A Shrine to Plummer... and a Nod to Bobby

So, back in the mid 2000’s, I met and had the pleasure of working with one of the most talented musicians I’ve ever worked with in central Indiana. He had been a child prodigy at one point, and had actually played stadium organ with the Indianapolis Indians at only 9 years old! Weeks into our friendship, he found out I was a big Reds fan, and commented, as many people do, how big a fan he had been of the Big Red Machine growing up as a young boy. He told me Johnny Bench was his favorite player growing up.

He went on to relay a story to me that his father had taken him to his first Reds game sometime in the mid ’70’s, and he was so excited to get to see his idol, Johnny Bench play. He said, “I got to the game and looked around to see Johnny on the field, and I looked down the base line to the bullpen, and I see some guy named “Plummer” catching!”

I said, “Yeah, Bill Plummer.”

“You know who Bill Plummer is?”

“Of course I do,” I commented. “In fact, I may be one of the few people you’ll ever meet who knows who Bill Plummer is, but he was Bench’s backup in those days.”

“Yeah, well, imagine my disappointment,” my buddy complained, “to go to my first Reds game to see Johnny Bench play, and some weirdo named “Plummer” is catching. I never did see Bench the whole game!”

I laughed and jokingly teased him that he just happened to be at one of maybe three or four games Plummer ever played. It was a funny moment for both of us.

Flash forward about a year. I’m attending RedsFest, and as you may or may not know, autographs for Reds players are free once you pay your admission. So after years of attending the fan festival, I’d never had to pay for a single Reds autograph. However, this particular year, a local non-profit that had a booth set up had none other than Bill Plummer in the booth signing autographs for charity, and they were charging $20 for a signature and photograph. I told my wife, “I’m gonna get Plummer’s autograph and give it to my buddy as a gag gift.” So I did. I paid $20 for Bill Plummer’s autograph — the only Reds player autograph I have ever paid for in my life — and made sure my wife got a picture of him signing his name.

I bought a black and white Plummer 8x10 at another booth, and when I got home, I assembled the 8x10, the autograph, a 1978 Plummer Topps card and the picture of him signing into a frame. At our next band practice, I eagerly approached my buddy and told him I had procured him a gift from RedsFest. Excited it might be some Bench memorabilia, I instead handed him the Plummer frame. I exclaimed that he is now in possession of what might possibly be the only Bill Plummer shrine ever assembled. BIG laffs! And a big hug. He loved the gag, and the gift, and we laughed about it time and again.

Flash forward another three years. At 47 years old, my friend tragically died from a massive and very sudden heart attack. Having been summoned to his home by his family as one of his close friends, I was walking around his house in a grief-ridden fog. I strolled through his bedroom, and on top of his dresser I saw three items… One was a Colts football signed by Peyton Manning. Another was a signed photo of an Indiana Pacer who I cannot remember now. And in between them both was the 8x10 shrine of Bill Plummer. I’m tearing up now writing this as I did at that moment I saw the picture.

I walked outside and spoke to my buddy’s father-in-law, a local pastor and another dear friend of mine. I told him about the picture and that I didn’t want things to be odd, but I’d like to have it back if and when the family decided it was OK. He said to me, “Paul, nobody knows anything about that picture. Go take it now. No one here is going to be bothered by that.”

I took it home with me, and it hung in my Reds Room in Indy, and I am proud to say it now hangs right by the door in a very prominent place in my Reds Room here in South Carolina. It was one of the first pieces to go up when I moved here seven years ago and it is one of my most prized pieces. I’ve included a picture of it here for you to see. Perhaps you’ll find it as amusing as we did.

I share this with all due respect to Bill Plummer, who had a fine MLB playing and coaching career, and will live forever in our hearts as a special member of the BRM. My sympathies and prayers go out to his family at his loss. For me, seeing the glee on my buddy’s face as an adult at my gift after what must had been a massive disappointment as a young boy in not getting to see his idol play is one of the most cherished memories I have.

Thanks, Bill. Maybe say Hi to Bobby for me.

Bryce Mansfield: Not Quite 10 Years and Counting

I suppose I could wait until next year. Next year, it'll be 10 years.

10.

That's hard to believe. Doesn't seem possible. But then, writing something up on the 10 year anniversary in some ways just seems too cliche and formulaic, and if there's one thing he wasn't, it was formulaic.

Our best friend... my buddy... my brother... an uncle, if only symbolically, to my kids... a stranger to absolutely no one... Bryce Mansfield, passed away on this date 9 years ago today. He was 42 years old. Far too young. Far too early.

I miss him. Early on after his death, the times he crossed my mind, the times I would see something, or encounter something that would make me think of him was much more frequent that it is now. To some, that might sound somewhat demeaning. "What? You don't think of him everyday?" No, I don't. Just being brutally honest, perhaps, but then, I think if we can all just be honest for a moment, that's most likely the case with all of us.

It makes us feel better to say things like, "I miss him everyday," or even post something of that sort to our social media accounts, even though it might not be true. We do it because it makes us feel better just to think it, even if we don't actually believe it. Bryce, and the countless thousands and millions of other lost loved ones aren't here to console us. We must console ourselves with their memories.

And yet, for most of us, somehow, someway, we seem to survive and move on and the daily reminders of those we've lost become more infrequent, replaced by the everyday goings on of whatever paths our lives take after the loss. Sad, in many ways, and too bad, and yet, there's very little we can do about. Building the shrine and not moving on has rarely, if ever, worked out for anyone.

And still, is it so sad after all? Is it so bad that we are frequented less and less with the memories of our loved ones that remind us of a loss that will only surely depress us? I don't think so.

I don't think Bryce would think so either.

You know what happens? As time and distance do their thing, we heal. More slowly for some than others, but we heal nonetheless. And with that healing comes comfort. Time and distance have a strange, mysterious, glorious way of stripping away the bad memories and unhappy moments, leaving behind only the good memories and happy thoughts. It happens in every aspect of our lives. A breakup, a divorce, a lost job, and the loss of a loved one. Over time, the hurt slowly fades away and we're left to remember only the good things.

In every symbolic and spiritual, if not biological, sense of the word, Bryce and I were brothers. As such, we could get on each others nerves and exasperate each other at times. Bryce made decisions in his life I didn't agree with, and I made decisions he didn't like. But you know, I don't remember much of them now. The times I DO remember that exasperated me at the time make me laugh now.

And what I wouldn't give now for Bryce to exasperate me somehow.

If you knew Bryce -- and many people did -- then I don't have to explain him to you. You are full aware of everything that made Bryce, Bryce. From his massive hands, his superhuman strength, his magnificent autograph, and his infectious laugh, to his stupid sneezes, his beautiful photography, his incredible compassion, and his love for Jesus.

A big man, who truly had the biggest heart of anybody I've ever known. Saw the good in everybody, and fiercely protected those he loved. Though not related, he treated my boys as sons, even though they -- and all their friends -- called him Uncle Bryce. True story: My son played basketball with his buddies on their Christian school Jr. High team, and a game -- underway and in action -- came to a halt once when Bryce walked into the gym after tipoff and the boys on the team stopped mid play, yelled "Uncle Bryce!" and ran over and gave him a hug. I'm not kidding.

Bryce had that kind of effect on people.

Look, I could go on and on. Some people complain my blogs are too long anyway. I could write a book about Bryce, and who knows, maybe some day I will. I could tell story after story.

If you knew, you knew. If you didn't, then I feel bad for you, because you missed out on one cool, special dude.

As for me, I have a picture of Bryce hanging in my living room. I hung it on that wall when I moved into this place six years ago, and it will hang there until somebody takes it down long after I'm gone myself. There's a story behind that picture, but it's a little too long to tell here. If you want to hear it sometime, let me know.

But I guess I get to think of Bryce a little more often than I realize, because I walk past that picture and look at it several times a day. So maybe he's not so far back in my memories after all.

I'll tell ya what though. I'm jealous of the Bryce in that picture. Today, Bryce would be 51 years old. I'm sure his body would be breaking down more than it was back then. That's part of what sucks about getting old. But in that picture, Bryce is 40 years old. I'll die someday, and I'll be at least 53. I might be 100. Who knows? But Bryce will be 40 forever. We were roughly the same age for 40 years, but I will never know Bryce as an old man, even though I'll become much older than him.

I don't know, that makes me feel good for some reason. He'll never age. When I'm old and gray, God willing, he'll still be a young man, and in many ways, he deserves that.

Nine years. Next year will be 10. Then 11, and so on. And I'll keep moving on. Missing him, yes. And, maybe, more daily than I realize. And that's OK. It's the good in Bryce that still inspires me to try to be a good dude myself. And if someone, long after I'm gone, writes that I was a good dude, well then I hope Bryce would approve. I think he would.

My youngest son who is loaded up with tattoos that his mother and I hate, was especially close to Bryce. I was glad for it then, and I'm glad for it now. I mentioned above that Bryce had a magnificent autograph. And he did. Just a glorious signature. Very cool. A representation of that signature was my son's first tattoo. I think he did it because he knew his Mom and I couldn't get mad about it.

Bryce would have liked it. That's all that really matters.

Salaries: No One to Blame but Us

Seen several meme's in the past week or so with regard to the recent near-tragedy of Buffalo Bills player, Damar Hamlin. The meme in question is a picture of the ambulance on the field, usually circled by an imaginary red marker, with words to the effect of... "The least paid people on the field are the people who saved Hamlin's life..." The implication, of course, being that the first responders who showed up -- in the tow of the Bills and Bengals medical staff who were actually the first to administer care to Hamlin - are severely underpaid. The football players on the field that night earn massively more money than do the emergency and medical personnel who saved Hamlin's life.

It's true, of course. And quite frankly, I'm tired of hearing about it. There is most certainly a huge chasm between the salaries of the likes of professional athletes, and those of medical and emergency personnel, and, for the purposes of this debate, teachers. And there's only one group of people to blame for that wage gap...

Us.

It's our fault. And the reality is, most people want to complain about it, but they really don't want to do anything to fix it. And, sadly, the only group of people who can change it is, again, us.

Firstly, most teachers and medical and emergency personnel are paid by the government. (I realize some EMS workers are paid by hospitals or some other private medical firms. But not all) Be it local, which is where most of the funds come from, or state and federal funds, the wages and salaries of those workers come from tax money -- yours and mine. I won't get into the weeds of exactly where that money comes from, and what taxes are specifically used to pay those salaries, but the bottom line is, they are public employees, and they are paid with our tax money.

So the simple reality is, we, the general public, through the mechanism of elections -- again, at both the local, and the state and federal levels -- choose representatives who then determine what funds are available for those salaries, and at what levels those salaries are set. Our representatives set the salaries of our public employees with our tax money. It's really not more complicated than that.

So, they make what they make based on those parameters. To increase those salaries, one of two things (or a combination of both) has to happen: Either more tax money has to be collected and allocated to said salaries, or other government funding has to be cut and THAT money has to be allocated to salaries. That's about it. There is no magical place where money comes from, and no magical formula our representatives have that can magically increase salaries.

And there's the rub. Most people don't want their taxes raised... period. How many of you have complained about how much a teacher or a policeman makes, and yet have voted against a tax referendum that would raise more revenue for a school? How many of you griped about how much a fireman or an EMS worker earns, and yet have allowed your representatives to give money away to China, or to fund a grant study on cow farts?

But here's the real doozy: Raise your hand if you'd be willing to see our government cut spending on something like cancer research or autism research if that money could be used to raise teacher's salaries? Who would be in favor of cutting disaster relief if we could use that money to pay policemen more?

THAT's the real problem. We ALL think these people deserve more money, we just don't want to do the things necessary to make it happen. We foolishly vote for the same representatives over and over again who make the same decisions and pass the same laws (even AFTER we cry and complain that we should "throw them all out!" How many of you who think we should "throw them all out" actually voted for a different candidate last election?) We vote against tax increases (and we should, by the way) and yet at the same time don't want funding cut to whatever pet cause we happen to support. Ask a person who's parent just died from cancer if they'd like the government to cut funding for cancer research to raise teacher salaries. Ask a parent with an autistic child if they'd like funding cut for autism research for the same reasons. Ask liberal abortion supporters if they'd like funding for Planned Parenthood cut to use the money to pay policemen and firemen more.

You get the point.

But here's the second issue:

There's only one group of people to blame for the exorbitant salaries made by professional athletes (and other entertainers):

Yep. Us.

We pay athletes salaries. We buy the tickets. We buy the concessions. We pay the parking fees. We buy the merchandise. We buy the products that are advertised during the games we watch on television. We pay the streaming fees to watch the games. It's our fault.

Do you think a pro sports team owner would pay a player millions of dollars per year if he didn't have the revenue to pay it? And where do you think that money comes from? And you think athletes are OVERPAID? If a McDonald's franchise owner charged $50 for a Big Mac, and people paid it willingly, do you think it would be fair to pay the employees minimum wage who make it and serve it to you?

If we, as a society, are willing to pay the prices we pay for entertainment, et al -- and we are -- thus earning the owners of those entities sometimes billions of dollars in revenue, then why shouldn't the guys who generate that revenue get a fair share of it? We don't like it because it's massive amounts of money we can't wrap our heads around, but the truth is, we all feel exactly the same way when it comes to our own salaries, even though we're talking about much smaller sums of money.

Generally, most employment sectors pay their employees fairly based on the revenue they generate. (I did say "generally"!) Labor unions demand it. And because Big Macs only cost about $5 each, the average worker at McDonalds isn't going to get a million dollar a year contract. Many of you reading this right now work a job for which you think you are fairly compensated. And if you don't, you're either complaining about it, or trying to do something about it. In any event, you're either being fairly compensated, or looking for a job where you'll be fairly compensated, whatever that means to you. If you go to McDonalds and demand a 5 year, $1.5 million contract, it probably ain't gonna happen.

Regardless, athletes make what they make because the public pays what they pay to generate the revenue from which they are paid. That money doesn't grow on trees. It comes from us. Every time a team raises their ticket prices, we pay it. Every time they raise the price for a jersey, we pay it. And if we'd stop paying it, they would eventually have to adjust salaries back down.

And before you say... "Not me! I don't give the NFL a dime of my money," or some other such nonsense, first of all, you're either lying, or lying to yourself. Every time you buy a Bud light, or a bag of Doritos, or watch a TV program on any major network, you're giving money to a major sports team. Like or not, directly or indirectly. In some cases, it's inevitable. Unless you wanna become the Unabomber and move to a cabin in the woods, money you're spending somewhere is likely helping raise revenue for a pro or college sports outfit.

But worse... we're back to the Cancer vs. Autism debate. You may not support the NFL. You may hate the NBA or Major League Baseball. You might not even ever go to the movies. But I'd bet my grandchildren you're doing something to help the entertainers of our society make a whole bunch of money. Maybe you don't go to the movies, but you watch every episode of every iteration of CSI ever put out on TV. You might hate the NFL, but you watched the NCAA football championship the other night. You might boycott the NBA, but you bought your kid those Jordans he wanted so bad for his birthday. You downloaded Taylor Swift's latest songs, which just happens to be on the same label as that rapper you hate so much.

You buy the products, watch the programs, or otherwise support whatever it is that gets your own juices flowing. And if you didn't, whatever that is wouldn't generate as much revenue as it does.

And what is so terrible anyway? Think about what we would do in our society if we didn't have these recreations to turn to. To get away from life for awhile and just enjoy something. Sports, movies, and all other forms of recreation are necessary to our society to provide us all a respite every now and then, if for no other reason than to help prevent us all from killing one another eventually. What would we do without them?

Nevertheless, I'm tired of hearing people complain about it. I really am. If you believe our public employees are heroes and deserve higher salaries, then start making the changes that will make it happen. If you think athletes are overpaid, stop spending your money on things that support the industry.

But remember this... you're a very small fish in a very big ocean. You can do your part, but good luck getting several hundred million of your friends to follow your lead. If you think NFL stadiums are going to go empty anytime soon because most of the free world suddenly decided to take a moral high road... well... good luck with that.

Similarly, if you think society is suddenly going to agree on how to force our government to spend our tax money... well... good luck with too. You can take this to the bank... you're never gonna get the cancer research guy and the Planned Parenthood guy to agree on much of anything when it comes to how government money should be spent, even IF they both agree that teachers and EMS workers should be paid more. Call me a fatalist. I prefer to think I'm a realist.

Meanwhile... either do something about it, or stop griping about it.

Bob Keane: A Treasure.

A good friend of mine died today.

Born and raised in Mooresville, IN, I lived there until I was almost 47 years old. Growing up and living in a town like that, you get to know everyone and everyone knows you. And in those years, unfortunately, you have to stand by and watch as good friends sometimes pass on, often too early.

I moved to South Carolina six years ago. Ironically, in fact, today is our 6-year anniversary here in the Lowcountry. When Ginger and I moved here, we didn't know a soul. We literally moved from a place where we knew everyone to a place where we knew nobody. Of course, it took us a while to begin to integrate into the various aspects of our society here, and making new friends with people who didn't grow up around us was a new challenge. After six years, we've made some, but we haven't quite matched the familiarity of 40+ years in the same place.

The primary place we've made friends is in our church family here. And one of the first people to befriend me was Bob Keane. Bob is an interesting guy. You know the type: a teddy bear under a gruff exterior. There's a million of him, and somehow he's still one of a kind.

Bob is older than me, although I never bothered to ask how old. Old enough to be my senior, maybe even old enough to be my dad. I certainly respected him as a senior, but he never treated me as anything but an equal. Bob has a prosthetic leg. And he didn't bother to try to hide it. (We share an affinity for short pants -- and for a particular style of dress, which I will note shortly.) Took me awhile to get around to asking him what happened to his leg. One just doesn't jump to that early on, ya know. Like, "hey dude, what happened to your leg?" Even I wasn't that brave. But he had no trouble telling me when I asked.

As the past few years went by, it turns out Bob and I shared an affinity for many things. A fondness for St. Augustine, and a similar political worldview, just to name a couple. And, as luck would have it, we both liked clothing that prefers comfort over style. We both like to dress with an eye towards comfort over conventionality.

But before I tell you the rest of the story, I have to tell you this one.

Several years ago, I played drums in a band in Indiana. It was a Christian band, and after many years as a front man and guitarist in other bands, it was my first full time gig in a band as a drummer. Our guitar player had written the lyrics to a song titled Treasure Chest. The core of the song revolves around the death of his father, and how he had left behind a closet full of clothes that his son will now wear. As the years go by, the threads begin to bare, but the son still hopes to preserve his father's shirts. And yet as much as he treasures those shirts, they pale in comparison to the treasure we have in Heaven with Jesus.

Our band leader had fashioned those lyrics into a song, and the music had already been recorded for an album before I joined the band, but the lead vocal had not yet been completed. For some reason, the song resonated with me, having lost my father several years earlier, and the moment I heard the demo, I asked our band leader if I could take a crack at recording the vocal. Remember... to these guys, I was just the drummer. They conceded, I laid down the track, and they loved it. It made the album, and it is the only track on the project featuring me on the lead vocal. I've copied the lyrics for your review at the end below, and if you'd like to hear the track, you can do so through this link.

Me singing, about wearing another's guy's shirts.

Flash forward to just a few years ago. I had began to play music here with our worship band at church, and my wife and I were still getting our feet wet in our new hometown. One Sunday after service, Bob approached me and said, "I have something for you if you want them." I did not know Bob well at all, and up to that point, our only conversations had been an introduction and passing pleasantries.

I said, "OK, whatcha got?"

"I see you like to wear the same kind of shirts I do, and I have a couple that don't fit me anymore. I'm gonna give them to you. If you like them, you can keep them. If you don't, you can get rid of them."

Seeing as how it was clear he was giving me the shirts whether I really wanted them or not, "OK," I said, and the next week, he showed up with two shirts and handed them to me. "I figure you can use these," Bob said, "and if you can't, then just throw them away."

I did not throw them away. Tommy Bahamas... not cheap shirts. I like Tommy Bahamas.

And with that, Bob and I struck up a friendship. We would brag about he and I prancing around in shorts in below-60 degree weather when everyone else was bundled up like Winter. Kindred spirits, us. As the next couple years went by, Bob and his friends invited and accepted me into their circle of friends: a group of older gentlemen in the church who are now retired and get together regularly to fellowship. Tuesday morning breakfasts with just the guys, and Friday night meals out with the families. And Bob was a primary organizer of that group. They invited me with open arms, even though at 53 years old, I am considerably younger than most of them -- just a "pup," as many have referred to me -- and I am not retired. Yet they have included me as one of their own. It is both an honor to me and a privilege.

Bob could be gruff, and even a little crass... but he was very complimentary of me, telling me often how much he enjoyed it when I led worship, and how he always felt a genuineness with me, and how much he always got out of the services I led. Rarely do I seek validation or acceptance, but we'd all be lying if we said we aren't comforted by it when it is received. Bob's compliments meant more to me than most would know.

Bob was not my first friend in the Lowcountry. But he is the first friend here I've lost, and I will miss him. One of the primary reasons Ginger and I made the life-changing choice to move close to an ocean is because we watched some very dear friends pass away far too young -- including the leader of that band for which I drummed in Indiana, a dear musical friend of mine who passed away at the age of 47 just a few years after I recorded Treasure Chest. Ginger and I recognize that life is short... and we want to live out some of our dreams while we still can.

Bob didn't die young. But then, doesn't everyone die before we think they should? But Bob left me a gift -- a "treasure," if you will. He left me his shirts.

I wear them often. If you know me here in South Carolina, especially if you attend church with me, you've seen me in them, although you likely didn't know it was a shirt Bob gave me. I'll have one on this Sunday, and I will continue to wear them often, until the threads begin to bare. Then I will store them up as memories from a friend.

In closing, here's the kicker. The song, Treasure Chest, is about my friend's father. My own father passed away in 1993, long before I knew any of the guys in that band, and 30 years before I met Bob Keane. But I do not have a single possession of my father's. Aside from a few pictures, I have nothing tangible or real that connects me to him. It's just the way it played out, but I am OK with it.

But I will cherish even more the song I recorded, and the shirts Bob gave me, because they will remind me not only of my friends and my own Dad, but that the treasures Jesus has stored up for me in Heaven are greater than any other memento I could have.

Maybe that's the real reason Bob gave me his shirts.

Treasure Chest: Words by Darren Duerlinger. Music and Arrangement by Bobby Raikes.

I know I don’t look wealthy
Though I sometimes play the part
Even there I wouldn’t stand a chance
Without my dad’s old shirts
Left hanging in the closet, how could he have known
Going to work that day, I’d be the next one
To wear his clothes

It’s been several years now, and the threads are growing bare

I long to preserve the shirts I have been wearing
But I now they have grown, beyond repair
I watch them hanging in my closet
I look at his old pictures, and wish that he were there
And turn back time, yes turn back time

Chorus
And yet I have a treasure
It’s true I often neglect
Full of riches
It’s true I often forget
The mystery of Jesus
In whom all wisdom and knowledge
It’s hard to understand
How big he must be
But, yet I have a treasure

Like precious remnants left over from the storm
I guard little things left out before his leaving
A book, a clock, a camera, anything to help
Anything to help us through our grieving
We all want to keep these faded jewels
In a little box, like a treasure chest

Goodbye to Riverfront...

Written back in 2002…

It was July, 1984. I was 14 years old.

My mom, grandmother and I were on a vacation. We had visited historic Madison, IN on the Ohio river, and eventually snaked our way up some riverside road into Cincinnati. We stayed at what would become my all-time favorite hotel, a round building just across the river in Covington. We had a room on the very top floor facing the river that gave us a breathtaking view of downtown Cincinnati.

We lived in Indianapolis, but I’d been to Cincy lots of time. We had family there. But this was the first time I’d ever stayed downtown, and I spent the time standing on our hotel balcony and staring at what still is my favorite place in the entire world… Riverfront Stadium.

We decided to venture down to the river one afternoon, and we made our way up to the plaza of the stadium. While they were gazing over the edge at the water, I was snooping around the outside of the stadium itself. The Reds weren’t in town that day, but I eventually found an open door and walked in.

I’d only been to the stadium once before – four or five years earlier to see the Reds play the Astros-- but I was in love with the place nevertheless. I walked around in wonder for awhile, and eventually sat down in one of the green seats and just stared, imagining my heroes were lighting some poor team up out there on that field. Someone in a red jacket – I still don’t know who it was – was jogging around the warning track, and he was the only person I saw in the stadium for nearly 20 minutes.

I had a picture in my pocket of the girl I’d just fallen in love with, and I was sitting in the Taj Majal of the baseball world, at least to me. I was in heaven.

Finally, some guy came by and asked me what I was doing there. I told him I’d found an open door, and now I was sitting there looking at the field. He said I’d need to leave soon, and he walked off. I left a few minutes later.

I’m not kidding when I say that experience changed my life.

I’d been a Reds fan since I was little. When I first remember watching baseball, it was the mid 70’s, and if you watched baseball back then, you more often than not were watching the Reds pound somebody. My dad and my older brother were Reds fans. I guess I didn’t have a chance.

My dad, who wasn’t around much, would buy four or five packs of ball cards. We’d open them together and look through them, so we kinda knew who was in there. Then, he would turn them upside down and shuffle them like a regular pack of cards, and then deal them, one at a time, to me and my brother. It was like digging through a bucket of dirt to find the gold nugget when he got through. Which Red players did we each get!? Man, I used to love that! I couldn’t have cared less about the other cards. I wanted the Reds! To this day, I really only collect Reds baseball cards.

I was a Johnny Bench fan for awhile, but as I grew older and began to play the game myself, I became a Dave Concepcion fan. And boy, did we play baseball. My brother and I would play from the time we woke up, to the time it got too dark to play. If other guys from the neighborhood showed up, so be it. If not, then just he and I would play. I was number 13, and my brother was number 14.

The only thing that mattered more to us than actually playing was how the Reds did themselves that day. When Marty would say, “And this one belongs to the Reds,” all was right with the world.

I was as destroyed as anyone to see that team taken apart, one at a time. First Perez, then Rose, Morgan, Geronimo. The last to leave was Griffey and Foster. Bench retired. Oh, but Davey kept on. That kept me alive during the 80’s.

I was in my uncle’s Cincinnati living room later that summer when Rose returned. I was the teenager jumping up and down on my uncle’s couch when Pete got a hit in his first at bat and did a head first slide into third base. I was watching the tube when Tony Perez returned and became the oldest man to ever hit a grand slam home run.

I taped the game on September 11, 1985, because I was at a school function. I told everyone to keep their mouths shut so I could watch the game for myself. I didn’t have to watch long. A clean base hit to left-center field in the bottom of the first.

I was destroyed again in August of 1989.

I got to actually go to only a few games growing up, but my heart and ears were in that magical place every night.

In the 90’s, when I married, and eventually had kids, I made it a point to trek my family to several games a year. The Bible says to raise your children in the way they should go, and when they get older, they will not depart from it. I’m raising my kids to love God and be Reds fans! They don’t stand a chance.

The Reds hold this wonderful event every year called RedsFest. And you can get autographs from and have your picture taken with your favorite Red. My son’s favorite player is Aaron Boone, and he now has a couple of pictures of him and Aaron together. He doesn’t know it yet, but he will grow to treasure those. If I’d had a picture of me and Dave Concepcion together when I was a kid, it would be my most prized possession today.

They have this great game there called Reds Jeopardy. Four Reds players pick one person out of the crowd, and then they all compete in a Jeopardy contest of Reds trivia. Me and Brett Tomko won three years ago. And each session I’ve watched, I would’ve won hands down if I would just have gotten picked to play.

Why am I telling all of this? Because last Monday night I went to the last game ever held at Riverfront/Cinergy Field. Oh, it was just a softball game, but for one final time, they were all there. Rose, Griffey, Morgan, Perez, Bench, Foster, Concepcion and Geronimo… in that order. Along with other great Reds names like Billingham, Sabo, Davis, O’Neill, Oester, Dibble and Browning.

I got to see “Mr. Perfect” Tom Browning pitch again, and “Nasty Boy” Rob Dibble throw one over some guy’s head, and “Eric the Red” hit one out to center field. But the real show was that for one last time, I got to watch Davey make a backhanded stop. I got to see Foster hit a homerun. I saw Bench behind the plate, and Morgan flap his arm. And yes, I got to see Charlie Hustle do a headfirst slide into third base.

It was an historic event. This was not just a bunch of old-timers from somebody’s favorite team. This was a lineup that boasted FIVE legitimate Hall of Famers, with a couple of above .300 hitters and a league MVP thrown in the mix. There are enough gold gloves on this team to start a mint. There’s four home run champs, three batting titles, three Rookies of the Year, five RBI winners, six MVP’s, six division championships, four National League champs, and two World Championships! This was a team who was nearly unbeatable, at 69-18, in 1975 and ’76 when they played together.

No, this was not just another team. They were quite possibly the best team of all time. And we will very likely never see them all together ever again. For one last moment, they weren’t old guys who can barely move anymore. They were the heavy hitting, slick fielding, ever exciting, greatest baseball team that ever played. And every person in the stands was a kid again.

In the movie City Slickers, a girl asks the rest of the guys what the big deal was about baseball. I really don’t remember their answer. But I can tell you what it is for me.

Baseball is about being a kid and not having to worry about the stock market or Iraq. The Cincinnati Reds shaped my life. Watching Davey make a throw on the run like nobody’s business gave my life meaning during a time when my parents were divorcing and when I was a teenager discovering the path I was going to take.

Watching the Reds was about spending time with my brother, and making him proud every time I made a great play in a high school game. It was about collecting cards and putting my favorite player on my wall. Listening to Marty and Joe as I fell asleep at night, and pouring over the newspaper the next morning to see if they won. Winning the World Championship in 1990 helped kick off my marriage and my wife, the poor girl, is now a Reds fan whether she wanted to be or not.

Plus, she thinks Aaron Boone is pretty cute.

Now, being a Reds fan is going to games with my family. It’s staying in that round hotel and sleeping out on the balcony just so I can fall asleep looking at the stadium. It’s standing on the bank just across the river from the stadium and throwing rocks into the water with my boys just because we like the view. It’s getting a hot dog with my sons, something my dad and I never got to do. It’s watching my 7 year old son grab a bat and swing it nonstop during the entire Reds telecast on Fox Sports Net. It’s hearing him explain how Larkin could’ve avoided making that error if he’d just made the play this way and high-fiving him when Aaron hits one out. And being Reds fans is coaching my little number 17 over there at third base, even if we are the Carlisle and Son Funeral Home Cubs.

Yes, my family and I share special times together now because of the Big Red Machine all those years ago. I’m gonna miss the old place, but I didn’t care about the carpet, or how round it is, or whether its called Riverfront or Cinergy. Call it what you want. It’s where the Reds play baseball.

I know now that there are more important things in life than baseball, but when your wife and kids are standing there with you cheering on another Reds homer, I really can’t think of anything better.

There were over 41,000 people there last Monday night. But for one last time, I was all alone in the stadium, staring at the field, watching my heroes, and being a kid again.

Abortion

Abortion.

THE hot topic. Really has been for the last couple decades. About to be again, with a vengeance, as the Supreme Court is about to overturn it's legality, as it should have done years ago.

As is usually the case with big hot-button issues like this, the majority of the general public doesn't know the actual facts and truths, and instead are much more eager to form their opinions both on what they're told by others and what they see in the media. Social media has muddied those waters exponentially.

There's a ton of "myth-busting" websites out there, both for and against abortion. Each one basically cancels out the other. But they cover all types of topics including racism, Christianity, American citizen support, safety, infertility, etc. But most of it is just blather. None of it really gets to the crux of this issue, but is rather just trying to sway us to their cause. I'd like to get down to the heart of the matter.

First, the myths:

1) Abortions are necessary because of rape -- Abortions in the case of rape account for anywhere from just under 3% to less than 1% of all total abortions, depending on which data you look up. Regardless, it's such a low number, it's hardly worth including in the legality discussion.

2) Making abortion illegal puts women's health at risk. -- In and of itself, that's mostly an outright lie by the abortion industry. There is nothing inherently dangerous about not being able to legally obtain an abortion. Is it true that sometimes -- VERY rarely -- pregnancies need to be terminated to save the Mom's health? Yes. But we'll get to just how rare that is later.

3) Roe vs. Wade was about women's health. -- It was no such thing. Roe sued so she could have the right to kill off her kid because she wanted to. That's it. In fact, Texas law at the time -- it was Texas legislation she sued against -- had a provision against abortion except in cases where the Mother's health was in danger. Read this little tidbit from a synopsis of the Roe case put together by Cornell Law School's Legal Information Institute. It reads, "A pregnant single woman (Roe) brought a class action challenging the constitutionality of the Texas criminal abortion laws, which proscribe procuring or attempting an abortion except on medical advice for the purpose of saving the mother's life." (Emphasis mine.) The abortion debate has always revolved around the CHOICE of abortion, rather than the medical NEED for one. The reality is that medical professionals have always had, and still do today, the option of terminating a pregnancy if the Mom's life is in danger.

4) My body, my choice. -- As a society, we really don't subscribe to this notion under any other medical circumstance outside of abortion. Yes, people, generally speaking, have a say-so in their own healthcare. But mostly, it's about what a doctor CAN'T do, as opposed to what they CAN. A doctor can advise a patient that he or she needs a particular surgery, but any coherent patient has the right of personal refusal if they choose. Conversely, one cannot force a doctor to perform a surgery under the banner of "my body, my choice." You can walk into a doctor's office with your leg snapped in half, but you cannot force that doctor to perform a surgery just because it's "your choice." Medical and surgical procedures, are, by and large, performed only on an as-necessary basis, through the coordination of the patient and the doctor. "My body, my choice," rarely plays a factor in those decisions if something is deemed medically necessary. Moreover, doctor's make decisions without patient consent every day in trauma care facilities where life or death is on the line. We pay doctor's to do that. If a decision needs to be made to save a patient's life and they're not conscious to make it, the decision gets made regardless.

Of course, the obvious elephant-in-the-room objection to this is simple. An abortion isn't about a women's body. It's about a baby's body. There's really no way around that. 

5) No uterus, no opinion / Men have no say in an abortion. -- That's just offensive to men like me. There is not a woman on the planet, despite what CNN might contend, who has any chance of getting pregnant without the assistance of a male, either directly or indirectly. Simply not possible. For men who are responsible, caring partners and fathers-to-be, they have just as much right in the say-so of the baby's life as the mother. To insist otherwise is just evil.

6) Planned Parenthood is not about abortion, but rather provides vital women's healthcare. -- This is mostly a lie. Planned Parenthood does indeed offer women's health services beyond abortions. However, they do not offer a single health benefit that any woman can't get with her family doctor and the local hospital clinics. My wife birthed two babies and there wasn't a single benefit PP could have offered her that wasn't available to her through our regular health system. Moreover, now that Obamacare has made healthcare mandatory for everybody even if they can't afford it, there is literally no need for PP outside of their abortion services that aren't readily offered by standard medical facilities.

More importantly, it should be noted that PP was founded for the sole purpose of providing abortions, are BY FAR the largest abortion provider in the US, and every PP facility that is opened is REQUIRED to offer abortions. And, according to data, over 90% of the services rendered to pregnant women who go to PP are abortions. Planned Parenthood is about abortions. Period.

7) Life begins at birth -- Any sane person knows this isn't true. ALL rational medical data proves life begins at conception. There is no scientific data anywhere that shows otherwise. It doesn't exist. Abortion ends the life of an innocent child. Period.

Now, the truths:

1) We've already talked about rape percentages. There are those who contend those percentages are low because many women are afraid to come forward and go public after a rape. There is most likely some truth to that, and some of the data you'll find tries to take that information into account. However, the number is so low to begin with, that no significant authority I've read reasonably contends that the number would go up at all significantly. A couple percentage points, maybe? Still leaving the number so low it shouldn't factor in to the overall legality of abortion. Less than 1% to even 5% or 7% is not a number that validates recreational abortion. Programs could be put into place that cost a lot less money and don't sacrifice millions of unborn babies to assist pregnant women who have truly been raped. It's sad we don't already have those programs in place. And despite what Liberals would like you to believe, Conservatives in general are not opposed to having a conversation about abortion options in the case of rape or incest.

2) Women's health -- Again, a quick look at the stats show that necessary pregnancy terminations to save the mother's life are infinitesimally small. Like, off-the-charts low. Truthfully, actual health of the baby itself holds a bigger percentage for reasons for an abortion than does the health of the mother. Overall, preserving the health of the mother accounts for 5-7% of all abortions.

3) The debate, as it stands, and at its most vile push, is completely about recreational abortion. Again, depending on the data you choose, but looking over data from the CDC, the World Health Organization, and independent sites like USAFacts.org and Abort73.com, recreational abortions account for anywhere from 75-85% of abortions, WORLDWIDE, and it's even higher in black communities than white communities. All the other talking points are just that -- talking points. A vain way to validate a woman's choice to kill off her baby just because she wants to. Liberals, in general, do not like being told what to do, and rather, LOVE dictating what everybody else does. (Interestingly, most PRO-abortion sites I've visited, like Prochoice.org, Prochoiceamerica.org, and the Planned Parenthood site don't list statistics on REASONS for abortions. Wonder why that is?)

4) Adoption is too freaking expensive and difficult -- Ridiculously so. Why our country allows a woman to take an afternoon and kill off a child, but charges tens of thousands of dollars and forces good, solid families to wait months, and even years, to adopt a child is beyond me. Asking adoptive parents to put a little skin in the game and be vetted thoroughly is wise, but the process is needlessly too exhaustive, difficult and expensive. If it were not so, FAR more good people would be willing to step up and adopt.

5) Criminalizing recreational abortion will result in much greater number of problem children. -- It's true. But then, whose fault is that? It's not mine. I chose to have children, raise and support them, and help them to become useful citizens of society. Millions of parents do that everyday. Should millions of children be sacrificed because we have a nation full of men and women who choose -- CHOOSE -- to be immature, irresponsible, horrible parents, and dregs of society? Is that really the answer? Is it too much to believe the most powerful, wealthy nation on the planet can't come up with a better system?

6) Conservatives like me are not against saving a mother's life by all means necessary. While the strictest definition of abortion is the termination of any pregnancy, the definition of abortion we're debating is "recreational abortion." Simply put, there has never been a doctor prosecuted for terminating a pregnancy in any case where it was determined without doubt the mother's life was in danger. As noted before, that scenario was never illegal prior to Roe vs. Wade. And despite the lies that "doctor's can now be put in prison for life for saving a woman's life," it literally has never happened.

As noted above, doctors, on a daily basis, make necessary decisions to save people's lives, and in rare occasions, that decision involves terminating a pregnancy. To date, no doctor has ever been prosecuted for making that decision when it has been deemed authentic.

I have no problem admitting publicly -- and have done so many times -- that I emphatically made clear to my wife's OB doctor during her second pregnancy that I had no qualms with sacrificing our unborn baby if it meant saving my wife's life. Many of those reading this know our second son was born 11 weeks premature. However, my wife's water broke at 26 weeks, landing her in the 24 hour care of a hospital bed. After a week or so, the complications of the pregnancy began piling up and my wife's overall health was declining. The drugs they were using to help our son were in turn hurting my wife. I would have none of it, and told my doctor he needed to make a decision that most benefitted my wife, and that I had no reservations if those decisions put our unborn baby in peril. I'm not ashamed of it, and would make the same decisions again in a heartbeat.

The boogeyman argument that doctors are gonna start going to jail for terminating pregnancies to save a woman's life just aren't true. The stories you see floating around social media about 11 year old girls who get raped and women who have a disaster happen at 21 weeks when the law cutoff is 20 weeks are so rare, they're not valid arguments for recreational abortion. If you are in favor of sacrificing millions of innocent babies so one 11 year old girl (who's likely going to get the help she needs anyway) can get an abortion, then I'd say your priorities might be a little out of whack.

Should we help the 11 year old rape victim? Absolutely! And I have no problem with the idea that that help should come from the state, but there's no reason that can't be done without sacrificing millions of other innocent babies. If our government, and Planned Parenthood, wanted to do something right, they'd have real programs in place to help innocent young rape victims, and women who find themselves in medical catastrophes. And instead of funneling public money into killing innocent babies, they'd funnel that money to programs that seriously reduce the cost of adoption for the millions of families who would like to adopt and can't afford to!

If an 11 year old girl is raped, there should be a program she can go into, wherein she is taken care of medically, counseled, loved, and paired with a loving couple who will take the baby and raise it right. Why can't that happen? Abortion need not be legal for that to occur. There are billions of dollars spent on abortion every year, plenty of money to put good care programs in place for women who truly find themselves in trouble, and funds which will drastically reduce the cost of adoption.

The crux of the issue is simple -- all the hoopla you see on the news, all the protesters you see carrying around cartoon pictures of vaginas are all arguing for one thing: the choice to kill off a baby simply because they want to. There's not a single, rational person arguing AGAINST helping rape victims and women in medical peril, so there's no reason to be protesting anything in those regards. We're arguing against killing off a child just because someone was irresponsible and is now deciding they don't want to be a parent. Period. That's all it's about.

It's wrong. It's evil. And it should be outlawed.

The Blue Silicone Bracelet.

My son was in 7th Grade.

My oldest son was exclusively a baseball player. But because there were only three boys in his entire 7th Grade class in his small school, his buddies had talked him into joining the middle school basketball team with them and several of the 8th Grade boys. While naturally athletic, he wasn't a very good basketball player, and didn't much like it anyway.

Prior to one of their games, as I sat and watched from the stands, their pregame warmups had devolved into frivolity, and the boys were all at one end of the court attempting crazy trick shots; shots from the half court, over-the-back hook shots, backwards heaves from far away, etc. Generally just goofing off and playing around as middle school boys are wont to do.

Except for one.

One young man -- an 8th Grader, and one of the best players on the team -- was at the other end of the court taking his warmup time very seriously; working on his dribble, shooting free throws, practicing mid-range jumpers, and generally preparing for the game. Eventually, he'd had enough of his teammates messing around at the other end of the court and as a leader on the team, he finally strolled over to let them have it.

"Hey! Why don't you guys stop screwing around and start working on things you'll actually use in the game!"

With that, the party was over, and everybody got back to work.

I can't remotely remember the outcome of that game, nor most of the many that followed. I know overall, the team, hailing from a really small school, wasn't all that good, but they had a couple pretty good players, and this one young man stood out from the rest.

That young man's name was Ben Elo. Roughly one year later, Ben died after getting out of his shower at home from what is still a relatively unknown cause. He was 14 years old.

Needless to say, it was a tragedy beyond measure. I did not know him or his family well. Aside from him being a friend and classmate of my son's, and a polite young man, I knew little else of him except how impressed I had been by him and his work ethic that day at basketball practice, and equally impressed at his fearless chastising of his teammates. I mentioned as much to his mother some years later as we developed a professional relationship.

While it was no secret Ben was a good athlete, I would go on to learn he was a very talented soccer player beyond his years, and had been playing on an older-aged, elite traveling soccer team for several years. His future as a high-level soccer player was very bright. He dreamed of playing soccer at Notre Dame, and had said as much to their head coach, Bobby Clark, when he attended their soccer camp just two weeks before his death.

Also needless to say, his funeral was a heart wrenching affair, attended of course by nearly all his classmates, and a good number of people from our town. At his funeral, his parents handed every attendee a blue, silicone bracelet embossed with the Bible verse they thought most exemplified Ben's character, Micah 6:8.

"Act Justly, Love Mercy, Walk Humbly."

It was a simple blue silicone bracelet. You know the type. Embossed, not printed, so it was simply blue.

I'm not a big jewelry guy. The only ring I wear is my wedding ring. I wear a necklace with a cross on it as well. At various times in my past, I've worn a gold chain bracelet. I don't wear a watch.

What jewelry I do wear has to be jewelry I don't ever have to remove. I never take off my wedding ring or my necklace. Ever. The only reason I'm not still wearing a gold bracelet is because whatever last one I had finally broke off my wrist and disappeared. Because of their simplicity and durability, I have worn various silicone bracelets over the years. Right now I have a silicone bracelet from the Cincinnati Reds and another red one I got from this year's Christmas parade that reads, "Jesus With Us."

At Ben's funeral -- I don't remember the exact date, but it was late July, 2008 -- when they handed me Ben's blue silicone bracelet, I immediately put it on, and it has never come off my wrist since.

Never.

Several years ago, a few years before I moved to South Carolina, I served a year as our local Kiwanis Club's chapter president. Monthly, we would honor a local youth for their civic and faith-based commitments to our community. As chapter president, I would have my picture taken with the young recipient, and that picture would often end up in the local paper with a caption notating the award. It was most always a black and white picture buried somewhere inside the paper.

After one such publication, I received a kind phone call from Ben's mother. She had seen the photo in the paper and was calling to thank me for still wearing Ben's bracelet. She mentioned how, after several years, it just felt to them that people had begun to forget about Ben and had moved on from his passing and she was thankful to me that I was, in my small way, still keeping Ben's memory alive by wearing his bracelet.

I shared my gratitude and mentioned that I never remove the bracelet, and after some small talk, we ended the call. I immediately grabbed my copy of the paper to look at the picture. As mentioned, it was a black and white photo, and my wrist bearing the bracelet was not in any way predominately featured in the shot. In the photo, the bracelet was barely visible, and, in my opinion, completely and utterly indistinguishable. To this day, I have no idea how she knew it was Ben's bracelet I was wearing. She just knew.

For 14 years, I'd worn Ben's bracelet, every day, every night, literally 24 hours a day. It was a little faded, and the emboss a little worn, but it was there, a daily reminder from a forever 14 year old boy to "Act Justly, Love Mercy, Walk Humbly."

Until last Sunday.

As I dressed for church, and pulled on long-pants jeans I almost never wear in our balmy weather, I heard something drop, and I looked down to see Ben's bracelet laying on the floor beside my bed. It had snapped clean, and was gently laying there, almost as if waiting to be picked up.

It has been some time since I've felt such sadness. I felt as though I'd lost a friend. We've been through so much together, a part of me I've come to just accept. Few people over the years have actually mentioned anything to me or asked about it, but I have to guess other's have noticed a blue bracelet on my arm for as long as they can remember. In many ways, it has come to represent and honor the loss of many friends. Losses that reinforced the notion of our own mortality, and the temporary station we hold in this world.

The realization that we all have only a certain amount of time here on Earth formed the foundation of my and my wife's desire to move close to the beach and live life to the fullest while we still can. Ben's bracelet made that move with me and enjoyed the salty air as much as I do.

I did the math. That blue bracelet has been on my arm nearly 25% of my life. I know it sounds corny, but it is upsetting to me that it's no longer there.

Fortunately, it's not gone. I still have it. I'm thankful it didn't fall off in the ocean or blow off my arm as I drove down the highway. I haven't decided just how, but it will soon be on display somewhere in my office. I might get it framed, I haven't decided yet.

I should add here, before I close, that my son wore Ben's bracelet in the same way I did, 24/7, until his original broke off his wrist just a few months ago. Some time ago, he had reached out to Ben's mother, who still had a stash, and she sent him several to keep on standby and maybe to hand out to others. He immediately donned a replacement and still wears it everyday.

The rainbow at the end of this story is that when I reached out to tell him mine had finally fallen off, he informed me he still has a few left over, and I'm going to pick up a new bracelet from him when I visit in a couple weeks. The irony -- and perhaps the karma -- is that it won't be a new bracelet at all. It will be a 14-year old bracelet, just one no one's ever worn before.

14 years old -- the same age as Ben.

What's the life lesson here? I don't know. Perhaps you can figure it out. Or maybe, we just all need to take our own lesson out of it. As for me, I'll just keep trying to Act Justly, Love Mercy, and Walk Humbly.

I hope that's enough to honor Ben.

POSTSCRIPT (if you're up to keep reading, and you should...)

Before I posted this publicly, I wanted Ben's family and my son to read it, as much for accuracy as for their general thoughts. I really wanted to be sure I was honoring Ben appropriately, and my memories hadn't faulted me. They both responded with some edits which I made to the piece before posting it. Additionally, they shared some thoughts with me and I wanted to include them, but thought it best to just add them verbatim instead of trying to weave them into what I'd already written. Here are their comments below...

MELANIE ELO (Ben's mom): "Generally speaking, I always want people to know that Ben loved Jesus and that he talked to people about that. The one thing I recall from the memorial was sharing that ‘if Ben were here today, he would want you all to know Jesus as your Lord and Savior. We will see Ben again and he would want to see you in Heaven too.’ ...Any chance to talk about Faith in his life is always good."

M. ELO: "We chose the (Micah 6:8) verse because it represented his character so much and it became part of the mission statement of his memorial fund. He wrote a paper on his favorite (Bible) verse, which was John 15:5; 'I am the vine, you are the branches. He who remains in Me, and I in him, bears much fruit. For without Me you can do nothing.'"

M. ELO: "When you grieve deeply, you want to know people remember... I looked at everyone's wrist and every picture to see if they still had (Ben's) bracelet on. I just seemed to be a mark of remembrance to us. While (we know) people didn't stop wearing it because they had forgotten about Ben, it felt that way to us -- that's why we appreciate you wearing it so much."

M. ELO: "I still order (bracelets) and send them to people. People can always reach out and I'll (send) them out." (If you'd like a bracelet, you can let me know and I'll get the info to Melanie!)

CORY UHLS: "...the one I have now was one of the original ones like you said. A little side note just so you know, I know my new one is one of the originals because it’s slightly messed up. The words are spaced a little wrong, just like the one I got at Ben’s funeral. I assume (this is) because they were made so quickly after Ben passed. The ones they made after the funeral are spaced correctly and are a little different. But I immensely love that it’s slightly imperfect. It helps me know that while I strive to act justly, love mercy, walk humbly, I know I won’t be perfect, and that I’m not expected to be either. That’s honestly been the best part of having the bracelet. And like you said, every event in my life has added to the meaning of the bracelet. When I got married, I left it on so the words of the bracelet gained more meaning. When I have kids, it’ll take more meaning then too. Striving to live up to the words on the bracelet in those areas but also having a reminder that I won’t be perfect either, and that’s ok. It still means the same even with its faults. I don’t leave it on because it’s always been there. (I leave it on) because it’s always meant something. More than it was originally intended I imagine."

Lastly, I'd like you know Ben's family still maintains a memorial fund for Ben and offers a scholarship with the fund's proceeds every year. It is handled by the Community Foundation of Morgan County. If you'd like to donate to the fund, or apply for the scholarship, please visit this website: Community Foundation of Morgan County.