Sponsor Spotlight: General Motors and Driving the Midwest

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In early August, I will be heading down to the Barefoot Ski Ranch in Waco, Texas in a brand new Chevrolet, thanks to Connie Burke from General Motors. I met Connie at a Chicago Social Media Club event earlier this year and she told me about her program, Driving the Midwest.

Connie Burke has been working for General Motors for 26 years, but her recent position as a Communications Manager has been the most exciting, thrilling, satisfying position she’s ever worked in.  Not only is Connie part of the social media team at General Motors, but as part of her job, she gets to hand out cars to folks all over the Midwest.

“Driving the Midwest was an outgrowth of the social media program that we created in Chicago, called  Chevy Missions,” said Connie.  “Chevy recognized people that were making a difference in their community.  We gave vehicles to help those were were making a difference in the community –whatever their passion was we wanted them to experience it with our cars.”

Driving the Midwest program began in March, 2011 as one of five regions, and includes all of the General Motors brands, Chevy, Buick, Cadillac and GMC.  “We’ve received good feedback about this program, and people fall in love with our products as a result,” Connie explained.   “We have a lot of fuel-efficiency vehicles, like the new Chevy Cruze– a  small car that feels like a mid-size car–and it gets up to 42 miles per gallon.   Our cars have improved so much over the years.  We’ve added features like Bluetooth, separate entertainment systems, a 30 gig hard drive that holds iPod music and even the Onstar parking assistance which includes a back-up camera.  We’ve added lots of safety features as well.”

Of all of the keys she’s handed out under the program, the most memorable one for Connie was handing the keys over to Mark Horvath prior to the SOBCon 2011 conference in Chicago.  Mark is known for his work with people who are homeless.  His mission is to teach people how to use the internet to search for jobs– and break the cycle of homelessness.  They may not have a physical address, but as long as they have email and wifi access, Mark teaches them how to make things happen.    “That was the best day of my career– it was very emotional,” said Connie.  “Just to see his face light up…  He realized that his hard work was recognized–that his work is really important.  That’s the part of my job that is really validating, honoring people who make a difference.”

There’s no typical day at work for Connie, as she’s involved in all kinds of events.  One day, she might be on a baseball field helping to clean up, the next day she will be at an event such as the Detroit Motor City Pride or speaking at a conference.   Just recently, she kicked off Theresa Carter’s Route 66 Tour to raise money for Endure to Cure.  Just before that, she handed over a Chevy Cruze to Melisa Wells, who just released a book, “Chicken in the Car and the Car Won’t Go.”  The back of the truck was chock full of useful donations for the Ronald McDonald house. 

I feel extremely blessed to soon be the recipient of a vehicle from General Motors for our trip to the Barefoot Nationals in August.   Two years ago, on my 44th birthday, I spent that day feeling down and missing my youthful days of barefoot water skiing.  Now two years later this August, I’ll be celebrating my birthday with my family, and a whole new community of barefooting friends– what an incredible blessing!   Thank you, Connie Burke and General Motors for making this possible!

 

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Tags: Barefoot Sponsors, Going Places by DeafMom
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Dad Beats Cancer!

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We were standing at the edge of the pier, looking at the water that lapped over the brick wall in front of my parent’s house.   The lake water was at a record high and it threatened to creep into the crawlspace if it rose any higher.  Every day, Dad was climbing down the rickety crates that formed a makeshift staircase into the crawl space to check on the sump pump.  Some of the neighbor’s homes had water in them.  He was doing everything he could to keep the water from coming into the house.

“It’s been a shitty summer,” my Dad murmured. He gazed at the flagpole, which was surrounded by water.  The brick wall around that area was nowhere to be seen.

Shitty summer.

The flooded lake.  The cancer.

Dad was in the middle of his six-week regime of grueling cancer treatment: five days of radiation followed by chemotherapy inserted into his port.  The rest of us stood by helpless as we watch the pounds slip away.  The tumor that blocked his esophagus made it increasingly harder for him to swallow any food.  By Labor Day weekend, he was sleeping all day and all night.  He could no longer get any food down and was only taking tiny sips of water.

I fought back the panic all weekend.  I was terrified.  I didn’t want to entertain the possibility that he might not get better.  So I asked him to start thinking about where he wanted to go after he got well.  He looked at me with a little bit of surprise–why the hell was I talking about taking a trip when he was so sick and we didn’t even know what the prognosis was?  I didn’t care if I was being a Pollyanna about the whole thing.  So we talked about Yellowstone and the logistics of getting there and what to see.

By Labor Day, I tried to convince him to call the doctor and request a feeding tube.  Being the strong, stubborn WWII vet that he is, he insisted that he didn’t want to bother the doctor on a holiday.

“Promise you’ll call him tomorrow?” I asked before I got in the car to head home.

“Yea, I’ll call him.”

He finally obtained the feeding tube toward the end of the week.  Rather than getting better, he continued to decline as the effects of the chemo still barreled on.  He still could not eat and that worried me.

“Don’t you think he would be able to eat by now if the chemo and radiation worked?” I speculated with my sister.  Naturally, we feared the worse.  Sixty seven pounds had melted off my Dad’s frame and he hardly moved from the living room chair.

Dad was scheduled for a PET scan last week to determine if the tumor was still growing or if it had responded to treatment.

We all held our breath.

My mother sent an email.

“Good News!!!” was in the subject line.  I just looked at the subject line and started to cry.

“Just got back from the doctor,” Mom wrote. “The cancer cells are dead. He goes back for a checkup in three months.  This is such great news!”

So, Dad, where did you say you wanted to travel to again?

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The Best Part of the Spring Break Road Trip

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We arrived at the Marriott Grande Ocean hotel late in the afternoon on Sunday, March 29th.  The ocean stretched for miles at the edge of the hotel and it was hard to believe that we had just left a cold Chicago behind.  It was very windy on the beach and there were very few people out and about.  As I was snapping pictures of the kids, an older couple stopped their bikes and asked if we wanted a family picture.  The wind was quite fierce and sand was blowing everywhere.  They took two pictures and struck up a conversation.

They owned a time share on the beach and had been coming to Hilton Head for 31 years.  The couple looked like they were in their mid 70s.

 ”What keeps you coming back to this island?” I asked. 

“Oh, we just love it here!  There’s so much to do and it’s just beautiful here.  We ride our bikes several miles each day all over the beach and the island.”   They gave us some tips of where to go and places to eat.  From the smiles on their faces, it was easy to see that they enjoyed themselves.  I could see why they enjoyed the island–it was indeed a beautiful place to be.

Soon after we left the beach, we jumped into a hot tub, joining another family with three generations that was lounging there.  None of us had our hearing aids on at that point but we managed to chat.  The family was spending their second year on the island and they had come back to the same hotel.  It was amazing to see how the island drew back people– but by the end of our trip, we held the same feeling of wanting to visit the island again.

The very next day turned out to be one of the most memorable parts of the trip:

Flying Kites At the Beach.

Kayaking in the marshland

Kayaking in the marshland

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Road Trip Across America

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Yes, we’re back and I’m finally sitting down to share.

This year, the kids had the same spring break.  Last year we had the kids in three different schools and on two different spring breaks.  So when the kid’s calendars lined up this year and the hubby took a volunteered week off due to job cuts at work, we figured it was a sign that we should grab the week and do something.  I didn’t count on starting a new full-time job in January, but we managed to incorporate the job into the spring break. 

I planned to have a CSDVRS booth at Deafest in Carbondale at the end of the week, so we decided to take a road trip to Hilton Head Island.  My sister works for Marriott, so we were able to snag a two-bedroom condo at a rock bottom price right next to the ocean. 

We stayed in Kentucky the first night and went to the Slugger museum the next day.  The kids and the hubby voted to eat at Hooters.  Sadly, the chicken was a disappointment, but the two older kids walked away with Hooters t-shirts.  That’s right, they decided to spend their travel money on trashy t-shirts. 

We headed out to Atlanta and stayed overnight at the Kurt’s house.  You may recall Karen Kurt from my previous BookHands post.  The Kurts have a beautiful house and they definitely do not miss the Chicago weather.  For one brief moment that night, the kids said, “Hey, why don’t we move down here?”  We are planning to go back and visit again because we didn’t hit the hot tub that they have sitting in their backyard.

We arrived in Savannah, Georgia in the afternoon and decided to eat at Paula Deen’s restaurant.  The sign on the front said it was booked for the day, but the hostess said she could get us in.  On Sundays, the Lady and Sons only serves buffet and the meal is quite southern.  Paula’s famous fried chicken, mustard greens, black-eyed peas and that baked macaroni and cheese were some of the things I recognized from her shows.  For dessert, we had to choose from one of four items but they all looked so good that I told the waiter that I couldn’t possibly choose just one.  He winked and placed all four desserts down.  Good gawd, the butter cake is amazing.  I don’t even want to know how much butter is in there, it was worth it even if it shortened my life by a day.

Part two is coming tomorrow– stay tuned to find some neat people that we met on the trip.

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