The other day, my wife wanted to see if you wanted to join a group of friends with a Happy Hour. She didn’t want to go, but I told her that you said to her that I didn’t like to go because of my aphasia and my ability to talk with others, but I realized that it was vital for me to force myself to go.
A group of our friends started to talk about sports, and each one began talking about when their relatives or friends had met a sports celebrity.
As they talked about them, I wanted to tell my story, so while they talked about them, I started to see what I could say about this story. My bullet points began in my head:
- Matt Bahr played soccer and football with me at Penn State.
- He won a Super Bowl with the Steelers and with the Giants.
- My brother, Bernie, was a photographer in New York and shot at the Giants’ games.
- I told my brother that if he saw Matt at the game, tell him you are my brother.
- My brother said he isn’t going to remember you.
- I said yes, we were friends at Penn State, and he would remember me.
- The next game, my brother had a chance to see Matt. He said hello, and Matt remembered me and asked how I was.
- A few weeks later, my brother called me to say, “Thanks a lot. Matt saw me and asked me, ‘How is Ed?’. He started talking to me about stuff. I wanted to tell him that I needed to work for the photos and didn’t he needed to do something too”.
- I laughed and told my brother that Matt was nice and wanted to say hi.
- I love that another small world story at Penn State found one.
I told the story to my friends and explained that I have aphasia, and I was going to try to explain this.
They laughed at the story and told me that it was clear.
Another great day!
Note: Matt Bahr was not a Phi Delta Theta fraternity, but I was. And I wasn’t a football player. That is why we had hats!