Kimberly Goss

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5 years gone seems impossible. His voice is still so clear in my head. Of course examples of his voice exist everywhere online, but I’m talking about the nuanced way in which we spoke to each other and the laughs that hit so hard it would physically hurt. He made me laugh from deep within my gut. Everyone should have someone like that in their life! This past year, one of his favorite movies of all time turned 40 years old. Our mutual love for the Back to the Future trilogy is one my earliest memories from that period of time right after we met, when we were still getting to know each other. In those early days during a trip we took to Tallinn (capital of Estonia), we discovered that we both knew the entire dialogue for the first BTTF movie. I’m not exaggerating, we knew every single line, word for word. We amused ourselves by taking turns reciting the entire movie to pass time on the ferry. Every vocal inflection and facial expression for every character, we could imitate. Not only did we know the dialogue, but we’d also mimic the sound effects that went on in between the spoken words. From the ticking clocks and newscast in the opening scene, to Eddie Van Halen’s guitar licks that Marty played in the walkman for George McFly, to humming the iconic film score itself, we did it all. After that trip I told him he needed to see the Universal Studios theme parks in Orlando and Hollywood because they had a ride based on the films. The one in Hollywood also has a backlot tour where you can see the “Clock Tower” and the “Lyon Estates” entrance stones. He loved it so much that we eventually ended up getting annual passes to the Orlando park and traveled back many times for consecutive years. The ride closed down in 2007, but I have a box of photos from those trips and here are a few. If you look at the liner notes in the booklet of the first Sinergy album, you can see an Easter egg from the movie where Alexi thanks me for the, “nickel’s worth of free advice”, which is a quote by principal Strickland to Marty 😆 Even in the months before he passed, I look back on several texts of us still quoting the movie. An epic film loved by an epic man. I miss you so much!