Beautiful day for Jimmy Fund golf tournament

Here we are wearing our volunteer T-shirts.

Yesterday I started off bright and early playing tennis and then proceeded to watch golf.

More specifically, I volunteered at the 33rd Annual Jimmy Fund Golf Tournament/Jeffrey Vinick Memorial, , where my not-very-hard job consisted of sitting at the sixth hole at Crestview Country Club to verify if anyone hit a hole-in-one, which nobody did.

My friend Deb Doner shared the three-hour-shift with me. We put our chairs in the shade on a perfect spring day and enjoyed the beautiful view, greeting the golfers as they came through.

I got really tired from playing tennis and being outside all afternoon, so afterward I went to my friend Korby's house, which is near the golf course, and crashed on a bed upstairs. Kids (relatives of hers) were splashing and screaming in the pool downstairs, and at one point someone came into the room, but I slept through most of it.

From there I went to the dinner at Chez Josef, sitting at a table with Korby's family. The dinner is always fun, and the food is very good. There was no need to fill out a calorie count yesterday, because I'm sure I went way over.

The speaker was a young woman who got cancer while in high school. She talked about all the good friends she made while being treated at Childrens Hospital Boston and about the excellent care she received. She also said she is three years four months out – the same as me.

I'd like to volunteer again next year. Helping Dana-Farber while sitting outside with a friend on a beautiful day if fine with me.

Chefs for Jimmy: Good cause, good food

It was cold Friday night, and I was tempted to stay in sweatpants and sit on the couch watching "Washington Week."

But I gave myself a little push, got all gussied up (my mother's words) and went to Chez Josef in Agawam for the Chefs for Jimmy event to benefit the Jimmy Fund, which, as many people know, supports the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, a very worthy place indeed.

I was glad I went. Like the "Taste" events held in different cities, restaurants set up stations offering samples of their signature dishes. There was a lot of good food, and I happily went around eating and talking to people who I knew...and some who I didn't know who made recommendations about good dishes they had found.

I talked for a while to Wendy Webber, one of my tennis teammates; you can see our photo in the seen@
section from yesterday's Republican or on MassLive.com. The event was held in honor of her late husband, Neal Webber, a big supporter of the Jimmy Fund.

I also bumped into my local doctor, Ronald Berger. When he asked how I was doing, I said I was great and approaching my third birthday on Jan. 31. Berger, a runner, said, "Good, just in time for the race," meaning, of course, the Saint Patrick's Race in March.

I told him I might not be ready to run it and said I was worried I would be so slow as to be left behind.

He said not to worry so much, adding, "You'll probably be the fastest bone marrow transplant recipient there."

I like that way of looking at it.