Wednesday, May 6, 2009

UHHC 2009-Final Thoughts, Summary and Thanks II

Continuing:
 
To Nancy Anderson, the Mother-Superior and historian of the early Hugh Heward Challenges. She has a stable of paddlers to whom she regularly passes the word.
 
In addition to doing the word processing for my 1790 tome, for which I renew my thanks, she did the word processing for my little-known and vastly underappreciated "Cultural Anthology of Canoes & Canoeing, Poetry, Humor, Art, Romance and Song".
 
Nancy's husband Bruce usually hauls the trailer-mounted PortaJon sometimes known as the "Traveling Blue Loo" during the 50 miler.. I didn't see one this year so I don't know what the paddlers did to relieve themselves except at my place, where the men went behind the fence and the girls went up to the house.
 
To Kevin and Stacy Krause who always seem to be ramrodding the festivities and the feeding at the end of the 50 miler. I wish they would tell us how they do it and who are their helpers.
 
When you get to be my age you will recognize a lot of faces you can't put names to and in my case my bad hearing complicates things. About all I do at Thompson Field at the end of the 50 milers is to sort of set there like the Pope blessing incoming paddlers, receiving rewards and annointing big boulders with Holy Water. I also buy a lot of bricks.
 
To my black and white cat Felix who hangs around while I'm at the computer and helps with the loneliness. He sometimes sits in my lap (I can't hear him purring but I can feel it) and sometimes walks on the keys and messes up my hunt and peck typing. About 3 PM he starts lobbying me for his daily "treat" which he doesn't get until 5 PM when I stop for my daily dose of Coors beer.
 
To my son Jim who calls every morning to see if I am OK and comes over to do any heavy lifting or to undo what ever I have screwed up on the computer or printer that day
 
To my daughter Karen who calls every night to see if I'm OK. If it wasn't for her my daily Emails would only be good for lining the bottoms of bird cages after one day. She invented and runs my blog which preserves and illustrates my writings. She also tries to intecept my politically incorrect remarks and sand off the rough edges of some of my comments. Sometimes I deliberately sneak one out just to watch her reaction. If I am particularly insensitive she may go into what I call her "Mother Bear" mode.
 
To Bill Westen who came out to my house one day to see if I was OK when I left the phone off the hook and no one could reach me. We went over to the A&W on Saginaw for lunch. That's the first time I ever rode in one of those monster pickups where you have to act like some sort of Mountain Goat even to get up into the seat. Riding with him for a few blocks made me feel like "The Intimidator".

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