What goes into a leaders? (Happy Birthday Mikey), and Ritz Crackers, BBQ sauce, and American Cheese (yum)

Have you ever met a person who is just born to lead? Who was just born to inspire? Who could impact your life with a single word and would carry you when you were falling and put you back together with their energy and pure love. My friend Mikey is that guy!

Top: Shawn, Mikey Front: Joey, Danny, Me

There are many people who stick in my mind as great leaders. Bill Clinton was one. As Frank Caliendo says, he could make you believe he wasn't sitting in front of you just by the way he talked with his southern dialect and scratchy voice.  Abraham Lincoln goes without saying, as one of our great leaders. I love to read about how he would make important points by telling stories. What a great way to lead. Martin Luther King Jr was another inspiring leader who put the weight of a county on his shoulder in the name of change for all men and women.

All natural born leaders have one thing in common; a quality that just can't be described or put into words, but you know it when you see it. You feel it when it stirs inside you.

Mikey has that same leadership persona as all of greats who have changed the world around us.

His family is a group of leaders too! They are raising money for Juvenile Diabetes. Something that his son was diagnosed with in the fall of 2011 (see his twitter page: @nichter18  or their walk page:
http://www2.jdrf.org/site/TR?team_id=144806&pg=team&fr_id=3343 )

They are an extraordinary family who has touched my life (among the MANY others who surround them), inspired me to be a better person, and they all lead the way with how to survive any challenge that comes their way. Their compassion is unparalleled, their love spreads over all they touch like a summer breeze across a field of wheat.

Mikey, has always been a great leader! From the soccer and basketball teams he's been on to any job he's taken (currently a math teacher). I've learned how to lead, from him. He's a wonderful friend, and one the best father's I've ever had the privilege to know.

Happy Birthday Mikey! (April 30th, 2014). We've known each other over 30 of your 40 years. Despite the many years that have passed, I can still remember our greatest cooking experiment ever! (see below)

Story Time: We were barely ten years old when Mikey and I discovered that our friendship would be forever bond by the unique food combination of barbecue sauce, american cheese, and Ritz crackers. Who knew such a combo would be one of the greatest foods we would eat. 

Mikey, Me, Dee, Kirsten (Mikey's wife)

We were at his house, where I spent many days and nights on weekends or after soccer practice. Like most boys, food was a top priority to our existence. Cartoons, soccer, music, and food. Not necessarily in that order. We'd watch the cartoons while listening to music and chowing down on food; before or after playing soccer (if we could do all four at once, we'd try it). 

One day, out of the blue, we decided to put our culinary skills to the test and come up with a quick snack that we could make, without his parents around, and something we could eat in bulk. 

Ritz crackers are always a good staple in any household, so that was our foundation. Next we needed something to go on top. Most people, or the average kid might think of cheese whiz! But that was too elementary for our tastes. Mikey had some BBQ sauce and we decided to give it a whirl. The precise brand alludes my memory, but that wasn't important. We were creating! Brand names were irrelevant in the presence of such artists!  Wolf Gang Puck had nothing on us.

We tried a few Ritz with BBQ sauce bites and immediately knew we needed something on top of  our new open sandwich Ritz creation. Mikey reached in his fridge and pulled out a package of good old orange american cheese. I believe it was Kraft singles. Brilliant!  We neatly folded the cheese into four equal sizes and placed them on  the crackers with the thin splotch of sauce. It was almost done. We needed to do one more thing.... That's right, we needed a toaster oven! Those wonderful inventions that people rarely used for "toast" but more so for heating up Pop Tarts and leftovers if you are a poor college student.  We baked the Ritz, BBQ sauce, and yellow American cheese delights in this wonderful invention (which burned us more than we can count).  We watched through the glass with strict eyes as to not let the cheese burn. We had a few crispy (black) cheese tops at first, and it took some time to perfect the baking time, but soon we got the feel and eventually settled on just over a minute. Perfection creation! 

Over the years we both have done plenty of cooking and developed our own recipes for a vast variety of foods, but we have yet to our due our original creation. In hind sight we should have copyrighted the recipe, marketed the brand, and made millions, but neither of us are in advertising and the truth is, we'd never be the same if that happened. We would've gotten caught up in the world of the rich and famous, do media interviews on Oprah, Ellen, Letterman, Leno, and become bigger than Bobby Flay or the Iron Chef show... that isn't us... But it could have been fun!!! 

Bottom line. Happy Birthday Mikey! May your day be full of love, hugs, happiness, smiles, sunshine, and everything good that you deserve. INCLUDING FOOD!!!

Much love, Scooter Magraw