The Hoop-and-Driveway Project

   The hoop-and-driveway project is done!  Since forever ago, I have wanted to widen our driveway and fix our basketball hoop.  That entire quadrant of our yard to the south of the driveway has been looking worse and worse over the years. The backboard of the old hoop was significantly destroyed by an unnamed son who thought placing it at a lower level and dunking while doing pull-ups was a good idea.  Also, the play area around the hoop was just dirt anyway, and now that Tem plays out there all the time, the dirt was ebbing away and a collection of interwoven roots was what he was dribbling on. If Tem had not been so eager to play, I don't think there would have been any pressing need to do anything out there.  But if he chooses to invest that much time in shooting and dribbling, the least I can do as his father is give him a more decent space to do it in.  Yet when cancer arrived, I felt as if this project would be put on hold for another year.
   But my family and friends...God bless them...got wind of the idea and in less than a month the job is completed.  A large tree was felled without hitting the house, roots had to be popped out of the ground with a forklift, the old goal had to be excavated...cement base and all, dirt was moved so that a form could be set, cement had to be poured and smoothed, a new backboard system had to be assembled ("That's way more complicated than it needs to be," remarked my buddy Joel who can fix and/or build anything.  "I have worked on cars less complicated than that hoop!"), and then today Tem and I finished the last details of the job and set up the hoop with only ten or so spare parts left over.  We need to make some adjustments but the long process is completed.  It took a lot of different people (thanks so much Ben, Gary, Marty, Joel, Doof, Floyd, Micah, Myra, Jan, Todd, Tim, Tem, and probably others) doing their part to get the job done. 
   It is not too much of a stretch to think about how this project represents what I have been experiencing since November when I was diagnosed.  Everybody rallies and all pitch in.  Prayers and food and visits and texts and gifts and everything that was needed was done.  My friends and family and acquaintances and school community have simply excelled all along the way to bless us with skills and talents and empathy and love.  While our driveway looks so much better now,  my body will need just a little more time to adjust and heal.  But with God as the foreman on this job and all of you and the docs and nurses doing their parts, I should be in line to receive the "Good Housekeeping Seal of Approval" soon enough too.  The hoop-and-driveway project was a process that has been finished.  Recovering my health is a process that has not been finalized yet.  But when it is recovered, Tem better watch out because it will be time for me to work some magic out there on that court.