Laughter REALLY is the best medicine!

One of the things that we type-A personalities are not very good at is looking after ourselves emotionally. From my particular brand of type-A, I have had a habit of being pretty focused on things, sometimes forgetting to take some time to laugh and giggle. As I am nearing the end of my time in education, I now see the value of "blowing off some steam" so I decided that I needed to make a decision to deal with that. As previously alluded to, I won the marriage lottery and my darling Joyce whole-heartedly supported taking a few days away from her ... Hmmmmm, maybe she needed a break also?

I jumped in the Tacoma and ventured down the 400 series highways to spend some time with some of my best buds from my football days at Queen's University. It's not like we haven't seen each other ... we get together fairly often for reunions and the like ... but this one was special because it was a smaller group, comprised of the guys I spent a large amount of time with during those years. We all gathered at the the home of the most football-famous of us all, Mike Schad, who still holds the esteem of being drafted to the NFL as the highest pick of any Canadian-trained player in CIS history. If I wrong about that, he is definitely in the top 2. Mike now lives in New Jersey where he settled after retiring from the NFL with his last years playing for the Philadelphia Eagles. It ended up being 5 of us who came from a variety of places to get together to relive those fantastic years, argue about who did what best, and generally behave like 20-somethings all over again.

3 of us decided to drive down from Ontario ... all fellow O-linemen and packed into a pretty posh Toyota  Highlander ... I picked up Frank in Oshawa and together we met Steve in Gananoque to cross into the US since he came down from Arnprior. The last merry member of the horde, Sam, flew up to Philly from Atlanta. Despite the 6 hour drive together, we still had a ton of catching up to do so the adult beverages flowed freely, the reminiscing was in full exaggeration, the BBQ was happily consumed and the belly laughter was loud and hearty. It's truly amazing how quickly 50-somethings can slide back into 20-something mindsets.

The docket of activities was right full of sporting events ranging from Mike's son's flag football game, to a Flyers' hockey game, and culminated with an Eagles' football game. As I am sure you can imagine, the grins rarely faded from our faces as we found ourselves in a variety of situations where people expressed curiosity about our poorly-fitting gold Queen's football jackets and jerseys. One of of the pretty cool situations was at the tailgate party being hosted by a Philly chain of restaurants where Mike's notoriety gained us an invite. There was traditional tailgate fare with Philly cheesesteaks, burgers, wings, and hoagies washed down with a wide variety of adult-style liquids.

After leaving the tailgate and joining the HOARD of people trying to access the stadium, we enjoyed the hospitality of the Eagles VIP room (thanks again Schadillac) which also featured a variety of things to drink and eat. Even retired O-Line have a limited tank so we hauled our distended bellies up to our seats to enjoy a very well played first half with the Eagles taking a 10-9 lead into the break over the Patriots. Unfortunately, the excitement waned in the third as the Pats out-executed their way to a 17-10 lead. A group decision led to the final few minutes being enjoyed on-screen from the VIP lounge and its wonderful delights.

The research states that laughter is truly the best medicine and we enjoyed a healthy overdose all weekend long. We even found time to FaceTime one of our small group who couldn't make it down from Sudbury. John's face light up like the bonfire we had the night before as we shared the escapades of the previous 24 hours. Although the carrying on made for a fuzzy trip home, we all felt it that familiar tug of belonging as we made our way back to our loved ones.

Do yourself the favour of writing a prescription for an awesomely good time ... your body and mind will thank you. Cha Gheil!