Hometown Hero.....
Outdoor Mag. has just put up an article honoring my hometown hero. Jim was my high school's star athlete and one of those guys that is just nice, encouraging, and helpful to everyone. He served in Nam where he had both of his legs blown off at the knee.
You can well imagine that when that happens to a small town's star athlete, people were horrified. Everyone expected he would be completely destroyed and traumatized forever.
It didn't take long for him to heal enough to come home to finish healing. We expected that he would be a broken man who quietly watched people pass him in his wheelchair as he fed pigeons in the town park while collecting his disability.
Where you were most likely to see him on most days after a short recovery period, was standing on his knees on the front of a golf cart swinging his club and driving that ball down the fairway in a way that was the envy of everyone, or wheeling his chair around a basketball court in one of the local parks or sometimes racing down the slopes at one of the local ski hills.
Jim never lost his spirit to help and encourage others either. He remained the kind, encouraging individual he had always been. He always has the right words to comfort and motivate someone else who is down.
The only thing this man hasn't ever been able to achieve is self-pity. If you look at his list of achievements (which just mentions some of the bigger highlights), I guess he just didn't have time for it.
Anyway - the small honor he was just awarded isn't earthshaking - but I wanted to share a little of his story here. In my hometown, there's nobody that doesn't look up to Jim and love him. There's not a person there that his life and story hasn't touched in one way or another. Maybe it will touch you, too. Maybe if you are feeling down today, Jim can help you see that things aren't all that bleak at all.
Announcing the 2012 Living Legend – Jim Dehlin | Stormy Kromer
You can well imagine that when that happens to a small town's star athlete, people were horrified. Everyone expected he would be completely destroyed and traumatized forever.
It didn't take long for him to heal enough to come home to finish healing. We expected that he would be a broken man who quietly watched people pass him in his wheelchair as he fed pigeons in the town park while collecting his disability.
Where you were most likely to see him on most days after a short recovery period, was standing on his knees on the front of a golf cart swinging his club and driving that ball down the fairway in a way that was the envy of everyone, or wheeling his chair around a basketball court in one of the local parks or sometimes racing down the slopes at one of the local ski hills.
Jim never lost his spirit to help and encourage others either. He remained the kind, encouraging individual he had always been. He always has the right words to comfort and motivate someone else who is down.
The only thing this man hasn't ever been able to achieve is self-pity. If you look at his list of achievements (which just mentions some of the bigger highlights), I guess he just didn't have time for it.
Anyway - the small honor he was just awarded isn't earthshaking - but I wanted to share a little of his story here. In my hometown, there's nobody that doesn't look up to Jim and love him. There's not a person there that his life and story hasn't touched in one way or another. Maybe it will touch you, too. Maybe if you are feeling down today, Jim can help you see that things aren't all that bleak at all.
Announcing the 2012 Living Legend – Jim Dehlin | Stormy Kromer