It wasn't entirely the pumpkin's fault. For a kid, the hours between getting out of school and going trick-or-treating stretch like a congressional hearing.
So, bored and dangerous, Leon and I borrowed a jack-o'-lantern from a neighbor's porch, and a large firecracker from his old man's pickup.
We didn't know how powerful Mr. Krygowski's firecracker was, only that it was bigger than the Black Cats we normally got grounded for using.
The neighbor's pumpkin was the size of a log cabin and just as durable. We figured it would take our combined knowledge of explosives to do it any real damage.
A collection of smaller kids watched the experts from a distance. We balanced the pumpkin on a fence post and inserted the firecracker through its grin. Lighting the fuse, we backed off a few feet and waited for the lid to pop into the air.
The jack-o'-lantern disappeared in an enormous burst of light and noise.
I didn't learn about the size of the explosion until much later. At the time, I only knew that my face had somehow gotten in the way of a slab of pumpkin on its way to Japan.
Ears ringing, Leon and I sat up, covered in pumpkin juice and orange string. He had two loose teeth and my glasses were broken. The audience was gone and the fire department was on its way.
This wasn't the only time I got into trouble with a pumpkin. It took years for me to realize that they're inherently dangerous, particularly during Halloween when a certain lack of decorum is expected.
The following Halloween, I was badly injured in an argument over a jack-o'-lantern, the crux of which was a cat's objection to being placed inside it. Because the cat had attached itself to my head, flight was problematic when the owner of the house (and cat and pumpkin) opened the door to find out what was going on.
I swore off pumpkins for a couple of years. Then I discovered that rolling them down a long hill will cause traffic to drive like crazy to get out of the way - and that cops really hate that.
Dropping pumpkins from high places is also hazardous, but nowhere is it more hazardous than from the roof of your own house and onto the hood of a car belonging to someone who not only can make you pay for it, but legally flog you in the bargain.
When Halloween is over, please remember to bring your jack-o'-lanterns inside. This is for their own good. And mine. rkirby@sltrib.com
Just a funny article that made me giggle today....on a day that I could really use something to make me smile!!! Hope you like it. Reminds me of my malatov cocktail days on the ranch!!!
I got a phone call late last night from a friend in Maple Valley Washington . She was calling to inform me of a lil gal I knew while we lived there...had passed away. She was one of the young women in our ward and I worked many hours with her....she had a pretty hard life!
Anyway...just shortly after she graduated from HS she was diagnosed with Ovarian Cancer and has been fighting it fiercely since then. Gone through MULTIPLE rounds of chemo and radiation....she has been soooo sick for years. Well, she passed away on Thursday and her funeral was today. I was heartbroken. Flights were $250 and I could not afford to go...so I am moping around the house today. Feeling so sad I was unable to go and help mourn her passing...and tell her Mom...how much I truly loved this young lady! She was dealt a tough card in life...and she rose above it! Her name is Krista and I am going to miss her!!!
We are fish grandparents. One of Mitch's fish had babies, again. Sadly the Mama passed away during ....fish birth. We have successfully retrieved the babies and moved them to the smaller tank in Tyler's room....that way they don't get eaten.
I know you are all jealous. I lead a pretty exciting life!
Other than that...a pretty uneventful day.
And that is ok sometimes!
Sydney is continuing with basketball tryouts. Nothing like going from one sport to the next. She just finished volleyball on Saturday. They had a tourney and her cute lil team lost their first game and were out. She was sooo sad...as were the rest of the lil girls! They were all crying and it made me so sad. They really didn't play as good as they are capable...and should have won that game hands down. But that is part of life I guess! She struggled most of the day Saturday...then just like that...she was all ok and happy again!
Wish I could rebound so quickly! I can learn lots from her!!!
Mitch has his last football game tomorrow. They are playing for second place in the district! They should win....their quarterback got hurt last week and left the game in an ambulance headed for the ER.....so it might be interesting to see how they do with a new QB who has never throw a pass during a game! Should be fun!!!
I am ready for bed....after all the baby fish chasing...I am worn out!
I HATE days like today....days that are overcast and drizzly. Makes me want so stay home and stay in my jammies all day long! Which is what I did today!
Yesterday it was like 82 degrees outside...now today....brrrr and raining! The only upside being...Mitch does not have a Football game tonight!
Yahoo!!!
Still have to run and get kids from practice....Sydney has her final Volleyball Tourney on Saturday then she is done. And Mitch has a game tomorrow...then likely he will play in the championship game next week. Then he is done!!! Tyler has two games left...then he is done! I love my kids being involved...but it will be nice to have a breather for awhile!
Phew!!!!
Anyway....here's to sunnier days in the future!
Sigh....it has been such a FAB weekend...just had to make note of it!
General Conference was wonderful as usual. My favorite part was when Joseph Wirthlin was speaking about service and brotherly love...and he starting getting really shaky. Russell M. Nelson stood up beside him and steadied him so he could finish his talk. Very moving. I had tears running down my face! Don't think Joseph Wirthlin will be around for much longer!
The weather was so gorgeous today that we couldn't help but head out to our property and "stake" out our possible home site! Made me excited to get out there! I wish it could happen sooner! I want to be out there now!!!
To top it off....BSU played today. We sold our tickets on Craigslist...since we didn't want to go on Sunday. But...we watched it on tv! They won big time!!! 58-0! Wowzers!!!
I am about ready for bed!!! The kids are back to school tomorrow...and it is Columbus day and Canadian Thanksgiving!!! So...Randy has the day off work. Yahoo!!!
I am cooking a turkey in honour of the day!
Yummy!!!
Racing Towards Inclusion
by David Tereshchuk
Article courtesy of multi'merica.com
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Dick and Rick Hoyt are a father-and-son team from Massachusetts who together compete just about continuously in marathon races. And if they’re not in a marathon they are in a triathlon — that daunting, almost superhuman, combination of 26.2 miles of running, 112 miles of bicycling, and 2.4 miles of swimming. Together they have climbed mountains, and once trekked 3,735 miles across America.
It’s a remarkable record of exertion — all the more so when you consider that Rick can't walk or talk.
For the past twenty five years or more Dick, who is 65, has pushed and pulled his son across the country and over hundreds of finish lines. When Dick runs, Rick is in a wheelchair that Dick is pushing. When Dick cycles, Rick is in the seat-pod from his wheelchair, attached to the front of the bike. When Dick swims, Rick is in a small but heavy, firmly stabilized boat being pulled by Dick.
At Rick’s birth in 1962 the umbilical cord coiled around his neck and cut off oxygen to his brain. Dick and his wife, Judy, were told that there would be no hope for their child’s development.
"It’s been a story of exclusion ever since he was born," Dick told me. "When he was eight months old the doctors told us we should just put him away — he’d be a vegetable all his life, that sort of thing. Well those doctors are not alive any more, but I would like them to be able to see Rick now."
The couple brought their son home determined to raise him as "normally" as possible. Within five years, Rick had two younger brothers, and the Hoyts were convinced Rick was just as intelligent as his siblings. Dick remembers the struggle to get the local school authorities to agree: "Because he couldn’t talk they thought he wouldn’t be able to understand, but that wasn’t true." The dedicated parents taught Rick the alphabet. "We always wanted Rick included in everything," Dick said. "That’s why we wanted to get him into public school."
A group of Tufts University engineers came to the rescue, once they had seen some clear, empirical evidence of Rick’s comprehension skills. "They told him a joke," said Dick. "Rick just cracked up. They knew then that he could communicate!" The engineers went on to build — using $5,000 the family managed to raise in 1972 - an interactive computer that would allow Rick to write out his thoughts using the slight head-movements that he could manage. Rick came to call it "my communicator." A cursor would move across a screen filled with rows of letters, and when the cursor highlighted a letter that Rick wanted, he would click a switch with the side of his head.
When the computer was originally brought home, Rick surprised his family with his first "spoken" words. They had expected perhaps "Hi, Mom" or "Hi, Dad." But on the screen Rick wrote "Go Bruins." The Boston Bruins were in the Stanley Cup finals that season, and his family realized he had been following the hockey games along with everyone else. "So we learned then that Rick loved sports," said Dick.
In 1975, Rick was finally admitted into a public school. Two years later, he told his father he wanted to participate in a five-mile benefit run for a local lacrosse player who had been paralyzed in an accident. Dick, far from being a long-distance runner, agreed to push Rick in his wheelchair. They finished next to last, but they felt they had achieved a triumph. That night, Dick remembers, "Rick told us he just didn’t feel handicapped when we were competing."
Rick’s realization turned into a whole new set of horizons that opened up for him and his family, as "Team Hoyt" began to compete in more and more events. Rick reflected on the transformation process for me, using his now-familiar but ever-painstaking technique of picking out letters of the alphabet:
" What I mean when I say I feel like I am not handicapped when competing is that I am just like the other athletes, and I think most of the athletes feel the same way. In the beginning nobody would come up to me. However, after a few races some athletes came around and they began to talk to me. During the early days one runner, Pete Wisnewski had a bet with me at every race on who would beat who. The loser had to hang the winner’s number in his bedroom until the next race. Now many athletes will come up to me before the race or triathlon to wish me luck."
It is hard to imagine now the resistance which the Hoyts encountered early on, but attitudes did begin to change when they entered the Boston Marathon in 1981, and finished in the top quarter of the field. Dick recalls the earlier, less tolerant days with more sadness than anger:
"Nobody wanted Rick in a road race. Everybody looked at us, nobody talked to us, nobody wanted to have anything to do with us. But you can’t really blame them - people often are not educated, and they’d never seen anyone like us. As time went on, though, they could see he was a person — he has a great sense of humor, for instance. That made a big difference."
After 4 years of marathons, Team Hoyt attempted their first triathlon — and for this Dick had to learn to swim. "I sank like a stone at first" Dick recalled with a laugh "and I hadn’t been on a bike since I was six years old."
With a newly-built bike (adapted to carry Rick in front) and a boat tied to Dick’s waist as he swam, the Hoyts came in second-to-last in the competition held on Father’s Day 1985.
"We chuckle to think about that as my Father’s Day present from Rick, " said Dick.
They have been competing ever since, at home and increasingly abroad. Generally they manage to improve their finishing times. "Rick is the one who inspires and motivates me, the way he just loves sports and competing," Dick said.
And the business of inspiring evidently works as a two-way street. Rick typed out this testimony:
"Dad is one of my role models. Once he sets out to do something, Dad sticks to it whatever it is, until it is done. For example once we decided to really get into triathlons, dad worked out, up to five hours a day, five times a week, even when he was working."
The Hoyts’ mutual inspiration for each other seems to embrace others too — many spectators and fellow-competitors have adopted Team Hoyt as a powerful example of determination. "It’s been funny," said Dick "Some people have turned out, some in good shape, some really out of shape, and they say ‘we want to thank you, because we’re here because of you’."
Rick too has taken full note of their effect on fellow-competitors while racing:
"Whenever we are passed (usually on the bike) the athlete will say "Go for it!" or "Rick, help your Dad!" When we pass people (usually on the run) they’ll say "Go Team Hoyt!" or "If not for you, we would not be out here doing this."
Most of all, perhaps, the Hoyts can see an impact from their efforts in the area of the handicapped, and on public attitudes toward the physically and mentally challenged.
"That’s the big thing," said Dick. "People just need to be educated. Rick is helping many other families coping with disabilities in their struggle to be included."
That is not to say that all obstacles are now overcome for the Hoyts. Dick is "still bothered," he says, by people who are discomforted because Rick cannot fully control his tongue while eating. "In restaurants - and it’s only older people mostly - they’ll see Rick’s food being pushed out of his mouth and they’ll leave, or change their table. But I have to say that kind of intolerance is gradually being defeated."
Rick’s own accomplishments, quite apart from the duo’s continuing athletic success, have included his moving on from high school to Boston University, where he graduated in 1993 with a degree in special education. That was followed a few weeks later by another entry in the Boston Marathon. As he fondly pictured it: "On the day of the marathon from Hopkinton to Boston people all over the course were wishing me luck, and they had signs up which read `congratulations on your graduation!’"
Rick now works at Boston College’s computer laboratory helping to develop a system codenamed "Eagle Eyes," through which mechanical aids (like for instance a powered wheelchair) could be controlled by a paralyzed person’s eye-movements, when linked-up to a computer.
Together the Hoyts don’t only compete athletically; they also go on motivational speaking tours, spreading the Hoyt brand of inspiration to all kinds of audiences, sporting and non-sporting, across the country.
Rick himself is confident that his visibility — and his father’s dedication — perform a forceful, valuable purpose in a world that is too often divisive and exclusionary. He typed a simple parting thought:
"The message of Team Hoyt is that everybody should be included in everyday life."
