Well, my incessent nudging of faithful (and intermittent) readers to donate money to the American Cancer Society will now, in fact, cease . . . for about a year, probably! Yes, the regional Relay for Life has begun and will likely have ended by the time you read this, and the Mobergs participated for the first three hours. (More die-hard team members will remain for the entire relay from 7:00 P.M. today to 7:00 A.M. tomorrow. Those people either do not have small children or, if they do, are insane.)
We arrived at Whitney Stadium at Dickinson State University and found the tent that served as home base for the team of which we were honorary members: the Pirates for the Cure. The all-too-familiar flamingos were flocked in front of the tent, and there were various pirate-themed items around the tent. The team captains even gave our girls bandanas with skulls and crossbones printed all over them to suit the theme. The track in the stadium was lined on both sides with luminaria inscribed with the names of cancer survivors or victims whose friends or loved ones honored them by purchasing luminaria in their names.
All the participating teams' tents and stands lined the east side of the track's interior, and along the south and southeast of the track's exterior were food stands, silent auction tables, and raffle tables to raise more money. The bleachers on the west side held people there just to watch the start of the event, and microphones and speakers were set up on the southwest side of the track's exterior for all the musical performers throughout the night (with a dance floor on the interior of the track's south side for several dance performances that we saw).
Each team provided a contestant for the night's beauty pageant that consisted of the contestants using their gorgeousness to hit up others in attendance for donations. Teams were vying for the honor of raising the most money in the limited amount of time allotted, so they worked especially hard to beautify their contestants. Our team's contestant arrived after we did, so we watched the team captains do the fitting of the dress and tiara and the application of makeup and nail polish right there in the tent. Oh, yeah, one stipulation: each contestant had to be a male dressed as a female. Yep, "beauty" pageant in quotation marks.
After some opening remarks that we couldn't hear much of (the microphones were cutting out), the event began with cancer survivors making the first lap around the track. (I should mention that this was a walking relay; nobody intended to run for the 12 hours, nor did anyone attempt to run for even a few minutes, which would have set an intimidating precedent.) Their families joined them for a second lap, and then all the teams assembled for a lap. All teams need to have at least one member on the track at all times, so we Mobergs volunteered to start out since we intended to stay only a few hours. While we walked, we enjoyed the music and dancing, we visited with others we knew who also were participating, and we slowed down enough to examine the luminaries until we found the names of Susan's mom, Sue, and my mom, Mary Ann, as well as those of my stepmom's first husband, Kenneth, and several other people we know in the community.
Abigail and Hillary were ready to be done with walking around the track long before Susan, Suzanna, and I were, but they toughed it out reluctantly until finally Susan and I granted them a reprieve, took them back to the tent to bid the team farewell, and headed on home. Thank you to everybody who heeded my calls for donations and responded with monetary contributions to cancer research. Your help enabled the team to raise more than $1,000 to add to whatever the total will be for the night's/morning's overall Relay for Life effort.
We arrived at Whitney Stadium at Dickinson State University and found the tent that served as home base for the team of which we were honorary members: the Pirates for the Cure. The all-too-familiar flamingos were flocked in front of the tent, and there were various pirate-themed items around the tent. The team captains even gave our girls bandanas with skulls and crossbones printed all over them to suit the theme. The track in the stadium was lined on both sides with luminaria inscribed with the names of cancer survivors or victims whose friends or loved ones honored them by purchasing luminaria in their names.
All the participating teams' tents and stands lined the east side of the track's interior, and along the south and southeast of the track's exterior were food stands, silent auction tables, and raffle tables to raise more money. The bleachers on the west side held people there just to watch the start of the event, and microphones and speakers were set up on the southwest side of the track's exterior for all the musical performers throughout the night (with a dance floor on the interior of the track's south side for several dance performances that we saw).
Each team provided a contestant for the night's beauty pageant that consisted of the contestants using their gorgeousness to hit up others in attendance for donations. Teams were vying for the honor of raising the most money in the limited amount of time allotted, so they worked especially hard to beautify their contestants. Our team's contestant arrived after we did, so we watched the team captains do the fitting of the dress and tiara and the application of makeup and nail polish right there in the tent. Oh, yeah, one stipulation: each contestant had to be a male dressed as a female. Yep, "beauty" pageant in quotation marks.
After some opening remarks that we couldn't hear much of (the microphones were cutting out), the event began with cancer survivors making the first lap around the track. (I should mention that this was a walking relay; nobody intended to run for the 12 hours, nor did anyone attempt to run for even a few minutes, which would have set an intimidating precedent.) Their families joined them for a second lap, and then all the teams assembled for a lap. All teams need to have at least one member on the track at all times, so we Mobergs volunteered to start out since we intended to stay only a few hours. While we walked, we enjoyed the music and dancing, we visited with others we knew who also were participating, and we slowed down enough to examine the luminaries until we found the names of Susan's mom, Sue, and my mom, Mary Ann, as well as those of my stepmom's first husband, Kenneth, and several other people we know in the community.
Abigail and Hillary were ready to be done with walking around the track long before Susan, Suzanna, and I were, but they toughed it out reluctantly until finally Susan and I granted them a reprieve, took them back to the tent to bid the team farewell, and headed on home. Thank you to everybody who heeded my calls for donations and responded with monetary contributions to cancer research. Your help enabled the team to raise more than $1,000 to add to whatever the total will be for the night's/morning's overall Relay for Life effort.
The Pirates of the Cure tent/home base
The girls got to carry the banner for the team.
I told them to "look tough like pirates." Here you have it, then.
There's that darned Hillary making Dad do all the work again!
Here's Adam, our team's contestant in the beauty pageant!
Elizabeth Taylor likes to be filmed through a layer of gauze to soften the hard lines of time. I figured it would help Adam's femininity, but maybe I needed more layers . . .
Once dusk fell and the luminaries were lit, it was especially sobering to walk around the track.
wow........I'm speechless. (sniff sniff)
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