Paper Clocks

By Bud Focht

Hi, my name is Bud and 29 years ago this week my youngest child was born. Our third. After that, when people asked how many kids we had I would always say “Three, one of each.”

Back in 1988, when our foursome became a fivesome, I had a favorite song, Handle With Care. by a band that people in the biz called a “super group”, the Traveling Wilburys.

The band was mostly made up of a bunch of unknowns, like Bob Dylan, George Harrison, Roy Orbison and Tom Petty. Yesterday Tom Petty went Into the Great Wide Open and it made me get a bit nostalgic.

I am having a first anniversary this week. I was told by some that the first anniversary is paper, but others have told me that it’s a clock. Do they sell paper clocks?

We men are infamously known for forgetting anniversaries, even the first ones. I remembered this one, though, even if I am not sure if I want to.

There are many anniversaries that we all remember.

On the negative side, there is June 28, 1914, when Austria’s Ferdinand was assassinated, starting WWI and eventually causing WWII. Twenty-seven years later there was December 7, a date that will live in infamy. And of course, 16 years ago there was September 11.

On the positive side, there is Memorial Day, the unofficial start of summer, when people honor those who died while serving in the U.S. military by going to the beach. The Fourth of July, when people have cookouts, parades and blow off parts of their hands with fireworks to celebrate the birth of our nation.  And of course, there is December 25, when people celebrate the birth of Jesus by killing a tree to put inside the house, trample over each other in stores to get the last Electronic Helmet, whether it be Marvel Legends or Star Wars, and give Fruit Cake to relatives that they don’t really like.

I am having an anniversary this week and I’m not sure if it is positive or not. Not sure whether to celebrate or not. Not sure whether to go to the beach, buy an electric helmet to light fireworks or just eat one of the many fruit cakes I have from relatives.

There are other anniversaries this week, and I’m not sure if they are being celebrated or not either.

Forty-six years ago this week Disney World opened, teaching millions of Florida vacationers how to stand in line.

Forty-two years ago this week Ali beat Frazier in the rubber match of what has to be the best three-match series in the history of sport. That is if you call two men giving each other CTE (chronic traumatic encephalopathy) a sport.

One hundred and twenty-seven years ago this week one of my childhood idols, Groucho Marx, was born.  What do you mean not all the kids in the 60s wore greasepaint mustaches and eyebrows?

And then there is the anniversary I am having this week. One year ago today I quit my job, my career that spanned over 35 years, to take on a much more rewarding but also much more challenging job as a caregiver. I spent 42 years on three college campuses, now I spend 24 hours a day on my own campus.

During most of my career I would day dream about what I would do, how I would spend my days, if I no longer had to work. Winning the lottery, retiring, whatever, when I was no longer going to work every day I had it all planned out, exactly how I was going to spend my free time.

It sounded great.

What do they say about making plans? Ones that don’t often go awry often make God laugh.

As it turns out, I had more time to myself when I was working 70 hours a week than I do now.

Being a caregiver for my wife Terry, who is now in the middle stage of Early Onset Alzheimer’s Disease, is figuratively and literally a 24-hour-a-day job.

On the positive side, I get to hang out with Terry all the time. I can give her the care and attention she needs. I get to enjoy a life of leisure, without worrying about the problems associated with work.

For that I feel truly blessed.

But on the negative side, blah blah blah. I was about to start venting. I was about to start typing as fast as my fat little fingers could go about how tough I have it. (actually, I have long, slender fingers and could even have been a creepy hand model in my retirement).

The negative side is that one year ago Terry was so much better off. Twelve months ago she still knew how to call me on her cell phone. Now she would have trouble picking out a cell phone from a group of five objects on a table that included paper and clocks.

One year ago, Terry could still write her name. Now she has trouble making her X in the right spot. A year ago, she could still help washing the dishes or folding the laundry. Now, she has a 50-50 chance of putting her shirt or pants on backwards or putting her shoes on the right foot.

What a difference a year makes.

No, I am afraid I will not be celebrating this one-year anniversary. I AM celebrating the fact that I have been able to be with Terry every minute during the last year, but I can’t celebrate where we are right now, or where we are heading.

Until next time, as Tom Petty sang, “I know what’s right, I got just one life. In a world that keeps on pushin’ me around. But I’ll stand my ground and I won’t back down.”

Bud

budfocht@gmail.com

BF’s BFFs Unfortunately Aren’t Forever

By Bud Focht

Hi, my name is Bud and it has been well documented since biblical times that not only bad things but also good things often happen in threes.

Rings in a circus. Pieces of a good suit. Stooges.

I have been very fortunate to have had three great best friends in my life. And even though they are all still alive and living locally, I miss all three of them greatly, especially the third one, my wife Terry.

Terry and I were best friends for over 35 years, before she entered the middle stage of Early Onset Alzheimer’s Disease. I am afraid that even though my wife Terry is still alive and for the most part healthy, my best friend Terry is now gone.

And I miss her.

My first best friend was Tommy, who lived down the street from me and we bonded in the first grade. All through grade school and high school we were like brothers. We were so close that when his family took a two-week vacation to the Jersey Shore each summer they would bring me.

Growing up, on rainy days we made model cars and airplanes together in his car port (and I swear I didn’t sniff that glue, that much, on purpose.). On sunny days we played countless games of wiffleball in his back yard when we weren’t riding our bikes, the first ones in our neighborhood with the banana seat and butterfly handle bars. On snowy days we played one-on-one tackle football when we weren’t throwing snowballs at trucks going down our street. On hot days we swam in my family’s pool. We played a million one-on-one basketball games.  We watched the first two Ali-Frazier boxing matches together. We worked out together at home with the latest exercise invention, the ‘exer-genie’, and on the Universal weight lifting machine in the high school locker room.

We drank our first beers together (although Boones’ Farm Apple Wine and Strawberry Hill came first) and picked up our first girls together.

We came of age together in the late 60s and early 70s.

Senior year in high school Tom’s girlfriend (a cutey too good for him who became his wife and stayed with him to this day for some unknown reason) and my girlfriend (a fun girl who I enjoyed but out-grew) did not get along, so Tom and I did not see as much of each other as we had in the past.

To this day whenever I hear songs from the late 60s, Cherish by the Association, Sweet Caroline by Neil Diamond, anything from the Stones’ Sticky Fingers album, it reminds me of my time with Tom.

And I miss that.

Tom went northwest to college and I went south, and although we have kept in touch over the years and still see each other at our annual high school golf outing, we were never best buds again.

And I miss that.

The next best friend in my life was and is Jack. Jack and I have known each other since kindergarten. All through grade school and high school we had many mutual friends, but we never really ‘hung out.’ We ran in different crowds.

Jack and I did play baseball together. We were never on the same regular season team when we were young, but we were on several post-season all-star teams together. When we were 16 we were finally on the same regular season team together and became close friends. 

Senior year on the high school baseball team we realized we were heading to the same college, in fun-in-the-sun Miami, to play baseball. We worked together in the summer prior to college, played on the same American Legion baseball team, and headed south in the fall as roommates.

Living, partying, and playing ball in South Florida, we had about as much fun as a couple of 18-year olds could possibly have without be convicted. (Convicted? No, never convicted).

After our freshman year Jack returned north to attend school but we still saw each other all of the time during semester breaks and during the summer.

Whenever I hear certain songs from the 70s, ELO, Hall and Oates or the Doobie Brothers, it reminds me of great times Jack and I had back then.

And I miss that.

For the last 43 years Jack and I have been closer than brothers, sharing weddings, births, even deaths. He was the best man at my wedding and is the godfather to my son. We won championships playing adult football and softball together. The only times I went out without Terry, it was with Jack.

And I miss that.

Last fall, the day the clocks changed, Jack and I took part in a sun rise, two-club-only golf tournament. I was out of the house for four great hours, while my daughters stayed with Terry. Seven months later Jack and I took part in our annual high school fund-raising golf outing, while my kids stayed with Terry for six hours. In June Jack and our close friend Jerry took me to New York for a day in the Big Apple and a Yankees game, while my kids stayed with Terry for eight hours.

In the last year, whatever 365 x 24 hours is, I have spent a total of just 18 of those hours away from my third best friend. My wife. Terry. And it is not because we love being with each other THAT much. I am afraid it is out of necessity.

In the summer of 1982 Terry and I were married and since then she has been my best friend. Until recently. Now, I am afraid she is no longer the person I fell in love with. No longer the person I married. No longer the person who I spent over 30 years with raising a family.

And I miss her.

I really miss her, a lot!

Now, the woman I married is unfortunately no longer my best friend. I talk to her all day, and I listen to her all day and night when she is ‘thinking out loud’, but I cannot have a real conversation with her. I can tell her what I am thinking, what worries me, what I am concerned with, but she can no longer give me advice. She can’t even comprehend what I am trying to say to her. All I can do is try to make her laugh, or at least smile.

Although she is still the most important person in my life, my wife is no longer my best friend. She is more like a toddler. A toddler that I must take care of.  A toddler I must bathe, dress, feed, try to amuse. But unlike a toddler, who you can teach things to, Terry is not learning anything. She is forgetting everything. So when she acts out, I have to keep myself from scolding, from correcting, from getting pissed. I have to swallow it and move on. I can’t tell her why I am upset because it doesn’t do any good. She is not going to learn from it.

And in truth I am not upset with her. I am upset at what this fucking disease is doing to her. Doing to us. It has taken my best friend away from me.

And I miss her.

Until next time, tell your best friend what they mean to you, while they still know what that means. Nothing lasts forever. Not even BFFs.

Bud

budfocht@gmail.com

Thank God for God

By Bud Focht

Hi, my name is Bud and I truly believe that the only reason I am still living the great life I am living is because of Devine Intervention.

Let me clarify “the great life” I am living and “Devine Intervention.”

When I say Devine Intervention I’m not talking major miracles here.

Major miracles are like Lazarus of Bethany coming back to life. Water changing to wine at that wedding in Cana. The 1980 United States ice hockey team made up of college kids beating the professional, steroid-enhanced Russian team in the medal round on its way to the Olympic gold medal.

Those are major miracles, of Biblical proportion.

No, I’m not talking about that drastic of interventions. I’m talking about some of the less-noticed ones. But I noticed. And I am thankful.

My senior year in college I was somehow able to secure one of the top graduate assistantships in my field, in the athletics department at a university in New Orleans. I was set to begin my career in NOLA, one of the most unique cities in the United States, famous for its cuisine, music, and of course Mardi Gras. A 21-year-old partying, student-athlete’s dream come true.

Until the director of athletics at my own college in Miami, having known me from the baseball team, offered me the same deal, only at my alma mater. I had a choice to make. Go to a large university in the Big Easy and learn my craft, my chosen profession, and be all by myself in an exciting new town, or stay in my comfort zone and return to my many friends, girls and guys (especially girls), in fun-in-the-sun Miami to begin my professional career.

I unwisely turned down the New Orleans gig and chose to return to South Florida.  Unwisely because at the very last minute the funding for the job at my alma mater fell through.

Shit! Should’ve gone to New Orleans, where the person who replaced me went on to a lucrative job with the NCAA and later with the Professional Golfers’ Association (PGA).

But as my grandmother always used to say, “When God closes a door He always opens a window.”

That window was a last minute grad-assistantship at a small college in Rhode Island.

I was thinking ‘Rhode Island? Is that part of New York?’ Rhode Island is a pretty small state. In fact, the smallest. How small WAS their small college?

Well, it was big enough to have an intercollegiate tennis team among its 15 NCAA Division III varsity sports.

And the rest, as they say, is history. I spent three years in New England, fell in love, went on to get a real job in New Jersey, went back to RI to marry the star of the tennis team, and we began our life together.

I often wondered what if I had chosen that large university in New Orleans over the small college in Miami. What if the Miami job hadn’t fallen through? I would have never met my soulmate, my wife Terry.

Devine Intervention. I am sure of it.  And I am very grateful.

When I said I was grateful for living the great life I am living, by no means did I mean I am living the high life, but I am still living, still breathing. And so is my wife Terry. And we are living and breathing together.  

And by together, I mean 24-hours-a-day together.

I once wrote a feature story that ran in a national publication on a married couple that coaches together. Both teachers, the husband was the girl’s high school basketball coach and his wife was his assistant coach. And the wife was a college head field hockey coach and the husband was her assistant.  In the story, I wrote how the best thing about a married couple working together was that they were together all of the time. And the worst thing about it was the fact that they were together ALL OF THE TIME.

Once Terry entered the middle stage of Early Onset Alzheimer’s Disease and required 24/7 assistance, I was very fortunate to be able to retire (five or six years earlier than I had planned on) to take care of her. If the statistics on the Alzheimer’s web site are correct, my premature pension (better than a gold watch, much less than a nest egg) should last just about as long as my wife’s shrinking brain does.

So when I miss going out with the guys, going to the Phillies games, going to the Jersey Shore, I have to remind myself that I am going to miss Terry so much more.

When times get tough, when the frustration of her condition causes her to display uncharacteristic behavior such as anger and even violence, I have time-to-time felt sorry for myself. “Why is God doing this to Terry? Why is He doing this to me?”

I have to keep reminding myself that God doesn’t work that way. He is not doing this to us. In fact, He is helping us handle this.

We all have our own crosses to bear. We all have our own problems. There is a common belief, one that I support, that goes something like this: If you formed a circle of people, and everyone making up the circle could take their worst problem and put it in the middle, and then go around the circle and everyone had to pick one problem from that pile in the middle to have, most people, seeing what others have to deal with, would take their own problem back.

No matter how bad Terry and I have it, I know that there are people out there who have it worse. As we will in the future.

I’m reminded of that poem about the footprints in the sand. Something about walking with God on a beach during your life and seeing two sets of footprints. During the difficult times the person noticed only one set of footprints and wondered why God had left him alone. He later came to know that God did not leave him. The one set of footprints during the difficult times was God carrying him.

When I get pissed at our situation, when I get hurt (feelings, not physical bruises) because Terry lashes out at me even though I wait on her all day, feeding her, bathing her, dressing her, trying to entertain her, I have to take a step back and be thankful. Thankful for the good times we had over the last 38 years. Thankful for the good times we have now, like when Terry laughs.

I have to be thankful. Because I know the good times are getting less and less, and the tough times are getting tougher. That is what is so bad about this disease. It is only going to get worse. It IS getting worse.

More and more often these days, there is only one set of footprints in the sand.

Thank God for the good days I have with Terry. Thank God for allowing me to be with her 24/7 during the middle and last stage of this fucked up disease.

Thank God for God.

Until next time, no matter how bad things get, thank God and be grateful for what you have.

Bud

61*

By Bud Focht

Hi, my name is Bud and I just celebrated* my 61^st birthday. I am afraid the word celebrated needed an asterisk.

The greatest baseball player ever, Babe Ruth, hit 60 home runs during the 1927 season. To let you know how many that really was at that time, there were only 16 major league teams back then and 13 of them had less than 60 home runs that season. As a team.

Not including his own team, the NY Yankees, Ruth hit more home runs himself that season than 13 of the other 15 teams hit.

Back then teams played 154 games in a season.

Roger Maris hit 61* home runs during the 1961 season, the first year MLB expanded to a 162-game schedule.  Because of the love for the Bambino, combined with the extra eight games, some baseball ‘purists’ wanted an asterisk next to Maris’ new single season home run mark of 61 bombs because he had extra games to do it.

I recently turned 61 years old. And I have to tell you, the word celebrated in the first paragraph has an asterisk because it was by far the worst birthday I have ever experienced.

I am sure as the years go by I will experience worse birthdays, but until now this was the worst.

And let me tell you, I’ve had some bad ones.

There was this one birthday that comes to mind, about 25 years ago, when I had this new, beautiful secretary. I came into work on my birthday a little bummed and she noticed I was a little out of sorts. When she kept asking me what was wrong I confided in her that I was having a bad morning.

I told her how every year my parents would call me on my birthday, 7:05 in the morning, to ask me if I knew what they were doing so many years ago on that date. But for some reason that day they didn’t call. When I was in the kitchen getting ready for work that morning my wife didn’t mention anything about my birthday, nor did the kids, as they hurried their own preparation for the day.

So when I was feeling a little sorry for myself at work, my secretary suggested we go out to lunch. I don’t usually eat lunch, opting to work-out instead, but she was just trying to cheer me up, so I said okay. When we arrived at the restaurant that she had suggested, it was closed. Of course!, I thought.

She then suggested that since she lived right around the corner from that restaurant, we should go to her place for a nice lunch, and maybe, since it was a summer Friday, to just blow off the afternoon and have a few cocktails at her place.

I’d never done anything like this before and despite the fact that she was beautiful, I never thought of her as anything but a fellow worker.  But that day I was feeling low and she was being soo nice, so I said sure.

When we got to her place she fixed us a couple of drinks and then, after a few, she said she wanted to show me the redecorating she had done in her bedroom. We entered her bedroom and she said she would be right back, that she was going into her walk-in closet to get into more ‘comfortable’ clothes.

A few minutes later she came out of her closet with a birthday cake, followed by my parents, my wife and my kids, all carrying presents and singing happy birthday.

And there I sat on the bed, with nothing on but my socks.

That was a bad birthday.

But this years was worse.

My wife Terry, now in the middle stages of Early Onset Alzheimer’s Disease, had no idea it was my birthday. No big deal. That was the least of my concerns these days. My only concern is trying to help Terry have a good day.

Terry’s emotional spectrum has grown to the extremes these days, with her highs being higher but her lows are much, much lower. She gets very happy to the point of dancing and laughing. And there is no better sound than Terry laughing. But she also gets very mad, frustrated I assume, to the point of violence.

The worst part is half of the stuff she gets made at these days is not even real. She is losing touch with reality, and that is scary.

My son came over after work and asked me how my birthday was and I summed it up by saying “It is rare that you enjoy a birthday in which you get hit,” especially when you get hit by the person who you spend your entire 24 hours a day feeding, bathing, clothing, taking care of.

Terry gets very agitated these days over trivial things, like being hungry. So I have the dilemma of feeding her as much as she wants, and watching her grow from 100 pounds to 150 pounds in the last year, or trying to manage her intake and run the risk of getting screamed at and slapped around.

I try to be positive around her, I really do, but it is really tough to see the person you love, the person you spend your entire day caring for, yell at you, curse you and even swing at you.

I’m not stupid. I know it is not Terry who is doing this. It is this fucked up disease. But I swear it reminds me of the book/movie The Exorcist sometimes. It is not the little girl Regan doing these horrible things, it is Satan. The Devil.

And I am not sure that it isn’t Satan doing this to Terry as well.

Terry was always a good, Catholic girl growing up, and when we were married she was always the perfect role model for not only our kids but the kids she taught gymnastics to at the YMCA, the kids she coached track, basketball and soccer to in CYO and the kids she taught physical education and computers to in grade school.

But about 15 years or so ago, when she seriously began her Bible Studies, her health issues began. The more she studied the Bible, the closer she got to God, who she began calling by His old school name, Jehovah, the more health issues she had.

To the point now where her brain is literally shrinking. She can no longer read the Bible without help, or anything else, for that matter.

Maybe it is Satan. Maybe it is just the way life goes sometimes. I don’t know. But I do know that it sucks!

It sucks more than having a bad birthday. It sucks more than putting an asterisk next to a record number. It sucks more than getting caught in nothing but your socks.

And what sucks even more is knowing that this most likely is not going to be the worst birthday I will celebrate*in my life.

I just hope that there are many more birthdays with my wife that may or may not suck. MLB extended its season from 154 to 162 games. I hope the amount of games Terry and I have in our season can be extended.

Until next time, I need more birthdays, good or bad, with Terry. I need more games. If need be I’ll take the asterisk.

Bud

We Be Happy

By Bud Focht

Hi, my name is Bud and I admit I have been guilty of saying “we” when referring to my favorite sports teams.  “We (Rider University Broncs) won today.”  “We (Boston Red Sox) won last night.”  “We (Philadelphia Phillies) lost last night, again.”

“WE WIN!” was a famous headline in the Boston Globe back in the late 1940s (you might have seen it in the 1980s on the beginning of the TV show Cheers) when the New England baseball team (not the American League Red Sox.) won the pennant. Boston had a National League team called the Braves before it moved west to Milwaukee and then south to Atlanta.

I had the opportunity to do the color commentary on a handful of radio broadcasts of several NCAA Division I Baseball Tournaments, and even though I was associated with one of the teams in the games, I tried to stay neutral and refer to the hometown team as “Rider” or “the Broncs,” not “we.”

But I have to admit when things started to get a little exciting I sometimes said “We need to do this,” “We need to do that” or especially “We win!”

I am afraid my wife Terry has taken this ‘We’ thing to a whole new and somewhat unhealthy level.

Terry, now in her late 50s and in the middle stages of Early Onset Alzheimer’s Disease, was once a star tennis player. She might have been a ‘big fish in a small pond,’ but she was still a star.

She was the number one singles player all four years for her Division III college team and also played first doubles. She won so many summer city-league tournaments in her small hometown in Rhode Island (is there anything NOT small in Rhode Island?) that she switched over from the women’s to the men’s tournament, where she reached the finals (of 32 players) all three times.

Because of her love for tennis, Wimbledon has always been one of our summer staples. Go to the Shore, watch the movie Jaws, and get up early at the end of the fortnight to watch the Wimbledon finals.

But this year things were different. This year I was retired, having quit my job back in the fall to give Terry the 24-hour-a-day attention she unfortunately now needs. This year I was home the entire fortnight to watch the Championships at the All England Lawn Tennis and Croquet Club at Wimbledon.

Thanks to the DVR, we watched the entire first two days of Wimbledon, start to finish, without getting up at 7am and, even better, fast-forwarding through commercials. It was great. Terry was loving it. Until she started to get a little too involved.

When the players Terry and I were rooting for won, whether it was because he or she was American or an underdog or someone we were familiar with, Terry would say “We won!” and get way to excited.

During the second day of Wimbledon I was in the kitchen making Terry her lunch when she started to laugh and say “He’s losing to a girl! He’s losing to a girl!” When I came out expecting to see maybe an upset by a player with long hair, I didn’t. It took me a while to figure it out but the ‘girl’ was Terry.  She honestly believed that she was playing and winning.

After that every match where we had a player who we wanted to win, she became that player, in her mind, man or woman.

I admit I may have, on occasion, lived vicariously through my kids when they enjoyed success, but that was nothing like this.

It got scary, seeing your wife lose her sense of reality. I would say “Hey Ter, Venus won today. We like her.”   Only to hear “I’m better than her. I can beat her.” And she wasn’t kidding. In her mind she thought she could.

This coming from the shyest, most modest athlete I have ever come across. And in my 42 years in college athletics (4 years as a student-athlete, 1 year as a grad. assistant, 2 years as a part-time SID and 35+ years in a D-1 program) I have dealt with over 3,000 college athletes. And not one was ever as unassuming as Terry. The first time I met her I interviewed her after she upset a Division II team’s best player, and she stared at her shoes the entire interview while giving one or two-word answers.

But after the interview she looked me in the eye and smiled and I was hooked.

But this year we had to stop watching Wimbledon after the third round. She got too involved.

I’ve read where hallucinating, or at least losing touch with reality, is part of our future with this horrible disease, but this was our first major run in with it. And it was scary.

Almost as scary as the violent out-bursts.

Chuck Wepner was a Jersey Boy who could take a punch. In 1975 he went the distance with the greatest boxer ever, Muhammad Ali, and that performance inspired Sylvester Stallone to write the movie Rocky.

Wepner was not what would be considered a great fighter, but he could take a punch from the best of them.

With Terry’s recent and more frequent angry, violent out-bursts, Wepner has become a role model of mine.

But I am learning this caregiver thing, slowly but surely. I am learning how to deal with Terry’s bizarre behavior and occasional violence.

Some 300 years ago there was a play (I didn’t see it) with a line that said “Music hath charms to soothe the savage beast.”

No one who ever met Terry would ever associate her in the same sentence or even same paragraph as a savage beast, but I am afraid this horrible disease has done just that.

Ever since Terry was diagnosed she has had somewhat of a soundtrack to her life. We always play music when there is no other stimulus, and even when there is. She likes it and it is good for her. Input.

There is a song we’ve been listening to since we first heard it in May, “Happy People” by Little Big Town. For the past few weeks every time Terry hears it when we are in our back yard she starts to dance. We have video recorded her doing so and sent it to her family to rave reviews.

It is better than any funny cat or epic fail video you have ever seen. It is like what Steve Martin and Willie Nelson both said a long time ago about banjo music, how you can’t play a sad song on the banjo.

Terry can’t be mad, for long, when she hears that song.

I am still learning this caregiver gig, but fortunately I AM learning. The good things to do and the bad things that are happening to Terry’s shrinking brain. The bad things that are happening to us.

Like Wepner, I am learning to take a gut punch. I would have never expected to get one during Wimbledon, but with the help of the proper music, I hope that ‘We’ can win the game.

The set and match, I am afraid, have already been decided.

Like Little Big Town sings, “Life is short, and love is rare, and we all deserve to be happy while we’re here.”

Until next time, We will try to Be Happy People.

Bud

budfocht@gmail.com

35 Years, 3 Months and 15 Minutes

By Bud Focht

Hi, my name is Bud and I think it was Andy Warhol who back in the 60s said something about “Everyone is famous for 15 minutes.”  Now that I am in my 60s I recently had my 15 minutes.

They say things happen in threes, so any day now I am expecting Hell to freeze over and pigs to begin flying. The third thing already happened.

A few weekends ago I was inducted into the Rider University Athletics Hall of Fame, and was also given a Lifetime Achievement Award from CoSIDA (College Sports Information Directors of America) at the national convention in Orlando.

My local newspaper in Bucks County, PA and the local paper that covers Rider in Mercer County, NJ, both had very flattering stories about it.

Two tremendous honors. If only I could say that I deserved them.

My wife Terry and I usually spend our Friday evenings watching a “cross-over” musical concert on TV, with two or more bands from different genres playing songs together. Like Zac Brown, Beethoven and the Beatles.

Tonight, we are currently watching R&B/Jazz group Earth, Wind & Fire playing with Country Music headliners like Darius Rucker, Martina McBride, Dan + Shay and Lady Antebellum. Terry loves “Hootie”, “Lady A” and just about every country band and I had a shoulder-width afro in the 70s, so I can appreciate Earth, Wind & Fire’s “funky groove.”

A few minutes ago when they introduced Earth, Wind & Fire as Rock and Roll Hall of Famers Terry turned to me and said “You’re a hall of famer. You’re my hall of famer.”

That was nice.

After 35 years and three months of working as an administrator in a Division I Athletics program, I took an early retirement in the fall of 2016.  I had planned on working another four or five more years, but I received a higher calling.

I quit the job that I loved to become a fulltime caregiver for my wife Terry, who is in the middle stages of Early Onset Alzheimer’s Disease and since last fall, I am afraid, needs 24-hour-a-day assistance.

I was on the very first Hall of Fame committee at Rider and everyone since then, except for the last one. And apparently, I can’t leave these committee people alone for one meeting without them violating the bylaws and selecting someone who was not even on the ballot. And I know I wasn’t on the ballot because I am the one who prepared the ballot for the committee before I quit my job.

Part of my job was researching candidates for the Hall of Fame, making a list of their greatest accomplishments/achievements and putting them on the ballot, seven years after they graduate. That’s probably the main reason why I wasn’t on the ballot. A major lack of great accomplishments/achievements.

I mean I was pretty good in high school, but who wasn’t? In college, that was another story. One time my sophomore year I was looking at the line up on the dugout wall before the game and saw that I was batting ninth. Again.

In high school, I always batted fourth. In college, the first few times I batted ninth I was just happy to be in the lineup but after a while I was beginning to lose my confidence. So I went up to the head coach and said “Skip, what is the main reason why I’m batting ninth?” And the head coach said, “Because, Bud, there isn’t a 10^th.”

What a confidence boost that was!

Don’t get me wrong, he was always behind me. He would always give me the same advice every time I batted, so I always had the same approach at the plate. He would say “Bud, swing hard in case you hit it.”

So this year the Rider HOF committee not only selected someone who, for good reason, was not on the ballot but they also violated the bylaws by waiving the seven-year wait.

That was for Terry.

They bypassed the seven-year rule because they wanted to do it while Terry would still be able to appreciate what was going on. And she did. She had a great evening. My closest friends were there and when we (our three kids, one of Terry’s brothers and his wife) arrived and walked in to the crowded cocktail hour Terry saw a couple of familiar faces in the crowd and just smiled ear to ear. That set the tone for a great evening.

There are over 100 people in the Rider Athletics Hall of Fame and over the years I dealt with almost every one of them, so I know that I don’t deserve to be in such great company. At least not yet.  You see there are a handful of people in the Rider Hall that are in there more for what they did AFTER Rider than what they did AT Rider.

In the Rider Hall there is a baseball player who was pretty good at Rider but not great. Never a Player of the Year or even a First Team All-League selection. But he was good enough to get drafted and he eventually made it all the way to the Major Leagues.

He reached the highest level of his profession after Rider, and that is why he is in the Rider Hall of Fame.

There was a Rider basketball player who, in his bio, we generously referred to as a “sixth man” but he was more like an “eighth” or “ninth man.” He didn’t play that much, but he had a very high basketball IQ. As a grad. assistant coach he did the scouting report and drew up the game plan for one of Rider’s biggest upset victories ever over a nationally ranked team. He went on to be a highly successful college coach at a high-profile program and went on to be a college basketball analyst on national TV.

He reached the highest level of his profession after Rider, and that is why he is in the Rider Hall of Fame.

I’m thinking that if I can do what that baseball player and that basketball player did, reach the highest level of my profession after Rider, then I might deserve such an honor as the Rider Hall of Fame.

I loved my job at Rider. I love my new profession as a caregiver for the most important person in my life.

If I can become the best caregiver there is, then maybe I will earn those 15 minutes I recently enjoyed.

Even though I played varsity baseball in college, Terry was always the athlete of our family, and our sports backgrounds are now coming into play.

Every day we are in the back yard having a catch. (Non-ballplayers say ‘play’ catch. ballplayers say ‘have a’ catch because they don’t ‘play’ catch, they ‘play’ baseball.)

Somewhere I found this perfect nerf ball, that is heavy enough that you can throw it 100 feet accurately, but light enough where you can catch it with your bare hands and even though it is bigger than a baseball it is smaller than a softball.

Having a catch makes Terry laugh every time, and if one of her favorite songs comes on the radio while we are throwing the ball around she starts dancing. Her eye-hand coordination is so good that she makes great catches and it makes her so happy.

Being able to do things well, anything well, is a dim and distant memory for Terry.  I discovered that having a catch is good therapy for her. It makes her feel good, and knowing that I came up with something that makes her feel good makes me feel like maybe I can become a Hall of Fame caregiver.

Until next time, like Andy Warhol said, “They say time changes things, but you actually have to change them yourself.”

Bud