May 21, 2014:  I'm sure you're getting tired of my "bedpan" enlightenments on the progress of my cancer. The "bastid" began to worm some "stinkin' thinkin'" into my normally "half-full" mental attitude trying to deplete what "fighting-back" assets I had that remained.

I hit a quicksand of negativity between my two ears. My hands hurt in frustration from punching walls, plus the dog was tired of competing with me barking at people. Finally, I drifted into a new low, as my bridge work slammed into the mountain of depression.

What was needed was a booster, a pick-me-up, a cheering up, a kick in the patute, or a Nielsen's chocolate chip ice cream cone.

What added to the housebound blues was my move to the rental house next door. The tech geniuses at Comcast couldn't hook my previous number the extraordinary distance of twelve feet from the old home to the new for more than a month. I have been a loyal customer for ten years at $160 a month. Maybe that was not loyal enough! Just good luck I didn't have to chat with 911 in the middle of the night due to a dead phone!

You can imagine my shock when the phone shook off its accumulated mantle of dust announcing an incoming call from LA. (How's that for more drama?)

My fallen spirit was upraised 100% hearing the voice of "Read" Jackson. On the timeline of extended family friends, he measures the youngest. 

I met Read one night in Pete's trying to cancel one another out with elbows and practiced lines wooing a very pretty blonde who was advertising her short miniskirt in the window booth. He was tough competition--six feet tall, thick, curly black hair, a Don Juan mustache, half Irish, half Italian.

My sainted mother, Betty, used to say of Read, "He is a good-looking SOB." He was also articulate and quick on his dancing feet.

In the middle of portraying Mister Right to the young "starlet" at Pete's, he turned to introduce himself to me and made a clever remark that broke me up. He has been extended family ever since, right there with Greg, Fritz, Dick, Jay, and Bob Burt. We have walked through decades of each other's lives. It hasn't always been fun, but we stuck together. It's also a tribute to B'ville on the friendships forged there on the ball fields and the study halls.

Read is a highly creative individual and finished out his career as a prizewinning head producer at Fox Sports.

He is also a hero of mine. He has been fighting cancer for 20 years while he and his beautiful wife, Nancy, are successfully raising an autistic child. That Italian and Irish background is his weapon to beat back the "bastid" trying to kill him, so he claims.

Read and I have had many adventures together that include his early days in the Navy stationed at Cape Hatteras to shipping out for V-Nam from San Francisco Bay. Upon his return from combat status, we worked at the same advertising firm selling useless stuff you didn't need. He was even Burg's roommate in New York City on the then-fashionable East Side three blocks north of my apartment. We had some fun!

Let this stand as a tribute to a dear friend and the only friend I have who went to Roosevelt High (class '62).

This year's Max's "Tough Bastid" Award is, unfortunately, shared between Read and Denny "Trooper" Davis (BHS '63), both of whom are fighting aggressive cancers. They don't need your votes, just your prayers!