GOLDEN VALLEY, Minn. — Sixty years ago Saturday, one of the greatest storytellers of our time was born.
"This was going to be a really low key day, like so low key that I was going to sleep all afternoon," says KARE 11's Boyd Huppert.
But that all changed after a morning of cross country skiing with his wife Sheri.
"We had lunch and I told my wife I was going to lay down for a couple of minutes, which is code for two or three hours, so I had just reached a deep sleep and she said there's somebody in the driveway who wants to see you."
Turns out that somebody was actually a group made up of familiar faces and some of Boyd's closest colleagues equipped with signs, balloons and even singing a few tunes.
"I was still half asleep when I got to the door," Boyd says. "All I saw were masks and hats and eyeballs. It took me a minute to—what in the world is going on here...Craig Norkus who is a diehard Vikings fan season ticket holder was singing 'Go Pack Go' and I thought this is a different kind of day."
Different in a good way, considering there've been several challenging days since September when the award-winning Land of 10,000 Stories host first started chemo treatments for multiple myeloma, a rare form of blood cancer.
"The cancer is in decline, so everything is going well. It's going as it should be but it's been a long haul...You look forward to the good days and you try and get through the bad days and I'll remember this as one of the best days."
They say there's safety in numbers and if you ask Boyd, there's a sense of healing in numbers too.
"To have something like this today just surprise me, it's good for my soul."
Especially when it's from those who truly "KARE."
"You know I've always called it my family, my KARE family, and today was proof of that."
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