Inspiration.

[Shug7272]

I believe people are making progress everyday, and with the aid of the internet we may make it yet. On testmy.net I dont see black or white, I dont see your culture, your physique, your level of attractivness. I see you. People are doing better. I wanted to post some of my favorite inspirational videos. They should at least make you smile. 

It began in 2007 when Paul Potts, an unassuming cell phone salesman, took the stage on Britain's Got Talent. Unlike American Idol, the show is a true talent show unencumbered by "marketability" and more toward finding the hidden talents of the common people. Paul Potts emerged on the international stage not as a potential "idol", but as a chubby, disheveled man who had been ridiculed and bullied in his younger years and had found his real being in his voice. He had the guts to share that real person with others. When asked why he was there, he stated "to sing opera". The dread of both the judges and audience was palpable. But what emerged when Mr. Potts began to sing was breathtaking.

And now there is Susan Boyle. A 47 year old woman who has never been married, never been kissed, ridiculed as a child and teenager for a disability, who has revealed her transformation before judges and the world. She has sang her being to us, and moved us.

Then there is my personal favorite.

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,'' Rick types, ``is that my dad sit in the chair and I push him once.''

[Roco]

indeed shugs , I fess I ain't watched the vids, (download limit )  but I do belive the power of the internet may save us from WW3 ,

well thats the way I see it ,  I just hope we move on with religious/national feelings , hell; we all live on this planet for better or worse,

all Brothers under the skin , but I guess the time isn't right yet , but maybe soon ,

uindeed times are a changing,

[Shug7272]

indeed shugs , I fess I ain't watched the vids, (download limit )  but I do belive the power of the internet may save us from WW3 ,

well thats the way I see it ,  I just hope we move on with religious/national feelings , hell; we all live on this planet for better or worse,

all Brothers under the skin , but I guess the time isn't right yet , but maybe soon ,

uindeed times are a changing,

I gotta go kill some nazi zombies on XBOX. IM OUTTIE!!!