Relay for Life

Another local Relay for Life is in the history books. A considerable sum of money - maybe $80,000 - was raised for cancer research. For the fifth year, I stayed up all night until about nine this morning, pulling the night shift with my son and a friend of his. It is interesting, to me, to stay up all night once in a while. It is sort of like when our family traveled west in 1998. You know the west exists and may have flown over it but there is nothing like traveling through it to get a real sense of the land. Same with "traveling" through a night. We decided we like it best around 4:00 - dark and calm.
The hustle/bustle of Relay by day contrasts with the quiet at night, when people tend to hunker down in their tents and under their canopies.

Selling that ice cream!

We were busy raising money for cancer research, selling a lot of ice cream (weather was in the 90's), with one guy manning the bounce house - hugely popular with the kiddies.

The bounce house - a big hit

Members of our square dance club, enough for at least one square, showed up at 8:00 and we put on a very brief demonstration between all the other announcements and events. 9:00 was time for the lighting of the luminaries and a lap around the track honoring and remembering people who have dealt with cancer. It is a moving ceremony amidst what is really a celebration and a very upbeat event.
Then around 10:00 members of our team started heading home, one by one, until the woman still doling out the ice cream sundays took her leave around 12:30, and my wife held out until 2:00. Then it was down to the three of us.

Talk about a total non sequiter - at midnight or so, a demonstration from a nearby park district on turtles and tortoises. Not sure of the connection, but they had some nice specimens on hand!

It gets pretty surreal when you find yourself learning about turtles and tortoises of the world.

A half dozen of my son's friends were still hanging around at 1:00, and I joined them in a game of bocce, which was won, by some fluke, by the boy and me. Bocce is a fun and very simple game where someone throws out a small white ball, the everyone takes turns tossing their own balls, about the size and weight of a duckpin ball (for my Baltimore area friends) to see who can come closest to the white one. (It is especially fun under the bright lights of our football field at a time where most sane peopple in town have been sleeping for hours.)

Another victory between 3 and 4, when they held a Poker Run; for a small admission fee, you walk or run the track (as you are able) and they hand you a playing card for every lap; at the end, you make the best poker hand you can from it, and the winner takes the pot for their team.

I got about 13 laps in - a little over three miles and 13 cards, producing a full house - and the boy ran the whole thing, covering 6.5 miles or 26 cards/laps. He was able to produce a winning straight flush for his second win in a row, and the pot went to our relay team.

Pretty desolate at 4:30!

We then retired to chairs under our canopy and nursed our aches and sores.

Around 5:30 a breakfast crew arrived and served breakfast burritos and juice. I ordered a round for the lads and myself, and then they took off for home. I stuck around to help tear the camp down a bit, and got a picture of our team leader accepting a "gold" plaque for raising over $5,000, at the closing ceremony.

As with most people who get involved in Relay, cancer has touched us in a very close way, and getting involved just seems like a small but meaningful way to try to fight back a bit. I look forward to it every year, and to anyone who has never been to one, I'd urge you to go - it's actually fun and upbeat, there's usually music playing and good stuff to eat. And a few laps around the track at the pace of your choice can't hurt too much, either - I mean, unless you overdo it, like, say, me at 3:00 last night.