Happy Halloween

Posted by TeamCharlie on October 31, 2008 under Wags for Hope | Be the First to Comment

Just thought I would pass along one of our Wags team’s Halloween picture. This is JJ. Enjoy.

Being a Kid

Posted by TeamCharlie on October 28, 2008 under Kids are Heroes | Be the First to Comment

Do you remember what it was like to be a kid? I sure do. I would consider myself a pretty good kid I guess. I would ride my bike everywhere all the time when I wasn’t at school. I would be at my friends house (or they at mine) for the entire day. Sometimes I would get into trouble. I got caught trying to steal some bubblegum from Johnny’s once – was never allowed back. Somehow my friends got a hold of some cigarettes which we would bury in the woods and from time to time we would go dig them up and smoke them. That is until one of my buddies got sick and that was the end of that. I have no memory of volunteering for anything when I was a kid. That’s probably because I didn’t. My mother who had to watch over seven kids while her husband was away on business for the entire week managed to volunteer by driving seniors to church and dropping off groceries to them. But when I was a kid I was all about me.

What triggered this blog was a letter I received from one of the “Kids Are Heroes” kids. His name is Matthew and he is eleven years old. He and his siblings Maeve (8), William (3) and Jade (1) have been sending their drawings so that we can distribute them to nursing homes. Some of them are quite good and touching to boot. In the last package Matthew wrote me a letter, the contents of which are displayed below – just click on the image to make it larger. I bet that young man has a bright future ahead of him, as do his siblings. I can’t say for sure but I guess most kids are like I was – all about themselves. Not that that is so bad. After all, I haven’t ended up in jail because of it. All I know is that it sure is refreshing to see a kid that is truly trying to help others.

Check out his letter:

Another Cool Sunrise

Posted by TeamCharlie on October 26, 2008 under Just for Fun | Be the First to Comment

I wish I was up a little earlier for this one – the fog always shows a neat effect.

Sunrise Photos

Posted by TeamCharlie on October 18, 2008 under Just for Fun | Be the First to Comment

One morning last week when we got up we just had to go outside and take these pictures. The sunrise was SO spectacular.

This helps to remind me about what is important in life.

Toast of the Town

Posted by TeamCharlie on October 16, 2008 under Wags for Hope | Be the First to Comment

One of our new initiatives at Wags for Hope is to pair animals from the local shelter with seniors living at home alone. This is the most ambitious project we have taken on to date, as it requires a relatively substantial amount of funds. If the senior living alone is on a fixed income and they cannot afford to feed the animal, we will help subsidize them. The implementation plan for “Wagging PALS” [Pets Adopt Loving Seniors] is in progress, and so are our plans for our first big fund raiser. On Friday, November 7th, Charlie will be hosting his first “Toast of the Town” event. As tickets for this sort of thing go they are extremely reasonable, coming in at $35.00 per couple. There will be free food, entertainment and door prizes to boot. Here is just a partial list of food donors: Carrabbas, Outback Steakhouse, The Macaroni Grill, Olive Garden, Uno Chicago Grill, the Clay Oven, the Greene Turtle and Famous Dave’s. You can’t beat that for the price. If you are reading this, you live locally (Frederick MD) and you are looking to have some fun on a Friday night with a bunch of animal lovers, come on out – more details are at our web site – just click on the Events button.

Family Matters

Posted by TeamCharlie on October 8, 2008 under Family | Be the First to Comment

Family Picture circa 1982

I was born in a little town in Ontario near Ottawa. When it was my turn to arrive on this planet six other brothers and sisters had preceded me. When I was growing up I thought of my family as one with very few “issues”. My parents stayed together, all the kids went to college – to me that was normal. I am thinking now that when we grow up do we all see our family as “normal”? I expect so. As we get older we discover the skeletons in each other’s closets, but hopefully as a family we can still remain together. I thought that would be the way with my family until I die, and I fully expect to be the last one to go. After all I was the last one here, so it’s only fair, right? Recently though for some unknown reason my oldest brother decided to disown us all. My parents have both passed, so he figured that he would receive no flak from them, and there would no longer be an occasion that he would have to run into us. This was a bizarre shock to us all when we first heard it, because despite all of our “skeletons” we all feel that we are a close family. There was no real formal announcement either. One of my brothers discovered this from a casual phone conversation that happened over a year ago. We all made our attempts to make peace with no results. He wouldn’t even tell us the reason. Over the year clues started to rise, one being the fact that my alienated brother is a staunch Republican to say the least. We all knew about the fact that he is right wing but we discovered through his children that his views (in his mind) are so incompatible with all of ours that he felt it easier to not have any contact with us. Hmmm… It is so weird to me to realize that I have laid eyes on my brother for the last time and the reason seems to be solely political. Now I would not classify myself as being far left, far right or far anything but to me that doesn’t matter in the least. Family matters. I now have to explain to my nine-year-old daughter the reasoning behind this schism when I have always told her that family is the most important thing in life. With the economy crumbling around us and terrorists trying to bring our country down, the one thing I figured I could count on was my family. Life can be challenging sometimes.