Monday, October 18, 2010

If you’re a regular listener of this segment you know that often I get personal and talk about things involving my family. You also might know that my wife Jane is a breast cancer survivor and for the seventh consecutive year led “Team Booberang” in the Making Strides Against Breast Cancer Walk Sunday in Point Pleasant Beach. The event and cause obviously has some special meaning to her
and I am proud to say our children as well. We knew my son was going to come home from Hoboken this weekend to walk with his mother but we got a great surprise when our daughter very unexpectedly showed up. She and her roommate took a bus from Penn State Friday, met my son in New York and then took a bus to Toms River. My wife was only expecting to pick up Brandon and was stunned to find Alex and her roommate Nicole get off the bus as well. Since the kids went out for a while they all kept it a secret from me until about 1 o’clock in the morning and to say I was surprised would be an understatement. It made for a hectic but great weekend, including a wonderful dinner Saturday at The Crabs Claw Inn where my daughter works in the summer and my son did as well. It all culminated with yesterday’s walk which was a first for me and was everything I have heard and more. What really struck me was the number of people I ran into who I never knew had a connection to breast cancer in their families. To see the amount of survivors was uplifting but it was also sad to see so many who were walking for those who did not beat this horrible disease. We can all hope that there will be a day that nobody will lose a wife, mother, sister or daughter to breast cancer.

I know there are times when we don’t want government interference but if I was a Cablevision customer I would want very much the government to intervene in their dispute with Fox which cost many in our area to miss Sunday’s Giants football game and the first two games of the NLCS involving the Phillies. On the surface you have to think Fox is the bad guy here because they will not agree to binding arbitration but nobody has any sympathy for either billion dollar conglomerate.
What I do know is sports and entertainment shows are often our escapes from reality and it’s a disgrace that they are being taken away as the two sides play hardball.