I was fortunate to attend the fourth annual Notah Begay III Challenge at Turningstone in Verona this week.  Begay is the only full-blooded native American on the PGA tour, but many people know him as the childhood friend and Stanford University roommate of Tiger Woods.  Plagued by injuries, Begay continues to compete on the tour but his greatest legacy will be the millions of dollars he is raising to help native children with obesity and type 2 diabetes.

At the elegant reception on the lawn between the Shenandoah Clubhouse and the Lodge on Tuesday night, Begay welcomed fellow golf standouts Tiger Woods, Suzann Pettersen, Hunter Mahan, Annika Sorenstam, Natalie Gulbis, Cristie Kerr and Rickie Fowler.  Unlike years past when Tiger walked in with a crush of bodyguards, this year he casually strolled to the party tent with all the players and hardly a guard in site.   In the past, the event was held inside the edgy Lava club with the players seated on a stage rather far from the guests.  This year the whole thing was more approachable.  Woods enjoyed a scrumptious dinner with Oneida Nation Chairman Ray Halbritter and laughed at Notah’s jokes from the podium.

This year the question and answer period with guests was generously timed and there wasn’t the impression Tiger was looking at his watch and wondering when would this be over.  He seemed like one of the guys (and girls, as the men and women formed a team), and as often as guests asked a question of Tiger, they asked them of Notah too.  Everyone seems to know Notah is onto something with his ambitious fund drive to improve the health of young native Americans.

Woods got the crowd laughing when he recalled being a freshman on the golf team at Stanford while his friend Notah and many of the others were seniors.  Notah told the newest member of the team to prepare to get stronger, which Woods took as an invitation to work out with the guys at the gym.  ”No”, Notah said, “you’re going to carry all the bags for the whole team”.  Woods hilariously described hoisting all the bags in and out of the van, and on and off baggage carousels in airports, and he claimed that after a year of that, yes, he did get stronger as promised.

Also absent this year were the lovely young ladies who turned heads the last time Woods was here.  We wondered who were these women who looked better suited to Vegas than Verona.  I have no reason to believe they were anything more than pretty guests at the time.  But the people milling around that super elegant reception looked more like you and me this year.

Here are some photos taken with my iphone.  Sorry about the blurry images, but I didn’t want to look like a stalker with a camera, even though I was kind of starstruck.

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Tent was lined with cellophane and uplighted in pink and green. Chandeliers hung from the top

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Tiger, at center, enjoys the meal and playful comments

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Players Pettersen, Woods, Kerr, Begay take questions from guests

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Mahan, Sorenstam, Fowler. Fowler is my hero with that getup

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I received an email from Brian Wood, of Brian’s Fine Art Gallery and Custom Framing on Wolf Street,  hoping I would recognize the good deeds of his mother, Carol. Carol is now known to the young soldiers of Fort Leonard Wood in Missouri as “Platoon Nana”.

When Brian’s 19 year old daughter Larissa joined the army this year, she became the first in the family since World War I to join the military.  Carol was worried to death her grandaughter took such a bold step to put herself in harm’s way.  When Larissa went off the Basic Training in Missouri, Carol put her energy into letters and poems she put in the mail to her little soldier.

Like so many turns in life, this one provided a lesson that was not anticipated.  Larissa noticed many soldiers weren’t getting any mail and she felt for them, waiting there, in anticipation their name would be called but always leaving empty-handed.  She asked her Nana to write a poem to one friend in particular, which Carol gladly did, and the effort grew from there.  Soon lots of the young soldiers in training were getting letters, poems and raps from a grandmother they never met from a place they didn’t know –Liverpool, New York.

Months later the family united again, in graduation ceremonies at Fort Leonard Wood.  Imagine Brian’s pride in seeing his daughter walk the stage and to see so many others provide thankful hugs to his mother.  ”Platoon Nana”, they called her.  Her letters and poems cut through the routine of Army life and reminded them they are appreciated by complete strangers.

With the soldiers all stationed in other Bases and Posts now, Platoon Nana’s creative thoughts and long arms create a web of connections throughout the country.   She isn’t crying with worry and concern anymore.  There simply isn’t time.  She has poems to create, rap to pen and letters of care to write to a new generation of defenders.

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Well so much for an article per day in August!  Thanks to the loyal readers who submitted worthy individuals and causes for my month devoted to good works.  I’ll squeeze in a few more stories.

Mostly I’m finding August is much busier than I expected it would be.  My home and neighborhood near Syracuse University are at the center of transition at this time of year.  My youngest child is preparing for his freshman year at S.U., which is the easiest of my responsibilities these days.  I’ve been hosting parents of international students delivering their sons and daughters for studies at the University.  It’s a blast.  We have a father and son from New Zealand, a  father and daughter from China and we said farewell to two young vacationers from Berlin, Germany. Sure I’m making quite a few beds in my spare rooms, but I’m learning a lot from these wonderful people.

There’s a whole world out there!  So thank you for your patience with me.  I bit off more than I could chew this month.  I’ll write more as soon as I can.

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As anyone who has cared for an aging parent knows, days can be long and heartbreaking.  One Massachusetts man is chronicling his father’s decline in a blog entitled Life with Father.

There are millions of blogs, including this one, detailing life’s challenges and rewards, however, Life with Father is different.  The author,  Chuck Ross, 50,  sugarcoats nothing, and in fact, he often and eloquently seems quite angry about the whole thing.  It’s worth a read.

My favorite entry among recent posts, discusses the love affair  Ross’s dad had with his cars which makes the battle to take the keys away  all the more poignant.

Journeys like these always become worse instead of better.  Here is hoping the road ahead for Ross and his father is as peaceful as can be.

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When Manlius volunteer firefighters Timothy Lynch and John Ginocchetti died battling a house fire in Pompey in 2002, Dick Casale wanted to do something to help.  The owner of Manlius Dry Cleaners and Artel Cleaners in Fairmount, Casale offered to dry clean every uniform in the Manlius Fire Department, free of charge.  He’s been quietly doing it ever since.

“I thought if these guys can risk their lives to keep the community safe, then the least I can do is help them out” Casale says.  ”I want to give something back.”

Dick Casale grew up in Syracuse, went to Bentley College in Massachusetts, and returned to learn the dry cleaning business begun by his parents on the south side of Syracuse. Today, in addition to the two dry cleaning establishments in Manlius and Fairmount, Casale runs a wholesale dry cleaning business, taking in the cleaning of other storefronts around central New York.

Throughout his years in the business, Casale has seen stricter environmental control over the chemicals used in the cleaning process.  The recession has shrunken the business significantly as customers perceive dry cleaning as a luxury item.   Wash and wear clothing is becoming a greater percentage of even the professional wardrobe, Casale says.

All of which makes the quiet little practice of dry cleaning firefighter’s uniforms for free, a big deal.   So the next time you see a Manlius firefighter marching in a crisp clean uniform, give a nod to the dry cleaner who keeps it that way.  Dick Casale, someone special in our community I thought you would like to know.

If you know of someone who deserves some recognition, please leave a comment below and I’ll contact you for details. This is my focus for the month of August.

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Since 2003 Pete Wirth has been on a mission to make Syracuse simply daffy with daffodils.  He began the Westcott Bulb Project, an organization that supplies free daffodil bulbs to homeowners and businesses in the Westcott Street neighborhood.  Now they include tulips bulbs as well.

The Westcott “Nation” as it is known, is a groovy cross section of students, aging hippies and apartment dwellers with Section 8 housing subsidies.  They all blend together in a lively mix.  You’ll find some of the best pizza in town at Dorian’s, Mexican food at Alto Cinco, Middle Eastern cuisine at Munjed’s and diner food at Mother’s.  Early spring brings high school girls to Boom Babies for the largest selection of prom gowns in Central New York.  The Onondaga County Library has a branch there, and in the fall, the Westcott Street Fair unites artists, musicians and merchants in perhaps the largest block party in Syracuse.

Springtime is also when you see the efforts of Pete Wirth and his band of volunteers who collect and distribute the bulbs.  The bulbs are planted in the fall for a spectacular spring arrival.  Last year the bulb project went citywide, culminating in 70,000 daffodil and tulip bulbs planted around Syracuse.

I’m a big believer in flowers making the difference between a city that is alive and one that is not.  Visit Saratoga Springs and Niagara-on-the-Lake in Ontario to see what I mean.  Or stroll Rt. 20/Main Street in Cazenovia and marvel at the giant hanging baskets of petunias off the lampposts, or the potted plants dotting the sidewalks in Skaneateles, or drive Meadowbrook Dr. on Syracuse’s east side to see the annuals exploding with color and structure at all the cuts in the brook. Flowers show a community cares.

Pete wants everyone to know the bulb project is available to all community groups who want to assemble volunteers to plant in the fall.  Bulbs are to be placed in visible locations, they are not for private backyards.  He provides “top size” bulbs at cost, in the following varieties:

Daffodils: mixed, large premium bulbs

Tulips:

Red Impression
Golden Apple Doorn  – Yellow
Tequila Sunrise Mix  – Red & Yellow, Pink, White

The deadline for ordering the bulbs is August 18th.  For more information contact Pete at pwirth2@verizon.net  or visit the Bulb Project’s Website.

This is the inaugural article for my own project occurring this month of August, where I feature people and organizations doing good deeds for nothing more than the satisfaction that comes from improving a life or a community.  If you know of someone who deserves recognition, please post a comment which will remain unpublished, and I will contact you for more information.

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From time to time I receive an email requesting some publicity for a caring individual or good cause in the Syracuse area.  Often the stories are so humbling that I think my little blog is too small a spotlight for the great deeds happening all around us.  But it’s a start.

For the month of August, every article I write, hopefully one per day, will give credit to individuals and organizations that improve our lives.  There’s no award, just the satisfaction that comes from someone listening, writing about it, and passing it on.

My readership goes beyond Central New York state, so I’d like to know of the good works happening just about anywhere.  Catherine on Cape Cod, Valerie in Bethesda, Delphine in France, Jacqui in Scotland, Jianan in China, this includes you too.  Send them in.

To share a good deed, simply give me a little information in the comment section under any article on my blog.  Your comment won’t be published.   I’ll  respond to the email address that accompanies your information.

I have a handful of ideas sporadically sent over the last few weeks to get me started on this project, but I’ll need many more to do one per day in August.

We’ll call this a different kind of “summer reading list”; the reminder that in spite of a troubled Norwegian with a gun, gifted athletes who no longer have hope, and a federal government too crippled by politics to do the responsible thing– there is much, much more good happening in the world than bad.

Spread the word.    I hope to hear from you.

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Check out this advertisement about downtown Syracuse, currently airing on local TV.  It is gorgeous.  But in my opinion, it’s also a little over the top with the drama and that makes it slightly annoying.

The one-minute commercial was sponsored by the Downtown Committee and produced by Syracuse-based Solon Quinn Studios with assistance from a Preserve America grant.

I sent it out in a tweet this afternoon, inviting opinion, and I got plenty.  One person summed it up nicely.  ”Too much mush for my liking.  At least they r doing something”. Yup, I feel the same way.

Another twitter friend Stefanie Noble, who is a graphic arts designer in the Syracuse area, astutely compared it to the Chrysler Super Bowl commercial. That ad is here.   I like Syracuse better than Detroit, but I like the Chrysler commercial better because although it is really similar to ours — right down to the moving shot of a powerful bronze statue,  the one from Detroit manages to keep its feet on the ground at the end.

To be clear, I think it is great to see a commercial of this artistry and production value focusing on Syracuse.  And these days, you can send it around the world for all to see our beautiful city.   Again, the camera work is stunning.  I just don’t like the melodramatic copy.

What do you think?  Am I nuts to think it could have been written better?  Or is it the best thing to come along since the Erie Canal?

Hey, at least they r doing something.

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I just received my prescription allergy pills via health insurance mail order.   It’s a 90 day supply, the maximum allowed in one shipment under the plan.  But as the photo below shows, it looks more like I’m about to run out of pills instead of just getting a fresh supply.  What’s with the giant bottle?

Those 90 pills of singulair could fit in an old photographic film container.  Remember those?  The little black tubes?   Instead, they came in a plastic bottle 4.5 inches tall and 2 inches in diameter.  It’s like opening a brand new bag of potato chips and finding the bag nearly empty to start.

First, it’s a waste of plastic to make a container 15 times too large, no matter how small it is.  It uses too much raw product and it takes up too much room on the shelf for storage.

My other problem is psychological.  I know, I know, there are meds for that too.   I just believe $50.oo for 90 days of pills should look like they fill something.  This pathetic bottle looks like I got cheated out of most of my pills, like the pharmacist took a phone call in the middle of counting them out and never came back.

If you asked me to guess how many pills are lying at the bottom of that pill bottle I would probably say, maybe, 28?  I would never guess 90.

So as Congress explores ways to cut spending, lets take a look at our bottles of medicine.  I can’t be the first person to get 90 pills in a container meant to hold 1000, can I?

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