“As a cure for worry, work is better than whiskey” ~ Thomas Edison
My friend John was a quadriplegic and permanent resident at King County Hospital.
I met John in 1962 while I had a Seattle Times paper route in the hospital. John would buy both the morning and evening papers so that he could study the horse racing handicap columns. He bet on horses and often used me to place his bets.
I was 14 years old at the time, getting ready to start high school and positively brimming with adolescent angst and anxiety. When John was 14 he often could be found on the Columbia River in eastern Washington where he enjoyed diving from the surrounding cliffs. On one such dive he missed his target, hit a rock outcropping and severed his spine at the neck.
From that day forward John was a quadriplegic. He became a ward of the state; his family seldom came to visit.
John designed some elaborate tools that permitted him to read the newspaper. It was in studying the sports page that he fell in love with horse racing, which became the motivation he used as a reason to live. John didn’t just toy with horse racing; he worked at it with unbelievable vigor. He spent hours with the racing forum, analyzing track conditions, jockey weight allowances, past performances, records of each owner and trainer. He became successful in his wagering and well known in the racing community as a first rate handicapper.
John admonished me, way before Nike, to find what I loved and – DO IT!
John would remind me that it made not one whit of difference that he was immobile. His job did not depend upon his mobility; his job depended upon his willingness to process large amounts of information concerning horses, jockeys, and track conditions.
John never complained to me about his life, for he was too consumed living it.
I remember a fateful day in November of 1963.
JFK had been assassinated and I knew everybody would be buying papers that day. I was really broken up. Kennedy, an Irish Catholic, had been a figure of enormous significance to my family. I was in a stupor when I arrived at the hospital that afternoon to sell the evening paper.
When I came upon John he stopped me and passed on a long list of bets he wanted me to make as soon as possible. I was a little taken aback as I knew him to be a big fan of Kennedy. I said, “Haven’t you heard the President has been assassinated? How can you be working now, of all times, just after we’ve had this national tragedy?”
“Pat,” he said, “I need to still live my life even when all hope fades away.”
There were tears in his eyes as he went on to say, “There is nothing I can do to save the President’s life. He’s dead, but I’m not and neither are you. We have work to do even on this sad day.”
John would not let any setback keep him from the business of living his life.
- Not the frequent bed sores
- Not the phantom pains
- Not the lack of family visits
- Not idle thoughts of what might have been
He spent no time worrying about the things not in his control.
John learned a lesson from his disability. It was a very hard lesson, but having learned it, he never found the need to unlearn it. He simply would not worry about anything that was outside his control. And by any reasonable reckoning, he understood the true meaning of the Serenity Prayer.
I left his room and placed his bets that day – we had work to do.
Just a Thought…
Pat
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