"'Your First Time.' You remember it: the screams, the yells, the exasperation like a mountain crash, 'Jesus!' an avalanche of emotion, then the climax. Yes, Alive was one great movie!"

It all began for Lisa and me in January of 1993. It was cold. It was snowy. We almost couldn't get to the movie theatre. Lisa saw the movie first, and then started reading the book. I followed in short order. Then, we both saw it two more times in the theatre. Between the two of us, we have seen the movie at least 50 times, but it was more than a movie. We became obsessed with the whole thing. I read the book at least three times. The story was unbelievable, but it was inspirational. It's about believing in yourself in a bleak situation, about overcoming nature, about finding the strength within yourself to overcome all odds. We spent hours at the library pouring over microfiche for newspaper and magazine articles relating to the story of the Andes survivors and cherished every word we found. Soon, Lisa was making the Alive "weekly planner" and "Hooked on Nando," an Alive workbook. I was making weird crossword puzzles and memorizing White Fang while I was waiting for Alive to come out on video. Soon, I started the Alive Joke Book, which Lisa helped me with enthusiastically. In retrospect, perhaps it was not the healthiest of obsessions, but it helped us to find something not all 14 year-olds understand within ourselves--the human spirit.