This is my first post, offered in thanks to Chris Hansen and all my Sonic-seeking warriors. It's going to be a little long, because the Sonics have meant so much to me for most of my sixty years.

I learned about basketball from my beloved big brother, Joe. We watched games together when we were still living at home, then when we were older, we watched together with our children and extended families, until he passed away in 1998 at age 51. One of my last, precious memories of him was watching a game together in his hospital room. I think we were playing the Suns, but it may have been the Rockets, because I remember the elated looks on his face when the Sonics were playing well, but I also seem to remember jeering at Charles Barkley and his bald head during the game. If Joe had lived until 2008 when the Sonics were stolen by Clay Bennett et al, the abomination of Sonicsgate may have killed him.

Backtracking a bit, in 1979 my one-year-old daughter sat on my shoulders at Boeing Field as we welcomed home the NBA-Champions-of-the-World SuperSonics. (Remember the song, "We are the champions, my friends... no time for losers, for we are the champions... of the world"? It was the Seattle theme song that summer, and it belongs to the Sonics, to me, and to all fans who danced in the streets the night of our victory in Washington, D.C.) I remember the day of their return clearly. I remember the plane, I remember seeing the players disembark from far far away as we stood near the back of the throng. I remember it was sunny and beautiful, but unusually hot for June. I remember my daughter in her little bonnet and sun dress, and I was careful to keep her slathered in sun screen.

Eventually I had two more children and all three of them watched games with me on tv, or at the Key in person as Sean Kemp got up for the downstroke, slam-dunking a Gary Payton behind-the-back, between the legs, spinning mid-air alleyoop bounce pass. These were delicious highlights of our family life.

!n 1996, a few months before she went off to college, the same daughter who sat on my shoulders as a one-year-old went with me and other family members to game 7 of the Sonics/Jazz Western Conference Finals. We sat in the very last row, and counted down the seconds on Karl Malone's free throws together -- something she reminded me of recently. As we were revelling among the crowd outside the Key after our victory in that great game, suddenly I turned around and saw Jack Sikma standing just a few feet from us!

I wanted to grab her and ask her if she remembered sitting on my shoulders on that hot day in 1979 and waving at Jack Sikma, or if she remembered listening to games in utero the year before - his rookie year - when they lost to the Bullets in seven, but I suspected she did not. I wanted to grab him and ask him if he remembered seeing us in the crowd at Boeing Field, but I was too embarrassed. Nonetheless, I wallowed in the sweet symmetry of the moment: In a very real way, the Sonics were intertwined in our lives together. They had two great championship series teams in the beginning two years of her life, then again playing into the championship series as she crossed her 18-year old milestone, preparing to leave home.

I now have six grandchildren, including two from that daughter and her husband, who has in a sense filled the gap as a fellow sports nut that was left vacant when my brother passed. He and I follow Sonics Rising daily, making sure neither has missed any of the latest news. We talk about the glory days of the Sonics, but we aren't shallow, we are well-rounded. We talk about other important things -- the Seahawks, the Mariners, the Huskies...

But the NBA doesn't play on our tv's, and we stopped patronizing Starbucks in 2008.

I am so glad that Chris Hansen, Steve Ballmer, the Nordstroms, Wally Walker, the guys at SonicsRising and all my fellow Sonics fans are fighting so hard to bring our Sonics back. I thank you for your incredible, determined, consistent persistence. To borrow from another great era in Seattle sports, these current champions of Sonics basketball have a "Refuse to Lose" mentality.

If the lying thieving demigod-wannabes of the NBA follow their evil leader, David Stern, into the pit of hell, and deny the return of Sonics basketball this year, I will continue to believe and support in any way possible Chris Hansen and all who have labored on my behalf. I say my behalf because to me, this is very personal. To me, this is about generations of Sonics' players and coaches, and generations of family members and friends, loved and cherished and some of them now gone. I want a future. I want to outfit my grandchildren in green and gold, take them to a game, and let them see their Gramma jump up and down in joy on the good plays or bury her head in her hands on the bad ones. It's a sight they deserve to see. It's part of their rightful inheritance.
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From the heart,
Flying Chicken

My favorite mash-up, which I just made up:"Bring out the rye bread and mustard, Grandma, there's flying chickens in the barnyard!