Hello Gold Star Revolution squad! It's Gold Star Friday, which means that it is time to announce our Star of the Week!
Future Stars of the Week will be chosen from reader nominations! But since we are at the beginning of this project, I will be the one nominating our Friday Star of the Week until the time when nominations from readers start to roll in.
Please send me your nominations, and please see the end of this post for more details on how to do that! All recipients of the Star of the Week award who live in the US can choose to receive a free gift from my Gold Star Award Winner collection** on Zazzle!
For the first time here on the blog, I am presenting two Gold Star awards on the same day. This week's Stars of the Week are President-Elect Joe Biden, and Joe's son Beau Biden, who died of brain cancer in 2015.
The 2020 election appears to be over at this point, despite Donald Trump's attempts to call the legitimacy of the election results into question. So I thought that now would be a very appropriate time to name our new President-Elect as Star of the Week.
I am excited about Joe Biden's presidency! I believe that Biden is a decent, caring, kind, and competent person who wants to do what is right for our country. I know that he cares about the soul of this nation and that he will do his best to be a president who represents all Americans.
As I mentioned in Tuesday's post, the next four years will not be easy. America is a country that is deeply divided, and there is a lot of hard work that needs to be done. Nevertheless, I am enthusiastic about the new possibilities that come along with a Biden presidency. I believe that Biden will reach across the aisle and try to work with Republicans. I can only hope that some of those Republicans will want to reach back and work with Biden.
Like Joe Biden, I grew up in Pennsylvania. In fact, I grew up only about an hour away from Scranton, where Biden was raised. As a Pennsylvania native, it gave me a particular sense of satisfaction to see him flip the state and take it from Trump in this election.
I also lived in Wilmington, Delaware for a short time in the mid 1990s. As I'm sure everyone knows, Wilmington is the city that the Bidens have called home for decades now. And this city brings me to the introduction of our second Star of the Week, Joe's oldest son Beau. Sadly, Beau died on May 30, 2015 at the age of 46 from an aggressive form of brain cancer.
I had a strong desire to write this post today because I have been very personally affected by this election. One of the main reasons why I have felt so impacted is because Beau and I worked together in Wilmington for about three months in the summer of 1993, when we were interns at the same law firm. The firm had six interns that summer, and we worked together in pretty tight quarters. So we had a lot of time on the job to get to know one another.
We also spent a lot of time together outside of work. Interning for a law firm was a bit different back in the 90s than it is today (from what I hear, at least). Interns were wined and dined by the top firms, especially in a corporate mecca like Wilmington.
Every firm hoped to make such a favorable impression on its interns over the summer that they would want to come back and work for the firm after graduation. As a result, many firms had a summer intern coordinator who was in charge of planning a fun summer for the recruits.
Suffice it to say, we spent quite a bit of time engaged in after-work activities. There were outdoor barbecues, minor league baseball games, golf outings, fancy lunches, and even a softball league.
What I remember most about that summer is how much I enjoyed the company of the other interns. Beau, in particular, made a huge impression on me. He exuded sweetness, and people were naturally drawn to him. I certainly wanted to be around him as much as I could!
I honestly cannot say enough nice things about Beau. Even though his dad was a well-known politician, you would never have known it from talking with him. Beau was not the least bit arrogant or conceited. He was a kind, genuine person who loved to laugh and be silly. Simply put, he was a person with a good soul.
Beau even came up with a nickname for me that summer, one that I was very fond of at the time and still am fond of now whenever I think about it. The nickname was a bit unusual given the name that I was going by at the time.
One thing that some people don't know about me is that I went by the name Patty until I was in my late 30s. (It's probably pretty easy to guess that my legal first name is Patricia.) I didn't change my name to Tricia until 2007. So even though I was going by Patty back in 1993, Beau started calling me "Trixie" at the beginning of the internship and kept it up for the whole summer.
By calling me Trixie back when I was Patty, I believe in retrospect that Beau may have been the very first person to plant a seed in my subconscious about changing my name to Tricia.
Beau has been the only person to ever call me Trixie, but if anyone wants to take up the mantle, I certainly will not be opposed.😊
I did not keep in touch with Beau after that summer, but I have thought of him often over the years, and I admired the career and life that he created for himself. He was the Attorney General of the state of Delaware for eight years, and he had intended to make a run for the Governor's office before he died.
I'm sure that if we had run into each other somewhere down the road, Beau would have recognized me. I know that he would have given me an incredibly warm smile and would have greeted me with a cheerful "Trixie!"
It seems incredibly unfair that a wonderful person like Beau is no longer with us. But I know that his spirit lives on, and I also know that he would have been so proud of his dad for winning the election!
Thinking about Beau has reminded me that life is in fact short. None of us knows how much longer we will be here, and so I urge you to take time to appreciate the people you love today!
I am not posting any photos of Joe Biden today, but I will share a couple of pictures that I am honored to have that include Beau. I feel lucky to have captured my experience during the summer of 1993 with a few pictures.
The photo of Beau by himself is not flattering, but I still couldn't resist sharing it because it makes me smile whenever I look at it. I see Beau's playful spirit in it, and I also remember that he didn't care one bit that I was taking a picture of him with his mouth full!
I am so honored to name Joe and Beau Biden as our Stars of the Week!
Would you like to nominate yourself or someone you care about to be our next Star of the Week? To read the rules about the nomination process and get more information about the free gift that U.S. winners will receive, please click here. Then submit the Nomination Form!
**If you click through any of the links on this page and make a purchase from Zazzle, I will receive two separate commissions: one for being the designer of the product and another for referring the sale to Zazzle.