Thanks for sharing this. I think the world in general is lacking in role
models. I am sure there are some, but it seems we only hear of the mistakes
football players make, the movie stars whose marriages fail. We need people
who live ordinary lives as we do; people who live liffe well following a
goal, living their beliefs, following their dreams.
That sounds awfully scarry jumping so high in the air only to fall down
again. No thanks, that's not for me.
Rhonda
-----Original Message-----
From: The Electronic Church [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On
Behalf Of Phil Scovell
Sent: Thursday, January 15, 2015 1:21 AM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Fw: [BLIND-X] There aren't many left; role models, I mean.
----- 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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