On Mistakes

universal truth, but sports are the perfect, er, a really great metaphor. What’s worse than a front-running sports fan? In sports, I actively root against perfection. I consider myself a “back-running” sports fan. Give me the worst of the worst, the down and out, the no way in hell team and I will give you a Miracle on Ice and an Any Given Sunday! Lebron James is incredible at basketball. Yeah, no kidding! Who cares? Boring! Old news! This goes for the so-called “dynasties” too. Unless it is your team, having the same two or three teams in the mix for a championship each year, regardless of the sport, is torture. Give me the team of misfits who string it all together, survive and advance. Give me the ’83 Wolfpack, give me Jeremey Lin, give me Rudy Ruettiger.

Am I just making excuses for this mistake and future mistakes? It’s possible. Would I be saying any of this if we were still batting 1.000? Most likely not. It’s always good to preemptively cover your behind. I don’t think that is it though. The way I see it, perfection is not necessarily an achievable goal. Rather, the goal is to strive for perfection. Shoot for the top and even if you come up a bit short, you can still be proud of what you have accomplished. Difficulties will be encountered, hardships will be endured, but that is all part of the process. In my opinion, it keeps things interesting.

So, yeah, I’m not mad about our little mistake. In fact, I say let’s make a game of it. If we mess up, call us on it. Drop us a line. Let us know. (Who am I kidding, I don’t have to tell you that. This is Rockaway.) Good luck! At least we’ll know you’re reading!

A month ago, I told you I would have a name for this meandering excuse for a column. Well, mostly due to my favorite pastime, procrastination, I have failed to deliver on my promise. Listen, I’m not perfect! (See above.)

We received a lot of feedback from people with column name ideas and I really appreciate that. One name, however, stands above the rest. Thank you to Ellen Carey for the new name: “McVeighing In.” It is obviously not being used this week but hopefully we will have a nice new header by next week.

Local Teens Ready To Fight With Their Smiles For Lls

Continued from Page 3 motivational videos as they cross milestones. From shots of him doing pullups to shooting hoops, going on his third year in his battle with leukemia, with daily medication, monthly chemo treatments and an occasional spinal tap for maintenance through September, Rocco’s videos are serving as the motivation that the fundraisers need to make it to their next goal. “It’s good motivating them to raise more money,” Rocco Pisani said. “It’s fun. I like to motivate people to do better.”

As the Honored Hero, Pisani can’t join any fundraising team this year, but Jamie Pisani and Maura O’Sullivan, both now on the LLS Leadership Board, knew just the girl for the job of leading another team to victory. They nominated family friend and Scholars’ Academy junior Angelina LoBianco to take the reins and lead the local fundraising team this year. As an honor student and well-rounded student athlete, they knew LoBianco had the brains, that competitive spirit and an outgoing personality to lead the way.

“We knew that Angelina has the characteristics of someone who would be perfect for this title. She’s such a good person and she’s confident and smart and we knew she could run a team. She’s a leader and we know she’d be perfect to lead the team and do everything necessary to win this competition,” Jamie Pisani said. The LoBianco family has also been there for the Pisanis ever since Rocco was diagnosed in 2020. “Rocco is best friends with her brothers. They helped us tremendously when we were busy with Rocco’s treatments,” Jamie Pisani said. “Her brothers Johnpaul and Justin were the first visitors I had when I got home from the hospital,” Rocco Pisani said.

So when LoBianco decided to accept the nomination for Student Visionary of the Year, she knew just how important LLS is to families like the Pisanis. “It’s such a good cause,” she said. “And my family and I are so competitive, so I know we’re going to do this and win.”

That positive outlook is the whole basis of LoBianco’s team Fight with your Smile. “Our team is working to spread awareness and raise money to hopefully find a cure and end cancer, but we want to raise money while spreading positivity,” LoBianco said. Her team consists of Aliana Accardo, Alexa Nolan, Edona Xhani, Danielle Steiner, Jaliene Caban, Niley Jones, Michala Mitchell, Stephanie Shannon, Logan Pjura, and Kait Pearsall with plenty of support from others. LoBianco and her mom came up with the perfect logo for their campaign, featuring a smiley face with a cancer awareness ribbon as the mouth, to use on flyers and t-shirts that will be up for sale to help raise funds.

Since the campaign launched on January 19, LoBianco has already hit the ground running, working with family and friends on her team to come up with creative ways to fundraise, and sharing their fundraising page. LoBianco has set out with a fundraising goal of somewhere between $100K and $150K by the deadline of March 7. Within the first week alone, her team has already raised $11K. “One of my friends raised five grand by sending the donation link to family members. It’s exciting,” LoBianco said. “The first donation we got, it was so emotional.”

Off to a good start, team Fight with your Smile will be hosting several local events for people to participate in and help them raise funds. The first is this Saturday, February 4 from 2 p.m. to 7 p.m. at RBQ (97-20 Rockaway Beach Blvd.), where Jerry O’Sullivan and Rich Pontieri will be slinging drinks behind the bar while Bloodline Duo plays some tunes. Enjoy this day of laughs with music, raffles and 50/50s to help raise funds for the cause.

Another big fundraising event will take place on Friday, February 17 at the Belle Harbor Yacht Club (533 Beach 126th Street). Enjoy a night of live music by The Rockawades and the Brooklyn Bards, 50/50s and some great raffle prizes. Entry is $20 and doors open at 6 p.m.

For those attending the Elk Family ski trip from February 20 through 23, there will be a raffle during the trip and shirts and sweatshirts will be available for sale that participants can wear while going down the mountain to raise awareness.

On Saturday, March 4, all are welcome to start their St. Patrick’s Day Parade Day with a 5K run or one-mile walk with the Rockaway Track Club to help raise funds. Check in is at 8 a.m. at Healy’s Pub and there will be plenty of time to participate before the parade begins. Special Fight with Your Smile shamrock shirts, donated by St. James Clothing, will be up for sale for this event. To pre-register, head to RockawayTC.org

Another big $10,000 grand prize raffle will also be held. The drawing is expected to be held at Jameson’s on February 26, but tickets are now for sale through the team members.

Aside from the events, LoBianco and her teammates are coordinating various fundraisers at their individual schools including Scholars’ Academy, The Mary Louis Academy, St. Edmunds, Mark Twain and schools in Long Island. People are also welcome to donate directly on the Fight with your Smile fundraising page, that can be found by scanning the QR code (QR code below) or at https://events.lls.org/nyc/ svoynyc23/tfightwith F or r affle tickets or t-shirts, contact the LoBianco family at 516-316-0399 or AngelinaLob603@gmail.com

LoBianco and team Fight with your Smile has until March 7 to raise the most money possible for LoBianco to be named Student Visionary of the Year. If she wins, she’ll receive a scholarship for college. “We really hope the community comes together for this. Of course, we want Angelina to win, but we want to help as many people as we can and LLS is a great outlet for that,” Jamie Pisani said.

All of the money raised by LoBianco’s team will go toward research, in hopes of one day finding a cure for blood cancers, or at the very least, creating better treatments, something Honored Hero Rocco Pisani knows is much needed. He’ll be cheering all of the fundraising teams on in their efforts. “I’m glad I got the role as Honored Hero,” Rocco Pisani said. “This is a really good cause and I’m excited to help people raise money for kids to go through something better than I did.”

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"There is no way that this winter is ever going to end as long as this groundhog keeps seeing his shadow. I don't see any other way out. He's got to be stopped. And I have to stop him." Today is Groundhog Day and while we hope that Punxsutawney Phil groundhog doesn't see his shadow, it will still not save us from some real cold weather this weekend. We even saw NYC’s record-breaking snowless streak ended after 328 days on Wednesday.

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Two more whales washed up in New Jersey and Lido Beach this past week, making a total of 10 in local waters since December. As a result, multiple politicians and pundits in New Jersey have begun requesting to have offshore wind development halted until further investigations of these deaths can be done. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) has said that about half of those whales’ cause of death have been due to being struck by a vessel. It is still unclear what the cause of death is for the two most recent beached whales. Since 2016, NOAA reports that 178 humpback whales have stranded across 13 Atlantic states. The agency has labeled these deaths as an “unusual mortality event” and are still being investigated.

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Whoops! Last week’s Math Rocks was a doozy! I hope you did not get the right answer though… We made a bit of a mistake and added in the wrong answer. Check out the correct answer on page 33. And if you missed it last week, the question is on page 28.

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The NYC Plover Project is hiring two volunteer coordinators beginning in March for the 2023 sea- son. They are especially interested in applicants from the Rockaway peninsula. While it is an open application process, they are encouraging applicants to apply before February 15. For a job description and how to apply, please visit: https://nycploverproject. org/jobs

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Congratulations to Villanova’s Maddy Siegrist, a Poughkeepsie native and granddaughter of Mary Ellen and Jim Barnes of Breezy Point. Maddy, who spends her summers in Breezy, is now Villanova basketball’s highest scorer for both the men and women’s programs. With eight games remaining, who knows what other records will be broken!

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State Comptroller Tom DiNapoli released data showing that 93% of NYC subway stations are seeing less ridership than their pre-pandemic numbers. Ranking at number two of all the subway stations is the Broad Channel A and S line station with a ridership of only 20.6% of what it was pre-pandemic.

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Everyone makes mistakes, we’ve discussed that a lot this week, but some are bigger than others. NYC’s new $11 billion train terminal extension for the LIRR at Grand Central Station includes a quote from one of America’s most famous painters, Georgia O’Keeffe. Unfortunately, the name that was placed under the quote, “One can’t paint New York as it is, but rather as it is felt,” was misspelled and includes one less ‘f.’ The MTA says that it will be easy to fix but declined to say how much it would cost. MTA spokesman Tim Minton, summed up the situation beautifully saying, “we clearly F-ed this one up and it’s being fixed.”

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A winning TAKE 5 ticket for the January 30 drawing, worth nearly $37K was purchased at the corner bodega on Beach 116th. Congrats to the lucky winner!