The Thrill of Wheels

I found this story on the web. Enjoy.

Aaron Fotheringham (born November 8, 1991 in Las Vegas, Nevada) is an Extreme wheelchair athlete who performs tricks adapted from skateboarding and BMX.
Fotheringham calls his racing style ‘hardcore sitting’. He claims to be the first person to successfully perform a back flip in a wheelchair at the age of 14. He performs other tricks in his wheelchair including a 180 degree 'aerial'. He plans to fuse the back flip with the 180 aerial into what is known as a ‘flair’.
Fotheringham has Spina Bifida; he has used a wheelchair since the age of three and although he used crutches early on, he has been in a wheelchair fulltime since the age of eight. He would watch his brother riding his BMX at the skate park and one day his brother told him that he should try riding his chair in the park. Aaron later noted that “I did, and I was hooked”.
Fotheringham got a new wheelchair, a Colours In Motion's Boing!" which was both lightweight and featured four wheel suspension. This enabled him to perform the same sorts of tricks that skateboarders and BMXers can do as the suspension cushioned his landings. Aaron has further worked with Colours Wheelchairs to help refine their designs in real-world situations, and has been given a custom-made chair that is in his words ‘pretty much indestructible’
He now competes in the Vegas Am Jam series in skate park competitions usually competing against BMX riders. He placed fourth in the intermediate BMX division in a competition held at Sunny Springs Skate Park on August 26, 2006.
Fotheringham advises others attempting to try these tricks to wear a helmet; He has suffered several injuries performing these tricks including a broken elbow. He tries out new tricks by performing them first into cushions. Then he graduates to a ‘rezi’, a harder plastic sheet over the cushions, before attempting the new trick on a regular skateboard ramp.
When asked about having to practice, Fotheringham responded "I don’t think of it as practice, I think of it as a fun way to live my life".

This young man is my hero. So are his parents for allowing him to take risks.
Sky

Unknown Hero

This blurb has been circulating in emails for at least a few years. The last time I received it was about 6 months ago. Last evening while I was working I was thinking that I would hunt it down and use it on this blog. Well, this morning when I returned home from work I checked my email. Lo' and behold, a friend had emailed it to me, not knowing I have seen it before. Soooo.. Here you go.

THE BRICK
A young and successful executive was traveling down a neighborhood street, going a bit too fast in his new Jaguar. He was watching for kids darting out from between parked cars and slowed down when he thought he saw something. As his car passed, no children appeared. Instead, a brick smashed into the Jag's side door!

He slammed on the brakes and backed the Jag back to the spot where the brick had been thrown. The angry driver then jumped out of the car, grabbed the nearest kid and pushed him up against a parked car shouting, 'What was that all about and who are you? Just what the heck are you doing? That's a new car and that brick you threw is going to cost a lot of money. Why did you do it?'

The young boy was apologetic. 'Please, mister. .please, I'm sorry but I didn't know what else to do,' He pleaded. 'I threw the brick because no one else would stop...' With tears dripping down his face and off his chin, the youth pointed to a spot just around a parked car. 'It's my brother, 'he said 'He rolled off the curb and fell out of his wheelchair and I can't lift him up.' Now sobbing, the boy asked the stunned executive, 'Would you please help me get him back into his wheelchair? He's hurt and he's too heavy for me.'

Moved beyond words, the driver tried to swallow the rapidly swelling lump in his throat. He hurriedly lifted the handicapped boy back into the wheelchair, then took out a linen handkerchief and dabbed at the fresh scrapes and cuts. A quick look told him everything was going to be okay. 'Thank you and may God bless you,' the grateful child told the stranger.

Too shook up for words, the man simply watched the boy push his wheelchair-bound brother down the sidewalk toward their home. It was a long, slow walk back to the Jaguar. The damage was very noticeable, but the driver never bothered to repair the dented side door. He kept the dent there to remind him of this message: 'Don't go through life so fast that someone has to throw a brick at you to get your attention!'

Sky