9/25 - Tailgating with the Happy Hook-ers

Last week, most of the Silva family – that’s mom’s maiden name, of course – went to tailgate together before the Texas vs. Texas Tech football game with our tailgating group, The Happy Hook-ers. Cute name, right? Mom has been tailgating with these guys for a while now, and I’ve only joined up as of this year. They’re a big group of around 80 people (without guests), but that number was wildly inflated for the Tech game. So, the two founding members of the Hookers – Kim and Diane– approached mom with an idea: they wanted to donate the proceeds from the Texas Tech tailgate to Jamie, and they’d also set up some donation buckets at the tailgate as well. Then, Orlando, the owner of Taco Shack, got in on the action and offered to have some donation buckets stationed at the local Taco Shacks here in town. (There are a lot of Taco Shacks, and, in all seriousness, they are awesome… maybe the best in Austin and DEFINITELY the best place to get good tacos quickly)… Anyway, so, they set up the donation bins for Jamie, and I was expecting some money, sure, but not what we ended up getting… we were absolutely blown away by the generosity of the Happy Hookers and their guests.

Jamie had a good time at the tailgate too. This, I think, was the first major public event that Jamie had attended with her prosthetics on and while she was walking around. She didn’t have her wheelchair at all. Definitely the first time for that! What’s neat was that once the tailgate got going, she lost some inhibitions and she started to walk a few steps here or there without support from the walker or from anyone! That was amazing to see. And it was seen by a lot of her Silva brethren – Nicole (nee Silva) and Stephen Lahti; Zeke and Marc Silva (they’re brothers, FYI); Cindy, Joe and Chris Martinez; Letty and Ramon Fernandez (mom’s/our cousins), and we, the Schanbaums… so, when you think about it, I guess there weren’t too many “Silvas” there… but still it was a good time. And we can't forget about Jamie's friends that showed up, like Molly and Michelle and Jeff... also some of my friends showed up too, which is nice... thanks.

There was also a reporter from ABC there… I think he may have been a journalism student from UT who was working with ABC… I don’t remember, you should ask mom… but Jamie interviewed and her story was on the news on Sunday morning… mom says that it is on the internet, but I can’t seem to find it anywhere. When it pops up, I’ll post it. Anyway, that’s all for now… gotta get some stuff done before I leave for Dallas – time to go to the fair and celebrate Yom Kippur with the family in Dallas!