Hang in there Richard

Note: This was written a few days ago and unfortunately, this is the first chance I've had to post it. I will be following this up shortly with another post. Sorry for the wait.

It's been awhile since I've written anything here. It's been kind of nice not to have anything to complain about in terms of treatments and side effects. My legs are still pretty weak, but I have noticed slight improvement over the past few days and I'm hoping that it continues.

I was terribly disappointed to learn that one of our family friends has been diagnosed with cancer. Richard Wood, who, along with his wife Connie, have been good friends of my mom for as long as I can remember. Graham and I grew up with their daughters Ann and Ellen. I am a year older than Ann and Graham and Ellen are the same age. My mom and Connie worked together at a daycare center for a few years and that meant that us kids spent a lot of time together. It's been a long time since I have talked to either one of the girls, but despite that, my heart goes out to them. One thing that I have discovered about having had cancer is that as hard as it is on the person who has it, it may be even harder on those close to the person who has it. At least when you are the one who has it, you know that you'll either recover or you won't. If you do, your suffering ends, if you don't, your suffering ends. For the family and friends of the cancer patient though, it only goes well if there is a full recovery.

I have been lucky enough to have Kelly in my life and to have her shared strength, courage and optimism. It's not easy for someone to wear that face all the time, especially when they don't always feel that way. It's important though. It's way easier to deal with cancer if the people around you are positive. As a patient, it's so much easier to deal with cancer when you know in your head that you're going to beat it. And an important part of knowing that you're going to beat it is to have the people in your life show nothing but confidence in that outcome. No tears, no doubt, and no giving up.

Ok, enough about that. Richard, I know that you're going to come through this with flying colors.

Our summer so far has been busy, but fun. Callie played really well in Midland and pitched really well in a complete-game win on Saturday night. She had four doubles and a handful of singles in the games.

I'm going to take this opportunity to complain about the way that tournament was run though. Our girls pay $50 per year to play travel softball and the rest of the funding for the program comes from a burger bash fundraiser and our home tournament. The rest is provided by the director of the program, Linda Bouvet out of her own pocket.

Midland has some other ideas regarding fundraising. I have no idea how many weekends per summer their travel team plays, but it must be an extremely high number . They must need an awful lot of money based on their demands on spectators. I must confess that I have no idea what they charged teams to play in the tournament, but unless it was free, the good folks in charge in Midland are taking advantage of parents wanting to watch their kids play. When we pulled into Emerson Park prior to the Friday night game, we were stopped and informed that it would be $10 per person for the weekend. I thought that they must have misspoke and meant $10 per car, but I was wrong. They charged us $30 and gave us an inconvenient wrist bracelet to wear for the rest of the weekend. I didn't want to put the bracelet on so we carried them around in our bags and every time we went to a field, we were asked to produce them. Heaven forbid that someone might show up for a Saturday night game not having paid their $10 entry fee. Add to that the price of the concessions and I'm pretty sure that they grossed more in three days than I make in a year.

Another thing that was ridiculous about that tourney is that Emerson Park is probably the premier softball complex in the state. It has a stadium as one of its fields that the girls got to play on with actual grandstands that run from first base to third base with a press box at the top of the grandstand behind the plate. There are very nice indoor bathrooms underneath the grandstand along with umpire rooms. However, $10 per person apparently isn't enough money to allow access to those indoor bathrooms. The doors were all locked and port-a-johns were placed throughout the complex. Just one more dropped ball by the tournament organizers.

I don't usually rant like that in public, but if that's the kind of money you need to raise to keep your program afloat, then maybe you need to rethink your program just a tad.

We have had a really good time following the girls this summer, watching them improve and be more competitive.

We go to Alpena this weekend for the final tournament of the season. So if you happen to be looking for something to do, make the drive and watch some softball. Abbie is done with her softball and may be rethinking her desire to be a catcher as a ball got through the gear the other day and hit her in the side. She was a trooper though and got back out on the field the next inning, just not behind the plate.

Andrew is still doing really well at his job, and is enjoying the paycheck that comes along with it. He recently asked me about a second job so that he could get even more. I'm proud of him and the work ethic that he is starting to show. His mom wanted to take the kids down to her mom's house and Andrew didn't go because he didn't want to miss work. There was a time when he would have quit the job in order to go.

I will update this again after my pre-surgery on August 13 to let you know what I found out.