On Monday, I had a vague recollection of receiving a jury summons notice for someday in December. I asked my wife Tiffany if she had seen the paper lately and she hadn’t. Yesterday morning, I woke up and it popped back into my mind. So, I went and spent a few minutes searching for it. Sure enough, the summons was for yesterday. Good thing I remembered. I don’t need another bench warrant!

Real quick, just in case you’ve never been here, welcome! I’m a father of three and a marathon runner. My middle child, 7-year-old Jack, is severely autistic. I wanted to do something to use my running to make a difference, so I’m attempting to run 61 marathons this year to raise money for a charity I’m a part of called Train 4 Autism.

I named this endeavor Operation Jack, after my son. This year is almost done, as is Operation Jack. I’m through 59 of the 61 so far! Today, I’m going to talk about jury duty, though. And to clarify that bench warrant comment, I haven’t had one in 12 or 13 years.

Anyways, back to jury duty. I feel like I should have a lifetime exemption. I spent four weeks on a trial back in 2001 — four weeks that seemed like four years. When I went in, I really wanted to get on a jury. I was working as a sports information director at a college and it was right after the school year ended. I was all set to take a month off and I needed something to do. It was about six weeks before Benjamin was going to be born and other than watching talk shows all day with Tiff, there wasn’t much on the docket.

So, if I got jury duty, I would have something to do, plus I wouldn’t have to take vacation time. I went in, hoping just to get to the selection process. Right before lunch time, I did! They asked for anybody whose employer would cover a four-week trial, and that was ME! We all went up to the courtroom and got random numbers. I was somewhere around 40. They only needed 16 including the alternates, so I knew 24 people would need to get dismissed before they even considered me.

I waited and waited. And waited. I think at the end of that day, they had dismissed enough people and I finally got in the box. I wanted to get selected, but I wasn’t going to try to give any type of answers that I thought they wanted to hear. I was just as open and honest as I could be. They told us the injury involved an injury accident and an auto manufacturer.

It’s funny — early on in the selection process, it was obvious one woman desperately wanted out. When the defense attorney asked her what she thought of auto manufacturers, she said she thought they were all crooks and she’d never believe a word that anybody in the auto industry said. They didn’t ask her another question, but they kept her up in the box until the final dismissals. They played her game right back with her, which I thought was pretty funny.

When they questioned me, I was nervous about getting dismissed. They asked me what I did for a living and I told them. They asked me if there was anything that would jeopardize my ability to serve on a four-week trial, so I told them my wife was due in six weeks. I thought for sure that would wreck me. Nope, the judge said no problem — we’d be out in four.

So they asked me what my wife did for a living. I answered that she managed a Victoria’s Secret store. All of a sudden, everything got silent. So I said, “OK, I know what you all are thinking. Victoria’s Secret and she’s pregnant. But she’s a manager at one of those stores with all the candles and perfumes — not the nightgowns. This was a planned thing.” Everybody was cracking up, and they let the class clown stay a little longer.

What does your wife think about you serving on a jury right now, they asked me. “Well, I’ll be honest. We were watching The Practice last night and they murdered that lawyer in the parking garage, so that spooked her a little bit since she knew I was coming in here today. But I told her that’s just TV and it’s not really like that.” Everybody laughed again, the judge reassured me that it would be safe and they continued. I was just being myself, but I was surprised I hadn’t been booted.

So they asked me if anybody in my family had ever been involved in an auto accident that resulted in a lawsuit. Yeah, my brother was in a near-fatal crash eight years earlier and pursued a lawsuit before dropping it. I couldn’t believe they kept going after that.

Anybody else in a lawsuit involving an auto accident? Actually, yeah — me! A lady ran a red light and t-boned me in 1994, sending me to physical therapy for three months. She sued me, so I said I’d show her and I sued her back (and I showed her). Still no dismissal.

Any other personal-injury lawsuits? Yeah, well, there was that one time I broke my neck and went through a nightmarish three-year legal process. Not a deterrent to either legal team at that point.

Anybody in your family a lawyer? Well, I guess if you want to count my dad, yeah.

Can you be fair? Yeah, I can be fair.

And somehow, they kept me on. I made the jury! I was giddy to run and call my boss when we went on recess. I think that was the last time I was giddy over the next month, though.

The case was a wrongful-death lawsuit. A woman accidentally put her foot on the accelerator instead of the brake and drove straight into a wall. The passenger in the front seat wasn’t wearing a lap belt and she died. A boy in the back seat put his arm around his mom and underneath the shoulder belt right before impact and ended up having his arm amputated.

It was a sad story all around, but the bottom line was one woman drove into a wall and another woman wasn’t wearing her seat belt. They sued the auto manufacturer, claiming she was wearing her seat belt. Of the 20 days of the trial, we spent about 12 full days listening to three witnesses evaluate blown-up photos of seat belt threads, arguing about whether or not the woman was wearing her seat belt.

It was BORING. How boring? There was a woman on our jury who had diabetes. She intentionally overloaded on sugar on our lunch break one day so she would have to go to the hospital and get dismissed. Her strategy worked. I struggled to stay focused, but I pulled it off. They didn’t tell us who the alternates were, because they wanted us all to pay attention. I found at the end that I was an alternate, so I didn’t get to deliberate. But I found out later that the defense won the case, which is exactly what I thought would happen. Sad case, but no-brainer.

Yesterday was much less eventful. I went in, plugged in my laptop, got to work and waited. Then it was lunch time, so I walked to In-N-Out. Back in 2001, I walked to that In-N-Out 15 times over a 23-day span! After lunch, I plugged my laptop back in and got back to work. And then I was dismissed. It’ll be at least 12 months before I have to go back.

So that’s my jury duty story. I feel like I’ve done my duty for a lifetime. But I’d never intentionally try to get out of it. It reminds me of something we said when I was a pledge in my fraternity.

To do what ought to be done, but would not have been done unless I did it, I thought to be my duty. I guess that kind of applies to Operation Jack, huh?

Well, that’s all for today. Have a great Wednesday, everybody! I’ll see you back here tomorrow!

Last week, I through a tweet out asking if anybody had any questions for a question and answer blog session. I was hoping for enough to cover a blog, but I got enough for about three. So without further ado, here goes!

Real quick, just in case you’ve never been here, welcome! I’m a father of three and a marathon runner. My middle child, 7-year-old Jack, is severely autistic. I wanted to do something to use my running to make a difference, so I’m attempting to run 61 marathons this year to raise money for a charity I’m a part of called Train 4 Autism.

I named this endeavor Operation Jack, after my son. This year is almost done, as is Operation Jack. I’m through 59 of the 61 so far! And now, the questions …

How many marathons had you run prior to starting this years blitz? 2. Would you do it again?
Before this year, I had run 28 full marathons, a 50K and a 50-miler. I had done this over the course of 3 1/2 years, so I had averaged about eight 26.2-mile or longer races a year since I ran my first marathon in June 2006. However, I had run at least 26.2 in training a good 40 or 50 times, so I had covered the distance maybe 80 times. I also trained with plenty of 100-mile weeks (I think I had about 14 in a row in 2008 at one point) so I was used to high miles and running on tired legs.

Going all-out for 26.2 at least once a week for a year is different than just doing it in training, and tougher than anything I had done, but I was confident I could give it a shot. I wouldn’t recommend it to anybody who thinks heart is enough to get by — I think I was reasonably trained. But it was still a considerable challenge.

Would I do it again? There are two ways to analyze this question. I have no desire to ever run this many marathons in a year again. In fact, I have no desire to run more than two or so competitively per year ever again. But in hindsight, I’d absolutely do this all over again. No hesitation in that at all. No sense every wondering “what if” on something like this — not from a personal achievement standpoint, because this isn’t a big personal achievement to me. I’d rather run one fast marathon than 61 so-so marathons. But I feel like I helped to make the world a better place, and I’m glad I tried.

Are You Going To Write A Book?
If everybody who asked me that bought it, it would be worth writing! The thought has crossed my mind, and it’s possible, but it’s nothing I’m even going to truly consider until I’m done with this year. I have two marathons to go. I could snap my ankle stepping off a sidewalk tomorrow. There’s no telling how this story is going to end, so why write it?

My training is as a writer, so I’ll probably spend some time writing something. If nothing else, I’ll want it for myself. As for a book, if I can get something published and marketed, I’d do it. But I’m not going to write a book if I have to sell it. I don’t have the energy for that.

What Marathon Took The Most Out Of You To Finish?
That’s a tough call between the third day of the Tahoe Triple and Med City in Rochester, Minn. That third day in Tahoe was extremely difficult because of the hills at elevation, because I had run two hilly marathons at elevation the two days prior, and because I refused to take my foot off the accelerator. It was pretty painful and took a lot out of me, but the only real issue was running through considerable fatigue.

Med City, though, was a weather disaster. It was extremely humid and temperatures warmed up to about 90 by the time it was done. I had been running pretty well at that point, running 3:10:00 or better in three of my previous four races and running a 3:19 to take second overall in a race at elevation in the fourth race. But I went through the half in 1:41 that day and new the second half was going to be devastating as the temperatures continued to climb.

I had problems in my IT band in my right leg and started to limp with each step at mile 16. I had never taken a walk break before in a marathon, aside from the hills in Catalina, but I took six on a fairly flat course that day. It truly became a marathon, a battle to the finish. At several aid stations, I stopped to cool myself off by pouring multiple cups of ice water over my head. I struggled to run 10-minute miles. I ended up running a 3:57 and felt like I had gotten run over by a truck. That marathon took more out of me than any other marathon I’ve ever run.

What Was Your Worst Experience With Running/Racing This Year? Your Best? Most Strange? Most Encouraging?
This is tough, because there is so much to think about and I feel like I’m going to slight somebody with this answer.

Worst: The start at Nashville. Parking was a disaster getting in, they started the race early, and as a result, I had to start in wave 2. I had to dodge people for 11 miles on a hilly course on a hot, humid day and it was flat-out miserable. I couldn’t get going and I had a terrible race.

Best: I think it’s going to end up being the Operation Jack Marathon, but for now, I’m going to go with Boston. From a straight-up individual perspective, that was the best race I ever ran. Not the fastest, but the best. I dialed it up and nailed it and was pretty happy with that. I maximized what I was capable of that day, no question.

Most strange: I’m going to say a spectator I saw outside a bar in South Beach, Miami. The guy was dressed extremely odd in a small leather get-up, and when I saw him, I knew that even though it was 7 a.m. Sunday, it was still Saturday night for him. He looked pretty odd, and when I saw him, I couldn’t help but think, “Wow … this guy lives in a waaaaaay different world than I do.”

Most encouraging: The formation of the Maine Train 4 Autism chapter. Sarah and Danielle are the type of people I wanted to find for Train 4 Autism. Seeing what they’re doing and how hard they’re pushing is the boost I need when I’m on a down swing. I’m not going to be sufficiently explain it in words, and I don’t mean this as disrespect to anybody else, but they are my rock stars.

That’s All For Today
I think that’s long enough, right? I have some more questions for tomorrow. If you have anything you’d like to ask, let me know. I got a question about which race has the best-looking women, and I’ll answer it, but it’s still in line. I’ll get to it, Dave. I promise!

Have a great Tuesday! I’ll see you tomorrow!

Yesterday, I threw out an idea for a blog to do a Q&A session with you guys. I wasn’t sure what kind of response I’d get, but you sent a lot of questions my way. I’m going to answer them in the order they were received, and I’m not weeding anything out. So, read away. Then ask away.

As a quick introduction, just in case you’ve never been here, I’m attempting to run 61 marathons this year to raise money for a charity I’m a part of called Train 4 Autism. So far I’m through 58. Click here to see why.

Name three things you wish you could have done differently.
1. I would have had somebody to take care of PR and marketing for me. If I couldn’t have found somebody to do it on a volunteer basis, I would have paid for it. I had somebody give me a proposal last fall, but I didn’t have a budget for it. In hindsight, I think it would have paid for itself with increased fundraising. I think it would have taken a lot of stress off of me, because all of that is on my shoulders, in addition to everything else. And really, what’s the point in doing something to spread the word about something if you’re not spreading the word?

I’ve found that what I’m doing makes it pretty easy to get attention if you just speak up. But I haven’t really found the time or energy to do that consistently and that’s definitely been a downfall.

2. I would have focused less on building teams for individual races and worked harder on a few more strong campaigns. We’re starting to do well with these satellite runs and the Operation Jack Marathon. We won the Chase contest in the summer. I think a good, concentrated effort at maybe one or two other campaigns would have been a big help. Instead, I worried too much about making hay out of each individual race early on and I couldn’t get into a good routine. I guess what it boils down to is that I didn’t have a good enough plan. I had a plan to run 61 marathons. I didn’t have a good plan on how to capitalize on that. And then I felt like I let a lot of people down in the process.

3. I would have taken up offers from people who volunteered to help. I didn’t know what I could delegate with this, and I certainly didn’t delegate enough. I had all sorts of offers from people, but I never figured out how to delegate, so I didn’t. As a result, I got buried alive and I dropped the ball on a lot of things. Falling so behind in the last four months of the year, when I finally lost the feeble grip I had, was extremely frustrating.

How many cheeseburgers did you eat this year? How much ice cream? I need a food recap vs. calories burned!
I didn’t keep count, but I’d estimate I ate 65-70 cheeseburgers this year, about 1.25 a week. I talk a lot about the bad things I eat because that’s fun, but I eat healthy, too. I don’t talk about the grilled chicken salad I had for dinner on Monday. Or the tuna fish sandwich on wheat with an apple and some crackers I had for lunch yesterday. I don’t post pictures of the grilled chicken sandwich on wheat from Subway I ate post-race on Sunday (loaded with veggies, no mayo), but y’all know when I go to In-N-Out!

I do like a good cheeseburger, and I figure one, sometimes two, per week is okay. But there’s no way I’d eat one every day. A lot of time, beef really hits the spot after a race. And there have been several weeks where I haven’t made it to In-N-Out. I have two really close friends I’ve gone there with on basically a weekly basis since 1993, aside from when I lived out of state. One of them got a new job this year and we haven’t been able to get together too often since I’m out of town on the weekends. So all-in-all, I’d estimate I’ve had about 70 cheeseburgers this year. I know it wasn’t part of the question, but I’d estimate I’ve had grilled or baked chicken 225 times. I don’t think I’ve had fried chicken once.

As for ice cream, I’d estimate I’ll finish the year consuming roughly 100,000 calories worth of ice cream. I eat ice cream that’s fairly low in calories. I aim for 140 calories or less per half a cup and I have about a cup as my typical serving. I eat it, and I enjoy it, but I don’t have huge servings. Well, sometimes I might. I had a streak of 166 consecutive days eating ice cream or frozen yogurt this year, and I’d estimate I’ll have it 340 times this year. So the math of 300×340 is 102,000 calories.

Best new piece of running paraphernalia? Which race was run the best? Best race shirt? This year’s running epiphany?
The best new piece of running paraphernalia? Hmmm, that’s tough. I’m pretty low-key and don’t buy much. I think I’d go with my Zensah compression pants, which I wear after races, because they make my legs feel so much better immediately. I had all sorts of problems with cramping on planes, because I always fly the same day as the race, but once I started wearing those, I didn’t have that problem any more. As for something I used while actually running, I tried arm warmers for the first time in Tahoe and really liked them. They do the trick, and you can take them off when it starts to warm up. You can roll them down and pull them back up, or you can just take them off and tuck them in the back of your shorts. And they only cost about $9. Can’t beat that!

As for the race that was run the best, I’d probably go with Boston. The B.A.A. knows how to pull off a marathon. I thought Chicago did a great job, too. And as much as I don’t like Rock ‘N Roll events, they tend to put on fairly smooth events (aside from parking and traffic sometimes).

Best race shirt, I think I’ll go with Fargo. It was a tech pullover with a zipper about 1/4 of the way down the chest, something that comes in handy. I got so many tech shirts and t-shirts, both long sleeve and short sleeve, so it was nice to get something different that was useful.

As for an epiphany, well, I’ve said it, but now I really mean it and believe and understand it when I tell people that you have to keep running fun. It’s a hobby, and if you can’t enjoy your hobby, what’s the point? That’s what I’ve told people for years, but now I really understand it and believe it. Several times over the past month, I’ve been running marathons thinking how much fun I’m not having, how joyless the running is, how much I’d love to never run another marathon after this year. But running has been such a blessing for me and I’ve used it to help others. I can’t just give it up. I need to find the fun, though. Right now, it’s not fun.

Why 61?
I get asked this one a lot. I’m a baseball fan and I like Roger Maris better than Babe Ruth. Good thing I don’t like Barry Bonds. 73 is too many!

Actually, I planned on roughly a marathon a week. I had a few doubles I wanted to do and when I mapped out the schedule, I had 57 or 58 races on there. I figured I’d find a few more to make it a nice, round number. 60! So I did. Earlier this year, Lance Haney, an Operation Jack supporter in Alabama, asked me to add Memphis on to the schedule and run with him. I added it and made it 61, although he didn’t make it because he got a stress fracture in his foot.

So, that’s why 61. Kind of a weird number, but I’ve never accused myself of being normal.

That’s All For Today
If you have any questions, let me know and I’ll add them to the list. I’m going to run at least two or three more of these in the next few weeks because I have a lot of questions in the queue.

Have a great day!

I always tell people that I started running after I started walking when I turned 30, but I’m coming clean today. I had a brief stint as a jogger when I was 24. I wanted to lose weight and look good for my wedding photos. I lost 40 pounds in three months, so I want everybody to learn from my experience. That’s right — don’t have your bachelor party two nights before your wedding!

Real quick, just in case you’ve never been here before, click here to see why I’m trying to run 61 marathons in 2010 for Train 4 Autism. We’re in December now, so I’m getting pretty close to that goal. I’m through 58, only three to go!

Anyways, for the most part, I was really heavy (261 pounds) when I turned 30, so I started walking and then one thing led to another and I was able to run 3.4 miles in 40 minutes on my hills about 4 times a week about eight months later, in July 2005. That’s when I feel like I started to run. But in 1999, I took up jogging to lose weight for my wedding.

Coming out of college, I was pretty heavy, about 245 pounds. In late February of 1999, I was determined to lose weight for my wedding, which was on May 23. Those wedding pictures last forever. I had to look good!

I was living in Kansas City and basically all alone. Tiffany was out west and all I did was go to work and go home, waiting until we got married. I used to drink a good 75 or so beers a week while I was in college (I graduated in December 1998). I don’t want to say I was an alcoholic. Maybe I was. But I liked to party and I had a ridiculous tolerance. I was a big guy with plenty of weight to soak it all up and I drank about five nights a week when I was in school. I also ate a lot of pizza and Burger King.

So starting in late February, when I moved to Kansas City from Manhattan (Kan.) to start my job, I was determined to do what I could to get in shape. I changed my habits, cold turkey. I didn’t drink a drop of alcohol or pop once I got there. Every single meal I ate was prepared inside my kitchen. And when I say every single meal, I mean every single meal. I didn’t eat at any kind of a restaurant between the end of February and May 17. I didn’t know the first thing about nutrition, but I kept my calories low and my fat intake very, very low.

I started to exercise, walking a bit. I worked that up to jogging and I covered four miles a day, maybe four or five times a week. When my fitness peaked back then, I covered those four miles in 44 minutes. Twice, I ran six miles. Well, jogged. I did pushups (girl pushups, on my knees) and drank a lot of water.

I got down from 245 in late February to 203 on the day of my wedding. When you have excess weight like that, it melts like butter when you work at it. I flew out to California three days before my wedding and people were shocked at the transformation. I was so excited to be getting this positive feedback. It was a nice ego boost for a recovering fat guy.

Two nights before the wedding, I went out, um, establishment hopping in a gigantic limousine with about 12-14 friends. I had a beer at the rehearsal dinner the night before, but that was the only alcohol I’d had in three months. I had also shed about 20 percent of my body weight. For whatever reason, it didn’t occur to me that my tolerance had dropped drastically.

In the hour or so before we headed out, I had eight beers. Normally, I would have had about a dozen before going to the bars when I was in school. So throwing back eight beers wasn’t any kind of a big deal. We got rolling, went to pick up some people and I kept drinking like I normally did. I peed in places I shouldn’t have and started getting goofy, so it was business as usual.

We got to the first, uh, establishment, and I had a few more beers. I really didn’t keep count at that point. I might have mixed, too. I don’t really remember. I just know we left to go to another place and as as we got there, I got sick and threw up pretty badly all over the parking lot. I never threw up when I was in college. I clearly wasn’t the rock star I used to be.

Amazingly, at the place we went to, there was an establishment that women could go to, and surprise, surprise — Tiff was there with her gang for her bachelorette party! I don’t remember much of anything other than laying in the limo with my head face down and hanging out of the open door. There was a little bit of commotion with Tiff’s group, but the brain cells that hold that memory died that night. All of my friends went inside for a couple of hours, except for a friend of mine, Rob, who stayed back with me.

My next memory is waking up the next morning on the floor in the hallway of my parents’ house. I got up because I had to pick up a friend of mine who was flying in from Kansas for the wedding. I had a nasty hangover and headache and I had fairly foggy vision in one of my eyes. It was totally weird and I felt like garbage. I picked up Tiff at her parents’ house and we went to the airport. While we were there, she looked at me and told me my eye was swollen.

I was relieved, in a way. At least that explained the nasty pain in my eye. There was no discoloration — it was just swollen. But I had no idea how it happened. When we got back to the house, I spent all day holding ice on my eye, hoping the swelling would go down. That made me feel pretty proud, considering all the out-of-town relatives were over for a barbecue. But I had to do what I had to do — the wedding was less than 24 hours away!

I talked to my friends and found out what happened. Apparently, two of my good friends carried me in, but they were a little drunk, too. They accidentally knocked my eye into a doorknob. Oops!

I slept with ice on my face the night before my wedding. I woke up on my wedding day after a lousy night of sleep, hoping the swelling had decreased. I saw my stepmom and asked her how my eye looked, and she hesitated for a second before suggesting I just look in the mirror for myself.

Sure enough, it was a dark shade of purple. And yeah, it was still swollen. We put makeup on my eye so it would be the correct color, but there was nothing we could do about the swelling. The color was fine for the ceremony, but by the end of the reception, it started to wear off and you can see the purple in parts of the video.

I have to say, it was pretty embarrassing to walk around with a black eye on my honeymoon. It was a bummer at the time, but it’s no big deal at this point and we look back on it and laugh. It makes for a heck of a war story.

Hopefully, any bride-to-be or even groom-to-be can learn from my experience. No bachelor parties two days before your wedding!

So much for losing weight and looking good in the pictures, huh?

I love guest blogs for a couple of reasons. First, it’s interesting to get somebody else’s perspective on the same things I normally write about. And of course, it’s awesome because I don’t have to write anything and I still have a blog to post! Today, I have a guest blog from Jake Rome, who’s been super-excited about Operation Jack all year and is working very hard behind the scenes on the Operation Jack Marathon. He wrote this unsolicited. If anybody else wants a guest blog here, don’t be shy!

Real quick, if this is your first time here, click here to see why I’m trying to run 61 marathons this year for Train 4 Autism.

Now, some words from Jake:

We need to step up for Sam & Jack. It’s been a long year for Sam & his family as he has worked tirelessly to raise money for Train 4 Autism while helping to establish the organization across the country. The marathons are the easy part. The travel is tough, obviously. The time away from Sam’s family is a challenge for all. Yet there he is blogging, tweeting & generally promoting the effort to build support across a dozen distinct communities. While Operation Jack has certainly been a success and looks set to meet expectations with over $70,000 raised so far, there’s still one more chance to put the effort over the top. I want to double that number.

This last, best opportunity is the Operation Jack Marathon & Half Marathon on December 26 right along the beach in Los Angeles. As part of Sam’s support network, you’ve been amazing, and now’s the time to dig deep one last time to put the effort over the top. Along with Sam & other Train 4 Autism members, I’ve spent dozens of hours this month to organize, fund & promote the Operation Jack Marathon. Sam has been working twice as hard for over a year without a break. So I’m asking everyone, right now to help Sam in one or more of the following ways, right now:

– For those living in Southern California, sign up to run the half marathon or the marathon.
– If you’re outside of Southern California, sign up for a satellite run that you can complete from your own front doorstep.
– All in Southern California are welcome to volunteer then hang around for the post-party. Contact Molly Rearick (mollyrearick@train4autism.org) at Train 4 Autism to volunteer on race day.
– Heck, there’s an organized run in Portland!
– Set up a fund raising page and ask your friends & family to sponsor you.
– Or just donate. I’m personally matching the first $5 of every donation made through my fund raising page.
– If you’ve got a small business & want to be a race sponsor for $100 (web) or $500 (t-shirt), send me an email right now! (jake@core4you.org)

Then after you’ve signed up to run, volunteer, fundraise or donate, there’s one more step. Send out an email or a Tweet, update your Facebook status or make a few phone calls, write a blog post or post the race fliers. Whatever it takes to get the word out. Sam has certainly honored his son, and the world will be richer for Jack because of all the hard work he has inspired among this community. Sam’s and Jack’s story is amazing, and it should be heard not for Sam’s benefits; rather, the story needs to be told because everyone that hears their tale is uplifted by it and moved to action in their own lives. Act now, for yourself, for Sam, and for everyone else that has yet to be touched by Sam and Jack.