Bert Kate, my grandfather, celebrated his 90th birthday in November 2016. Bert loved sports and was an enthusiastic Yankees (an American professional baseball team based in the New York City) fan, so it was no wonder that over the years, he was an avid (热切的) listener to WFAN radio and, in particular, the afternoon show hosted by Mike Francesa.

Bert had health issues in his later years that limited his mobility, and when he lost his vision three years ago, his attachment to his radio and Francesa became more pronounced. He just loved listening to Mike talk about sports and his Yankees each afternoon. Those hours brought him so much pleasure.

Of course, Mike will be leaving Dec.15,2017 after 30 years at the station. Mike lives in the same community where I work on Long Island, and I have gotten to know him over the past 20 years. So when my grandfather was approaching his special birthday the year before last year, I asked Mike for a favor: to call Bert and wish him a happy birthday.

Mike agreed without hesitation. Two days before the special day, Mike stopped at my workplace. I called Bert at his nursing home and put Mike on the phone. It was a complete surprise to Bert. Mike spent more than 10 minutes wishing Bert a happy birthday and, of course, talking about the Yankees.

When my family celebrated Bert’s birthday two days later, he couldn’t stop talking about the phone call. Over his lifetime, he said it was one of the nicest things anyone had ever done for him.

Unfortunately, Ben’s health declined last year and he passed away July 13,2017. But even in his final months in the hospital and nursing home,he always had a radio set to WFAN to listen each afternoon to Mike Francesa.And he also had the memory of that special phone call for his 90th birthday.

Letting her take the wheel

My daughter, Mia, is 16 and learning to drive. Many parents are freaked out (惊慌失措) about putting their easily distracted teenagers in charge of a fast-moving thing of glass and steel. My wife refused to teach her, leaving the task to me.

I’ve learned a few things. First, Mia didn’t know how to drive at all. She didn’t even know where to put the key. It was like watching a chimpanzee try to solve a puzzle. Worse, she couldn’t remember that D was for drive, and R meant reverse (倒车).

Then came the road rules. Mia likes to sail past stop signs. I had to explain that “STOP means STOP”. Had she actually read the rule book? “Yes,” she said, but she forgot most of it. “It was so boring.”

Although I had been driving her around for her whole life, she hadn’t learned anything.

Despite these things, I’ve also learned that I enjoy teaching her. I think I’m pretty good at it. I am much calmer than I thought I would be.

I also enjoy the one-on-one time we have together. We have some good conversations. So far, we have covered her friends’ hairstyles and how stressed she feels after school. I enjoyed communicating with her.

One Sunday evening, we were driving down a narrow back street, deep in conversation, when I realized that the car was moving quite fast. “SLOW DOWN!” I yelled, yanking (猛拉) the hand brake (手刹). We stopped the car and sat in the dark for a minute. “You can’t go that fast,” I said. “You don’t know enough yet.” I put my hand on her head, “I don’t want anything to happen to you.”

“Me neither.” she said.

“Okay, cool,” I said. “Let’s go.”

She started the car and we headed back home.

I’m a happy mother of two wonderful kids. My daughter is Blanca Ramirez. She’s 14 years old right now, but at the age of 11, she began to do long-distance running, she knew she could do more than just run, so she decided to run for a charity.

She ran for Operation Smile. It is a non-profit organization that helps children worldwide suffering from cleft lip or cleft palate (唇腭裂) at no charge. At Operation Smile they believe every such child deserves exceptional surgical (外科的) care.

My daughter believes that no child should be without a smile, so to help even more, she took her running even further. She went on a journey on becoming the youngest female in the world to run 7 marathons on 7 continents in the name of Operation Smile. She did so in order to raise money and awareness to this organization. And she completed her journey by age 12 on February 19, 2015.

But she’s not done. She now continues to help inspire others by running. One person she has inspired so much is her little brother Jordan. He is 7 years old and has run to this day, 105×5k’s, 11×10k’s & 4×half marathons. He will be running all 7 continents too along with Blanca, starting in November 2017 in Australia.

What makes me proud is that they both plan to continue to help others in this way, and maybe one day they’ll get an Olympic medal.