Steamboat Pilot & Today

Steamboat Springs — If you must know, I've worn a plain gray sports bra for the better part of my adult life. No flowers or underwires.

When the elastic wears out, I just go buy another one exactly like it.

But the past two days of interviewing women about bras for the "Bust of Steamboat" fund-raiser left me feeling that my frumpy underwear is an unholy sanctum for the two blobs that are such a big part of every woman's life.

Personally, these things are completely useless to me. They get in the way more than anything, but I don't know what I would ever do if I found a lump during one of my absentminded self-exams.

One of the women in the upcoming bra show found her cancer that way.

Another participant, Sharon Pace, told a story about a friend who brought her a bag of hats that family and friends in North Carolina collected after she lost all her hair to chemotherapy.

Today, Pace is fully recovered, but the hats are still being used.

When a neighbor was diagnosed with cancer, Pace gave her the bag of hats.

"I just passed it on to the person whose turn it is," she said. That line rang in my head for a while.

All proceeds from the first-ever "Bust of Steamboat" go to the Yampa Valley Breast Cancer Awareness Project, a fund that provides financial support to local women who are uninsured or underinsured and need help paying for mammograms and other breast cancer-related medical treatment.

Even if you're not an art lover or a bra wearer, the "Bust" show is worth supporting. Who knows whose turn it will be next.