Life Just Outside The 617

CHAPTER 11 - Tickling The Funny Bone

With the month of November arriving, aside from Thanksgiving, there was another area of which is close to my heart, and I take great pride in being a part of. The Cam Needly Foundation. This passion for charity began for me when I was a teenager, I would always attend the Boston Bruins Wives Charity Carnival. While I did enjoy having one on one interactions with my favorite players, seeking out the autographs and having my pictures taken. It was the year that NESN had used video footage of me along with then player Ray Bourque to advertise for the BB Wives Charity Carnival. When I was spotted on the television for it, my phone rang up with my friends and family spotting me. Wondering if I was a part of it. At the time I wasn't. However, when the Cam Neely Foundation was formed in 1997, by the year 2000 is when the Neely House opened its doors, and I became part of the volunteer family. When my Mother was diagnosed in 1998. My family went through some really hard times along with her. Emotionally and physically. And realizing that Boston was a city that a lot of cancer patients would come to, from near and far. They needed places to stay while their loved ones endured operations and treatments. My Mother was amongst the lucky ones who lived in this great state. Her treatments were either in the city of Boston, or locally out where she had lived. There is truly no minimum or maximum stay for these families at the Neely House. And it's been an uplifting thing for me to be a part of and will always continue to be helping raise funds for the families to continue to stay here for however long it is needed.

This is now my 20th year with them and my particular areas that I had lots of involvement in now is the Cam Neely Invitational and the association with Dennis Leary's huge Comics Come Home fundraiser as well. I absolutely love being a part of this. One, I get to see some of my all-time favorite Bruin players again (I consider that to be a perk) and then when the CCH event happens at the Garden, it's a night of pure laughter and comedy that tends to be on the local part of it. Which to us native Massholes, makes it even funnier. 'Ya gotta be born and raised around here to get some of that local humor.

As of late, the Invitational portion was getting quiet, due to the weather changes. I mean, do you honestly see the golf courses in full swing around here from late October until maybe late March? Nope. So, whenever that happens, the fundraising kicks up a few notches for the CCH. During some downtime from my 9-5 job, I would go onto the social media pages on Facebook, IG and Twitter and update accordingly. And sometimes my evenings as well as events drew closer.

I opened up the email to begin updating the social media sites with this year's lineup. And it was a good one on tap. There was no exception of a night that was to be filled with laughter from start to finish. Dennis Leary of course, to other A-List comedians. Lenny Clarke, Chris Distefano, Jimmy Fallon, Sam Jay, Robert Kelly, John Mullaney, Carolyn Plumber, Roy Wood Junior, and other guests to be determined as the date got closer.

Chris was sweet enough to drop me off on Causeway in the afternoon so I could start preparing for this evening's event and would return later with Ma and Scott for the four of us to sit in a suite to watch the show from there. Pulled a few little strings from the company I had worked for at one point in the city. They still owned a company suite in there and had a few extra tickets handy. Cashed in on that I did. I had done so many favors back in the day for them. Well, I should say for the CEO's assistant who seemed to lean on me a lot to get a lot of the grunt work done for her as I saved her ass more than once. It was as if they (or rather she) owed me this opportunity.

When I got in there, I went up the elevators to my assigned area and met up with a few other volunteers of the CNF and was given my instructions for the beginning of the evening and was informed that after all talent was checked in and led to their assigned areas that I was then "off" for the remainder of the evening to enjoy the show. I was handed the list of tonight's performers and I knew most of the names ........and then an area where it said POSSIBLE performers TBD.