The Big Flirt

Sent in by Christal Colby

Wow, where do you start with the many stories of Adam Puckett?

I work in the IT Department at Whitney, so I guess I became Adam’s “personal tech support”. Adam was having issues with his laptop or something, so Calvin Mosbey gave my name to Adam to contact me for assistance. Of course like with every company we have a system to contact Help Desk, but since he was Calvin’s buddy… I had to help him. While I am connected to his laptop trying to fix his issue he starts talking and telling stories. We all know how this boy LOVED to talk. Lol We immediately became friends and had so much in common. I introduced him to several of my friends/coworkers, so he started going out with us. My friends would tell him he was the male version of me. I guess that boiled down to having fun, talking to anyone, and of course being a big flirt.

This brings me to my story of Adam the Flirt... We would go to Legends (a bar in Metairie) with a group of our friends/coworkers. Adam used to flirt with this lady named Ruby who hangs out in Legends every Thursday night. She would just light up when he walked in the door. He would compliment her and just make her feel so good. He always tried to get her out on the dance floor. She just LOVED all the attention he gave her. Now, let me describe Mrs. Ruby…she is about 5’2”, black beehive hair, she wears gaudy jewelry with skin tight leopard pants, wears makeup like Meme off of Drew Carey Show… oh and before I forget….Mrs. Ruby is 84 years old. Too Funny!

The Ultimate Base Stealer

Sent in by Jeremy Puckett

Many of you are familiar with Adam’s accomplishments in Soccer, Water sports, basketball, and the many other sports he played. One that is seldom talked about is his success in baseball. I can remember going to his games and watching him do things that other kids on the team just couldn’t physically do. Adam wasn’t the greatest hitter in the game, but he was exceptional at getting on base. He was quite a bit smaller at that stage in his life than most of the other kids but that worked to his advantage in many ways. The speed he developed playing soccer took a lot of coaches and players by surprise when he started playing baseball. More than half of the time when he got up to bat, he tried to draw a walk or would bunt just so he could embarrass the other team by stealing bases. His speed at that age greatly outweighed a 12 to 14 year old’s reaction time when they would try to throw him out. I can remember multiple times that Adam would purposely lead off of a base too much so he would draw the pitcher to throw to the baseman and have them either try to run him down or to throw him out. Adam would actually ignore his base coaches when they would tell him to hold up on a base and would just keep going because he knew the other team had no way of tagging him out. He even stole home plate on multiple occasions by leading off 3^rd base and out running the person trying to tag him. He made fools out of people on that baseball field and brought an energy to the crowd and game which actually made baseball an exciting sport to watch. Good times.

Domination

Sent in by Jeremy Puckett

“Domination”

From day one Adam was a fierce competitor and hated to lose. I truly believe this is what made him so good at everything he did because losing just wasn’t an option. Contrary to popular belief, there were actually a few things Adam was not good at. Although most of those things seem to escape my mind, there is one thing that rings very clear because it was something I totally dominated him in….Table Tennis! Yes, you heard it right here, it was possible to beat Adam at a sport and not only did I beat him, but I dominated him. This fact was kept very secret for a long time for 2 reasons, he didn’t want anyone to know he was such an aggressive player in a sport considered in some circles to be “dorky”, and he didn’t want people to know that he could be beaten at anything. Those grudge matches in the garage at my parents house sometimes became quite violent to the point where we would try and tattoo each other with the ping pong ball…who said table tennis isn’t a contact sport? One of Adam’s favorite things to do in sports, if he saw himself at a disadvantage, was to somehow alter the rules or find loopholes to increase his chances of winning. Well, he tried that with me and it still didn’t work. Sorry bro, I’m still undefeated.

Trinity Summer and After School Programs

Sent in by Kathie Gregory

I guess I'd say that my real friendship with Adam began in 1999...the summer he worked with me at CSP at Trinity as a counselor. It was a given that Adam was a natural at that job. He was so awesome with kids and they loved him....especially the "bad" ones. Somehow, Adam could always coerce the bad kids to do exactly what he wanted. They'd do anything for him b/c he was the cool one. There are many, many funny stories from that summer from serenades of "Livin' la Vida Loca" to bowling championships to much bathroom humor. Fast forward to the spring of 2000 when Adam and I worked at Trinity again for ASP (After School Program). We worked with two other people...one of which was a trainwreck. We did give her quite a bit of hell that spring, mostly in good fun....she had the most disgusting work ethic I'd ever witnessed...don't know how she didn't lose her job. (My disclaimer - there were no children present...we had to be at work an hour before the kids came so no children witnessed this scene). However, there was one day when Adam had had enough. The trainwreck showed up for work scanitly clad in the clothes she wore to Cowboys the night before, still had the same smeared makeup, wreaking of beer and bars. She had apparently, just woken up and got in her car and came to work. We all had words with her over this, but this went beyond crossing the line as far as Adam was concerned....after all, we did work with children. There was no stopping him. He began questioning her and then he went off. He ripped into her about her horrible work ethic, her lack of self-respect and mostly for her audacious behavior and dress around the kids. Of course, Chad and I were behind the girl cheering Adam on and probably more accurately, fueling his fire. I think he got his point across...it certainly didn't happen again. Probably one of the funniest things I had ever witnessed. Good times.

Zapp's

Sent in by Michael Hankins

My favorite story that I always tell about Adam was a quip he made after overhearing a conversation of mine. I was discussing the ever increasing cost of gasoline with a couple of people and we were debating at what level it would change our driving tendencies and the cars we bought. Everyone in the conversation had come up with their thoughts and plans when Adam walked over and asked what we were talking about. I told him about the conversation and he looked at us with this bemused expression on his face and said, “Gas? I’m more concerned about the price of Zapp’s going up.” He always did love his Zapp’s.

Tone Wop!

Sent in by Beau Gregory

My first memories of Adam are from my elementary school days playing soccer with Jeremy in their backyard. Jeremy and I would have a serious game going and much to our dismay, Adam would somehow find a way to break out of the house in an attempt to get in on it. In the midst our hollering at him to get out of the way, I couldn't help but be impressed by his ability to kick the ball in the air from mid-yard to the fence at that age (he was about three at the time). To this day I still haven't seen a toddler with chest muscles like he had back then. More recently, I could always count on (and enjoyed) hearing about the current deals Adam had going. Whether it was winning all of the talk-about radios from the Surge contest and selling them, the various deals from Conn's and ebay, or former governor Buddy Roemer fetching him a drink of water at his most recent job interview, I could always count on a good story when we would get together. When I took a job in Baton Rouge in Sept. 06, I stayed with Adam and Cindy several times before I bought a house. It was during that time I learned that one of Adam's hobbies was to stay up all hours of the night searching for funny videos on sites like ebaum's world and youtube. Occasionally I still find myself checking out "Chicken noodle soup music video-official version". Tone wop!

Videos of Adam

Chad is hosting some videos that Adam made on his website. There are a couple train horn and wakeboarding videos. Check them out at http://www.starkovich.com/train.html .

Cindy's Letter to Adam

Dear Adam,

I can’t believe I have to write you a letter so soon again. It seems like yesterday that I was sitting at my apartment writing a letter to you that was to be read at our wedding. I remember racking my brain trying to put into words how much I loved you and how much I was looking forward to a long life together. I now find myself in almost the exact situation.

Through our marriage we have had our arguments just like any married couple, however since I’m such a passive person you tended to win most of the arguments or I simply gave up. Anyone who knows your personality would understand why I gave up so easily. I know as we were driving into Lake Charles for Papie’s funeral you said “I hate this. I hate funerals. I don’t even want to have a funeral if I die.” Well, I hate to break it to you but it looks like I finally won one argument and get the final say. Although we had our arguments, we were very good at making compromises. If we had a little girl, you wanted to name her Charlie. I wasn’t to keen on that so we settled on naming our girl german shepard Charlie. I’m glad you were able to put the name to good use.

I know we talked so many times how it was so odd that we were such a perfect fit because we were so different. I will always remember your little sayings to me when I would look at you like you were crazy. You would tell me “You know I’m fun” or “Cindy, you knew what you were getting into when you married me.” I thought I knew what I was getting into with our marriage but it turned out to be a thousand times better than I ever imagined.

Adam, you had what Megan would call “the essence.” People were attracted to you and wanted to be around you. I never met one person that wasn’t drawn to your personality. I am so proud of everything you accomplished and I know you have no regrets. I know you would like me to share some things with the people you loved that you never got to say, so I’m going to do my best to remember the important ones:

To Alton: Adam would ask me when we first started dating what I thought of his family, especially you Mr. Alton. The reason being was he told me several times “When I get older I’m going to be just like my Dad. I’m going to be just as successful as he is.” I guess he wanted to make sure I was a good fit.

To Mrs. Gisele: Adam was so proud of you for raising three rambunctious boys and working full-time. He was so proud of all the awards you won in your profession as a counselor. He also never let me cook broccoli without your cheese sauce, which we had several arguments about. Another thing he would always mention was how you made all of his Halloween costumes by hand. I thought I should let you know about his plans for his costume this year. He wanted to dress as a blind man and bring Charlie as his Seeing Eye dog. He was going to get some crazy colored contacts and get a vest for Charlie. You were such a good mother to him and he planned to instill the same family values in our family as you did in yours.

To Jeremy: Adam loved you so much. You were not only his older brother but one of his best friends. He would always tell me how you would get so aggravated because when you were younger he would copy EVERYTHING you did. I think my favorite home video of you guys was at your birthday party at Petro Bowl. Adam had to be about two or three years old. On the video you can hear your mom say “Now Adam, it is Jeremy’s birthday so he gets to blow out the candles. If you blow out those candles, you don’t get to go bowling.” So, everyone starts singing Happy Birthday and when it comes to the pause before the last line of the song Adam yells out really quickly “happy birthday to you” and blows out the candle. For some odd reason, the next clip in the video shows Adam bowling, so he must have talked himself out of that one.

To Kelli: Adam always told me “I knew the first time Jeremy brought Kelli home he was going to marry her.” I know he was so proud of his two nieces and nephew.

To Jonathon: I know Adam always gave you such a hard time with all his competitiveness and sarcastic comments. When you first started dating Leslie, I had to tell him to back off of you a little or she wasn’t going to want to hang around us anymore. Jonathon, Adam was so proud of you for going through the Internal Auditing program and landing such an awesome job! I’m sure he is going to want you to have all of his frisbee golf equipment if we can find them.

Adam had too many friends to say something about each of you. I will do my best to connect with you all in some way. I don’t want anyone to feel left out but I did have some things that just have to be said to a few of you:

To Aaron Long: After we left New York in April, Adam said “If I could pick one friend from high-school to live in the same city as me it would be Aaron.”

To The Garcille family: Adam considered you all his second set of parents and brothers.

To Jason, Seth, John, Stephen, and Darren: Thank you for looking so tirelessly for my husband. I knew you did everything you could.

Lastly, to Adam again: Hubby, there will not be a day you are absent from my thoughts and not a morning that our Little Lucy doesn’t run up to the bed looking to cover your face with kisses.