The Vermont Muench Family Blog

Weston's little league team had a terrific season! click here to read the article. Weston caught a ball in the eye off a bad hop and has a very cool shiner. My eye has improved to the point where I only have to patch at night! Yea! Taylor's all-star team won a game in the tournament and Taylor played very well (Click here to see his hit). Both boys are with Barb at Brown Ledge Camp and I am tending my garden. See Weston's hit below with the game on the line.

My eye is having some problems and we are all hoping that these issues are temporary. I am looking like a pirate. In the photo, Joe Nicholson is modeling the new "Bill Muench Basketball Camp" Bib. If Joe enjoys his bib, we may do a national campaign. Barbara is doing well as Head of Riding at Brown Ledge Camp. We miss her around the house but she is doing well up north. Weston's All-Star Little League team has not lost yet and Taylor's team is fighting to stay alive in the LL tournament. Weston took these two pictures of Taylor pitching and hitting a single.

July 4th was a lot of fun in Ticonderoga with Uncle Bill, mom and dad and Paul and Susan's family. Weston did well in the one-mile fun run (6:06) and then we watched the parade and went to parties. We even ran into the Rathbun family! Thanks Uncle Bill!

Bill Muench Update, July 4, 2007

The following is an unedited update written by Janeen Bjork after she and her sister Sharon visited for three days. She is wearing the white shirt in the photograph and her younger sister Sharon is wearing the golf hat.

Who is Janeen Bjork and why should her opinion matter to me?

She watched TV and slept in Bill's parents' bed before he was born (her parents were playing bridge with his parents in the kitchen)
She babysat for Bill (she's five years older than he is and she has stories)
Bill's father was her high school guidance counselor
Bill was on a championship basketball team with her late brother Bob
Bill's uncle refused to officiate at her wedding (good call!)
Bill's brother Paul was hired to guard the house while Janeen got married
Janeen helped Bill's sister-in-law get an interview at Nickelodeon
Bill's mother was the first one to call Janeen C.J. (as in Claudia Jean Cregg on "The West Wing")

First things first, how did Bill seem to someone who has never been a doctor nor played one on TV?

Bill had just finished two weeks of his eponymous basketball camp an hour before my sister Sharon and I arrived at his house. There were cars in the driveway of people we didn't expect would be in Vermont. We were delighted to find his father (Tom), his uncle (Father Bill), his sister-in-law (Susan) and his brother's children (Mary, Anna and Will) were visiting. We also met a fellow teacher who had been assisting at Bill Muench basketball camp.
Bill was grateful to his brother Paul, whose football camp he'll be helping out at later this summer, for making the Bill Muench Basketball Camp happen this year. If you know Bill even a little, you know he gave everything he had to give to the camp for those 14 days. According to Bill, he wasn't able to do much more than make announcements. We beg to differ: we know he had an always-interested ear to lend (but only if you were on his right side, thanks to the brain tumor, he can't hear from his left). The damage caused by the brain tumor that was removed in March 2007 is still affecting his balance. If like us, you think he was always a little unbalanced, you know he didn't start out at 100% anyway. It's still too early in his recuperation for him to be dribbling (well, he drools from time to time) or shooting hoops. We can assure you he didn't have a humor bypass. More about that to follow.

Watch out Ron Popeil . . .

Bill is preparing an infomercial that will surely make him a lot of money.

"Frustrated by diets that just don't work? Tired of spending money on food that tastes awful and makes you sick to your stomach? Intimidated by the goons in the local gym? Have we got something for you: You too can lose 30 lbs. in just a few months without buying any special food or equipment. Stop wasting your hard-earned money: the Brain Tumor Plan is the only guaranteed weight loss program on the market."

(Visual of before and after pictures of Bill Muench) "See, you too can go from buff to Biafran in a few short months when you learn the secret to melting those pounds of excess muscle away. Consult your doctor before beginning any weight loss program. Order this $250,000 value today and get a Bill Muench Basketball Camp t-shirt absolutely free. Call 1 (BRA) INT-TUMOR now, operators are standing by. Not available in any store. Side effects may include headaches, dizziness, lack of focus and death."

Heaven Can Wait

Bill told us about the highly-specialized teams that were waiting with clocklike precision to participate in his surgery. There were different teams to separate the tumor from his hearing center and to separate the tumor from his facial nerve. When asked about the autopsy team, he said they looked up from their card game and their sandwiches and waved as he was wheeled by on his way into surgery.

. . . And the rockets red glare

Bill and Paul's kids were in the swimming pool at the house across the street when we arrived. They had hardly dried off from swimming when he proposed a rocket launch. It required a drive to a large local field for safety reasons. Bottom line: his nephew Will was so into it we wouldn't be surprised to hear he joins NASA someday. Runs in the family though, we found scores of books and magazines on astronomy in Bill's house.

Bill has an "It's a Wonderful Life" revelation

No, it didn't involve an angel named Clarence. Burr and Burton Academy (the private school where Bill teaches English and Psychology) has a rundown and little-used brick observatory that needed a lot of TLC. Bill led the drive to restore the building and buy a state-of-the-art telescope. Until he got sidelined for several months by a few centimeters of alien brain tissue, he didn't realize that he was carrying the ball all by himself. Now that he's back, it's "To infinity and beyond" for Burr and Burton.

Ladies and gentlemen, give it up for Bill Maher Muench

Dennis Miller devotees know that Miller's jokes are often delivered in three parts. Everyone is able to laugh at the first part. The second part takes a little more time and smarts. The third part is for literate people and so would only be funny to the people who know who Boo Radley is. In a discussion about the honors and awards given to local students, Bill managed to work in a Boo Radley reference. Atta boy, Bill. Keep it up and you'll be in the Comedy Hall of Fame.

"Kill Bill, Volume 3"

Bill, his sons Weston and Taylor, my sister and I went to the Clark Museum in Williamstown, MA. That's the town where Bill went to college. It was my idea that we go see the "Unknown Monet" exhibit. The museum provided the boys with small sketchbooks and pencils and encouraged them to try and create caricatures (as Monet had done professionally as a teenager). Taylor asked Bill to pose and then, without looking up, created a monster that resembled Medusa and threatened to kill the onlooker. Nice family: Freud would have had a field day.

Bill Muench, local celebrity

A mother of one of Bill's students, who lives four houses down the street (Wideawake), called while Bill was dozing. Taylor must have mumbled her name to him so Bill picked up the phone, not knowing he was talking with China Somple. When she invited him to a 50th birthday party she was having for her husband, he still wasn't sure who he was talking to and asked, "Where do you live?" She thought he was joking and laughed.

Bill told Sharon and me that he didn't expect he'd know anyone but the immediate family at the party so we'd just go long enough to score some food and be polite. Right. Instead, he was moving from conversation to conversation and table to table as if he were the mayor of the town. When he wasn't within earshot (either his good or bad his bad ear), I heard from various people what a great teacher he was, what a great basketball coach he was, and what a difference he had made in the lives of their children. I also heard what an asset he was to the community. Yada yada.

I was impressed. That was, until I saw the reception his sons Weston and Taylor got when they arrived at the party after a baseball practice. Since the hostess had three daughters, the teenagers, tweens and kids at the party were 95% female. Both boys held court with hordes of girls of their respective age groups giving them their undivided attention.

No drought in Arlington

Bill is teaching his sons the importance of good sportsmanship. I guess they've been handed at least one humiliating defeat by their rivals in Arlington, VT. As a form of retaliation, Bill encouraged the boys to save their pitstops to and from Massachusetts for the ballfield in Arlington.

Name That Tune

For those who thought Bill was unbeatable in "Name That Tune," what with the 11,000 songs in his I-Pod and his years as a musician, we found his Achilles heel, musically speaking. It's musicals. That's right, in singing "Tay-Tay" songs for Taylor, Bill didn't recognize "Lullabye of Broadway" ("Good night Tay-Tay, sleep tight, the milkman's on his way). He also didn't catch "Steam Heat," a song from "Pajama Game" that might apply to my pyromaniac sister who kept a constant fire going in the backyard ("They told me to throw some more coal in the boiler"). Finally, from "Most Happy Fella," "Joey, Joey, Joey."

Janeen Bjork

This year's camp was the best ever this year thanks to a little (a whole lot of) help from my friends! The coaches, the counselors and the campers were so much help this year and we couldn't have done it without them! The coaches even got me a director's chair and a bullhorn to keep me from moving around! The boys had a great time and cousin Mary was a camper the second week while uncle Paul helped coach. Bibit Marion single handedly directed all camp operations and kept me and the boys fed!