Late good moments in 2004

[Guest guest]

,

I was going to post this at the end of 2004 but thought it inappropriate in the

middle of the Tsunami disaster.

This is just a short personal story that happened because of prostate cancer.

Back in 2000-01 when I was floundering around looking for help, a man named

Curtis Minor from Los Angeles picked me up from the p2p internet list (patient

to

physician) and helped me a great deal. Curtis also has prostate cancer. He did

have an ulterior motive in that he was looking for his ancestors here in

Somerset, South West England. To cut a long story short we picked Curtis and

his wife up from Heathrow and hosted them for a week not knowing an awful lot

about them ! We had a great time. We found that in 1642 a Minor left

these shores and he was related to Curtis.

Furthermore, and my most vivid recollection, Curtis walked up a castle drive in

Herefordshire, banged on the big oak door and was met by Sir of the

household who Curtis claimed was his relation. He walked back down the drive

with two bottles of wine from the castle vineyard and a book on the family! It

turns out he had very tenuous claims to this family but I think he may have

dined out in LA on the assumption!

In October 2004, my wife and I were visiting her sister in South Carolina and

then, by invitation, flew on to LA for 5 days to be warmly hosted by Curtis and

his wife and see many of the Californian sites. A really good moment in 2004 and

all because of sites like this one. Amazingly the extra 5000 miles of flights

only cost £8 extra which was also a good moment for my pocket !

So, when one door is shut by this disease another opens and we made some new

friends too!

All the best for 2005 but still very much thinking of those affected by the

great

wave.