Hi Phil,
Thanks so much for sharing this. I really loved it.
Vernon and I have been married almost 38 years, and he is definitely
a roll model for me, as he really amazes me what he can do. I tell
him these are tallents and gifts God has given him.
I was always amazed at what Vernon's brother, Dean could do, as well.
Dean was such a perfectionist. He wanted everything to be just so.
I think it's good to have Roll Models.
Thanks much.
Many Blessings,
Pat Ferguson
"I can Do all Things Through Christ Who Strengthens Me" Philippians 4:13.
At 12:21 AM 1/15/2015, you wrote:
>----- Original Message ----- From: "Phil Scovell" <[log in to unmask]>
>To: <[log in to unmask]>
>Sent: Wednesday, January 14, 2015 11:17 PM
>Subject: [BLIND-X] There aren't many left; role models, I mean.
>
>
>I saw men, as I grew up as a youngster in Des Moines Iowa and later
>in Omaha Nebraska, whom I admired. I often hid just out of site
>behind bookshelves as I listened to the men in our living room over
>to our house, with their families for Thanksgiving or Christmas,
>discussing the weather, farming, hunting, fishing, building houses,
>fixing automobiles, guns, and even talking about God and the
>Bible. I would lay on the floor, one ear cocked toward the living
>room and think to myself, "I hope I can do that some day. You see,
>in the early and mid 1950s, children were taught to only be seen and
>not heard when other adults were around. My Uncle Fred, for
>example, is one of my role models, a hero to me actually, because he
>was 17 years old when his father, a Kansas farmer, died an early
>death. Two months later, my dad was born without knowing he was
>fatherless. There were now 5 children in the Scovell family and
>Uncle Fred was the oldest. He rode a horse 3 miles to school but
>his horse ride totaled 10 miles one way and 10 miles
>back. Why? Uncle Fred had a seven mile trap line which he had to
>check first before going to school and once again on the way
>home. The pelts of various animals brought as much as a dollar and
>a half and the family needed every penny since Uncle Fred also was
>responsible for, not only the farm, but the raising of the
>children. He took my dad to the circus whenever it was in town, dad
>was 5 years old the first time his big brother took him to his first
>circus, and he taught my dad to hunt and fish and to farm and how to
>work. Strangely enough, my Uncle Fred taught me many of those same
>things because my father, Uncle Fred's baby brother, died when I was
>11 years old. So I got to go hunting, fishing, and even went to
>sports shows and the like with my Uncle Fred just as my father had
>when he was young. Uncle Fred was short, nearly died of colon cancer
>when he was 65, but when he was 82 years young, he called me up on
>the phone from Wichita and said, "Is that offer still open,
>Phil?" I said, "You mean the one about you moving and living with
>me and my wife and our children in your later years?" He said that's
>what he was talking about. I said, "Come on, Uncle Fred, we've got
>the room." So he sold the small 2-bedroom house he built with his
>own hands after he retired and recovered from the cancer, packed up
>all his things in a 2-wheel trailer he also had built by himself,
>and drove to Denver and moved in with us. He died a couple of
>months before he turned 92; outliving all his other brothers and
>sisters. So we got him for nearly the last 10 years of his life. I
>was in my early thirties by this time but Uncle Fred did all the
>yard work by choice, spent his days in our double car garage
>building things, putting up fencing around our property, and having
>my three young children running in and out of his 2-bedroom full
>sized apartment we had for him. I felt uncomfortable at first,
>Uncle Fred living in the basement, walking up and down the stairs
>many times a day at his age, and finally asked him how he liked
>living in the remodeled basement as he sat eating and taking his
>lunch and supper meals with me and my family. He said, and I can
>hear his voice now, "Why, Phil, that place is the nicest place I
>have ever lived." I told him I was sorry he had to go up and down
>the stairs all the time, and he said, "Why, think nothing of it. I
>don't mind atall. It's no bother so don't you go to worrying about
>that." Even in my thirties, I learned more about home upkeep,
>repair fencing, building gates, making bookshelves, and working with
>my hands than I did the few short years I had with my own dad. In
>Fact, since I am a ham operator, I put up my first tower with my
>Uncle doing all the ground work and even showing me better ways of
>how to do the tower installation since he built bridges in his youth
>for the county. I said all of this just to say, Uncle Fred was one
>of my role models. Now, shifting gears, I've had other adult men
>role models such as my dad, who was like God to me when I was
>little, and other men in their late seventies and early eighties
>that were the kindest, and most Godly, men I ever knew before my
>blindness. Over the years, 50 plus years now, of my blindness, role
>models seemed harder to find but find some I did and I'm thankful
>for what I learned just listening to them talk about their lives,
>jobs they had, and places they had been. Making one more step now,
>I'm to the purpose of this message. Over this past Christmas
>holiday, I was listening to lots of college and professional
>football games on the radio. One Saturday afternoon, between back
>to back games, ESPN, the sports network, played a story about a
>reporter who was doing a short biography of a young teenage girl. I
>think the series is called Sport Life. She began losing her sight
>as a very young child and by her teens, she had to get a guide dog
>because she simply had light perception remaining. She still ran
>track and field events and won more times than not. This intrigued
>me because just before I went blind from detached retinas, I was
>into track and field. Even at the school for the blind, I not only
>joined the wrestling team right away at age 12, but I participated
>in all types of track and field events we had at the school. One
>year, we had a full track and field competition with running events,
>standing high jumping, throwing events, and too many other events to
>mention in one post. I did not know it was competition but rather
>just thought it was something we did in gym class the last month of
>school since the wrestling season was over. We had a full school
>meeting in the auditorium of the school a couple of days before
>summer vacation began and various awards and citations were handed
>out. This was for music, drama, academics, and many other things
>that all the teachers voted on. I still had no idea what was going
>to happen next. My name was called. I flushed. The coach was
>handing out awards. He said, "Phil, that's you. Please come up to
>the front." I did so, not knowing what he was going to say or
>do. He gave me a certificate for winning the highest score in track
>and field events for that year. I hadn't even gone to the state
>wrestling tournament and here they were giving me an athletic award
>for being number one on the field. I was shocked because I would
>have tried harder if I had known it was a competition in the first
>place. Yet, what I am talking about has nothing to do with me
>personally but it is related to my track and field interests and the
>blind girl who was into track and field after losing her site which
>they were interviewing on this sports program. What really caught
>my attention was she competed in a state competition in Texas in her
>teens as a pole vaulter. Strangely enough, before I lost my sight,
>I saw a pole vaulting track and field competition on TV and these
>guys were pole vaulting 14 and 15 feet into the air. I wanted to
>try it right away. In case you are reading this and don't know what
>pole vaulting is, you stand about 80 feet away from two poles, which
>are vertical, placed several feet apart, , and on top, or near the
>top, his a place with two hooks upon which a horizontal bar is
>placed precariously. You use a fiberglass pole which is 12 or 13
>feet long, depending upon how high you plan to jump, with a grip on
>the end you hold and you run for the center of the top vertical
>poles. The purpose is to jam your pole into a block set in the
>ground that will stop forward movement of your fiberglass pole and
>will then hoist your entire body mass into the air and up and over
>the top bar without tipping it off the hooks, or racks, holding the
>horizontal bar barely in place. Yes, your fiberglass pole, as it
>hits the stationary block, bens almost in half as you swing your
>feet and body completely off the ground into the air to levels from
>10 feet and higher for high school events, 12 feet and higher for
>college, and even 20 feet records have been won, and broken, for
>clearing the bar in Olympic games. Remember, you cannot knock the
>horizontal bar off its perch and however high you go into the air,,
>is how far you fall back to the sandy ground at the base of the pole
>vaulting structure. What might that feel like; the landing, I
>mean? Well, when I was 9 and 10 years old, we went to a public
>swimming pool several times each summer and especially on hot days.
>It had a three level diving tower over the 12 foot deep end of this
>huge, double sized, Olympic pool. You took stair steps up to either
>the 17 foot level, the 27 foot level, or the highest level, which
>was 33 feet above the water. I jumped all the time, or dove, from
>the 17 foot level but when I turned 10 years of age, I thought I'd
>try the 27 foot level. The lowest level was great; no
>problem. Going 10 feet higher and diving from the 27 foot platform
>turned out to be nothing like I imagined. I dove, head first , my
>arms outstretched in front of me, and hit the water. I heard myself
>grown audibly, underwater, at how hard the water was to my body. It
>was like falling 10 feet out of a tree and hitting the ground. It
>slammed my whole body so hard, I was never going to try that again
>but I did and it was just as hard. Now try and imagine Olympic high
>divers jumping and doing roles and flips all the way down from well
>over 100 feet and landing in the water feet first. I'm sorry; I
>cannot imagine what that must feel like. I didn't even flip; I just
>did a simple head first dive off the 27 foot tower level. Now go
>back and think about being blind and falling to the ground from 12
>feet, or a sighted pole vaulter in the Olympics falling from just
>over 20 feet? Wow! Think of this, too. Points are taken off, or
>added, for style, time, the way you use your pole in twisting
>yourself up and over the bar, and even how you fall and land on the
>ground. Yep, when I could see, I wanted to do it. After going
>blind, I forgot about it. Last Christmas, just a few weeks ago,
>this girl I mention, her name is Charlotte Brown, if I heard it
>right, has set local Texas records of just over 12 feet and took
>fourth place in a track and field pole vaulting event. When that
>program was over, I turned down the radio and sat and thought about
>this young lady. Her guy dog stood with her at the starting line
>and I believe ran free along side her as she ran the 80 feet down
>the lane to the stopping ground box, which you have to hit
>perfectly, where her tip of her pole jams into where they had her
>coach yelling her name and an electronic beeper guiding her directly
>to the short stationary box on the ground. I'm getting goose bumps
>right now just retelling the story as I did when I was listening to
>this young lady's life. When it was over, I said out loud, "Thank
>God. There's at least one role model for me as a blind
>person." Now, don't get me wrong. I've met many blind men,
>especially when I was in my twenties, whom I not only admired but
>they encourage me to press onward and upward and their influence on
>my blindness as a young man, made a big difference. In fact, they
>made all the difference in the world to me. I'm saying, they were
>my role models, too, just like men I saw as a sighted kid at the age
>of ten. In fact, over these many years, I have some blind women I
>consider role models to me and my wife is one of them. She
>impressed me so much when we met, I was 18 and she was 20, I married
>her two years later and have been married to her now for 43 years as
>of this month of January. Don't tell her this but she still amazes
>me to this day. Anyhow, for any of you out there, regardless of
>your age, there are role models to emulate and I encourage you to
>keep looking for role models wherever you go.
>
>Phil.
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