The first person I ran into as I ambled into Mickey Vernon Park down in Marcus Hook last night was a familiar face.
Boog Laird is the longtime tournament director of the Champs 'n' Charity Classic, the annual end-of-summer softball shindig we've been throwing now for 30 years to raise money for the American Cancer Society.
Boog was struck by something that I had mentioned in my Monday column. If you missed it you can read it here. I wrote how summer softball was a "way of life" here in Delaware County. Boog is hard at work on that way of life these days. While he's spent the last week back in his old haunt in Marcus Hook, the rest of the time he can be found in his new digs in Dewey Beach, Del.
It's always good to see Boog. No one is more responsible for this longtime charity endeavor than him.
There was one other "way of life" that is always much on my mind whenver I visit the Hook these days. I couldn't help but notice that on this glorious late-summer night, the borough's longtime icon was once again vacant. There was no flame proudly spotlighting the Sunoco refinery. The legacy of the Pew family is now confined to the history books, as the plant is reconfigured to take advantage of possible opportunities in the booming Marcellus natural gas biz.
But for one night, a "way of life" once again was celebrated in Mickey Vernon Park. We hope to be back again next year, our 31st year, and Laird is already promising a bigger, better coed division, a new wrinkly we added to the tourney this year.
See you next summer!
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