Everyday Heroes

Everyday heroes.  These are the people who knock my socks off.  Like the 42-year-old man who climbed Yosemite's 3,000-foot El Capitan in 6 days.  Since many others have made it in a single day, his climb doesn't seem like such a big deal ~ until you know that Steve Wampler has cerebral palsy.  He scaled that mountain by literally pulling up his own body weight, and a specially designed chair with rope wenches,  inch by inch.  To train for this amazing feat, he spent one year doing 85-pound pull-downs ~ are you ready for this ? ~ 1800 times a day.

Now stop and pause right here.  1800 times a day.  I'm sure that Olympic and other world-class athletes train equally as vigorously in their respective sports.  But Steve's goal was not athletic competition.  Instead, his competition was against himself and the sheer face of a mountain that is twice the height of the Empire State Building.  His amazing feat required about 20,000 repetitive pulls ~ at 4 to 8 inches per pull.

He could have been lowered down at any time and patted himself on the back for doing what he could do.  But despite unexpected encounters with dehydration, fatigue and a bout of acrophobia (fear of heights), Steve refused to give up until he reached his ultimate goal.  And that goal wasn't just reaching the top of a mountain.  That goal was to send a message that handicaps and disabilities should not stop one from setting goals and living life.

I am sometimes stopped by my own pathetic, self-imposed handicaps.  I'm listening, Steve.  I'm inspired.  You are my everyday hero.

(Blogmeister's note:  article on Steve was seen in the Sept 24th issue of The Valley Times in an article by Carl Steward.)