Cheerful Curmudgeon » Tzedakah

Jingle Bell Run 5K

Art Zemon — Mon, 22 Nov 2010 00:15:20 +0000

I ran my second 5K this morning, the Jingle Bell Run to benefit the Arthritis Foundation. I signed up for the race with two goals in mind: I wanted to raise over $1,000 for the Arthritis Foundation and I wanted to better my 5K time from the first race that I ran in October. Kudos to Lori, my running buddy/coach/partner, for encouraging me to pick this race. Running makes a great way to start the day but it improves hugely when you can run while helping others big time. I registered for the race and paid my $25 fee, assuming that, like most races, at least a portion of that fee would go to the sponsoring charity. Beyond that fee, I committed to raising $1,000. I had no idea whether I could actually do it or not.

(BTW, if you are reading this on Facebook, please click through and read this on my Cheerful Curmudgeon web site. You will not see the pictures properly on the Facebook page.)

After signing up for the race, I sent a message to several mailing lists that I am on. It explained what I was doing and asked the recipient to visit my Jingle Bell Run page and make a contribution. Several generous souls responded with a total of $245. Though “a little” shy of my goal so I clearly needed a next step. I considered sending out several nag notes at decreasing intervals and with increasing levels of urgency as race day approached but could not get excited enough about the idea to send the first note. I am a pretty shameless guy and do not mind abasing myself to ask for money but I hate spam as much as the next guy and could not bring myself to repeatedly spam my friends and associates. Instead, I decided to send exactly one message and to send it on the last possible day, the morning before the race. The message was short and direct.

The Jingle Bell Run is Sunday morning. Help us reach our goal!

Tomorrow morning I will be running the Jingle Bell 5K to support the Arthritis Foundation. The running is great but what they really need is money (doh!) to fund research into arthritis cures.

Please help! We only need a few more dollars to reach our goal. I promise that, after you contribute, you will float through the rest of your day with that warm, fuzzy, satisfied feeling of knowing that you have supported a worthy cause.

Thanks

Follow This Link to visit my personal web page and help me in my efforts to support Arthritis Foundation, Eastern Missouri Chapter.

I exported every email address that I had in my Thunderbird address book and imported them into the Arthritis Foundation’s fundraising site. Their tool let me send the message to 30 addresses at a time. It took me a couple of hours to work through 2,700 addresses but it paid off in spades, er, hearts. I am awe-struck by the huge number of loving people who contributed almost $800 in less than a day. Thus far, my total stands at $1,336. Thank you to all of you!

From all of those messages, I heard back from several people with whom I have not corresponded in some time. That gave me the unexpected pleasure of swapping personal notes and catching up a bit. Only three people sent “take me off your list” messages and only one was rude about it. Tempting though it is to name him, I will not. Suffice it to say that I do not believe sending exactly one message to the man warranted the response that he shot back at me. Maybe he was having a bad day and I was a convenient target.

Lori encouraged all of her friends to sign up for my Jingle Bell run team, which helped even more with the fundraising aspect of the race. Candy and Kevin joined in as well. All told, our team of 17 people accounted for almost $1,500 in donations. Saying “thank you” hardly seems enough but it comes from my heart so it will have to do.

Part of the fun of race day is dressing up like a nut. We all had jingle bells tied to our shoes. Silly me, Lori talked me into wearing a tutu if we got ten people on the team. When I agreed to it, I did not realize that Lori knows half the people in St. Charles county so ten people was no sweat for her at all. Here we are, just before the start. Next year, Lori, you will need 20 people to get me into the tutu.

Lori & Art in racing tutus

Here is the entire festive Cheerful Curmudgeon team, ready to go. Most of us (blue numbers) are headed for the 5K run but several of us (red numbers) are signed up for the 1 mile walk.

Cheerful Curmudgeon team ready for the Jingle Bell Run/Walk 2010

With 1,600 people at the start, our team got separated pretty quickly. Cori (red “Fleet Feet Sports Training” shirt in the middle of the picture) and I queued up together, since we ran at the same pace a week ago on a training run. I lost track of Candy and did not see her again until the finish. Kevin stayed with Candy but had to head home before I finished so I did not see him after this picture.

My running goal was to beat the 34:17 time that I hit in my first 5K on October 9. Cori and I started out strong at about 10:30-ish pace and I managed to hold that until about 1/2 mile from the end when I petered out a bit and had to slow down. I was overjoyed to crest the levee at the end of the course and see that the finish line was not at the start line, which would have entailed an uphill climb to the end. Instead it was a left hand hairpin and easy downhill into a different parking lot. Oh heavenly day! My official time was 32:57 at 10:38/mile. Here is my GPS track at Garmin Connect.

Goals accomplished, both fundraising and racing! On to the next race. And one more thing, it is not too late to contribute to the Arthritis Foundation on my Jingle Bell Run page. Please click the link and give what you can. Thank you.

Swimming with Cripples

Art Zemon — Mon, 27 Apr 2009 03:35:26 +0000

My friend, Dan Suffian, wrote Swimming with Cripples and it’s absolutely beautiful. It’s just a long paragraph, too short for me to paraphrase it here, and anyway, if I were to try all I’d do is rob you of the joy of discovering Dan’s story through his own words. Go read it and share it with your children and your friends.

Sometimes a Man Stands Up During Supper

Art Zemon — Mon, 21 Aug 2006 13:07:46 +0000

Sometimes a man stands up during supper
and walks outdoors, and keeps on walking,
because of a church that stands somewhere in the East.

And his children say blessings on him as if he were dead.

And another man, who remains inside his own house,
dies there, inside the dishes and in the glasses,
so that his children have to go far out into the world
toward that same church, which he forgot.

Ranier Maria Rilke
translated by Robert Bly

That is from one of my favorite books, The Rag and Bone Shop of the Heart: A Poetry Anthology by Robert Bly, James Hillman, and Michael Meade.

Happy 1st Birthday

Art Zemon — Fri, 12 May 2006 06:00:58 +0000

The Cheerful Curmudgeon web site is one year old today! Since we all know that birthdays mean presents, join me in celebrating.

I like the Hobbit’s tradition that the one having the birthday gives presents to other people. (You have read The Fellowship of the Ring, haven’t you?) So here’s the deal:

You, Gentle Reader, simply leave a comment on this posting. Tell me a tiny bit about yourself, like how long you have been reading the Cheerful Curmudgeon and what you like about it. Maybe add something witty if you are feeling particularly gregarious.

I, in turn, will donate $1.00 for every comment to MAZON which, “funds emergency food providers, food banks, multi-service organizations and advocacy groups both in this country and abroad.” Hurry, though, I will send in my donation based on the number of donations (up to 100) at the end of this weekend.

Help me celebrate and help the hungry, too. What could be better?

Holocaust Survivor Simon Wiesenthal Dies

Art Zemon — Tue, 20 Sep 2005 10:03:23 +0000

Simon Wiesenthal
(AP Photo/Ronald Zak, File)

Simon Wiesenthal, holocaust survivor and hunter of Nazi war criminals, passed away in his sleep this morning. He was 96. May his life be remembered as a blessing.

Wiesenthal spent more than 50 years hunting Nazi war criminals, speaking out against neo-Nazism and racism, and remembering the Jewish experience as a lesson for humanity. Through his work, he said, some 1,100 Nazi war criminals were brought to justice.

“When history looks back I want people to know the Nazis weren’t able to kill millions of people and get away with it,” he once said.

Wiesenthal’s own words summarize his life better than I can:

For your benefit, learn from our tragedy. It is not a written law that the next victims must be Jews. It can also be other people. We saw it begin in Germany with Jews, but people from more than twenty other nations were also murdered. When I started this work, I said to myself, ‘I will look for the murderers of all the victims, not only the Jewish victims. I will fight for justice.’
(Quoted in an interview in Penthouse Magazine, 1983)

We need partners. We cannot fight against the neo-Nazis alone. We need friends. We can win them by telling them their history, by talking about the others, the millions of people other than the Jews, that the Nazis killed. The Holocaust began with the Jewish. But it did not end with the Jews.
(from an interview in the Baltimore Jewish Times, April 3, 1981)

There is no denying that Hitler and Stalin are alive today…they are waiting for us to forget, because this is what makes possible the resurrection of these two monsters.
(from a meeting with President Jimmy Carter reported in The Washington Post, August 6, 1980)

For more details, see this AP article in My Way News. You may also wish to visit the Simon Wiesenthal Center web site.

Donate Blood

Art Zemon — Thu, 01 Sep 2005 21:59:43 +0000

For years and years, I regularly donated blood to the American Red Cross. It was easy, didn’t hurt, and helped other people. Unlike donating money, giving blood did not even deprive me of anything. As a matter of fact, after each donation I treated myself to a good steak dinner. (No, I don’t want to hear medical evidence that the steak dinner was not “necessary”. )

One day I got a letter from the Red Cross. My blood had been screened and “failed” the initial screening. They retested and found that I am healthy and have nothing to worry about. Unfortunately, US law forbids them from accepting my blood because once I came up positive on a screening test. Bummer! Here I sit, healthy, with lots o’ blood that I want to donate, and blocked from doing so.

The Red Cross has been desperate for blood for a long time and the situation has been getting worse because of new medical worries about previously unknown diseases. Katrina has made the situation untenable.

If you are able to donate blood, please do. It only takes an hour of your time. You will save someone’s life.

Give Life — Donate Blood

Do it for that anonymous person who needs blood. Or do it as a personal favor to me. Or do it because it is “the right thing” to do. Just do it!

Thank you.

Hats off to Al “Screw-Up” Lewis

Art Zemon — Wed, 25 May 2005 21:55:38 +0000

The Denver Post reports this story about Al Lewis, a man who does much to restore my faith in mankind.

“I just believe things should be done the way they should be done,” he said.

After a cargo strap on his truck broke, spewing about 5,000 spikes on the highway at 60 MPH, Al actually stopped, admitted fault, and made things right with the drivers with damaged tires, having everything repaired or replaced immediately at a local tire shop.

Al is living proof that it is possible to live a life of integrity and honesty.

Arthritis Walk

Art Zemon — Fri, 13 May 2005 13:01:27 +0000

Today’s the day. My N.E.W.S. Group is participating in the St. Charles Arthritis Walk. If you are in town and can join us at Frontier Park in St. Charles, do. There will be food, music, great weather and lots of fun! This group is part of the St. Peters Chamber of Commerce.

Whether you can come to the walk or not, please consider donating a couple of bucks to a very worthy cause. Thank you!

I am proud of our team. We have raised over $1,300 dollars!

[EDIT 5/15/05] Here are a couple of photos from the Walk.