My friend Donna who is a fellow Bootie Brigade member called me a few weeks ago to let me know that Lance was going to be in the Milwaukee area. Donna has made booties for Lance, and my students have signed them. She also keeps in contact with him via e-mail because of the booties and the fact that they are both cancer survivors.
Needless to say, our family drove down to Gander Mountain in Germantown to meet Lance. What a great guy! He was so sweet to Emmaline--he asked about her stuffed husky Pedro that she brought along and really gushed over the picture she drew for him (even though she drew him with pigtails instead of a ponytail!). He sincerely thanked me for making booties through the Bootie Brigade and said that he really enjoyed all of the words of encouragement that my students had written last year. He signed a poster for us, Jon's Iditarod hat, and offered to sign Pedro's tail, but Emmaline was having none of that! Then I produced my Iditarod Monopoly board that Jeff King had signed two years ago. I told him that I hadn't won at Monopoly since Jeff had signed, and I needed his good luck. Lance said, "Well, I have to sign higher than Jeff!" He proceded to sign nice and big above Jeff's signature!
Of course I was so star struck that there are a million things I wish I would have asked him but didn't! Oh well, it was still awesome!
