On Dave's moving topic Gipper made this comment. That was maybe as much as 10 years ago and I've always wanted to tell the story on Skybox but wasn't sure gipper would want me to so I didn't. I probably should have asked him but then it may not have been the same. However he has mentioned it so I am taking that as approval for me to tell the story of his act of kindness. The flowers were not for me they were for my mother. She passed away in 2004 at the age of 90 and had been in a nursing home for a little over three years when she left us. Mike's, I think I will call him Mike here, act of kindness was about a year before she went in the nursing home but about the time that the incidents started happening that caused us to have to put her in the home. She was living with us and had a mini stroke and went we had to put her in the hospital. Mike and I were having some conversation on Skybox about some incident involving Spurrier and the Gators that was controversial and I wasn't very responsive because I was dealing with her. Somewhere in the course of the back and forth Mike wondered why I wasn't responding and I posted a short comment about my mom. I remember Mike being skeptical and thinking I was coping out and I made a sharp retort and then was trying my best to ignore Skybox while dealing with the problem. Mom spent the night in the hospital and was home. There was a knock on the door and I opened it and there was a man there with flowers in his hand and he said it was a flower delivery for my mom. I was kind of in a little shock not knowing who would send flowers, I noticed a van out front and Mike played the roll well, I thought he was a delivery man. I took the flowers, thanked him shut the door to take the flowers to my mom, she loved them. Then I realized that in my confusion I had not tipped the man so I went back to the door wallet in hand to catch him but the van was down the street and gone. Then I went to my mom and she gave me the card with the flowers, it was a nice note and signed Mike Malloy. After a couple of shocked moments I grabbed my keys, jumped in my car and raced out hoping to catch the van. Unfortunately I did not. I did exchange several e-mails with our gipper over the next few days thanking him, I know I had to come across very strange as the whole thing did not make sense to me until I read that note. It takes a special person to take time off from his family and golf game and drive 34 miles each way to deliver flowers personally to a woman he had never met. And because I thought he was a delivery man, which as I recall he was trying to do, and reacted slowly he got away and I never even got to invite him in the house. For the record though I drove out and tried my best to catch up with him but couldn't. Mike, if I never thanked you enough for making an old lady whose health was starting to fail very happy for several days so let me today say Thank You <i></i> And I am looking forward to meeting you in Kansas City to personally say thanks again.
Please pardon the length of my post but this is something I have long wanted to post but didn't want to if gipper didn't want me to, and didn't want to ask because because I thought it might embarrass him. But he gave me an opening with his comment!
Gip's a stand up guy. There's none better. If/when you meet him, you know he'd be as bad as the rest of us but his lovely wife keeps all that in line. (she's every bit as funny and charming as him). All that not withstanding, Gip's on my all-time 'atta boy' list for that and many other things.
Back in those days Gip sometimes was a little to, how should I say?, "intense." And as I did on occasion, I overstepped the bounds of decency and said something that I shouldn't have. It so happened I was heading down to Fla with some buddies on a golf trip and decided to try to apologize. So I left these guys at a golf resort and told them that I had to run an errand. I was gone almost 2 hrs. because finding Bill's place wasn't that easy. When I got back they asked me where I'd been and I told them "you don't want to know and wouldn't believe me anyhow." Sometimes you feel right just trying to square accounts. It was the right thing to do. Enough of that. Where are we meeting on Fri. in KC?
:wink: Thats the Mike we all know and love ...... and Yes Mary does have her moments but you couldnt ask for better friends ... in the last 13 years I cherish the dinners and conversations with them ...... as with Sid Terry . All the O'Keefes..... Jerry.. Steve .. Tim.. the converstions around the four horseman and the grill (Mike is a great cook) ..... You are very special .... PS Rick and Kim ... we need to do a ballgame ... soon
Let me be clear about one thing just in case I may have given the wrong impression. Yes we all do things we need to sit right and in one sense I've done that here where I should have done this long ago. However from my point of view there was nothing that Mike needed to sit right and what he did was as I said, it was an act of kindness from a man with a big heart. Those of you that have been around from Prodigy and the early days of Skybox you know that Mike and I had more than one go around. However even before Mike did this I had discovered and concluded Mike was a good guy. The first thing I remember is when he wrote about taking taking his daughters soccer team to a tournament several states away. I talked to him about that, on Skybox, and it was obvious he was a good father and husband. That makes people good people in my book. So this was way over and above, but what gipper said above just verifies what I thought.