BEST OF: Wishing Well 7.8.2012

   Just because Sybil and I are out frolicking in the South Pacific, couldn't leave you guys hanging. So while I'm gone let's do what the syndicated radio shows do. Yeah, a little "best of ..."
   I'll post some of my favorite stories from the past and before you know it I'll be back live and in living color with tales from abroad.
   Thanks again for your patronage, your patience and your understanding of my honeymoon sabbatical.

WISHING WELL

By Richie Whitt

CBSDFW

July 8, 2012

   It started with a night of smooth sailing.

   And intersected – some 20 years later – after some slight swelling.

   “C’mon,” Troy Aikman said persuasively, “it’ll be fun.” The year was 1992 and Aikman was the star quarterback of the Dallas Cowboys. Charged with documenting his every move, sneeze and blink, I served as the tag-along, the gullible-yet-giddy reporter for the Fort Worth Star-Telegram. Next thing I knew we were on a huge boat, enjoying a sunset cruise on Lake Ray Hubbard.

   Aikman was a VIP, a powerful personality who lent his influential name and considerable finances to the North Texas chapter of the Make-A-Wish Foundation. We dined. We drank. We sailed. We met numerous children with wide-eyed grins that camouflaged their dead-end prospects.

   “I think it’s important for those of us who are blessed to take the time to give back,” I remember Aikman telling those aboard the boat.

   I was hooked. I was also, as a 28-year-old sportswriter, flat-ass broke. Nonetheless, I wrote a $100 check and made myself a promise that night: If I ever have a sliver of fame and/or fortune, I too will make a dream come true for a child burdened by a life-threatening illness.

   While I soon forgot that mission while busily navigating life’s materialistic journey toward bigger houses, flashier cars and designer sunglasses, 15 years later a boy in Carrollton would have his life shaped into both a mysterious illness for him and a jolting wake-up call for me.

   “He was a normal, healthy, happy kid,” says Nancy of her son, Jackson. “One day I noticed some swelling – just a little puffiness – around his eyes. That was it. We had no idea our lives were about to change forever.’’ ...

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