I’ll be doing the American Lung Association Asthma walk on the Charles River in two weeks, and I’ve joined team Sánchez. For a couple of simple reasons. One, my Dad has suffered from an asthma-like condition. The more direct reason is that Rep. Jeff Sánchez asked people to join his team at the recent Democratic Town Committee meeting. So I joined up, and I pledged to raise an additional hundred dollars. Sánchez’s district covers part of Brookline– not my part exactly, but just down the street, one of the places that I’m looking to buy a condo. Or just as well, Sanchez’s district may yet change thanks to a court-ordered redestricting of Boston’s legislative districts.

By the way, taking a look at the “Friends Asking Friends” web software which manages the fundraising, run by a company named Kintera. They have implemented Social Network Fundraising precisely as I expected, which is fantastic. You can look at page for the Asthma Walk and see a virtual scoreboard of who’s leading in the donations.

The walk is 5K around the Charles River bikepath. Starts at 10am on Sunday the 23rd.

I ended up raising a little bit of money from my Mom, Mark, and Abby– and for those three reasons, I couldn’t bail out! The weather was a bit crummy this morning for May… fifty degrees and foggy. According to the Times weather map it was expected to be warmer in Springfield, or even New Hampshire…

I did get there, a bit after the start, and found Benny and Rob with Team Sánchez bringing up the rear. There were about 500 walkers, not as many as some of the other big walks, but this was the first year of the Asthma Walk. It was an easy walk, considering that I bike that distance every day. Benny and I spoke about a number of current events– the asthma registry, the gay marriage debate, education funding, Kerry fundraising, and the Master Plan for the Charles River Basin. The latest phase of the reconstruction we saw was the new project to widen the sidewalk adjoining the viaduct which takes Memorial Drive traffic under the Longfellow bridge (this has been notoriously narrow, barely enough to accomodate a bicyclist passing a pedestian– see this photo essay).

At the end we caught up to Benny’s boss at the end, where I got my T-shirt. Can you guess which of the two below earns his keep by flashing a good smile?