I just had a great evening. I attended a performance of a one-act comedy I wrote as a benefit for the Crescent Community Clinic in my hometown county Hernando, Florida. This is not free emergency clinic for homeless/totally broke people. It is a free clinic that provides ongoing health care for the indigent. It keeps them from having to make a run for an emergency room where likely their condition will be beyond help. The clinic has dentists, mental health counseling and many other services the rest of us take for granted.
At the suggestion of the people in charge of the benefit, I wrote a parody of the Real Housewives series on cable television called the Realish Housewives of Hernando County. Their TV show was the Wacky Wives of Weeki Wachee. (Weeki Wachee Springs was opened as a private tourist attraction in the late 1940s featuring an underwater show with mermaids. It became a state park a few years ago.) We had five ladies who really put themselves into the roles. One of the treats of being a playwright is to sit in the audience and hear all the laughter.
The best part, however, were the donations that came from the two performances. They really went a long way in paying part of the yearly budget of the clinic. The doctors, nurses and staff all offer their services free.
I already knew about the clinic when I received their call. My wife Janet as a probation officer often recommended its services to her probationers. Even though cancer took her away from me a year ago, I find new ways to honor her memory as an advocate to the downtrodden.
Everything I do is for Janet.