If you been following Frank’s Place for any length of time you know I’m not much of an activist. Not much meaning I’m absolutely not an activist of any type. Way too lazy, way too unconcerned for all that nonsense. So when a dude pinged me on Twitter to join this dads blogger group on FaceBook I was skeptical to say the least. I just don’t do issues. But Oren seemed genuine enough.

For whatever reason I checked it out. Oren, the guy who invited me, was running this FB page with the tag “A blogging dads group, so crazy it just might work.” I had no idea what that meant but ah what the hell, click. I’m in. It was easy. Took me a while to go from a lurker to actually joining in on any of the conversations, but when I did it was worth it. Joining the group has been worth it. Yeah, they get bat-shit crazy over stuff that seems trivial sometimes but when real crazy hits the fan that impacts someone in the group, those guys rally round. And man do they know how to rally round someone in need, be it financial, emotional, whatever. These dudes can move the needle when they want to.

The group had maybe 300 dads when I joined and is right at 800 now. Guys in the same city meet up for dads night out, go to conferences, etc… You know all the stuff I’m way too lazy for. I’m not even sure I qualify as a by-stander cause, you know, that requires standing. I’m retired, sue me. Anyway, Oren Miller has been herding these 800 or so cats, me included, since he started the page. He’s a good leader. He’s really is the common denominator that holds the whole thing together.

The man, the myth, the cat herder, Oren MIller.

A month ago maybe, Oren went to the doc for some back pain and found out he was in stage 4 lung cancer. It has his liver, kidney and brain. Probably eight months to a year left with his wife and two young children, ages 6 & 4. I have never met the man face to face and I still get choked just thinking about it. I’m sure Oren is battling some serious demons right now, but in between all that he penned this blog post about the whole thing. Read this and be edified by a guy who stares his mortality in the eye with a grace not seen in most: Oren Miller – Cancer

While I was getting worked up the boys in the group got to work. They started a page on the Give Forward web site to raise money for Oren and his family. You can see it here: Give Back To Oren. A modest goal of $5000 American was in the rear view mirror a few hours after the site went active. With 800 members that number was never gonna be high enough. The goal was reset, and reset, and reset. It now stands at 30,000 beans. With $26,025 in the hopper as of this writing the goal is in sight.

What has struck me about this fundraiser is its bluntness. I dig bluntness. Look, there’s no time to dance around. Being modest about getting help seems pretty ridiculous when you realize you have no need for next year’s calendar. So some guys in the group took the bull by the horns and have really got things rolling in an effort to get Oren and his family some help, relief, assistance. Oren, to his credit, has accepted this outpouring with the grace he has displayed since I first “met” the guy.

Well, I may not even pass for a good by-stander, but I can’t sit this one out.

If you’ve been following this blog at all you know where this is going. Time for the big ask, the squeeze, the shake down. Go to the Give Back To Oren site and drop some coin in the tip jar. I won’t snow you. It probably won’t make you feel any better about yourself. Hell it might even make you feel angry cause another jerk-weed is asking for your money.

No matter, angry money spends just as well.