More on Perspective...

I figured I would give you a little more info on the "Team Hoyt" video I posted last week. It's an amazing story and I just have to smile everytime I view it. Here is the actual story from Sports Illustrated that ran a couple years back.

From Sports Illustrated

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by Rick Reilly

I try to be a good father. Give my kids mulligans. Work nights to Pay for their text messaging. Take them to swimsuit shoots. But compared with Dick Hoyt, I suck. Eighty-five times he's pushed his disabled son, Rick, 26.2 miles in marathons. Eight times he's not only pushed him 26.2 miles in a wheelchair but also towed him 2.4 miles in a dinghy while swimming and pedaled him 112 miles in a seat on the handlebars -- all in the same day (doing the Ironman Triathlon). Dick's also pulled him cross-country skiing, taken him on his back mountain climbing and once hauled him across the U.S. on a bike. Makes taking your son bowling look a little lame, right?

And what has Rick done for his father? Not much -- except save his life.

This love story began in Winchester, Mass., 43 years ago, when Rick was strangled by the umbilical cord during birth, leaving him brain-damaged and unable to control his limbs. "He'll be a vegetable the rest of his life," Dick says doctors told him and his wife, Judy, when Rick was nine months old, "Put him in an institution." But the Hoyts weren't buying it.

They noticed the way Rick's eyes followed them around the room. When Rick was 11 they took him to the engineering department at Tufts University and asked if there was anything to help the boy communicate. "No way," Dick says he was told. "there's nothing going on in his brain." "Tell him a joke," Dick countered. They did. Rick laughed. Turns out a lot was going on in his brain. Rigged up with a computer that allowed him to control the cursor by touching a switch with the side of his head, Rick was finally able to communicate. First words? "Go Bruins!"

And after a high school classmate was paralyzed in an accident and the school organized a charity run for him, Rick pecked out, "Dad, I want to do that." Yeah, right. How was Dick, a self-described "porker" who never ran more than a mile at a time, going to push his son five miles? Still, he tried. "then it was me who was handicapped,"

Dick says. "I was sore for two weeks." that day changed Rick's life. "Dad," he typed, "when we were running, it felt like I wasn't disabled anymore!" And that sentence changed Dick's life. He became obsessed with giving Rick that feeling as often as he could. He got into such hard-belly shape that he and Rick were ready to try the 1979 Boston Marathon.

"No way," Dick was told by a race official. The Hoyts weren't quite a single runner, and they weren't quite a wheelchair competitor. For a few years Dick and Rick just joined the massive field and ran anyway, then they found a way to get into the race officially: In 1983 they ran another marathon so fast they made the qualifying time for Boston the following year. Then somebody said, "Hey, Dick, why not a triathlon?" How's a guy who never learned to swim and hadn't ridden a bike since he was six going to haul his 110-pound kid through a triathlon? Still, Dick tried. Now they've done 212 triathlons, including four grueling 15-hour Ironmans in Hawaii. It must be a buzz kill to be a 25-year-old stud getting passed by an old guy towing a grown man in a dinghy, don't you think?

Hey, Dick, why not see how you'd do on your own? "No way," he says. Dick does it purely for "the awesome feeling" he gets seeing Rick with a cantaloupe smile as they run, swim and ride together. This year, at ages 65 and 43, Dick and Rick finished their 24th Boston Marathon, in 5,083rd place out of more than 20,000 starters. Their best time? Two hours, 40 minutes in 1992 -- only 35 minutes off the world record, which, in case you don't keep track of these things, happens to be held by a guy who was not pushing another man in a wheelchair at the time. "No question about it," Rick types. "My dad is the Father of the Century." And Dick got something else out of all this too. Two years ago he had a mild heart attack during a race. Doctors found that one of his arteries was 95% clogged. "If you hadn't been in such great shape," one doctor told him, "you probably would've died 15 years ago." So, in a way, Dick and Rick saved each other's life. Rick, who has his own apartment (he gets home care) and works in Boston, and Dick, retired from the military and living in Holland, Mass., always find ways to be together. They give speeches around the country and compete in some backbreaking race every weekend, including this Father's Day. That night, Rick will buy his dad dinner, but the thing he really wants to give him is a gift he can never buy. "The thing I'd most like," Rick types, "is that my dad sit in the chair and I push him once."

Rough and Tumble

Last night was one of those parent nightmares. We woke up to the sounds of a two-year old heaving her guts out. The onslaught of flu that has attacked Woodshollow lately firmly planted itself in our little girl. She is on the mend already, but I figured I would give you a look into that all to familiar feeling we have all had over time when presented with a similar challenge. YUCK!

Perspective...

A window into a different time...

I sat down next to a gentleman today on my plane ride out to San Diego. He was quiet for a moment until I said hello and then we quickly struck up a conversation that I will remember for the rest of my life.

George Unger was born in Black River Falls, WI. He grew up on a dairy farm with three brothers and only completed schooling through the eighth grade. In 1939 he and his friend Bob were sitting on the corner contemplating life and their future plans. The war was heating up across the pond and the two of them decided to enlist and make a difference. They drove to Sparta that afternoon and took physicals to enter the Navy. George passed with flying colors, but Bob had a medical issue that did not allow him to go on. Bob encouraged George to head off and that he would join him later along the way.

George completed basic training and he was transferred to Norfolk and supported battles in North Africa before he was transferred to San Diego to help out in the Pacific theater. He was assigned as the chief mechanic in charge of the crews maintaining the Corsair aircraft on to the USS Bunker Hill Aircraft Carrier (CV-17) a role that he assumed in late 1942 until December 1945. During that period of time he only made it home to Black River Falls once in three years to see his family and that was only for two days. He met his future wife a couple days before he left for sea at a tavern in Coronado and did not see her again until he docked almost two years later.

The Bunker Hill headed off to fight the Japanese front in the Pacific Theater and participated in a number of battles including the battle of Philippine Sea. In 1945 during the battle of Okinawa, George was coming up onto the deck of the ship to clear some planes for takeoff when a Japanese Kamikaze slammed into the side of the boat adjacent from where we was standing. Moments later a second plane slammed into the other side and the ship was engulfed in flames. George was thrown back into the staircase during the impact of the first plane which he feels to this day saved his life. His best friend was standing across the ships deck close to where the second plan hit and George never saw him again. He and the remaining crew members regained their composure and fought like mad to save the ship. The fire was raging and they managed to turn the ship into the wind which ultimately saved the ship, but cost the lives of a number of his crew. The flames and smoke forced many of his crew members toward the back of the ship and many of them jumped off to avoid being burned alive. In doing so most were never found and thought to have drown. All told that day almost 400 Bunker Hill sailors lost their lives. George and his friends managed to save a number of his fellow sailors by cutting a hole in the hull of the boat to open a hole into a flight staging room where some pilots were being briefed for their upcoming mission.

I sat there awestruck as he told me this story. I could sense a strong feeling of pride having triumphed over this impossible challenge and yet a deep sense of sorrow as he painted the picture. Towards the end of the story he glossed over and talked about having to clean up the dead after the fire was put out. I will spare you the details and my only comment after hearing this was "how did you stay sane after experiencing all of this." He looked me in the eye and said "I was just glad to be alive. It was a different time back then...we did what we had to do. You can deal with almost anything if you can walk away knowing one of those guys laying on the deck could have been me."

George went on to Marry his "Coronado Sweetheart" after the war. They had a couple of sons and lived together in San Diego for over 50 years. She unfortunately was killed in a car accident about five years ago. George said he he saw dozens of bodies lying on the deck of the Bunker Hill and from that he thought he knew about death. Nothing seemed so real to him as the moment he looked into his wife's eyes after the accident and knew that she was gone.

I love military history as many of you know, but I got a real lesson in life today that made me appreciate how fortunate we are to live in the time that we do. I can't imaging what it was like to live in those times, but I am glad that we have heroes like George Unger who have given us the opportunity to enjoy all the blessings and freedom we have on this beautiful day...