Can you believe this is the Labor Day Weekend coming up?

For most of the country, it traditionally means the end of summer.

For us, it doesn’t mean a whole lot, especially when you have the kids starting school in early August.

As for our weather, the monsoon season has been extended to the end of September and we could have two more months of 100 degree days.

We do start seeing some familiar faces returning as the winter visitors start coming back this month for another season.

And September means the start of the season for most of the clubs and organizations.

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I was casually watching the Today show one morning last week while eating my cereal when something caught my attention.

Fountain Hills winter resident Jim Hatch’s grandson, Austin, was being featured on the morning news show.

His story is almost unbelievable, but true and such an inspiration.

Jim Hatch is a former member of The Club in Fountain Hills, which sent the following story from the Michigan Athletics website to members later last week.

More than three years after the second deadly plane crash of his life splintered his family and left him in a coma, Hatch made his Michigan debut Sunday night during the Wolverines' first exhibition game on their preseason tour of Italy.

Hatch went scoreless in three minutes, but that hardly detracted from the joy he experienced achieving what doctors said he couldn't.

"As you can imagine it has been a heck of a journey to get here," Hatch said after the game. “Playing basketball at the University of Michigan has been my goal since I was a little kid. It was unreal to be here and to have actually played a game. I really feel like I have that game under my belt now and I really feel like a Michigan basketball player.”

To fully appreciate why a cameo appearance in an otherwise forgettable exhibition victory brought Hatch so much excitement, consider what it meant for the 6-foot-6 freshman to get to this point.

Eight years after he and his dad walked away from a 2003 crash that killed his mother, 11-year-old sister and 5-year-old brother, Hatch experienced a sickening case of déjà vu. His dad was flying the family between its Indiana home and a Michigan summer house in June 2011 when the small, single-engine plane plummeted nose-first into a garage along a residential street north of Charlevoix Municipal Airport, killing Hatch's father and stepmother and critically injuring him.

In addition to suffering severe head trauma, a punctured lung, fractured ribs and a broken collarbone, Hatch also had so much swelling in his brain that doctors had to put him in a medically induced coma. Even after he emerged from the coma eight weeks later, he required physical therapy to regain his walking ability and motor skills and word searches and crossword puzzles to regain his mental acuity.

Hatch may never fully regain the coordination and athleticism that earned him scholarship offers from many of the Midwest's top basketball programs, but how far he has come is remarkable anyway.

In Nov. 2011, Hatch still lacked the motor skills to either catch a ball thrown to him or balance on one foot. Barely a year later, he recovered enough to rejoin his high school team in a limited capacity. Barely two years later, he had been cleared to practice full speed and was preparing for a return to game action. And now, less than three years later, he has fulfilled his dream of playing for Michigan.

“It was a special moment," Michigan coach John Beilein told the school's athletics site. "Austin even led us in the fight song after the game was over. It's something he has worked very hard for. It was a great moment for our team; however, it was truly special for Austin and his grandfather, Jim, who was here in the stands."