Ian Soper

I met Hugh at Cornerstone Music Festival. My sister had become friends with him through the 7ball website message board, and they had decided to get married, sans meeting each other first.

Now, we went to Cornerstone as we usually had, but that year my sister was going to meet Hugh for the first time. She knew what he would be wearing and where he would be camping. So, she mustered up enough gumption to ask me to go with her and meet Hugh with her. I said, “It’s a deal, sis.” (Or someting similar to that, the exact facts are sketchy).

After a deep breath we began to make our way to his campsite. My sister began to get extremely nervous. I don’t know what happened next, except that I was now walking by myself to meet my future brother-in-law, with out his future wife. I noticed a tall guy, with dark hair, retro black framed glasses, donning a Smiths t-shirt and some black Chuck Tayolor’s. I said, “Hugh?” He nodded in agreeance that Hugh was in fact his name, however, he had no idea who I was. Responding to the recogition, I said, “I’m Ian.” After a few seconds of connecting the synapses, his brain connected the name Ian to a girl that he was going to marry, Kate. Ian his Kate’s brother, that is why he is talking to me (I’m sure that is what he was thinking).

So after a quick introduction, I believe that I said something like, “Kate is over here, would you like to finally meet her face to face, my brother in Christ?” (Again, some of the details are sketchy). We walked over to Kate and they made their introductions.

And that is how I met Hugh McKinney.

Ian, myself, and a cardboard cutout of Ian’s mom shared office space for over a year.

Ian is an interesting guy. He always walks around with this baby clinging to his head. I’m not sure how it got there, but it apparently is very attached. Some sort of mutatation or Indianan rearing ritual or something…weird stuff