By Kiera Rich – KRich13@bellsouth.net

I love fall.  I love the changing leaves.  I love the feeling of crispness in the air.  I love the new crayons that I always buy myself to celebrate the beginning of a new school year.

I also love the sports of fall.  I wait with almost rabid anticipation for the beginning of football season.  I know this is not considered normal for a female but that’s how God created me to be.  I even made Jeff watch the NFL draft last spring.  It was a sure sign that football season was getting closer.  By that time, I was tired of counting the endless months between the Super Bowl and opening day.  And yes, I know that I am completely pathetic; but, please understand that I was a truly desperate woman! 

I also love watching the World Series.  During the other 5 million games of baseball’s regular season, I’m not much of a fan.  I think I’m just too overwhelmed with the sheer number of games and how the season seems to stretch on for a good part of the year.  However, when it comes down to the playoffs and the actual World Series?  I’m the best seasonal fan there is!

After last year, when the Colorado Rockies made an unbelievable, late-season charge for the play-offs, my hope remained intact.  I thought maybe they would be decent this year and could at least make a stab at post-season play.  Not so.  The Rockies limped through the season and ended with a 74 win – 88 loss record.

With the Rockies obviously out of the playoff picture, my attention turned to my back-up favorite teams. 

I aquired the New York Yankees as a favorite when I married Jeff.  They’ve always been his favorite because they were his dad’s favorite.  It would have been the last round of playoffs at the “House that Ruth Built”.  The wildly sentimental, closet-historian in me was pulling hard for the Yankees this year.  I wanted to see them in the post-season to give their old stadium one last “Hurrah”, one more perfect night, one more cherished memory before it is dismantled, demolished, and 85 years of history are forgotten.  But the Yankees didn’t make it either. 

Onward and upward to the Chicago Cubs.  How can you not love those perennial underdogs?  The Cubs did not let me down.  They made the playoffs!  And then tanked in the first round.  Thanks a lot, Cubbies!  What did I ever do to you?

So as I sat on the couch last night watching the playoffs, I was a woman without a team.  Although I am leaning toward the Tampa Bay Rays this year.  They have some great players.  I like their coach.  They are the underdogs — who I almost always love.  And most importantly, Manny Ramirez does not play for them.

I do not like Manny.  I think he’s a jerk.  I think he lives and plays with an attitude of grotesque entitlement and inflated and wildly misplaced ego.  I cringe every time he opens his mouth because nothing good comes out of it and yet there are millions of little boys running around who want to be just like him.  It’s really very frightening to me.

I realize this is not how normal people pick their teams but in all honesty, I’m for whatever team doesn’t have Manny on it.  The world is full of guys like him.  They never intended to be anyone’s hero but, intention or not, they become a hero.  And they go about setting the poorest possible example for a bunch of kids who have an unfulfilled need to have someone in their lives that they can look up to and emulate.

I guess what it all boils down to is that I need a hero too, and I am disappointed by the seemingly atrocious lack of available options.  I need a hero who shows courage when I don’t have any.  I need a hero who does the right thing — even when it’s hard.  I need a hero who believes that service to others is not a duty but a privilege.  I don’t need someone perfect; but, I do need someone who strives to leave the world a better place than they found it.

And then I read a story about a lady by the name of Terri.  Terri lives in Colorado and suffered a tremendous tragedy when her teenage daughter Dana died of Leukemia.  In the 2 1/2 years that Dana courageously fought her disease, Terri discovered something that could cheer her daughter up — even in the worst of times.  It was a hat.  Dana had a vast collection of hats.

After Dana died, Terri made a decision to do something productive with her grief and her tender memories of her beloved daughter.  Terri started a project called “Dear Dana” and she began knitting hats for cancer patients. 

I have never lost a child to cancer.  I don’t have any idea what it would be like to walk a mile in Terri’s shoes.  But I do know that she has taken a horrible and very personal tragedy and turned it into something good.  She is blessing the lives of other parents in similar circumstances and blessing a bunch of kids who are simply fighting to live. 

Here is a letter from Terri regarding “Dear Dana”

“I am so grateful to hear for all the caring people I have heard from since my “Dear Dana” story aired on 9 News!  I would love to have you knit for me. I not only knit and crochet for children, but for adult cancer patients too!  My husband and I deliver to as many hospitals and cancer clinics as we can find in the Denver, Littleton, Aurora, and Parker area. I am accepting hand knit hats, scarves, shawls, and my latest venture, socks. I am on a crusade to bring smiles to everyone having to go thru the effects of chemo. (Don’t forget men and boys) Wool is the only yarn I advise against since it can be itchy. There are many patterns you can find on-line if you google free knitting patterns. A few are:

www.dailyknitter.com or www.knittingpatterncentral.com or www.knittinghelp.com

Thank you from the bottom of my heart to all of you. You can mail your knit items to:

Double T Stables, 9850 East Parker Road, Parker, Colorado 80138

OR

Current drop offs are:

Double T Stables 9850 East Parker Road, Parker, Colorado 303-840-3698

Knitting Habitat, 13724 East Quincy Avenue, Aurora, Colorado 303-256-0200

Don’t forget to include your name and address with your donated items so I can keep track of all my wonderful knitters and crocheters.

Terri Thomas — Dear Dana”

Terri also said that she would welcome monetary donations from all of us “non-knitters.”  The money will go toward yarn, needles, and the bags that are purchased to deliver hats in.

In my quest to find a hero, it’s been really easy to look in all the wrong places.  But isn’t it just like God to lead me to a hero that isn’t a sports star or a Hollywood actress?  My hero isn’t famous OR  infamous.  She’s just a lady who experienced something horrible and made a choice to turn it into something good.  My hero is Terri Thomas and she’s changing the world — one hat at a time.

By Kiera Rich – KRich13@bellsouth.net

Have you heard?  The Colorado Rockies are in the World Series!   Apparently few people in Atlanta have heard the news.  Apparently few people in Atlanta have heard of the Colorado Rockies.  Period.

Last Thursday, my husband and I did a fairly thorough search of local retailers looking for Colorado Rockies t-shirts.    We just wanted to support our team.  This is the first time the Rockies have ever been to the World Series.  For a Colorado native like myself who lived through the Denver Bears era, this is a big deal!  I’m proud of my team.

The search did not go well.  If there is a Rockies shirt anywhere in our area, it’s exceptionally well hidden.  The search was frustrating albeit interesting.  The reaction of the sales clerks we encountered bordered on ridiculous.   At each stop we would explain that we were looking for Colorado Rockies shirts.  Each time we were met with blank stares — except for one helpful lady who happily showed me to a stack of black and gold shirts.  Thank you, no.  I know they sound similar but the University of Colorado and the Colorado Rockies are not one and the same.

As we were heading for home, we drove past a large discount chain-store – which, to protect the innocent, shall remain nameless.  Always.   Shopping failure tends to make me a little giddy anyway so we threw caution to the wind and made one, last, hopeful, stop.  “Who knows?” I thought.  “They have a vast inventory of items.  Maybe they’ve heard of the Rockies.”

Nope.  With our little consumer hearts broken, we headed for the door.  That was when we saw it.  Right in front of the door.  Right by the greeter.  A big cardboard box full of festive, autumnal gourds.   Then we looked at the sign on the box.  We blinked.  Shook our heads and blinked again.  And then my husband snickered and began to elbow me.  “Look at that!”  He said as he pointed.  I didn’t have to look.  I was staring right at the sign.  Jeff went ahead and read the sign for me anyway.  “Lage (Pronounced: “Law-gey” as best as we can figure.)  Pumpkins”. 

I was still blinking as I processed what Jeff said and what I was reading.  The sign was indeed missing an “r” in the word “large.”  However the sign was missing something else — unless Webster’s changed the spelling of “pumpkin” without telling me.  Yes, indeed.  This large (lage?), nameless discount chain was selling “lage pumpins” by the boxful!  It was our lucky day!

Only after driving away did we come to the conclusion that we should have probably told someone about the sign.  As it was, we simply laughed all the way home — repeatedly chastising each other for not jumping all over that sale and getting our “lage pumpins” while the getting was good.

I don’t know who made that sign.  I don’t know how long it had been up there or how many people had walked by it.  I  don’t know how many large pumpkins had already been sold under the false pseudonym.  I don’t know how many people left the store like we did — laughing like hyenas.  I do know that someone, somewhere was responsible for that sign.  *Snicker*

I have to admit, one of my favorite hobbies is looking for stupid signs, advertisements and headlines.  This one was definitely a find; but, I did feel a little guilty about our behavior.  Everyone makes mistakes.  I’ve made them frequently even though I’m meticulous about proofreading and about requiring everyone who edits my stuff to do the same.   Sometimes they just slip through.  As hard as I try to be perfect, I’m not.  Never will be.

I am still humiliated by some of the mistakes I’ve made in my literary career.  However one mistake really sticks out my mind.  Mostly because it wasn’t a mistake.  It was just gross carelessness on my part.  It was back when I wrote for my high school yearbook.    My adviser selected me to write a tribute for a classmate who had died after a brief but fearless battle with cancer.  Deborah’s death had left my small school reeling with a palpable, excruciating pain.

As I wrote the tribute, I agonized over getting the words just right.  I wanted to capture the very essence of Deborah.  I wanted my classmates to remember her.  I wanted future generations to know how much she meant to our student body.   I wanted her parents to know that their child was valued and loved and missed.  I probably would have accomplished all my goals – had I taken the two minutes to verify the spelling of her last name.  But I didn’t.  When the yearbooks came out, it was wrong.  Twenty years later, I still feel horrible.  

I learned a valuable lesson through that experience about doing my best work.  I learned that sometimes it takes extra effort to do things right instead of just getting things done.  I learned that words that I write have power and that I have a big responsibility as to whether that power will be used for good or evil.   God taught me a huge lesson about lazy writing.  I have never looked at a high school yearbook without thinking about Deborah and her family and my own arrogance and stupidity. 

God-lessons are tough and they hurt but they are always good as they can bring about needed and necessary growth.  Writing and directing Christian drama makes this die-hard type-B person very type-A.   I consider everything I write to be an offering to God and I am therefore less than tolerant of those who mess with said offering.  Usually, I’m a fairly easy going person — as long as I don’t have a production ready to go live and three of my main characters suddenly have scheduling conflicts for a dress rehearsal that they’ve known about for three months.

At that point, my head begins to spin around, I foam at the mouth and instantly transform into Beelzebub’s little sister.  If you don’t believe I can make this sort of transformation, I do have names and email addresses available on request of those who have seen this phenomena in person.   Trust me.  It’s not pretty.

Yes, there comes a point in every script and in every production that I need to let go of my offering.  However, when I do, it had better not lack for ANYTHING because I was lazy or didn’t want to put in the effort get it right.  To me, writing Christian drama is the most intimate form of worship and communion with God imaginable and I never want to give Him anything less than my best.

Matthew 5:15 & 16 says, “Neither do people light a lamp and put it under a bowl. Instead they put it on its stand, and it gives light to everyone in the house.  In the same way, let your light shine before men, that they may see your good deeds and praise your Father in heaven.”

Drama is my way of letting my light shine before men.  Every time I write something I pray that God will use my words to change one person’s life in a lasting and eternal way.  Deborah is also on my mind every time I write.  God never reminds me of that awful mistake.  Instead, I remind myself as a warning against laziness and arrogance.  I don’t want someone’s only glimpse of Jesus Christ to be the drama that I did half-heartedly.   Letting my light shine for Him is a privilege and honor and something I strive to do right — no matter what task I’ve undertaken.

The “lage pumpin” sign was pretty unforgettable.  Jeff and I are still laughing about it and we’ve incorporated the vocabulary into our everyday lives.  “Well, we could order pizza for dinner while we watch the Series.  We have a coupon for a lage pepperoni.”  What a great idea!

One more thing…and this is to the executives at the Fox Network.  I understand that we’re in the eastern time zone and that people on the west coast eat dinner long after we’ve gone to bed.  But could you please, please, PLEASE start the World Series games a little earlier.  I turn into a lage pumpin at midnight!