Corolla - 2016

The Corolla group enjoyed its 23rd anniversary last week, spending seven fun and active days in two large houses on the Outer Banks of North Carolina.  It’s hard for me to imagine that 25 people can come together each year to enjoy each other’s company.  What a gift.

We’ve been coming for over 20 years and look forward to it as one of our favorite vacations of the year.  We weren’t disappointed this year, in spite of Aloma’s back pain which limited her activities.  She did try Pickle Ball and played in our annual golf tournament, but because of her pain, she was limited to short walks, much different from her walks of miles in past years.

I also tried Pickle Ball, played golf (and won with my partner, Lynn), and walked for miles every day.  The group celebrated my birthday with obscene cards and a rousing happy birthday song.  While I was embarrassed by the attention, I actually loved it.

It amazes me how well the group gets along.  In spite of three alpha females in our house, loud and cross  voices were few.

The Corolla group is a gift for us and I expect for all of the other couples.  We’re aging and no longer play tennis twice-a-day or bike for miles, but I noticed the group is healthy, positive and enjoying life.

Thank you Corolla group.

Seasoned Man

stevelem117@gmail.com

How Do They Know?

I want to know how things work.  I watch the science channel on TV when they show the programs about how things are made and how things work.  I like to watch the programs that describe how the Milky Way and the solar system were formed.  It’s just my nature to want to know these things.

I understand cells in the body get some type of signal when we are wounded and they divide to fill the wound and to create a smooth skin.  But as they divide, how do they know what’s around them so they can create a new skin without much of a scar.  They can’t see.  How do they communicate?  I don’t have a clue.

I recently had a basil cell cancer removed from my nose.  The surgeon cut skin from behind my ear, sewed it onto to my nose and then sewed a bandage to my nose to cover it.  How do my nose cells know that they are supposed to work with the ear cells to form a nice looking nose?  It’s beyond my pay grade.

Now that the bandages are off and I look at my nose with Aloma’s magnifying mirror, I think I see a slight image of an ear on my nose.  Not surprising.  Many grafts are taken from the butt, I’m told.  If the surgeon had taken skin from my butt to graft onto to my nose, guess what image I would see in the magnifying mirror?

I guess I should be satisfied with an ear image.

Seasoned Man

stevelem117@gmail.com

Lemasterswordware.com

ACC

Living in Florida and loving sports, the Southeastern Conference was my favorite conference, especially for football.  My dad took me to football, basketball and baseball games at the University of Florida.  When I hurt my knee, the trainer for the Gators treated me.  I loved Florida and the SEC.

After moving to Rochester, New York, Georgia Tech moved from the SEC to the Atlantic Coast Conference so I began to follow the ACC, especially in basketball.  In Rochester, I adopted Syracuse as my home college sports team and rooted for them and watched one game under the dome.  While I liked Syracuse, the Big East never became a favorite conference.  I still rooted for the SEC and the ACC.

Then we moved to Mooresville, North Carolina and finally to Cary; Duke, the University of North Carolina and North Carolina State are a short 30 minute drive from our home.  I love the excitement and energy in the community when our teams play.

Since I’m not a native Carolinian, I don’t have love-hate relationships with the teams.  I enjoy all of them, including Georgia Tech and Syracuse (now that Syracuse has joined the ACC).  On any given day, I might root for a different team.

The real test for a conference in basketball is the NCAA tournament.  When six teams were left in the tournament, four were from the ACC.  Four ACC teams played each other resulting in two ACC teams in the Final Four.

No matter what happens from here on in  the tournament, the Acc has had an exceptional showing - and made my day.

Seasoned Man

stevelem117@gmail.com