BIZARRO 7th RELAY for LIFE (RfL)

By Your RELAY for LIFE Supporter, Jack Strap

Since it was a rather BIZARRO RELAY for LIFE in our 7th year of RELAYing, I'm using the somewhat BIZARRO red trebuchet font (i.e. Trebuchet MS is a humanist sans-serif typeface designed by Vincent Connare for the Microsoft Corp in 1996. It is named after the trebuchet, a medieval catapult). And I'm still feeling a bit BIZARRO even after kinda-sorta napping yesterday afternoon & 10 hours of sleep, but was happy to awake to find the World hadn't ended as was predicted by Scholesy's fellow BIZARRO Birdsboroan.

So where do I start?  It's not so BIZARRO to start at the very beginning when cancer 1st impacted my life most directly when my PSU Friend & our RELAY for LIFE Captain Diane-dretti Poletti was diagnosed with breast cancer.  Every year during the RfL opening Survivors Walk, I think back to that night Steve told me & how scary that was to hear. So happy that Diane is still our RfL Captain, but it's not lost on me that other RfL Teams (e.g. Friends of Bob) aren't so lucky.  Other 2011 RfL Survivors Walk thoughts included Swoop'in Steve's prostate cancer fight which was bravely fought on the road in Houston, my Dad, my cutey patootie niece Lauren, the inspirational cancer fight of Free Ride Todd, and Lipper who was walking the track with his Wife Justi.  

Lipper's cancer battle has been going on for awhile now during which I've really admired how he's handled it while feeling rather helpless myself beyond helping to raise monies for the American Cancer Society (ACS) through the Relay for Life.

I just spent quite a bit of time on the http://morebirthdays.com/.  I just have to believe that what Team Poletti Family & Friends has done in our 7 years RELAYing along with many-many other RELAYers makes a difference.  Just a relatively few things from the ACS site that I'll note here:

• The ACS has been part of almost every cancer break-though (with hopefully many more to come);
• The progress we're all making against cancer helps save 350 LIFES per Day;
• There are 11 Million Cancer Survivors, but we can't stop there.

So we don't stop there and I no longer see the RELAY for LIFE as an Event, but rather a year-round effort to Help create more cancer breakthroughs, save more LIFES, see Survivors celebrate more birthdays, and let's not forget about early detection (e.g. if you haven't yet gotten a colonoscopy, please do so now) & cancer prevention (a lot of internet info on that).  Our RELAY for LIFE Team has done a lot regarding which we should be proud, but I know we can do so much more together (e.g. The Wongs raised almost $2000 for their RfL Team with a Cow Pooping Fundraiser) & everyone reading this can help.

So back to our BIZARRO 7th RELAY for LIFE.  Amazingly, just like a number of our other RELAY years, storms were threatening but the weather turned out better than forecast.  I appreciate that when I asked Magnum if we could come to his home (not the one in Wilson, but rather the one next to HHI's former Ozzie's indoor home) in the event of a lightning storm, that even though he was out-of-town, he left his doors open for us.  Thankfully we didn't need to take him up on that & hopefully he didn't get robbed.  I don't think it was a robbery, but BIZARROly there were many nearby wailing sirens heard from the RELAY in the middle of the night.

Other BIZARRO 7th RfL observations in a no particular order bullet list format:

• For some reason this year I was inspired to send our arch-nemesis Loud Mouth Lemon Jill tumbling down from her perch as Crazy Hat Champion (CHC).  So Thanks to the help of my entire family, I was there with a CHC caliber hat, but BIZARROly Jill wasn't after a Reading Hospital Team argument.  Our Marga-Relay-Ville Crazy Hat (see pictures at the very bottom of this with more pics on my facebook) finished 2nd with the winning hat featured electricity, so thinking next year of enlisting Bobby Bouchee's Mama who invented electricity;
• Team Poletti also finished 2nd (Mighty Kerr actually) to a guy named Juice in the BIZARRO coconut roll (think Bocce Ball with coconuts).  Juice BIZARROly was given his nickname when he moved from the Meat to the Juice Dept. as evidently his grocery store doesn't put as much creativity into nicknames as HHI.  We found that this win by Juice ended years of frustration of stink'in losing to Team Poletti;
• Hacker Bob & his Wife made a special appearance at the RELAY for LIFE just before the only rainstorm of the night, but was there long enough to present a BIZARRO fund-raising idea to sell golf balls at $100 each that are dropped from a helicopter on to a green with closest to the (or in the) pin winner(s). Alternately Scholesy asked if we could save fund-raising monies by dropping them from a tree.  So who wants to run (or should I say "fly") with that BIZARRO idea?;
• I made my BIZARRO annual attempt at facebook friending Christine & Lauren Poletti who I've known since they were babies (speaking of babies Stephanie &Justin were there for awhile with theirs and saw that Justin continued the tradition that our generation of Dads started by changing diapers).  Although unsuccessful on facebook, I feel that we did get to know Lauren better at this 7th RELAY and was happy to hear about her graduation, certification (the acronym had an impressive 4 letters), and entry into the workforce;
• Lauren got a new nickname (previous was "Pole Vault" & new one better than "Juice") from our RfL MC Kevin (who just does a great job) after Scholesy & I threw her under the bus/ratted her out with Kevin while she tried to sleep the beautiful morning away. MC Kevin announced her as the "Sleeping Bear" which also signifies her personal growth from a "Cub";
• "Kick Save" Christine attended this RELAY with her "Friend" Kenny who participated thru the entire 18 hour duration.  Christine also entered many-many RELAY Raffles and after many-many losses, I exclaimed to her "you suck at raffles" just seconds before BIZARROly MC Kevin announced Christine finally won one;
• Sleeping Bear Lauren also won a couple raffles after BIZARROly departing from the RELAY to get her car washed;
• Special BIZARRO 7th RfL Recognition for Reitzy who made the long flight back from a CA. business trip to again join our Team for the night.  His newly graduated daughter Young Brooke also stopped by for awhile;
• Speaking of graduation and being younger (I BIZARROly segue when I can), talked to Pure Carbon Corrine about Albright's graduation today which may feature a silent protest against guest speaker Govenor Tom Corbett and observed that she stayed later & got up earlier than her husband Iron Mike which she attributes to being younger; 
• BIZARROly last year's RfL Washers Champions of the Whole World (say it like Macho Man Randy Savage, may he now RIP) S.Poletti/J.Strap were double-eliminated after only 3 matches including one to the eventual 2011 Champions--Mighty Monica (who also logged many miles on the track) & Kerry;
• In my favorite Washers Tourney match, Diane & Christine defeated Jam & Juice with the latter showing years of losing to Poletti Family & Friends frustration while BIZARROly exclaiming "Bitch" after a significant Captain Diane shot;
• Along about 3:30am, we were really bored & sleep-deprived so we went through my cellphone address book & made (3) phone calls to Scott the Shot (giving him time to fly from Chicago for 8am HHI games that weren't scheduled), my pal & realtor Chucky Boy (regarding our house showing today), and Skipper Dave who was most likely to be up after his band: The Insomniacs (note the irony of the name) had played at the Cafe 210.  Skipper did text us back & I quote "WTF are you doin calling me at 3:30am?  You Dick!" which was unanimously voted as the funniest moment (for us) of our BIZARRO 7th RELAY for LIFE;
• Speaking of texting, our Team bombarded the RfL D.J. with requests all RELAY long although he still managed to play a lot of Ross-like songs which reminds me of Brother Craiger (who couldn't make it to this year's RELAY) who once said: Ross' i-POD, over 1000 songs with 8 of them good;
• And now my Final Observation (invite all RfLers there to share any others they want to)--what's that cheering I now hear?  Just as our RfL Team was seemingly breaking apart from the inside-out with a debate on why this RfL Event needs to include staying up all night & why can't we just leave early, amazingly right on cue MC Kevin announces us as the "Most Spirited Team" (an Award that had somehow eluded us for all the other years) of this BIZARRO 7th RELAY for LIFE.            

So all that's left to say is "Thanks!" to all who participated in this BIZARRO 7th RELAY for LIFE, to the many others who contributed to our various fund-raising activities, and our Prayers of Hope for a Cure to those who are living with this dangerous disease.

HHI PAST SATURDAY & NEXT WEEKEND

By Your Athletic Supporter, Jack Strap

Note that NEXT WEEKEND is the Relay for Life, so with many of the HHI Hoopsters out at that--they'll be no HHI games Saturday AM.  Since there are no games next Saturday AM, we'd luv to see the rest of you make a Relay appearance out at Schuykill Valley High School.  By then, we'll have been up all night & believe it or not your smiling faces or ugly mugs would give us the inspiration we need to make it to the end of the Relay on Saturday @ Noon.

As for this PAST SATURDAY, here's what I know from my roving facebook reporter DJ Jazzy Jones.  What the Heck & Boo Pong were the Captains drafting these squads:
* Heck's Mavericks (co-owned by Mark Cuban & Sarah Palin) = DJ Jazzy, Mighty Kerr, Gary US Bonds, Alan "The Question" I-Vath-son, and Captain Heck
* Boo Hiss Lakers = Swoop Bynum, Lamar "Bails" Odom, Iron Mike, Pat Steaks & Captain Boo Pal Gasol

Heck's Mavericks swept to the Daily Championship in 4 straight games.  Without even being there, I'm going to guess that the modest DJ Jazzy shot the lights out on the Lakers while Heck contributed Mightily (i.e. with the help of Mighty Kerr) with a Dirk Novitsky-like performance.  Meanwhile, Swoop Bynum likely cheap-shotted the Mavs smallest guy (which would be Vath) in the IMF & then took his shirt off to expose his Caucasianality while Bails Odom took his frustration on marrying the wrong Kardashian out on the victorious Mavs.  As a result, Swoop & Bails are suspended from this Saturday's HHI games which if you were paying attention above you know aren't being played, so come out & visit us at the Relay for Life @ SVHS.