Many of you know that Lazar LaPenna’s leaving this planet was way too early—he was just ten years old.

Worse, his death was at a Little League game in Point Lookout, New York.

A kid is supposed to be safe at home.

A kid relies on us “big” people to keep him and his friends safe—but we didn’t.

I wrote about this before and had hoped that my writing might illuminate the concerns of the citizens of the Town of Hempstead. Illuminate the need for an Automatic External Defibrillator, AED on all ballfields in the Town of Hempstead. After all—it is the law.

Had an AED been at the Little League ballfield where Lazar played, he likely would be somewhere on a ballfield as I tap on these computer keys again—but he won’t.

My most recent report from the LaPenna family is that today, two years after Lazar’s death—there is still no AED on the ballfield where Lazar died—despite a law requiring it.

However, Lazar is not forgotten.

Alex, a fitness icon on the Long Beach boardwalk, hosted a celebration of Lazar’s life on Saturday, Apr. 27th, the day that would have been Lazar’s 12th birthday. He died on the 29th of Apr. 2022

On Lazar’s tenth birthday dinner with his family, he told his dad he loved his jersey’s #9 so much that he wanted to keep that number forever.

And he did.

Alex, to honor Lazar, promised to do nine hundred and ninety-nine squats in front of the LAZAR memorial sign near his dad’s boardwalk shack, Lazar’s Glizzy.

Alex invited others to attend or join him as much as possible.

I took many photos of Alex with other Lazar fans joining in.

I do not know the names of many of the participants so I will refrain from most names to avoid disrespecting those not named:

Here are some of the folks and photos from that day: 

One of the several times I actually squatted was to take photos. Among my last, I got these:

I think number 9 would have had a good laugh at that.

Be well,

Leebythesea