June, 2009... Well, after 7 years here, the time has come to move along. My daughter Kristi is buying some houses for investment in the Houston, Texas area, and she wants me to move into one of them and help her restore the others. Plus, she is engaged to Trey, who has a 5-year-old daughter, Emma - so I will be a grandpa!!! Wow!  This is too good to pass up, so I am busy packing up all my junk and getting ready to move. 

Hopefully, I will be able to change my screen name to 'BobInTX' here, but if not, it'll still be the same guy, new location. Thanks to all for their friendship over the past year, and I will resume - probably near the end of June - from a much more southern location...

Well, I am pretty sure this will be my last post on AARP. The errors, delays, duplications, and sloooooow refresh here have finally taken their toll on my nerves. I can't take it anymore!!!

Many of the people I met on here have moved over to another site called eons.com and have expressed happiness in the efficient way it operates, so I am calling it quits and going off to find them.

Even though I won't miss this sad and troubled posting environment, I will miss some of the great people I have met here who seem to be able to tolerate these software malfunctions. And for the rest, who want to take control of their internet time again, I will see you on eons.

Fondly,

Bob

Barack Obama

Election Night
Tuesday, November 4th, 2008
Chicago, Illinois
 
 
If there is anyone out there who still doubts that America is a place where all things are possible; who still wonders if the dream of our founders is alive in our time; who still questions the power of our democracy, tonight is your answer.
 
It's the answer told by lines that stretched around schools and churches in numbers this nation has never seen; by people who waited three hours and four hours, many for the very first time in their lives, because they believed that this time must be different; that their voice could be that difference.  
 
It's the answer spoken by young and old, rich and poor, Democrat and Republican, black, white, Hispanic, Asian, Native American, gay, straight, disabled and not disabled - Americans who sent a message to the world that we have never been a collection of Red States and Blue States: we are, and always will be, the United States of America.
 
It's the answer that led those who have been told for so long by so many to be cynical, and fearful, and doubtful of what we can achieve to put their hands on the arc of history and bend it once more toward the hope of a better day.
 
It's been a long time coming, but tonight, because of what we did on this day, in this election, at this defining moment, change has come to America. 
 
I just received a very gracious call from Senator McCain.  He fought long and hard in this campaign, and he's fought even longer and harder for the country he loves.  He has endured sacrifices for America that most of us cannot begin to imagine, and we are better off for the service rendered by this brave and selfless leader.  I congratulate him and Governor Palin for all they have achieved, and I look forward to working with them to renew this nation's promise in the months ahead.
 
I want to thank my partner in this journey, a man who campaigned from his heart and spoke for the men and women he grew up with on the streets of Scranton and rode with on that train home to Delaware, the Vice President-elect of the United States, Joe Biden. 
 
I would not be standing here tonight without the unyielding support of my best friend for the last sixteen years, the rock of our family and the love of my life, our nation's next First Lady, Michelle Obama.  Sasha and Malia, I love you both so much, and you have earned the new puppy that's coming with us to the White House.  And while she's no longer with us, I know my grandmother is watching, along with the family that made me who I am.  I miss them tonight, and know that my debt to them is beyond measure.
 
To my campaign manager David Plouffe, my chief strategist David Axelrod, and the best campaign team ever assembled in the history of politics - you made this happen, and I am forever grateful for what you've sacrificed to get it done.
 
But above all, I will never forget who this victory truly belongs to - it belongs to you.
 
I was never the likeliest candidate for this office. We didn't start with much money or many endorsements.  Our campaign was not hatched in the halls of Washington - it began in the backyards of Des Moines and the living rooms of Concord and the front porches of Charleston. 
 
It was built by working men and women who dug into what little savings they had to give five dollars and ten dollars and twenty dollars to this cause.  It grew strength from the young people who rejected the myth of their generation's apathy; who left their homes and their families for jobs that offered little pay and less sleep; from the not-so-young people who braved the bitter cold and scorching heat to knock on the doors of perfect strangers; from the millions of Americans who volunteered, and organized, and proved that more than two centuries later, a government of the people, by the people and for the people has not perished from this Earth.  This is your victory.  
 
I know you didn't do this just to win an election and I know you didn't do it for me.  You did it because you understand the enormity of the task that lies ahead.  For even as we celebrate tonight, we know the challenges that tomorrow will bring are the greatest of our lifetime - two wars, a planet in peril, the worst financial crisis in a century.  Even as we stand here tonight, we know there are brave Americans waking up in the deserts of Iraq and the mountains of Afghanistan to risk their lives for us.  There are mothers and fathers who will lie awake after their children fall asleep and wonder how they'll make the mortgage, or pay their doctor's bills, or save enough for college. There is new energy to harness and new jobs to be created; new schools to build and threats to meet and alliances to repair.
 
The road ahead will be long.  Our climb will be steep.  We may not get there in one year or even one term, but America - I have never been more hopeful than I am tonight that we will get there.  I promise you - we as a people will get there. 
 
There will be setbacks and false starts.  There are many who won't agree with every decision or policy I make as President, and we know that government can't solve every problem.  But I will always be honest with you about the challenges we face.  I will listen to you, especially when we disagree.  And above all, I will ask you join in the work of remaking this nation the only way it's been done in America for two-hundred and twenty-one years - block by block, brick by brick, calloused hand by calloused hand. 
 
What began twenty-one months ago in the depths of winter must not end on this autumn night. This victory alone is not the change we seek - it is only the chance for us to make that change.  And that cannot happen if we go back to the way things were.  It cannot happen without you.
 
So let us summon a new spirit of patriotism; of service and responsibility where each of us resolves to pitch in and work harder and look after not only ourselves, but each other.  Let us remember that if this financial crisis taught us anything, it's that we cannot have a thriving Wall Street while Main Street suffers - in this country, we rise or fall as one nation; as one people.
 
Let us resist the temptation to fall back on the same partisanship and pettiness and immaturity that has poisoned our politics for so long.  Let us remember that it was a man from this state who first carried the banner of the Republican Party to the White House - a party founded on the values of self-reliance, individual liberty, and national unity. Those are values we all share, and while the Democratic Party has won a great victory tonight, we do so with a measure of humility and determination to heal the divides that have held back our progress.  As Lincoln said to a nation far more divided than ours, "We are not enemies, but friends...though passion may have strained it must not break our bonds of affection." And to those Americans whose support I have yet to earn - I may not have won your vote, but I hear your voices, I need your help, and I will be your President too. 
 
And to all those watching tonight from beyond our shores, from parliaments and palaces to those who are huddled around radios in the forgotten corners of our world - our stories are singular, but our destiny is shared, and a new dawn of American leadership is at hand.  To those who would tear this world down - we will defeat you.  To those who seek peace and security - we support you.  And to all those who have wondered if America's beacon still burns as bright - tonight we proved once more that the true strength of our nation comes not from our the might of our arms or the scale of our wealth, but from the enduring power of our ideals: democracy, liberty, opportunity, and unyielding hope.  
 
For that is the true genius of America - that America can change.  Our union can be perfected.  And what we have already achieved gives us hope for what we can and must achieve tomorrow. 
 
This election had many firsts and many stories that will be told for generations.  But one that's on my mind tonight is about a woman who cast her ballot in Atlanta.  She's a lot like the millions of others who stood in line to make their voice heard in this election except for one thing - Ann Nixon Cooper is 106 years old. 
 
She was born just a generation past slavery; a time when there were no cars on the road or planes in the sky; when someone like her couldn't vote for two reasons - because she was a woman and because of the color of her skin.
 
And tonight, I think about all that she's seen throughout her century in America - the heartache and the hope; the struggle and the progress; the times we were told that we can't, and the people who pressed on with that American creed:  Yes we can. 
 
At a time when women's voices were silenced and their hopes dismissed, she lived to see them stand up and speak out and reach for the ballot.  Yes we can. 
 
When there was despair in the dust bowl and depression across the land, she saw a nation conquer fear itself with a New Deal, new jobs and a new sense of common purpose.  Yes we can. 
 
When the bombs fell on our harbor and tyranny threatened the world, she was there to witness a generation rise to greatness and a democracy was saved.  Yes we can. 
 
She was there for the buses in Montgomery, the hoses in Birmingham, a bridge in Selma, and a preacher from Atlanta who told a people that "We Shall Overcome."  Yes we can. 
 
A man touched down on the moon, a wall came down in Berlin, a world was connected by our own science and imagination.  And this year, in this election, she touched her finger to a screen, and cast her vote, because after 106 years in America, through the best of times and the darkest of hours, she knows how America can change.  Yes we can. 
 
America, we have come so far.  We have seen so much.  But there is so much more to do.  So tonight, let us ask ourselves - if our children should live to see the next century; if my daughters should be so lucky to live as long as Ann Nixon Cooper, what change will they see?  What progress will we have made? 
 
This is our chance to answer that call.  This is our moment.  This is our time - to put our people back to work and open doors of opportunity for our kids; to restore prosperity and promote the cause of peace; to reclaim the American Dream and reaffirm that fundamental truth - that out of many, we are one; that while we breathe, we hope, and where we are met with cynicism, and doubt, and those who tell us that we can't, we will respond with that timeless creed that sums up the spirit of a people:
 
Yes We Can.  Thank you, God bless you, and may God Bless the United States of America.

Thoughts on a subject -

I had the good fortune to meet and spend time with a British author and intellectual while on a trip to Belize. We discussed many things over the days we spent together, and it was interesting to see how America and Americans are viewed by other members of our international community.

One thing she shared was the international perception of American gun ownership. She said that even though Americans are viewed as the most heavily-armed citizenry in the world, we are seen as allowing our government to dictate to us, and even when those dictates become counterproductive or corrupted, we only stand lamely and complain. Whereas a democratic government is supposed to be a tool of it’s citizens, it seems to many foreigners that in America, the citizens are merely tools of the government.

She said that she hears all the time when speaking to Americans that our citizens bemoan the fact our countrymen are going hungry, yet we spend billions of our tax dollars to send food to foreign regimes that merely divert the aid to ’black-marketeers’ for their own prestige and profit.

Our educational system is practically broken, mostly for lack of funding, yet we continue to develop great weapons of mass destruction costing billions of dollars, rather than trying to develop an educated citizenry. So very many of us are suffering from a lack of medical care, or inadequate housing and nutrition, and our elderly are barely able to survive, yet government waste and corruption siphon billions of needed dollars every year, and it never ends. 

Illegal aliens stream into the country and drain more billions in the form of border control, capture and deportation, substandard employment, medical and survival assistance, use of the infrastructure paid for by our citizens without contributing to it’s upkeep, and freely using and straining the resources of an eductional system barely able to keep pace with our own citizen’s demands.

Our troop go overseas and lay their lives on the line, yet when the unthinkable happens and they are sent home to recover, they are subjected to military hospitals that are delapidated and decaying, and the damaged among them are discharged and forced to wade through miles of red tape to get the assistance and medical help needed to maintain life after service. Which, by the way, should make other young, able-bodied soldiers question the wisdom of fighting and dying for a system that won’t support them should they make the ultimate sacrifice of giving their life or their health in it’s defense.

And her point was, with such a heavily armed citizenry, why do Americans simply whimper and continue to take this abuse from the very government we created?  I hear people like Obama saying ’Enough!’, but older Americans have heard it all before.  Not one candidate in modern history has stood before the American media and hollered ’Four more years of graft, ineptitude, waste and corruption’, but that is what we keep getting. They all promise change, reform, governmental responsibility, yadda, yadda, yadda - yet here we are! Almost 40 years ago, the actor Peter Finch in the movie ’Network’ urged everyone to adopt the attitude of  "I’m mad as hell, and I’m not going to take this anymore."  Yet here we are, a whole generation later, still taking it. 

You need only ask anyone, friends, neighbors, co-workers - anyone, and they will echo the same sentiments - they are tired of the waste,the inefficiency, the corruption, the malfeasance that continues year in and year out. But - NOTHING EVER CHANGES!  And this in a country where more than half the citizenry is armed!!!   This is baffling to those not conditioned into thinking the citizens are tools of the government, not that the ’democratic’ government is supposed to be the tool of the citizenry.

Is it time to say ’Enough’ and "I’m mad as hell, and I’m not going to take this anymore"?  And, if not now -- when?

Bob Sage - Labor Day, 2008

The other day a young person asked me how I felt about being old.

I was taken aback, for I do not think of myself as old. Upon seeing my reaction, she was immediately embarrassed, but I explained that it was an interesting question, and I would ponder it, and let her know.

.

Old Age, I decided, is a gift.

.

I am now, probably for the first time in my life, the person I have always wanted to be. Oh, not my body! I sometime despair over my body, the wrinkles, the baggy eyes, and the thinning hair.

.

And often I am taken aback by that old person that lives in my mirror (who looks like my father!), but I don’t agonize over those things for long.

.

I would never trade my amazing friends, my wonderful life, my loving family for less gray hair or a flatter belly.

.

As I’ve aged, I’ve become more kind to myself, and less critical of myself. I’ve become my own friend. I don’t chide myself for eating that extra cookie, or for not making my bed, or for buying that silly cement gecko that I didn’t need, but looks so avante garde on my patio. I am entitled to a treat, to be messy, to be extravagant.

.

I have seen too many dear friends leave this world too soon; before they understood the great freedom that comes with aging. Whose business is it if I choose to read or play on the computer until 4 AM and sleep until noon?

.

I will dance with myself to those wonderful tunes of the 60s & 70’s, and if I, at the same time, wish to weep over a lost love ... I will. I will walk the beach in a swim suit that is stretched over a bulging body, and will dive into the waves with abandon if I choose to, despite the pitying glances from the jet set.  If they are lucky, they, too, will get old.

.

I know I am sometimes forgetful. But there again, some of life is just as wellforgotten . And I eventually remember the important things.

.

Sure, over the years my heart has been broken. How can your heart not break when you lose a loved one, or when a child suffers, or even when somebody’s beloved pet gets hit by a car? But broken hearts are what give us strength and understanding and compassion. A heart never broken is pristine and sterile and will never know the joy of being imperfect.

.

I am so blessed to have lived long enough to have my hair turning gray, and to have my youthful laughs be forever etched into deep grooves on my face. So many have never laughed, and so many have died before their hair could turn silver.

.

As you get older, it is easier to be positive. You care less about what other people think. I don’t question myself anymore. I’ve even earned the right to be wrong.

.

So, to answer your question, I like being old. It has set me free. I like the person I have become. I am not going to live forever, but while I am still here, I will not waste time lamenting what could have been, or worrying about what will be.

.

And I shall eat dessert every single day. (If I feel like it)

.

MAY OUR FRIENDSHIP NEVER COME APART ESPECIALLY WHEN IT’S STRAIGHT FROM THE HEART!

.
MAY YOU ALWAYS HAVE A RAINBOW OF SMILES ON YOUR FACE AND IN YOUR HEART FOREVER AND EVER!

              FRIENDS FOREVER!                    (Unknown)

Well, that last one generated a lot of comments and email, but heck with you I’m going to post this one anyway!!!  I think we have to blame francese for inspiring this little ditty. She wrote that the last poem 'sounded like someone tore out my heart and fed it to her dog'.  This’ll learn her...

.

.

Sad Song

.

Well you tore out my heart, and fed it to your dog
How come you are doin’ me this way, hey?
I die every time my name’s in your blog,
You know I’ll get even some day.

.

You’re spreading my secrets all over town,
Stop those lies that you’re telling, I pray.
You know they’re not true, stop putting me down,
And you don’t spell camisole with a ’K’.

.

You know there’s more women than you in the sea,
I’ll stalk them like they was a fi~ish,
I land one of them and we’ll keep company
If you stop spreadin’ that garbage you dish.

.

This is the last time I’ll ask you to chill
Just answer one question and see,
If you are so great, and you think that you’re still
Why d’ja date a big loser like me?

True Love?

 .

Have I been here before? Oh I get so confused,
is it just a bad dream or am I being used?
You claim that it’s love but I feel abused,
and I think that I just want to die.

.

You said you would love me till death do us part-
well I guess I am dead cause you just broke my heart
don’t tell me more lies - no you don’t even start!
And I swear that you won’t see me cry.

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So you cheated on me and I’m supposed to forgive?
This is not the life I was brought up to live
You take and you take - I had so much to give.
This is it cause I’m saying goodbye.

.

Just step aside now, get out of my way.
Stop saying you’re sorry and that I should stay,
when you know that you can’t wait to go back and play!
How can you just stand there and lie?

.

I’m free of you now, it’s all over for good.
I really don’t hate you, though I know that I should,
I’ll never go back to you, that’s understood,
and I think that I just want to die.

.

Bob Sage - August 20, 2008

.

Bags

I had a good friend and each day I and he
would walk to the beach at the edge of the sea,
We’d watch the great ships as they moved to and fro
and wondered about all the places they’d go.

.

We both planned that someday we’d cross that great sea
and dreamed of the magical places we’d be.
With names so darn foreign we can’t even say
We’d go just to visit, we never would stay.

.

Then we got older and I went on to school
to prove to the world that, Hey I am no fool
And he had things he wanted so he went to work
Making good dough as a retail clerk.

.

And we both heard rumblings of their starting a war,
and that our guys were dying on some foreign shore.
But a student deferment would keep me alive
and for those good grades I continued to strive.

.

While my friend got a new car and it was all fine,
Until one day a letter with this opening line -
"Greetings, A Board of Your Neighbors" it said
And I knew in his heart he felt nothing but dread.

.

They told him for Duty he must soon report,
and he knew that ’Yes Sir’ was his only retort.
So at last he was crossing that big sea, oh damn
To some foreign place that they called ’Vietnam’.

.

They told him he’d shoot folks that he never knew,
and the worst thing of all they’d be shooting back too.
But he wasn’t worried, he’d been trained to attack,
And as soon as it’s over, why, he’ll be coming back.

.

So I stood on the pier as he sailed away
and saw friends and mothers there stopping to pray.
Their lovers and sons were all going to fight
And they prayed to the Lord they’d all come home alright.

.

Then time passed so slowly, and the newsmen kept saying
about the losses we had and the Cong they were slaying
Till one day my friend’s dad with message in hand,
Stood there so sadly, he barely could stand.

.

"We regret to inform you," the telegram said.
and it ended up saying my dear friend was dead.
They praised him for courage, but he came home in a bag,
Now all they have left is a folded-up flag.

.

Now its many years later, and the news from Iraq,
Is that we are winning, maintain the attack,
And I sit here and wonder just how many flags,
and how many bodies will come home in bags.

August 11, 2008

http://www.teamhoyt.com/history.shtml

Racing Towards Inclusion
by David Tereshchuk
 
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
 
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."

David Tereshchuk is a documentary television producer. He currently works for the United Nations.

  Ok  I am going to post another one here.  To show you how my mind works - I thought of this old joke:

Two campers had spent several days on the side of a mountain, enjoying the wilderness. One afternoon, as one was starting a fire to prepare their evening meal, his partner came dashing into camp, dropped to the ground and began removing his hiking boots and putting on his sneakers.
’What the heck are you doing?’ the cook asked him.
’Well,’ he said, ’I was walking up the mountain and saw a huge grizzly bear running downhill, headed directly for our camp here. And he looked really hungry!’
’But why are you putting on your sneaks? You know you can’t outrun a hungry bear.’
His partner said, ’I don’t have to outrun him man, I just have to outrun you.’

Ha Ha Ha anyway..... That made me think, and I wrote this poem. I hope you like it -

The American Dream

It seems that we have lost, I fear
that great American quest.
To always try to persevere
and to always be the best.

.

We seem content to just get by
and to let our standards slide.
Its getting so we just don’t try
We’re along for just the ride.

.

Who cares if we can’t do the math
Or learn geography?
Don’t choose the scientific path
or know our history.

.

If bad things tend to make us doubt,
And troubles pile high -
The government will pull us out,
Why should we even try?

.

Technology will save our butts,
Why should we have to learn?
The Honor Roll is just for nuts
and excellence we spurn.

.

The simple things our fathers knew
aren’t relevent to us
But as Jefferson himself eschewed
(I think he said it thus:)

.

’A government large enough to give us
Every thing we want,
Is powerful enough to take from us
Everything we’ve got.’

.

For those few who choose a different path
And wonder if they can succeed.
They study hard to learn the math
and learn to spell and read.

.

Don’t think that I’m just being kind
And remember this one thing,
In a land populated by the blind
A one-eyed man is king!

.

July 26, 2008   Bob Sage

 ____________________________________________________________________

The Things I’ll Never Do

I can still remember as a child quite small
 on the fourth of July I’d stare, all enthralled
As the workmen scurried about to and fro
 lighting wicks to make the fireworks go.
And as they filled the sky with light
 I’d gaze up at the starry night
As booms like thunder shook me through
 I thought, now that is something I want to do.

.

And, I can remember staring in
 At the candy piled deep in bins
In a corner of the grocer’s shop
 where the smell alone would make you stop
And I saw a clerk in his apron white
 who could stop and sample any bite
Or eat his fill if he chose to
 and I knew that someday I would too.

.

Then I got older and I longed to drive
 and wished for a car. Oh man alive!
To be free to go whenever I chose
 I’d drive this whole country, just follow my nose.
I’d drive a great big rig, or maybe a hack
 or maybe a racecar...I’d speed ’round the track,
And gather up trophies.  Yes sir, I knew
 at last and for certain that’s what I’d like to do.

.

Well, now I’m much older, I’ve got common sense,
 so I’ll tell you right out and relieve your suspense.
I never fired rockets on the Fourth of July
 or eaten so much candy that I wanted to die.
Or driven a race car (though I still wouldn’t mind)
 I sit on the couch and watch sports to unwind.
My son and I watch as Michael Jordan scores two
 and my son says to me "Dad, that’s what I’d like to do!"

.

 March 14, 1993 - Bob Sage