PMC Thoughts and Memories Along the Years
I Remember:
- My sister-in-law showing me, in June 1987, a flyer for something called "the Pan Massachusetts Challenge."
- Hand-delivering my first registration (a few weeks before the event!) to Billy Starr's Dad's home in Newton; the entire PMC was laid out on Mr. Starr's kitchen table.
- Asking people to support the Cause when it seemed that no one had ever heard of the PMC. Pan what? You ride how far?
- PMC Rider T-shirts (not jerseys!)
- When the Friday night kick-off was pretty much just a slide show. The PMC logo on a glorified bed sheet!
- Amy and the Aloha women at the Brick Yard. Soaking my head in waterstop baby- pools filled with ice blocks!
- Having meals in the actual MMA cafeteria!
- Finishing the PMC in less than 10 hours. Very fast pace lines with "the boys" out in the dunes.
- Riding for Dana Ulness, diagnosed with cancer on his 1st birthday and dying at age three - with his Bruins jersey on – way before his time.
- The after-ride bike parade from the Provincetown Inn to the docks.
- Riding back to Boston on the ship – with all our bikes on board.
- PMC rides with my brothers-in-law Jim and Doug and then with my sister Tricia!
- Paul Tsongas. And his charge to "Create positive action in the face of life's often difficult challenges."
- Check Presentations at the General Cinema in Chestnut Hill with a big cake and, on special occasions, Legal Seafood's clam chowder.
- Walking up the aisle at the General Cinema to actually be handed my Heavy Hitter T-shirts!
- Being asked by prior year's donors, "Are you doing that Pan Am thing again this year?"
- The first time it ever ‘rained on the PMC.' Leaving Sturbridge from a strip-mall with our 10th anniversary jerseys (the first jerseys ever) covered by rain gear.
- Riding on pace lines with Billy Starr and leaving just a little extra room between us so that I wouldn't be that year's event story.
- Being on another pace line out in the dunes when Billy Starr found out that our Ferry was cancelled (due to rain and high winds) – before there was a bus option for riders and trucks for bikes. Then, within two hours, having enough trucks and busses available to take us all off the Cape by road!
- Riding with LeMond – for ~ 17 seconds.
- The shocking increase in riders going over the yellow line and others not pulling in despite multiple calls of "car back."
- A Sunday morning in the dark and the rain in Bourne; feeling sorry for myself. Then remembering a child having chemo treatments and riding on – crying – knowing how lucky I am.
- 1993: Bringing my 2-month old, Irene, to the Opening Ceremonies in Sturbridge.
- Dedicating rides over the years to: Adele McNulty Droney, Larry Spicer, Joe Corkery, Myrna Reich, Dana Ulness, Warren Hunt, Charlie Tracy, Becky Callow, Erin Kurtz and way, way too many others. Some have survived; others have not.
- Hearing Dr. Benz say: "When they write the history of how cancer was conquered, the PMC will be in chapter one."
- My daughter, Irene, riding her first (of five) Wildwood Challenges in 2003 when she was 10 years old. (And raising well over $1,200 – every year!)
- May 2008. My Bride, The Great Colleen Lucas, my finest PMC supporter and the best person I've ever known. Learning that cancer had come right into our home.
- June 2008. Stage II breast cancer. Surgery at the Brigham.
- August 2008. My daughter Irene, now 15, riding the 2008 PMC with me for My Bride, her Mom.
- September 2008. Crossing the PMC Bridge every day on the way to "L2" and Radiation therapy at DFCI.
- The end of radiation therapy, the beginning of Tamoxifen and feeling damn lucky – and grateful.
- 22 rides. 22 Heavy Hitter years. Hundreds of supporters. Lots of jerseys, shorts and T-shirts!
- Sitting on a Cure for Cancer; with still more miles to peddle and dollars to raise.
- HOPE.