My favorite thing about the logo above is that my older daughter created it, and my younger one ran the promotion with me!
Up to this point, this book has followed chapters and a timeline, but now that goes out the window. From this point out, it will truly resemble the 1969 classic book called Great Sports Humor. There is no theme to the balance of the story as it becomes a true collection of tales offered up by countless people.
Some people are wordsmith types and pen 🖊 their own thoughts while others are more comfortable with sitting down together. When you set out to tell a community story about a good thing, the hope is that you can reach out to as many people as possible for their take.
Yesterday morning, I was blessed to spend four hours in Shenandoah with Brian Hendrick, who is known to many as Big Daddy. That nickname was fitting because at his highest weight, he was closer to 500 pounds than 400, but now it’s still fitting because of the size of his heart.
Brian Hendrick and his impact on this book is as large as he once was. He has played so many roles in this that it would be hard to list them all in one spot.
Yesterday, he was playing the role of liason between myself and a person who I only knew as one of Roy’s daughters. I have my own reasons why I love and appreciate Roy Cardin, but that doesn’t even scratch the surface in regards to the man he was.
The photo above was taken during our four hours together, half of which was spent with Amy Gaskins of Myrtle Beach, South Carolina. Amy and her sister, Tabitha, were the two daughters of Roy and Kathy Cardin. Like Brian, Amy wears multiple hats in this story about the magic in the mountains that is Page County Softball.
Amy played for Alan Knight a long time ago, back when the Softball was still white. Back when there wasn’t much more than a dugout at the field. Her second hat was being the oldest daughter of the once in a generation type that is Roy Cardin. Her third hat came into play when your daughter laced up her cleats and wore the Lady Panthers uniform.
That Trifecta gives Amy as much room as she would like to take in addressing any or all of her levels in this story.
The amount of love and respect between the two was noticeable from the get-go, and it validated my thought process of standing next to Brian when the call took place.
It turns out that it was Ralph Viafora, who will be written about in great lengths later, that spoke at the funeral service and did so off of just 10 index cards. At the end of the day, he passed the cards on to Big Daddy because of the partnership that he had with Roy.
Ralph was yet another co-star in the creation of our Magic that it could be its own spinoff story.
All three of the Viafora sisters sparkled on the diamond during their time at Page County High School, and Mom / Mrs Viafora showed unconditional love and support for the program across two different decades. There will be so much more about the five members of this family in the stories to follow later, but for now, Ralph Viafora wrote and delivered the words that were attended to calm the hearts and souls of everyone who was suffering that day.
Once again, no more chapters, no more timeline, just heartfelt stories about places I called Magic Mountain and The Hill !
