Today is a day not only to watch some football and share a meal with loved ones, but also a time to pause and reflect about all of the things to be thankful for.

It could be for a lot of different reasons. But getting rear-ended while sitting in a cart minutes before a round of golf?

Implausible as it may seem, that is what Clarence Shimoko and his family are thankful for today. The freakish accident 4 1/2 months ago has resulted in Shimoko being alive today.

According to Mike Shimoko, if his father hadn't been hurt in the accident, they wouldn't have found out that he had kidney cancer. "Doctors say that kidney cancer is hard to detect. There are only two ways — blood in the urine, which might be too late, or if you find it when you're looking for something else, like in my father's case," he said.

"If it wasn't for that, I'd be gone," said the 74-year-old Shimoko. Instead, he's now recovering from still on-going chemotherapy and radiation treatments with the goal of once again resuming his fanatic passion for golf.

From his Kaimuki home Shimoko not only can see Diamond Head and the Waikiki skyline, but a sliver of green that is the Ala Wai Golf Course, where he has played most of the golf in a remarkable streak of more than 300 days a year for the past 36 straight years. It's surely Guinness World Records stuff.

That streak will end this year but not that Shimoko, founder of S&S Saimin, hasn't been trying. He was well on his to another 300-plus year, playing for the 161st time by mid-June.

On June 18 he was on deck at Ala Wai waiting to tee off when a golf cart driven by Yoshiyuki Kasahara, a friend visiting from Japan, accidentally rammed into Shimoko's cart. Despite a sore back, nothing kept Shimoko from appointed round No. 162.

"I went to the doctor the next day. He thought I had a broken rib," Shimoko recalled. "He couldn't find anything wrong." X-rays were negative.

Shimoko was still hurting when he and his wife, Masuzu, took a trip to Las Vegas in July. The night before they were scheduled to return, Shimoko felt an agonizing pain and went to a hospital there. "The doctor told me there was something wrong more than just an injury from the cart accident," Shimoko said. A CAT scan showed a large tumor growing on his left kidney.

He came home for further tests. A PET scan further showed that the tumor metastasized to his lower spine, a biopsy confirming it was kidney cancer. The cancerous kidney and the tumor, which had grown to the same size as the kidney, were removed Aug. 28.

Then began some "pretty intense" treatments, Shimoko said. The first of two 14-day Interleukin-2 treatments to build up his white T-helper cells began Sept. 19. According to Mike Shimoko, IL-2 treatment tricks the body into thinking that it's going to die, so all the vital organs are maxing out.

Shimoko's oncologist, Dr. Clayton Chong, was amazed that Shimoko was able to endure 13 of the 14 prescribed dosages, given that the average is six. After a two-week recovery period, Shimoko underwent the second IL-2. "I can handle," Shimoko remembers telling Chong. He was able to do it eight times.

Immediately following that, Shimoko underwent radiation treatment. Now he's waiting to undergo the first of two four-week oral chemotherapy treatments with a two-week break in between.

That should take him into February, a target date that is important to Shimoko. That's when he hopes to return to playing golf in the 12th annual Shimoko Cup — at Ala Wai, where else? "Gotta be over there," Shimoko says.

Shimoko feels traveling to Japan where the first 11 tournaments were held might be too arduous. Besides, he wants to thank Sonkyo Nomura for initiating and hosting the event all these years.

"Also to thank Dr. Chong for saving my dad's life and giving him hope to play golf again," adds Mike Shimoko and the rest of the family — older brother, Leonard, and sisters, Violet and Lynn.

Mind you, not that Shimoko didn't sneak in a round or two of golf in the meantime. Several days before he had his kidney removed, he shot an 84. Then less than three weeks ago, after the second IL-2 and initial radiation treatment, he went out and played nine holes at Ala Wai.

"I haven't played for 4 1/2 months, so I said, 'heck with it,' " Shimoko said. He paid dearly for it, suffering enough pain to send him to Queen's emergency unit. His radiologist, Dr. Charles Yamashiro, told him it was too soon to play because his bones were still weak from the radiation treatment.

"Lucky I never played 18 holes. Otherwise, the pain would have been worse," Shimoko said.

So he won't be golfing again until February — unless he feels strong enough. He's not ruling it out.

How much does he miss playing golf?

"Only 99 1/2 percent," Shimoko said. "My goal is to someday golf again and play at the same ability," said Shimoko, who's a 7-handicapper.

For now, he's just thankful that he's still around to think about playing golf again.