Love Letter

Dear Hanson,

I love you so much. I would have told you so had not my desire to be perceived as refined kept my true feelings unexposed. Of course, I hope you could sense my devotion by my mere presence at your concert last night, accompanied by my screaming after each and every song.

My affection for you began in 2nd grade when my dad brought home an album of long-haired boys not much older than me. It was love at first listen to your album, "Three Car Garage." That began the explosion of Hanson posters covering my bedroom wall, listening to your album so many times I thought it would scratch, learning every lyric, and buying every TeenBop or TigerBeat magazine I could that included either posters or interviews of you.

Zac, you were always my favorite.

        Until I saw Taylor in person 5 years ago.

Nonetheless, I had sea monkeys as pets once...

        I named all of them Zac.

You know, I have my dad to thank for introducing us. I was proud to have heard about you before many others had. He first invested in your music-and my happiness-when he bought the albums "Three Car Garage" and "Middle of Nowhere" for me and my sister, Taylor. During Christmas 1997, you came out with "Snowed In," the only Hanson Christmas album out there. Still my favorite. By the way, your logo? Brilliant. Additionally, I will forever associate the sensation of a warm car during snowy weather with your music. 

I met a girl last night who was in grad school at Spalding. She had come to see you for the twelfth time. Having only seen you three times, I hope you hold true to your promise to continue producing more albums. I also met a girl with your logo and your signatures (somehow) tattooed on her ankle. See, there's sort of this side-stream mania of Hanson fanatics, like myself, whom have stayed true to their first love for the past 13 to 15 years. While you can rest assured I will never brand myself in honor of you, we all have the same stories: Sure, our commitment has strayed from time to time but as soon as another Hanson album comes out or a concert opportunity presents itself, warm feelings and memories of you like an old friendship flood in. 

Lastly, thank you for all your wonderful music. You all are so very talented! Taylor, you play nearly half a dozen instruments at your concerts and Zac, you're ability to sing lead and keep rhythm amazes me. Your combination of rhythms in the song "Crazy Beautiful" last night...very impressive. And as always, quality harmonies. Thank you for sounding the same as you do on your records, for performing with God-given talent, combined with skill and charisma. And for giving a Christian artist, trying to make it, a chance to get his name out by opening for you. Unrelated, I appreciate that you each have a wife and children to whom you are faithful. Way to be solid in a ridiculous industry.

It would be ideal that one day, by some fate, you would stumble across this post on my blog. And that you would then think, we should personally invite her to a show to meet us...even better, to rehearse a song with us! And that you would be encouraged and affirmed not only in your music, but in yourselves as influential individuals.

Your sincere and unashamed fan,

Kensi