Today’s prompt is to share a video from YouTube and to write a few sentences about why I’m sharing that particular video.

A few sentences? Maybe a few more than a few? I am a bit loquacious. Isn’t that a cool word? It means garrolous, prolix, and verbose. Why use five words when I can use forty-five? At least. Maybe more. It’s all about the storytelling. Or maybe about being a human thesaurus. Or both. Who knows?

How about a few paragraphs? That seems more realistic for the Alice style than a few sentences. Or a few sentences and then a few more and then a few more after that?

Well, anyway, yesterday, I was working on articles for our weekly newspaper, the Tribune/Sentinel. I used to write and take photographs for the Island Dispatch, but that was folded into the Tribune/Sentinel. My two articles (with photographs) were about Grand Island’s Independence Day parade and a previous event called Kid Biz. That event is run by the Chamber of Commerce and it’s all about kids creating and running their own microbusinesses. The Kid Biz event occurs annually in the Town Commons, which is a park next to Town Hall. I also wrote an article about the Independence Day parade and the running race held prior to the race. In addition to those two articles, I had made a few revisions in my article about the Relay for Life honorary survivor. Every year, the Relay for Life team chooses a cancer survivor to honor. This year, it was a young man named Joe.

Joe is 18 years old and he is battling leukemia. He does so with grace and patience. His mom described him as the “perfect patient.” I interviewed both Joe and his mom, Sara. Quite honestly, Joe doesn’t have a mean bone in his body. He loves all things culinary, as well as superheroes. Joe has a YouTube channel, where he shares things that interest him and he demonstrates food preparation.

It seems that nothing takes away from Joe’s joy. Not cancer. Not Down Syndrome. Not hospital stays or treatments. In fact, Joe said that he likes the hospital. They gave him kindness and attention. For his birthday, they gave him a Baby Yoda. Joe is in the last phase of his cancer treatments. He is so happy to thank the nurses who took such good care of him. And he’s even happier to create more YouTube videos with his father or his mother.

Here is Joe with a superhero. He loves all superheroes. His favorite superhero, however, is Spiderman because Spiderman can climb up the side of buildings. Also, Spiderman fights bad guys. What could be better than that?

This video that I’m sharing is all about Joe doing a pizza challenge. It’s an eating challenge. Joe is in his dad’s business, called “Say Cheese Pizza Co. & Comic Book Cafe.” Yep, superheroes are a family tradition. If you’d like to see more videos featuring Joe, just put “Joe’s Corner” in your browser, and you will find a whole collection of fun videos featuring food and other assorted topics.