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.