Dan Kobylka Part 1

Welcome to episode number eight of the Dan Time podcast. I'm your host, Dan McCardell. And however you landed here in Dan Time, on Dan Time, I'm happy to have you. I mean that. I appreciate you as a listener. You're in the right place, my friend. I said that way back on the trailer episode and today, especially,

you're going to see what I mean. Now, last week, we had a fantastic guest in Vic Penn, a former college football quarterback who modeled his quick release throwing style after none other than Dan Marino. If you missed it, go back and listen to Vic's exciting memories of playing in big time games and especially what it all meant to him. Then, of course, we had a bonus episode last week. I won't get into the details, but check that one out. You'll see more of them as we move along.

On this episode of Dan Time, we go north of the border to Chatham-Kent, Ontario, Canada. Ladies and gentlemen, it is my pleasure to bring you Dan Kabelka. If you haven't heard of him before, well, you heard of him now on Dan Time. And trust me, at the end of this episode, you will not soon forget him. Dan helped make it possible for youth and adults with special needs to experience the joy and fulfillment of playing on a baseball team, wearing a baseball uniform.

He was instrumental in bringing challenger baseball to Chatham. Dan also survived two separate heart transplants and had surgery to remove a brain tumor. I'm so inspired by Dan and his story. And listen, it's not all about what he's gone through, which is a lot. It's about his outlook on life. I'm still in awe that he agreed to appear on this podcast and share his incredible story with us. You just don't meet a Dan Kabelka every day.

I discovered Dan while doing some research and it seemed like I landed on him by accident. But once I read the reporting by Elwood Shreve of ChathamThisWeek.com, I had to take a shot. I had to invite Dan to be a guest on the show. Luckily, he agreed and we had a great time connecting for the call. Okay, if you'd like to be a guest on Dan Time, whether or not your name is Dan, or if you've got an idea for a great guest, send me an email at dantimepod at gmail.com.

All right, sit back, relax, open your ears, open your minds and get ready. It is Dan Kabelka time. Well, hey, Dan, thanks for joining the show. How are you doing today? Fine. Thank you there, Dan. Dan and Dan. Dan and Dan. When you said you were searching the internet for people named Dan, I'm glad you didn't look for my middle name, which is Metro. Thanks for having me on and I bring all your listeners greetings from, we call it the great Green North this time of year.

We hit 80 degrees today in September. Is that near a record high? Yeah, for us it is. I was watching some of the, you know, with a lot of cities, you can go on YouTube and see some good drone aerial footage and uh, wow, it's just a beautiful riverfront town. I understand you're born and raised in Chatham. Actually, I was born in a little town called Guelph, Ontario, and my family moved to Chatham when we were five years old because my father had work here basically.

So I've lived here most of my life. Yeah. Well, Dan, you're, and I'm not trying to butter you up, but you're precisely the type of guest that I would like to have on the Dan Time podcast. Somebody who has made an impact for many, many years. And I mean, in your case has really gone out of his way to think, Hey, who can I really touch? Who has, you know, maybe been marginalized or not really given as much of a role in the podcast?

Marginalized or not really given as much attention as other types of people. And I'm just really fascinated with your story and was interested. Just wanted to ask off the bat, just, uh, growing up over some of your interest and maybe what kind of led you. Were you always curious about other, other people and making friends? Oh yeah, absolutely.

I was in a therapy session once and the therapist said, you're so kind and generous to the people who live on the fringe, but you're so hard on your friends. And I said, the people on the fringe, that's my peer group. That's how I feel having been through the transplant surgeries and such. You know, when you go through the transplants, you kind of feel like you have to give back a little bit, if you will.

And, uh, you know, look for ways that you can contribute and just kind of make it all go worthwhile. Now, from what I understand, you're going back to your mid late thirties, you're experiencing some health problems and were in pretty dire need of a heart transplant. That's correct. Yeah. And, um, I'll let you fill in some of the details, but like, you know, flash forward about 30 years. I know that it always been on your mind, you know, who was this young man? Oh, yeah.

This, this guy that is responsible for me still being here. He walked the earth for a short time. He had a story. Who was this guy? And your curiosity led you to reach out or locate his mother. What a touching story. I wanted to ask you about that. Okay. I had my first transplant in 1989 and after a while, I got kind of curious who was this young man. And I want to add how I found out who he was and did not use confidential information.

And that's really important to add in or point out because if donor families think somebody's going to knock on their door, call them up out of the blue because they got confidential information or level not to donate. So we really have to be careful about those things. But anyway, after about a year, I found out who he was, his name and his parents name and a little bit about what happened to him, you know, the cause of traumatic brain injury.

Although that's not something we like to talk about because it wasn't a very pleasant thing. And 30 years later, I found his mother on Facebook and I thought 30 year anniversary, maybe I'll just send her a Facebook message. Hi, my name is Dan. I'm doing well. I just want you to know how grateful I am for your and your husband's gracious act in donating your son's heart. I'm not looking for anything from you. If you want to contact me, here's my email address.

And the reason I did over Facebook messenger was because if she didn't want the contact, she didn't have to say to my face. Sure. And the first rule of donating or contacting your donor families is your donor families feelings have to come first. They are they have to be the priority over yours. That's just the way it is. So anyway, about a week later, I get an email from my donor's mom, Aggie St. Hilarious, her name and with her phone number. And we began talking to each other.

And for about two years, we contacted each other. We wrote each other emails and got to know each other a little bit. And this is where the Challenger Baseball program comes in. In one of our emails, she wrote, I really want to meet your ballplayers. And that's when I said, I think I'm going to like this lady. Right. And maybe two years after we started to communicate, I got an email from her saying, my daughter's name was Lee and his sister was getting married.

And we would like to invite you out to Winnipeg for the wedding. So I was just, as you can imagine, thrilled. And people would ask me, are you going to go? And I said, I crawl up there on my hands and knees. And I got to go to his sister's wedding and meet his family. And I got to do a speech about him and his dad at his wedding. And some of the other his other relatives and friends actually took me aside and they told me about Lee and what he was doing.

And he was like, and that meant a lot to me because he's more than just my heart donor. He was a real person with love, with loves and likes, and he was a well-rounded person. And there's more to him than just being my donor. So and we had a very good visit then. And this past summer, I went out for a week out to Winnipeg for a visit and we get along very well.

And what I like to point out to people was we had to get back past, we had to get past the fact that he was my donor's mother in order to have a friendship. It had to be bigger than that. You know what I mean? That makes sense? Absolutely. And so I thought for a full well-rounded relationship, we have to move past that. And Eggy and I are at the point now, she came to Chatham to visit someone we met and for the whole weekend, his name never came up.

So the relationship is just between my donor mom and I right now, which is very satisfying to me. As far as my second donor goes, about five years after my surgery, I got a letter from the hospital and it was from my donor's mom. And she wrote in the letter her daughter's first name and she wrote that her daughter was 44 when she passed away of an aneurysm and that's all I was. And then she wrote, my daughter was the first girl in Canada to get a delighter pilot's license.

And I went holy mackerel, I know who that is. I taught her how to fly. Get out of here. I went to high school with my donor. She was one year behind me. Yep. You couldn't dream that up. Oh, you couldn't. The other thing I'd like to add is the person who got my second donor's liver, her and I met in the hospital getting our transplants and we're best buddies because we have the same donor. What a story and what a network.

Yeah. You know, I think it gets lost on people sometimes, this life of ours, the time that we have, the hours of the day, and the types of friends that you can make. It's really easy to just kind of stay in your bubble, stay around your types of people, people that look like you, sound like you, all that sort of thing. And it doesn't take a lot to form some very rich friendships. If you just take a look around. You know, you want to talk to me about the Challenger program.

And when we have new volunteers, I tell them by the end of the summer, you are going to understand whether or not you like to be around people that aren't just like you. And there are people that have a hard time with that. And it's different ways of forming relationships. You have to, you know, your methodologies for performing or developing relationships has to go around their disability or their special need. We have someone with Down syndrome.

We're going to treat him differently than someone who has autism because they're just very different people. And if our volunteers are not comfortable around those folks, they're just not cut out to be our volunteers. It's just that simple. I could see where volunteering in a program like this, you really need some special people who can pivot from personality to personality because just like you said, you know, it's a bucket that includes a lot of different types of people, different needs.

Some people have short attention spans, long attention spans, maybe some hearing disability, vision disability, mobility, and all sorts of things. And you really have to be, I guess, at your core, Dan, don't you just have to be empathetic to your human brothers and sisters? Sure. When we get new volunteers, usually the first year I assign them with one of our players. And I said, this is your job for the summer is with this player. And your job is to develop a relationship.

That's all I want from you is to learn how to develop a relationship with people that aren't just like you. And that means they have to learn what the other person is like. And they have to realize you have to accept people where they are and not where you want them to be. And we can try as we might. Some of our ballplayers are just never going to be tremendous athletes or tremendous intellects. And that's just how it goes. And you have to accept them for what they are.

And I love in some really good reporting by I hope I'm pronouncing his name correctly, Elwood Shreve. That's correct. Yeah. With the Chatham Kent This Week publication or online newspaper where and he may quoted you saying it's not about baseball. It's not entirely about baseball. It's really about relationships. So absolutely. One of the things we do with the adult program, every player wears the same color shirt.

And our volunteers ask me, can we wear the same color shirts as our players because they want to break down that barrier. And they didn't want the players to think that somehow the volunteers were superior to them. And our volunteers don't feel that way. And that's really, really important. The other advantage I coached House League Baseball. And you're going to get a kid for maybe one, maybe two years to develop a relationship with the Challenger program.

I have players that I've known for 30 years. And so you really get to develop those relationships and see them grow and facilitate their growth both on and off the field. Now, in the very beginning, 30 years or so ago, as I understand it, you got the program underway through word of mouth largely, right? Correct. Well, just a little bit of history. I think it was 91. I was watching a television program and they had a segment on something called Challenger Baseball, which I never heard of.

And it's a product of Little League International. I've been going since 89. So it was about two years into its provision. And I thought this is really interesting. And then they zeroed in on one kid who aged out. He's over 18. He couldn't play with the kids anymore. And they brought him back as a volunteer. And I said, oh, this might be really interesting. This might be something worth pursuing because it's more than baseball.

Now, getting the resources and tying in with the baseball organizations was easy. But I just can't show up out of the blue and expect people who don't know me to trust me. So it took a couple of years before we really got enough kids to play. But once the program got going and the parents read the word and the kids and then it kind of rolled from there. But we had to establish our own credentials, our own credibility first.

And with this adult program, most of our advertising is our players telling their friends. So that's how we get our players in this program. Dan, this has really got to be something special for the parents also with watching their young children. I have a cousin with Down syndrome who's six years younger than me. So he's in his late 30s. And it must be a really rewarding experience to connect with those parents. I mean, now you've got decades long relationships with those people as well.

During our first children's program, one of the fathers, he'd always sit by himself and look over and he's crying. And he just said to me, I never thought I'd see the day I see my son on a baseball field. This is something that these dads and moms that they never see their day, their kids could be in sports and athletics. And we provided that for them. The parents were just so grateful. And one of the things we push is we have three groups. We have our players, our volunteers and our families.

And each group has an equal say in what goes on. They own the program. And that's what we push with the adults is it's your program to the players. It's your program. Whether or not it runs is up to you. So it gives them more of an incentive to get along with each other and to do what it takes for everybody to have fun. That is wonderful. People, if you know, or may not be aware, in Canada, over 200,000 kids are living with a disability.

I think it's something like one in six in the United States, kids aged three to 17 have some sort of developmental disability. And this presents a challenge for a lot of families where sometimes people have to reduce their hours at work or leave jobs or kind of struggle financially. And then that brings on a set of challenges. And this has just got to be a wonderful outlet.

And I love the story, the picture you just painted of the father in the stands, just getting to see his kid in a baseball uniform on the field having a good time. Yep. And our parents are pretty, they're a tight knit group. No, they're a very diverse group in terms of culture and age and station in life. But when it comes to having a child with special needs, that's the bond that brings them together.

And this year, the last two years, for the first time, we had a young gal playing who was Muslim. And her parents are so grateful that they could bring her out there and she's going to be treated well and treated the same as us. And we made an attempt to understand their culture to make her experience a better experience. It's really about inclusion. And I love that everybody wears the same color. There's no division there. Correct.

I got to ask you a kind of silly question. Is it hard sometimes to say, all right, that's it for today, everyone, let's pack up and go home? Are there some players that are just having a blast or they don't want to go home yet? After an hour, they're all pretty tired. I want to say after an hour, they're all pretty tired and they are players have respect for us as volunteers.

And if we say game's over, then that's how it goes. But like I said, an hour's worth of playing in the hot sun, they tire out pretty quickly. And we can see that they're starting to droop. And if they're starting to droop after 45 minutes, then we just call the game. Now, there is an award named in your honor, the Spirit of Challenger, the Dan Kobeleka Award. Yeah. And please stop me if I didn't pronounce that correctly. That's OK. That's a good story.

This is awarded to players who exemplifies Challenger baseball through his or her involvement in the program, I guess all the qualities and the mission of the program. Well, after you read in the article, after seven years of learning the children's program, I stepped down because I had to go on the list to get my second heart transplant. And the board decided they would name an award in my honor and give an award out to the, I said, the Spirit of Challenger, the kid who exemplified the program.

Well, I really suspect they named that that particular award or trophy after me because they thought I wasn't going to survive the second transplant. It was really designed to be the Dan Kobeleka Memorial Award. And we followed them. I'm still here 23 years later. It's just incredible. And Dan, do I understand that you also had this is around the same time that the adult program was launched, a brain tumor removed? Yep. God's timing. What can I say? I got to tell you.

You know, I couldn't do anything that summer because of the brain surgery. And that's the summer we couldn't play because of COVID. So that worked out well, too. Maybe that was a and speaking of the pandemic, I know that that it was really difficult on so many different types of people. As hard as you've been working and as involved as you've been, I've heard some people say that at least for a few weeks or a couple of months, it was a welcome break, you know, to just slow down for a minute.

Maybe maybe it came at a good time for people to address some health concerns or that sort of thing. Well, the thing for me was for what, two years almost, I couldn't do anything. I'm like my different activities. And it was kind of hard getting going again, you know, after it was over, getting motivated and getting to get out of my apartment and get doing things again. And as I think you read in the article, the first game back after COVID, we did not know what to do.

We're only going to remember what to do and how to do it. And it was like no time had passed. They got out in the field. They did what they had to do. And one of my volunteers come up to me and said, Dan, they really get it. They don't really need us. And I said, yes, but we need them. And I've had more than one volunteer say, I have a crappy week, but I look forward to Thursday night, 730. It's the highlight of my week. It gives me joy. And that joy comes from our players.

That is just terrific. Dan, I understand one of the fields and this is the local legend, Fergie Jenkins. Correct. One of the ball fields named after him. Has Fergie ever made an appearance at the facilities? Oh yeah, he's in Chatham visiting. And they just put a statue up for him down by the City Hall. But he will come back for different events.

And we're getting a minor league ball team starting up next year, the inter-county league. And so he'll come back for publicity for them. And everybody in Chatham knows him. Well, I'm a huge Cubs fan. He played a little bit before my time, but I think he was a seven-time, 20-game winner, three-time All-Star. Of course, the Cubs didn't win a World Series for a long time, but he's right up there with Ernie Banks. Oh yeah.

Billy Williams. Dan, I want to switch gears real quick. When you were growing up, the Toronto Blue Jays were not yet a franchise. So were you a little kid getting into the Detroit Tigers? Absolutely. One of our little rites of passage for those who live in this area is listening to Ernie Harwell call the Tiger games on the radio. And the prototype, if you will, is that young fella with a transistor radio under his pillow listening to Ernie Harwell call the ball games.

So it was really quite romantic too because if you've ever been to Tiger Stadium, it's a beautiful little ball field. I was never able to go to the old ballpark, but what you just described, I wish that I had had that childhood experience where you listen to the games on the radio, where you got a good signal at night, maybe stay up a little bit past your bedtime, and just fall in love with the broadcast team.

Now, I was just going to mention some of those Tigers teams. This may have been when you were a little bit older, but the 68 World Series, I think they were down three games to one. Yep. And they storm back and actually get to Bob Gibson, I think, in game seven. What do you remember from that particular postseason or World Series? Do you remember it pretty well?

Oh, yeah, very well. I remember Bob Gibson striking out 18 in the first game. And the throw, I think Lou Brock was on third and somebody hit it out. Willie Horton in left field threw the ball home, and until the day he died, Lou Brock said he was safe. But the umpire called him out.

Here's the memory too, and we're going back to the Tigers. In 1967, there were riots in Detroit. And one of the riots happened on a Sunday afternoon, and Willie Horton, who was a legend in Detroit, because he was like the east end of Detroit to left field Tiger Stadium. And he went downtown to help stop the riots wearing his uniform. And he just said, I have to go out and do this. So they were a huge, huge part of the city.

You know, that was a difficult time. The late 60s with just a lot of civil unrest going on. Now a few years later, the Tigers, the 1972 ALCS, I think they came back after being down two games to none. Those were some really great teams. I didn't pick up on the Tigers until the early 90s. Is Travis Freiman still spoken of around there? Oh, absolutely. My younger brother's name is Travis.

And so here's a funny little Dan time connection or, you know, the premise of this show. So I always think that people, whatever their name is, they should maybe be a fan of ballplayers that have the same name or what have you. So when my brother Travis was a kid, I would say, Hey, do you like this guy, Travis Freiman? I mean, of course you do. Right. So I try to just will him to like these guys that were that shared the same name. Well, we had Danny Petrie pitch for Detroit. That's right. Yeah.

You know, it's funny when the other day when you said you searched the Internet for people with your first name. My middle name is Metro. What's the story on Metro? I don't think I've ever heard that. My ancestors came from the Ukraine and in the Ukraine, every second little boy is Metro. And my father was Metro. So I kind of got named after him. So and they came over. My grandparents came over in 1917, settled in Saskatchewan, you know, the side huts, the whole thing.

And what I found out is the history for you. When the immigrants from Ukraine come over in the early 1900s, their passports didn't say Ukraine. They said Austria-Hungary. And during the First World War, Austria-Hungary was the enemy. And a lot of Ukrainians, like sadly the Japanese in the Second World War were uprooted and they were moved into B.C. to work in logging camps. So some of my distant relatives were actually in internment camps in B.C., British Columbia. How about that? Yeah.

Now, Dan, you attended the University of Western Ontario. Correct. Yep. Did you enjoy your college days? What are some memories from those times? Well, I have two degrees. I got my degree from University of Windsor, Bachelor of Honors, Bachelor of Human Kinetics. I graduated in 78. In 81, my heart went on me and my cardiologist said you can't go to work for at least a couple of years.

So I had two options. I could live in the back of Mrs. Cabell's house back room for two years. I could go back to university. So I went back to university and got a second degree at Western. Yep. That's where you got a degree in psychology? Correct. Yep. Yep. Now, at this time, that psychology was my minor and I just kind of fell into it. I was really interested in history.

Were there other areas of study that you thought, oh, I might want to be a anthropologist or I might want to do this, but you just I would love to have been a history teacher. Actually, my degree from the University of Windsor, which I really didn't get to use because my heart went so quickly after was in what we call adaptive. And that is taking phys ed or recreational programs and adapting them to special needs, people with special needs.

And then the program teaches more than sports. It teaches them academics as well and relationship traits. That was what I went to school for. But my heart went on me in 81. That kind of threw that out the window. So you're a young man when you're developing heart problems. Yep. And you've got some some decisions to make and pretty quickly. I mean, was this a scary time in your life or did you just think, OK, well, I got it.

Let's put a plan together. And even around that time, there's a lot of people that maybe wouldn't have survived. I can tell you that Christmas Eve of 81, I was taken up to the from a chat on which is about 50 miles, 60 miles away from London to the heart unit up there. And the doctor said you're in what we call grave condition, which means you're not expected to make it. And then they told my parents that they'd have to do a transplant.

And at that time, I would have been the third transplant in history at University Hospital up in London. And when the transplant doctor come over to talk to me, he said, you're getting a little better each day. So let's put off this transplant talk. And about nine months later, my heart was back down to normal.

It just God's will. I don't know what else to say. And then about seven years after that, when Laura and I were married and I said to her, I said, you marry me, you have to understand something. I have heart problems and eventually I may have to have a transplant. We didn't count on me going into heart failure two weeks after we got married. So that was a stressor. But by then, I think mentally I was ready to go. You know, I had seven years to think about it and plan it.

And yeah, you know, I knew what was on the line and I just had to, you know, accept it. And as we say, I didn't have time for emotions. I had to put my nose to the grindstone and do it had to be done to make this work. Well, from all that I've read and like I said, I just came across your story here recently and I thought here is this is exactly who I would like to have on the show and promote his cause and just your way of living.

I really think, Dan, that you've clearly lived a purposeful life and thought about not so much what's in it for me, but how can I make a difference in other people's lives? Have you ever seen the Shawshank Redemption? Yes, it's been a long time. But anyway, there's a line in the movie where he gets angry and he says, it's really very simple. You have a choice. You get busy living or you get busy dying.

And I said, I'm going to get busy living. I'm not going to. I went through so much. I'm not going to get cheated, if you will, in my time, because I went through all this and you know, two people, I got their hearts. And I just decided I was going to I call it. I had a life worth living. And that's kind of my goal to have a life worth living. And I honor my donor families with my behavior and how I act.

What sort of advice would you share with somebody who is kind of like we were saying at the top of the call, maybe not doing a whole lot wrong. You know, they're working hard every day. They're providing for their family, but they're maybe stopping short of making even a small impact. You know, when you when you're out in public and you see a small kid, maybe even a baby in the shopping cart ahead of you and they're looking at you.

And sometimes it's fun to make a funny face or just goof around with them. And that's one small thing that you can do. I'd love to see more people just take advantage of those little fleeting moments with strangers and just it's a small moments account. We play indoors, the Challenger program, and we use this big rubber ball indoors in this one girl's her first time up to bat and she had a line drive through the middle and middle and she hit square off my nose.

You know what that made her summer. Nothing else that she did that summer is going to add up or make trough the fact that she hits a coach in the nose with the ball. So when we had our banquet, we had a special award just for her called Please Don't Kill the Coach. And you know what, Dan, that's not a big deal, but it's a lot to her. And that's the point. Sometimes the little things we do in life that we don't have to do is what people are going to remember.

And I worked in a mental health field for a while. And oftentimes my clients would say you did this for me, but that's your job. But when I did the little stuff I didn't have to do, that's what they remembered. And that's what had the effect. And one of the things that was in the paper, I do church services in nursing homes, nursing home ministry, and I find it very rewarding. But I did a sermon one day on how we should, our priorities should be assessed by the word JOY.

And it's Jesus, others, yourself. And I said to myself, if you're going to live putting others ahead, or going to preach living others ahead of yourself, you have to live it. And that was a real key moment for me when I said if I'm going to preach it, I have to live it. And since then it's been a matter of extending to other people grace and putting other people first. That is just wonderful. And I think people you look around that are the most fulfilled are living that type of life.

We certainly run into our share of curmudgeons and people that all the money in the world could never please them. It's the friendships that count, it's the relationships that count. That is so true. If you read in that article by Elwood, we encourage our players to volunteer. And when we play indoors in the wintertime, the cost of playing is an unperishable or canned goods.

And we try to get our players to volunteer at the Salvation Army Kettle or one of our players volunteers at the local animal shelter. And they say that gives them a more full life. And for some of them, they never saw themselves in that role. How rewarding is it for you to see someone branch out like that? Yeah, it's incredible. And what wasn't in the paper, because my heart disease was genetic, I made a conscious decision not to have children.

And they're like my kids. And I had a 48 year old woman, one of our players say, you treat us well. And I said, well, you're like my children. And she said, you make a great dad. And I went, you just got me. They just got me when she said, you make a great dad. And at our banquet, a little retirement speech. And I thank the parents because I get to be a dad for an hour a week. I get to be a dad. How fulfilling is that?

Dan, that is incredible. You recognize that there's a chance I may not be around a long time. I don't want to have a couple of kids and then I'm gone and I've got a two year old and a five year old or whatever. And you actually stopped and thought about that. What I thought about it wasn't that two of my brothers have the disease and one of my nephews. And there's a very, very good chance if I had a son or a daughter, they were going to have the same heart disease.

And that's why I purposely said I'm not going to have children. And the thing about transplant and maybe even the Challenger program, you realize you're not the only person in the world. You're part of a big picture. And it's really easy to focus in on me when it comes to the transplant. Dan, I watch people die waiting and that really sobered me up. And I realized I'm just one person. There's more two in the world than just me.

And I'll do my organ donor pitch here. I got a happy ending and everybody does. And if you're considering organ donation, think about it very, very seriously and talk to your family. That's absolutely true. I've been an organ donor as long as I've been licensed to drive. And I would recommend exactly what Dan just said. It can change somebody's life. Well, I had lunch with my surgeon a couple of years ago. I said to him, you have a thousand patients. Why do you remember me?

And he said, when I told you you were going on the transplant list, I asked you how tall you were. And he said, you jumped out of bed and drew yourself up to your full five, three and said, I'm a strapping five foot three. And he said of all the patients, that's what he remembered. But I foolishly, I asked him how bad was my heart when you took it out? And he said you had about a week like it was really close.

Oh, wow. And the thing about heart recipients, too, is we probably get better faster than anybody else. And that's because the heart just pumps. So once you got the heart in, you got blood pressure and then all the symptoms are gone. And then you're stuck taking the pills for the rest of your life. But that's just part of the deal. And one of our models is when you get a transplant, you're not being cured.

You're making a trade. I trade a fatal disease for a chronic condition because of the medications. But they educate you. You know what you're getting into. What a great outlook, Dan. And thank you. You know, I like to think that we're life is really a series of moments. Some people think, oh, I probably got another 20 years left or I've they kind of think in terms of years and decades.

And I just think that life is this daily life. It's the moments, the hours you get up, you go to bed and you awake. I try to wake up now with a different perspective than before, where I felt like I took life a little less. Well, I don't take it seriously. But I guess what I'm trying to say is I took it for granted. We should all use our unique tools to go out there and make a difference. And for the people that maybe have that mental block and they feel overwhelmed and they think,

well, I just I don't have the time to volunteer for for 12 hours or eight. Don't think of it like that. Start small. Start just trying to make a difference as you're walking through your local town. Yeah, I live. It's called geared to income, which because of my health, 30 percent of my income is my rent utilities. So I live in a building where there are people with disabilities. And there's one girl, Karen, and she had a hard time walking in with her gate and she's really stiff.

But then she hauled her laundry up and down those stairs and her groceries up and down those stairs. And one day I said, if Karen could make it work, I can make it work. And that's kind of one of my little things I tell people, make it work. You can't control that your cards are dealt. All you can do is make it work. Make it work. Yeah. Wonderful advice. Well, Dan, this has been such a treat to talk to you. Thank you. And be with you, too.

I got a couple of questions. Sometimes I ramble on and on with these silly questions. But, you know, what's your favorite type of movie? Are you an action movie guy? Are you a drama comedy? I'm a biographical history buff. Oh, you and I need to spend some time together. We could talk about the history or history of things that you probably never heard of that are so interesting. Yeah. Favorite type of music. Are you do you have a genre that you like?

I'll give you a hint. I haven't liked any music since 1980. I'm an old time rock and roller. First concert I ever saw in 1977 was Queen at Cobalt Hall. And it was really special. That's a show. That's a show. But I was born in 55. So I grew up in the rock and roll era. Oh, you saw all Led Zeppelin coming on to the scene and. Oh, my one of my first concerts was Frank Zappa. That was really interesting because Frank's an interesting guy. That was quite a time for music. Yes, it was.

Do you have a favorite all time ballplayer? This could be or maybe an old Detroit Tiger or a current Toronto Blue J. Or do you have players that you like that are kind of in your top one, two or three? Yeah, Willie Mays. Willie Mays could do everything. And if I was going to start a baseball team, Willie Mays would be my first pick because he could do everything. The say hey kid. They say hey kid. And being a history buff, I've watched a lot of documentaries about the old Negro leagues.

That's an interest of mine and I would have loved to have seen Satchel Paige pitch and Josh Gibson hit. You know, that would have been great. There were a lot of players from that that era that wow, if the color barrier had been broken just a decade earlier, you would have seen pitchers with different ERAs that had sparkling ERAs because they didn't have to face some of these guys.

Well, here's the thing, too. I've seen some of these older ballplayers and they get interviewed and they say, were you bitter because it was Jackie Robinson was the first and you didn't get to play. And they said we're not bitter at all. We got to play baseball. Again, we loved. We didn't play at the major league level, but we don't care. And that lack of bitterness was really inspiring for me.

I meant to mention this at the top, but I learned that Chatham was a destination point for the Underground Railroad. That's correct. Just saw that Chatham is a little town called Buxton. And there are quite a few slaves, slave slaves. And the thing is, they have some very, very good schools out in Buxton. And a lot of the white families in this area and middle class would send their kids up to Buxton to school to get a better education.

So we have a really rich history of the Underground Railroad. In fact, Uncle Tom's Cabin is only about 20 miles from where I'm sitting right now in Dresden. So it's part of our culture and it's a pretty big part. Well, I would certainly like to take my family up there for a visit. My wife is from upstate New York near the Canadian border, actually probably about three and a half hours east along the 401. I have friends who visit me from Atlanta and they just love it up here.

It's more relaxed living, if you will, and they really like the idea of socialized medicine. I did an interview with a lady out of New York and she said, what's the difference between Canada and America in terms of health care? And I said, I've had two heart transplants and a brain tumor removal and I've never seen a bill. And that's one where I never had was financial. It was a big help. Well, Dan, I have thoroughly enjoyed our conversation today.

I wish I wish we didn't have to pump the brakes. Would love to talk to you again sometime. Sure. Just let me know. Is there anything else you'd like to promote with the Challenger program? The Challenger baseball program is good for everybody. The families, the players, the volunteers, and the analogy I make and the closest thing I can make to it is you may not know this, but they actually have athletics for people with organ transplants like sporting events.

And I participated in the Canadian games in 1991, 92. But what I noticed was everybody there, not just the recipients, really enjoyed it. Like the donor families really got something out of it, too. And we do a program and some people are left out. It's not worth doing. You know what I mean? We don't leave people behind. And the Challenger program, one of our mottos is this program is designed for the weakest player out there.

He can play or she can play. And if we have a player who's really good and it's not competitive enough, we just say go find a competitive league. You know, but we're there for everybody. Dan, one last question on that end. How rewarding is it when a player joins the program and you don't see much emotion at the beginning, but as the season goes along and you see those eyes sparkle or you see some little sign that they are really having a good time? How cool is that?

It's so cool. And we had a couple of players and they live in a group home. And like for two weeks, you couldn't get them out of the dugout. First of all, if you're not used to being around other people, a dugout is not a good place for you. But once they got out, we couldn't slow them down. We couldn't stop them. And their group home manager said when they come home on Thursday night, the first thing they do is put on their shirts. They're ready to go. They can't wait.

Oh, absolutely. And when we see them grow in so many ways, and that's important to us. Our volunteers buy into that too. This isn't just about baseball. And as our players enjoy it more, our volunteers enjoy it more, our parents enjoy it more. And that's the goal. Well, Dan, Dan, Kebekah, I say it right that time? Close. I've heard worse. Let's put it that way. OK, well, what a pleasure. It's been to have you on the show.

Guys, remember, you have an opportunity, however small, to make a difference. Take somebody under your wing. Make somebody smile. Smile at a little kid that's looking at you and waiting for you to show them a goofy face or something. Take advantage of that moment and have a little fun with your life. You're only here for a little bit. Have some fun. Well, how much does a smile cost? You know, nothing. And all the work I put into the baseball, it's been worth it to me personally to see this grow.

And now after this year, to be able to hand it off, one of our players is actually taking over the program, which is one of my goals, was to have the players take over the program. And so that'll be kind of the fulfillment of it for me next year when I see Chris out there running the program, because that was the goal. What a great story, Dan. And I'm so happy to promote you and your cause and your life's work. People look all over the place for riches and for things to fulfill them.

And I think you've just done it the right way. Well, thank you. And I just I thank you for coming on the show. Your cup. What did they say? My cup overfloweth. I'm not saying it correctly, but yeah, my cup runneth over. That's what I did. Well, I did a mass, a sermon on good works once. I said your cup is full of good works like wine. As you pour it out, God will pour more back in to refill it. But if you don't pour it out, that wine turns to vinegar.

You know, it gets sour. So you have to pour it out and use it. And that's my analogy. Well, folks, that's it for Dan time this week. What a conversation. What a guest. And Dan, I hope I can call you a friend. Thank you. I call you a friend, too. We'll see you guys next week. Hey, if you like that episode, please take a minute to leave a five star rating for the Dan time podcast. I'd really appreciate if you download and subscribe.

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