so we didn't see each other every day, but we spent every holiday and at least a week in the summer when we were little at one of our houses. When we were elementary age, our visits were spent playing hide and seek, swimming in the pool at his house, making plastic bugs out of goop or sprinkling Nestle Quick on Vanilla Ice cream to create our own special treat. As we grew up to the middle school years and he would come to visit, We listened to the radio together waiting for our favorite songs so we could tape them on a cassette tape. At that time, John wanted to be a deejay, and he would take those cassette tapes and put in his own radio voice over. His radio persona was "Johnny Mein" (pronounced MINE) and I loved listening to those tapes. He had a great sense of humor, and we loved being crazy together. I'll never forget one summer we were listening to the radio, and in those days, the deejays would ask a trivia question for a prize. The question was, "Who played Jackie Robinson in the Jackie Robinson story?" John looked at me and said, "I'm gonna call and say, 'Jackie Robinson'" He meant it as a joke. To his shock the answer was right, and he won tickets to the movies. He loved sports and played just about all of them starting with the Pee Wee leagues right up into his high school days. Those days were when we grew the closest. Our favorite songs back then were "My Sharona" by The Knack, "Born to Run" by Bruce Springsteen (ironically I think John resembled Springsteen in his early days) and "Bad Case of Lovin' You" by Robert Palmer. We would belt them out in his navy blue '68 Mustang, and he would always yell, "1,2,3,4" just before we would both tear into "Doctor, Doctor, gimme the news..." He spent the week at the beach with my family more than once, and we were always partners for Password against my mom and dad. I don't remember whether we won or lost, but I do remember that we laughed...A LOT! He called me "Tree" My name is Terri and he was playing around one day, and pronounced it [tuh - ree] then said it quickly like that and it sounded like Tree. It stuck, and he called me that from then on. In the past several years we haven't really been in touch with each other. Life kind of got in the way. My sister called today to tell me that John died this morning from a heart attack. I was shocked.  He just turned 50 two weeks ago. I know he will be missed, especially by his 6 children. It made me think today how very precious time is, and we should never waste a day because we never know how many more we will have. Rest in Peace, cousin, and thanks for the memories!