I sure each of us have judged something or someone by their looks or maybe with today’s technology we made a quick judgement based on a very short glimpse of a video. In some cases the first impression is not the correct one, sometimes the info given to you is by design to sway you to a decision that someone else wants you to believe. In this day and age if you see a 30 second short clip of an event that leads you to form an opinion, don’t be surprised if there was another 30 seconds before or after to turn your opinion around 180 degrees.

Last year during the World Series games there was something amiss during the games, there was a man dressed in orange looking like he was going deer hunting instead of attending the World Series. We now know this man as “The Marlins Man” and our first reaction for most of us was who was this man and how did we get those seats right behind home plate? Then the news got ahold of the story and told us that the Royals had offered him a Royals jersey and or other seats which he turned down. How dare he do this, the game is not about him we thought. Then we hear that he’s just a rich attorney from Florida who is buying his way into the spot light, not exactly scoring points with the people in the Midwest.

Let’s jump forward to this year, once again starting during the ALCS here’s “The Marlins Man” in our front row again and now he’s got the nerve to spend time tweeting on his phone during the games! He’s quoted as saying that he blocked 500 people from his twitter account for saying “vicious, mean things”. Then he did the last thing we were expecting, tragic had struck Kansas City and two of our brave firefighters were taken from we when a wall fell on them as they were doing their jobs. “The Marlins Man” or Laurence Leavy as we now know his name, wore a KC hat and shirt to help raise money for their families, but wait he also donated $10,000 of his own money to them.

Laurence has always use his money to go to sporting events and proudly wear his Marlins jersey as he’s a big fan of theirs, cannot blame him for that as I try to wear my Northwest Missouri colors as often as I can and would do the same. I now know that Laurence had a health scare last march he was diagnosed with liver cancer and given six to eight months to live, on a second checkup it turned out to be kidney stones and a mass of scar tissue. As was my diagnosis of Parkinson’s six years ago this was a wakeup call for Laurence to enjoy life and pay it forward as much as he could. He has donated thousands of dollars more to the V Foundation, while winning five auctions to have unique experiences, one that includes being in the pace car at Sunday’s New York Marathon. He has brought over 700 people to sit in the best seats along with him since the first of the year.

It’s stories like Laurence’s that help inspire me to keep on living life as full as I can and to keep doing all that I can to bring awareness to Parkinson’s and raise as much as I can to help other with this dreadful disease. I hope to see “The Marlins Man” in the front row again next fall, and if my beloved Bearcats make it to Kansas City for the D2 Football Championships this December he has a invitation to come sit with me and my Bearcat friends in his Marlins jersey.

As you can see, you cannot tell a book by its cover, or get the whole story from a 15 to 30 second video clip. You need as Paul Harvey says “the rest of the story”.

Thanks Stew