the weekend in review, and the recruiting hat is passed to me

First, a big shout out to the folks north of Harrisburg, and you know who you are. The little ticker for my MS150 goal is rising, thanks to you. An unexpected thing happened when I started letting my friends, relatives, neighbors and anyone else who'll listen that I'm doing this thing. Not the husbands who would actually ride in it, but their wives started talking to me...saying "You should get Joe to ride with you." I talked to two of those guys yesterday. One is psyched and might do it. He's having to check his calendar because he may be out of the country the weekend of the ride. Either way, he wants to train with me even if he can't do the ride, which is cool. I could use a training buddy. The other used to do a lot of things like this when he was younger, and at first, the voice of experience flatly refused.

He asked, "Have you ever done anything like this before?"

"No."

"Well, I have. The first 10 miles are fun. The last 10 miles the first day...suck. The whole second day.....sucks. I don't think so."

Granted, it lended a touch of gritty reality to the whole thing.

A few hours later, I asked again, and he wavered, so I more told than asked him, "You really want to do this thing, don't you?"

"Yeah, I kinda do."

Ahhhh...weakness! So now I'm like a shark smelling blood in the water, or a pit bull sensing fear. I'll be doggin' this guy until he relents. We'll see how it shakes out. In the end though, I'm thinking he'll be pedalling at the end of September.

The occasion that I had to try to talk him into it was the annual golf tournament to benefit the youngster's school...one I usually help out with and then play in. As usual, I ran the putting contest, but this year I brought the youngster, because he needs some service hours for school. He helped out getting set up and measured the distance putts finished from the hole for me. I used to not enter this contest, because I figured it was an obvious conflict of interest. How does it look in the unlikely event that I win, and if I can't win, why enter? Well, last year I got chastised by the guys running the tournament who said, "Of course you can enter, and if your happen to hit the closest putt, of course you can win." I figured it was just a ploy to get more money out of me, because there is an additional contribution to play in the putting contest, but whatever, I shelled out the extra 5 bucks because...it's for the school. Well, this year, I got extremely lucky and hit the putt (about 60 feet from the cup) 5 inches from the hole. Last year we had two guys actually sink the putt, so I didn't think that would win, but it was very respectable. As more luck would have it and the day wore on, nobody got closer. I got a $75 gift certificate to Outback out of the deal. The rest of the day went even better. No, we didn't win. Someone in our foursome figured out we finished 8th out of 20-something groups...again, respectable. The forcast, however, was calling for thunderstorms and I didn't think we'd get in all 18 holes. The rain held off and we finished...dry.

Last night the youngster had his mandatory screening of The Passion of the Christ. It had a profound influence on him. I picked him up after it was over. He looke at me and just said, "Wow!" Whe I asked what he meant by that, he said, "That movie...wow!" It also scared the hell out of him (literally..the whole Satan thing). It was a rough sleeping night for the little man. Again, hindsight...maybe I should have protested a bit. Other parents did, and their kids watched Jesus of Nazereth instead. The youngster said he was happy he saw The Passion, but wide-eyed at 2 a.m., I think he was reconsidering. I know I was, even if it was too late.