Just When I Thought I Was Out, They Pull Me Back In

I know I said I wouldn't be posting this week, but there is a very special mountain bike being auctioned for charity this week. Read more about it here.

Super Rare Yeti Ultimate

Now this is it. I will see you all next Monday.

Why I am fundraising to fight cancer. Part 3

Cancer is not just for the young. Late in 2010 my grandmother was killed by cancer.

And when you grow up, I want you to be a  blogger! 

Adding to an already rough year, her death really caused me to consider what life is, what death is, and what all of this means. I cannot report that I have any answers yet, but I'm still looking. 

My grandmother was 76 when she died, which may sound old, but considering her mother lived to be 94 is actually fairly young. My grandmother had twenty years stolen from her by cancer. Grandma was a talented musician, a great adventurer, a keen game player, handy with a saucy joke, and was just generally great to be around. I spent a lot of summers and weekends both at her house and camping with her and Grandpa in the camper he built from scratch. Their home in Cedar Rapids was one of the places that hadn't really changed a whole lot in my lifetime; when I was younger we moved around a lot, but Grandma and Grandpa had bought their house the year I was born, and up until last year it had been a constant unchanging place in my life, as she had been.

266 Crandall Dr NE, Cedar Rapids, Iowa. 

Every year I could count on a card from her on my birthday, and a phone call. In addition to my birthday, she would send a card for every holiday; St Patrick's Day, Valentine's Day, Veteran's Day and even Earth Day now and again. This will be the first birthday I don't get a card from her. The first in 38 years now.

That makes me sadder than you can imagine; not just for me, but because my daughter won't get to experience the greatness that was Elnora Husman. I could type a thousand words here about her, but I don't know how much of it would be read and appreciated, and how much would be just me telling disjointed stories and making myself sad.

I saw Grandma a week before she died; I went to Kansas City where she was staying with Mom and Dad. I had seen her earlier in the summer when she first came to stay with them, when she told us all that the cancer that she had been fighting since 2007 had returned. We all thought it was in remission, but it came back with a vengeance and didn't leave any room for any options. She faded and got worse over the summer and, despite all of the valiant efforts of the physicians in Kansas City, she was sent home to hospice care at my parents house at the beginning of November. I went up to help Mom take care of her because Dad had a conference out of town, and to spend a few days with Grandma one on one. I helped move her and lift her, because by the time I made it up she was far too weak to walk or even sit herself up in bed. I sat quietly with her and tried to talk to her about things that were "important", but I had no stomach for it; I tried to tell her how important she was to me, and how happy I was to have her as part of my life, but I found myself out of words a lot and unable to say some of the things that I now wish I'd said.

She died on November 11, Veterans day. I woke up that morning as usual to my daughter hollering "get me" from her room - and  when I went in I found Grandma's picture in Anna's bed. Anna had put the picture on her bedside table a few months before, and in fact insisted that it be kept there. I picked it up from the bedclothes just as the phone rang. One of the great pleasures in my life is that every year on Veteran's Day, my father calls and thanks me for my service. In 2010, at 6 AM, he was calling to tell me that Grandma (his mother) had just died. I stood there holding a picture of her that I had just taken out of my daughter's bed and cried like a little boy. Cancer Sucks.

Elnora Mae Husman 1934-2010

I have raised lots of money to try to help fight cancer, but it's not nearly enough. Not enough from me, not enough from you, and I fear not enough from everyone in the whole ride. I hope that what I raised (with your help) will make some kind of difference. If you haven't donated, please do so. Thanks for indulging me my cause the past few months.

Once more unto the breach, my friends.

First, for perspective, I want you to see the amounts that the top ten TEAM fundraisers have raised for the Tour de BBQ. This is groups of people, people.

Top Ten Teams

Tour de BBQ 2011

1. KC Central Naz - $520.00
2. Team St. Paul's KCMO - $360.00
3. SPIN! - $300.00
4. Illini for Phylis - $235.00
5. Heavenly Nails - $195.00
6. MOD Riders - $100.00
7. Team Roadkill - $100.00
8. Aldersgate - $75.00
9. Team NDC - $20.00
10. Team Holmes - $20.00

Now I will show you the top ten individual fundraisers. 

Top Ten Fundraisers

Tour de BBQ 2011

1. Steve Tomac - $1,210.50
2. Justin Husman - $1,025.00
3. Carrie Helfers - $1,000.00
4. Andrew Warren - $520.00
5. Craig Henwood - $355.00
6. Jonathan Nye - $300.00
7. Stacey Corrado - $245.00
8. Niki Fehling - $170.00
9. Titus Fehling - $150.00
10. Michael Alexander - $150.00

Proof here.

As you can see, I am back in second place, and have accomplished my goal of raising 1/15th of the total event goal.  Steve came out of nowhere with a breakaway, but I am "reeling him in", as they say. This is the last time I will ask you to donate, if you haven't already.  The ride takes place on Oct 1, and I will be on the road to Kansas City with my lovely daughter on Thursday, so I am effectively done fundraising as of Wednesday. 

Thanks again to all those that have donated. The list is very long, and I would like to thank you  all individually, but I won't, because I'm real bad with thank you notes. So from the bottom of my heart, thank you so much for your generosity. When I started this process, I set a goal of raising $500 - and I was scared that I wouldn't make that. Instead, I have raised more than twice that, and some if it was even from blog readers, which makes me feel like I have actually accomplished something by writing here in fits and spurts. 

I do have one more post that I want to finish before I ride, and I hope to do that tomorrow. 

In the meantime, please take a second and drop a few coins in my cup if you haven't already. 

Something about this photo seems wrong. 

Thanks again for even reading this dreck. Thanks even more for supporting me in my charity drive. 

Another reason I am riding to fight cancer.

Despite my seemingly effortless prowess on two wheels, it was not always so. As many of you know, I came back to bicycle riding in my thirties, after I had my daughter. After spending an hour playing with her as an infant (or "infink", as Popeye would say), I realized that I was in terrible shape for a 70 year old - and I was only 34 at the time.

Casting around for a way to get in better shape, I landed on running at first, then moved right past it. To tell a personal secret, I don't even really like to walk, much less run.  Deciding that I should choose a form of exercise that I wouldn't necessarily hate, I ended up on cycling for a couple of reasons; it appealed to my mechanical self, and I thought it might be a nice way to get to know my brother in law Reed Hickok a little better. I started my cycling experience with an old gas-pipe ten speed that I bought off of craigslist (and still have in the attic) and I converted it from stem shifter ten speed to a bike with mustache bars and bar end shifters. Reed was impressed with my mechanical skill, and was amazed that I had done all of the work on the bike myself.

Looking at it now, not too bad. 

After I had ridden this bike for a while and felt like I wasn't going to make a fool of myself, I approached Reed in December of 2008, told him my plan, and asked him to ride the Waco Wild West Century with me in September of 2009. I rode and trained that year, and Reed rode - a lot more than I did. He called me one Saturday and told me that he had ridden a century that day - and that he hoped I was ready to ride in September. He rode the Triple Bypass that year, in fact, and had a pretty respectable time. However, toward the end of the season, Reed was in a peloton and crashed - pretty badly. It would be one thing if that crash had kept him off the bike for the rest of the season, but this was much worse; you see, Reed had a condition called "Gardener's Syndrome". He had a large tumor in his intestines, and somehow the crash either uncovered an infection in the tumor or caused one.

Now, I knew that Reed had been dealing with Gardener's for a while, in fact shortly after my wife and I were married, Reed had to go through chemotherapy to battle the tumors that came with his disease. Gardener's Syndrome comes with an increased risk of cancer, and Reed dealt with all of that with aplomb. Even when he was going through the roughest of treatments he was always gracious and poised, and it all seemed like an inconvenience to him more than anything else, and I always felt like he'd be ok, even after the crash. I knew that he was getting treatments, and I never believed that he would be anything other than fine, so I treated him as I always had, assuming that he would pull through this episode and be just fine.  

Reed's tumor killed him on April 1, 2010. 

Reed Hickok 1964-2010

Those numbers under the picture certainly don't tell Reed's story at all. Reed was Kansas City through and through, and whenever we went to visit him, we were guaranteed a great driving tour of the city, and probably  a meal in a restaurant that only the locals knew about - and I will promise you that whenever we went somewhere to eat, someone would come up to us and say hello. Reed was the kind of person that people wanted to know, and everyone would go out of their way to say hi if they saw him about. Whenever I was with him in KC, I felt like I was hanging out with a celebrity. Reed was very charitably involved, and was a big contributor to Ronald McDonald  house as well as several other charities and foundations. He was also active in the arts, and knew how important it is to support artists, and was in fact a member of an art investors group called "The Collector's Fund" that shared world class art among several private homes. Reed was also a great dad, friend, and family man, and the kind of human being that I will always aspire to be. I am barely touching on the surface of who Reed was, but he was really someone special. I always felt like a goon around him, because he had been such a good friend to my wife, and such a good husband to her sister. As the guy who was married to Reed's sister in law, I was held up to some pretty close scrutiny by the family, and he was a heckuva guy to live up to. My great tragedy? Once I decided that I was really the only one comparing myself to him and coming up short and decided to make an effort to become better friends with him, the time he had left was too short.

I still haven't ridden the Wild West, and I don't know when I will. I chose the Tour De BBQ this year mostly in memory of Reed. Kansas City really is Reed's town, and I would have loved to do this ride with him, because Reed knew good eats, and he really knew Kansas City. I'm very sad that he isn't here to do it with me, because even though he would have made me look slow, he would have made it a lot of fun, and given me a great personalized tour along the way. I'm riding the Tour De BBQ to spend some time with my brother in law, if only in spirit.

Reed's bike at his wake. 

So this post wasn't about some comedian that I enjoyed and that most of you haven't ever heard of; this post is about someone who meant a lot to my family - and to a lot of other people that you will never meet. I'm riding in order to try to prevent the world from losing more people like Reed. Me? I'm just some blogger who can't stick to theme in his blog. Reed? Reed was a guy who made a difference in lots of people's lives, many of whom he never met. And because of cancer, he can no longer make that difference, he had too many years  stolen from him - and from his wife and daughters.

I'll ask you again to DONATE to my fundraising drive today. I know that I'm just shooting to raise a few hundred dollars, but I have to start somewhere, and as you can see, I have reasons for wanting to raise this money. Maybe the ten dollars you donate is the straw that will break the cancer camel's back. 

Please, DONATE today.