Recently I sat down in my recliner after a long day and thought, ‘Wow! How did my parents do it?’ I was exhausted and all I did was coach a seven-year-old soccer game, play in a gym with my two-year-old, and go out to eat with a few families.
Looking back, my parents did everything I did, nearly daily, while working full-time and being VERY active in the administration aspects of the sports my brother and I were in.
My father was a cement mason his whole life. Anyone that knows that line of work understands the toll it has on your body. He would work 8–10-hour days, come home, eat something quick, then play with me and my brother. Being a cement mason, his hands were always banged up; he is even missing the tip of one of his fingers due to a sewer grate falling on it. Even with the aches and pains, I remember my dad soaking his battered hands under the kitchen sink after work for some quick relief, him drying them off with paper towel so blood didn’t get on the dish drying towel, and then putting band-aids and duct tape over the cracks in his hands so he could get outside to play catch with my brother and me. When I was a kid, I took it all for granted, that’s all I knew. My dad simply always did what he had to do to be the best dad he could.
My mom worked for an insurance company; most of the day accomplishing tasks in an office for eight hours a day. When she got home, she would clean the house, do the laundry, help my brother and I with homework, then during the baseball season, go coach our baseball teams! You read that right…. she was my baseball coach from peewees through minors. When we got to minors, other coaches stepped in. My mom still wanted to be as involved as she could with our goals and interests, so she became the first female Wisconsin Umpire Association certified umpire in the Milwaukee area. She was still on the field with us… just in a different role.
Looking back…. I honestly do not know how the hell they survived with all they did!
As we got older, both of my parents were actively involved in fundraising for the extra-curricular activities my brother and I were in. From running concession stands to working in concession stands at Brewer games to raise money... they did it all.
One of the many reasons we launched Fundraise Local is to ease ONE aspect of parent’s lives. If my parents never had to worry about fundraising, they could’ve spent more time sitting in a chair on the sideline watching…. not standing in a concession stand.
