Father and Son

I try to be a good father. Give my son everything he needs. Pay for his phonics class. Take him and mom out for fine dining. Have yearly photo shoots... etc...

But compared with Dick Hoyt, I suck.

You see, eighty-five times he's pushed his disabled son, Rick, 26.2 miles (41.92 km) 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.

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 buzzkill 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, "is that my dad sit in the chair and I push him once."

By Rick ReillySports Illustrated
- Used with permission

Dick and Rick Hoyt have a book and DVD. To learn more about this very special father and son team go to: www.teamhoyt.com

Come to my House at 6:30, okay?

For the record, this question is uttered from my 3 1/2 year-old junior, not a girlfriend or mistress.
.
Now, you will have to understand a few things before appreciating my reason for putting it here:

.

First, this is the first time he dialled my handphone number from memory - nobody assisted him. And for your information, EagleBoy junor can recall his mommy's cell phone too!
.
Second, his grasp of the concept of time is impressive. He specified what time he wanted to see me. It would be well if he said he wanted to see me tonight. But at 6:30, this boy knew when he wants what he wants.
.
Third, he stated the location: My house. Often we are at the mercy of other's choice of location. The successful time manager will have others go to him instead of him going to others. Time is saved in this way.
.
Now, what did EagleBoy (Dad) do in this situation?
.
He yielded....He cancelled his 6:30 pm appointment, postponed his 7:30 pm appointment, and asked for grace to show up late for his last appointment at NUSS (that's at 8 pm). All this for a little boy's plea to ... show his dad his new toy car and a new set of train tracks.
.
Now if you know me, I am not in the habit of changing my appointment or schedule; well, at least not by me. Most of the time, my clients will call and do the re-arrangement. But I felt compelled to oblige my little boy for 3 basic reasons:
.
1. He can have my attention, any time, almost anywhere (except when I am out of town). I want him to know that Dad is a friend and my line is always open to him as far as he is concerned.
He has exclusivity (Just like his mom).
.
2. Once I made a promise, I keep it. I need to demonstrate to him what a Promise Keeper is and do, and he needs to learn this from me. You see, not that I undermine the importance of meeting my clients. It's just a matter of setting my priorities from the beginning.
He has priority (Just like his mom).
.
3. Loving someone cost - the greater the love, the higher the cost. There is no two ways about it. Love is non-negotiable. If you claim you love somebody, you will need to sacrifice something, sometime, down the road somewhere, somehow. If I can show it now, why wait. To a child, love is not spelled L-O-V-E, but T-I-M-E!!!
He has urgency (Just like his mom). And I need his mom to know that!
.
Moments like these only come a few times in our lives. Some don't even have the opportunities or privileges. Don't squander them at the altar of wealth and the pursuit of money. Remember:
.
People first (family),
then money (the management of it),
then things (the stewardship of it).
.
So, love people, manage money, and enjoy things.
.
So, are you coming to my house at 6:30 pm? Okay?

Walk the Talk

Children pay little attention to their parents' teachings, but reproduce their characters faithfully.
- Mason Cooley

Indeed, more is caught than is taught.
May my little one catches daddy's plus points.

Nurturing What Matters - Family

Always reward your long hours of labor & toil in the very best way, surrounded by your family. Nurture their love carefully, remembering that your children needs models, not critics, & your own progress will hasten when you constantly strive to present your best side to your children. And even if you have failed at all else in the eyes of the world, if you have a loving family, you are a success.

Og Mandino
1923 - 1996
Author & Speaker

Fatherhood

"The ultimate revelation of God, therefore, in the New Testament, is the revelation of God as Father. And the ultimate purpose of the New Testament, the very reason why Jesus Himself came, is to bring us to God...."

"When we come into the fullness of this revelation of God & into that direct relationship with God as Father, it supplies certain things which are conspicuously lacking in the emotional experience of perhaps the majority of the people in our culture. The three things which come out of this revelation & this relationship are: identity, self-worth, & security."

Derek Prince
From the book Fatherhood