No-Shave November

Posted 8/21/12

I wouldn’t call myself lazy, per se, but I’m fond of accomplishing goals while putting in as little effort as possible. After all, I’m a pretty busy guy, which doesn’t leave me a lot of free …

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No-Shave November

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I wouldn’t call myself lazy, per se, but I’m fond of accomplishing goals while putting in as little effort as possible. After all, I’m a pretty busy guy, which doesn’t leave me a lot of free time, and as many of you know, “Idle hands are the devil’s playground.” So with Halloween behind me, I would rather not run into the devil himself anytime soon. Just before flipping another page on the calendar, the Wonder Dog and I hightailed it to Monticello, where A Dose of Kindness (like them on Facebook!) founder Carlos Torres and his crew of volunteers were planning their first Halloween Trunk or Treat party for the kids. At the last minute, the rains came, and everyone involved scrambled to move the event indoors, so as not to disappoint the hundreds who were planning to attend.

The Village of Monticello intervened, offered up the Ted Strobele Center as a venue. With very little time to reorganize, the party went on. “Thank you to all the volunteers who dropped everything to help with almost no notice,” Torres wrote online. “We had an amazing turnout, with over 1,000 guests, and passed out 5,000 pieces of candy!”

His list of folks to thank was long, and the organization’s mission statement is admirable: “If we all do one random act of kindness,” Martin Kornfeld wrote, “we just might set the world in the right direction.” The community outreach program is dedicated to “give back through acts of kindness aimed towards the underprivileged,” and to “empower our community with a sense of unity, pride and respect.”

Without investing too much effort, Dharma and I dressed up as “Where’s Waldo” (yes, the cartoon character has a sidekick dog!), which tickled the kids. I took a slew of photos you can view online at www.Facebook.com/theriverreporter, where you can “like” our page, tag the pics and share them with your friends and family.

The “candy stations” that the crew set up were mobbed with little ones dressed up in their Halloween finery. They even had a “haunted room” to explore. I know that I claimed in last week’s column that I was “over” Halloween, but the kids tug at my heart strings, reminding me that they are, indeed, our future.

I’m no cook, so Thanksgiving provides no opportunity for me to accomplish even the simplest of goals, and I don’t shop, so Christmas won’t provide me with much of an opportunity to give. But No-Shave November is upon us, and I have discovered a way to make a contribution to those less fortunate than myself simply by putting vanity aside for a month, putting down the razor and asking my pals to make a donation to a worthy cause. “The goal of No-Shave November is to grow awareness by embracing our hair, which many cancer patients lose,” the official website (www.no-shave.org) says. “Donate the money you typically spend on shaving and grooming to educate about cancer prevention, save lives, and aid those fighting the battle.”

Dharma’s grooming costs way more than mine, so she also volunteered to participate, although I suspect that she will come out on top in the looks department. The rules are simple (just like me), and the not-for-profit organization is putting our dollars to work “investing in groundbreaking research and providing free information and services to cancer patients and their caregivers.”

Looks can be deceiving, and I’m often disheveled, but I’m a little bit vain and not crazy about the scruffy look. Yet I’m gonna give it a go. I’m officially registered to collect your contributions and dedicated to seeing it through. “After all,” I growled at the dog, “I don’t have to lift a finger (and you don’t have to lift a paw) to accomplish my goal. All I have to do,” I mumbled while putting the shaving cream away, “is nothing, which seems quite literally, like the least I can do!”

The rules state that I am allowed to trim, while encouraging others to just “go wild,” and I have no clue how I’ll look. But I can pretty much guarantee that it won’t be pretty. With your encouragement and dollars, I’m determined to get through No-Shave November. And since I’ll look like a bum, you might hear me say, “Buddy, can you spare a dime?” when next we meet. After all, it’s for the greater good. IMHO.

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