Yearly Archives: 2018 (Page 3)

20-years-ago-today was my 122nd day on the road and I had reached London, my home town. It had been four months since I dipped the toes of my running shoes in the cold water of the Atlantic Ocean in St. John’s, Newfoundland and set out to walk across Canada at the age of 52.

There’s a line in the movie “The Wizard of Oz” about there being ‘no place like home.’ I was finding out first-hand how true that is.

It was a humid day with a mix of rain and drizzle and I had already taken my Jesse’s Journey jacket off and put it back on about a dozen times before I reached the reached the outskirts of London where there were thousands of people waiting along the side of the road.

After four months on the road and with another five months of road ahead of me, on day 122, I was finally going to be able to fall asleep in my own bed.

London was a whirlwind of snapshots that I still see in my mind:

• Meeting Jesse and having my inspiration by me side.
• Kissing Sherene in the rain after months on the road.
• Receiving a salute from friend Murray Faulkner, who would soon be London’s Police Chief.
• Having my friend Steve Casey guide me through a crowd in East London to where employees of the Wal-Mart store donated $8,000 to Jesse’s Journey.
• Being escorted to City Hall by the London Police pipe and drum band.
• Feeling bad for the Knights of Columbus in their dress uniforms forming an honour guard in the rain at the bandshell where I spoke to the crowd. They were soaked and with their feather plumes dripping rain, they never flinched.
• Signing the City of London guest book and unveiling a plaque at the base of the tree Jesse and I had planted with her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II a year earlier. I always loved that picture because the Queen had such a warm natural smile for us.
• Having my friend Shelley give me a much-needed haircut and refusing to accept payment. I put the money in her Jesse’s Journey jar.
• Having Sherene’s mom and dad join us at the outskirts of London and seeing how proud her dad was to have filled his donation bucket more than three times along the road.
• Having my mom and dad drop off some fresh corn for quiet barbecue with just Sherene, Jesse, his brothers Tyler and Tim, and me.
• Visiting a store called “The Brandy Tree” where a woman who had organized a fund raiser selling Beanie Babies presented Jesse’s Journey with a cheque for $18,000
• Helping to cut a man’s hair at $10.00 a snip at a classic car rally with hundreds of vintage cars on display. We were presented with a cheque for $13,000.
• Having a chance to take a walk with “Charlie,” even if it was just to the corner and back.
• And so many more snapshots that still mean so much to me.

I remember that when I was speaking to the crowd in Victoria Park I knew for certain how important it is to be passionate about whatever it is you are doing. And the more passionate you are, the more people will listen. That was very true with Jesse’s Journey and it’s still true today, because people like to be a part of something successful.

Are you making sure that people can see your passion?

And so it went on day 122.

Stay tuned. The journey continues……

20-years-ago today – I experienced another flashback. It was my 115th day on the road and we had reached Toronto.

Maybe it was the heat of summer that had my mind take me back to two moments that will be with me as long as I live.

The first was to 1995 when I pushed Jesse across Ontario in his wheelchair. It was in Toronto that we circled the bases at what was then called the ‘Skydome.’

As I pushed Jesse around the bases his story of courage and determination was flashed on the Jumbo-tron in centre field. Later that year we were at centre ice at Maple Leaf Gardens for the ceremonial puck drop as Toronto marked the opening of another hockey season. I’ll always remember Leafs Captain, Doug Gilmour, leaning in for the face-off and saying to us, “You guys are doing a really good thing.”

The second flashback also involved Toronto and was one of the proudest days of my life. It was at the Ontario Legislature at Queens Park in 1997 that I saw Jesse receive the Order of Ontario. Jesse had won a lot of hearts and done a remarkable job in making Canada aware of the need for research in the field of Duchenne muscular dystrophy, a disease for which there is no cure.

Most people are unaware that Duchenne affects boys almost exclusively. While research is making solid advances and I am very optimistic about the future, at this writing, we still do not have a survivor. Jesse’s Journey is all about changing that and if you are reading this posting, I hope you’ll visit www.jessesjourney.com It’s never too late become a member of the ‘journey’ family and make a contribution to something that is making a difference for all those young boys who show us every day what real courage is all about.

Toronto was a bit of a blur as I made my way across Canada in 1998 with cameras and microphones from every network giving us blanket coverage along with reporters from all the major newspapers. There was an opportunity to speak to Toronto city council and to share a microphone with Toronto Blue Jays play-by-play anchor, the late Tom Cheek and his broadcast partner Jerry Howarth, both of whom were very gracious.

In the steel canyons of downtown Toronto there was an elevator ride to the executive suite and an opportunity to deliver a speech to senior officials at the Royal Bank. That evening at Skydome, three Duchenne moms from Oshawa, who had spent night after night after night in a smoky bingo hall, presented Jesse’s Journey with a cheque for $60,000. That is what real philanthropy is all about.

On the streets of Toronto I shook hands with hundreds of people. There were people applauding and there were people in tears and I remember there was the man who got out of his car with no shirt on who shook my hand and said, “You’re making us all proud to be Canadian.” Some days it was just too much.

Back on the road, as I was leaving Toronto with a lot of horn honking along the road, I saw a little boy on the sidewalk in a wheelchair. His chest was in a brace support to keep his spine straight. He had really thin arms and a really big smile. He told me he was in grade two. When I asked him what he wanted to be, he stood as straight as he could, and said to me, “I want to be a professional wrestler!” It was all I could do to give him a kiss on the top of his head and say good-bye. He was a really neat kid.

It made me wonder how some people who are at such a disadvantage have such determination. I don’t know what brought that little boy and me together on that sidewalk that day – but it made my day!

And so it went on day 115.

Stay tuned. The journey continues……

20-years-ago today I was passing by CFB Trenton, east of Toronto.

As our little cavalcade moved along the steel fence that separated the highway from the military base, we could hear the constant roar of giant cargo planes, all painted military green, as they lifted into the air. We could also hear the sound of a large group of young cadets marching in loose formation on the other side if the fence applauding and yelling words of support as Jesse’s Journey continued to head west.

As I waved to say ‘thanks’ to the cadets, I thought about the many different people who had come to the side of the road to support Jesse’s Journey and just how they got there.

There were thousands of people who stopped in cars and trucks. There were people who pulled to the side of the road in vans and motorhomes and transport trucks to donate. There were people who got down from construction equipment, people who climbed off golf carts and people who even came on horseback to donate and to offer words of encouragement. They were what kept me going.

I was really just lucky enough to have the good fortune of being able at the front of the parade a couple of times.

Most people probably don’t realize the size of the team that is required to keep a project like ours moving forward every day.

We actually had two teams. They were appropriately called the Road Team and the Home Team. And both of these teams were managed by women.

On the road, Trish Federkow, who was with us 1995 when I pushed Jesse across Ontario, took charge of the road crew and the road volunteers who usually joined us on a Saturday. The volunteers they were replacing usually left on a Sunday. The new volunteers couldn’t understand why the people they were replacing were often in tears and didn’t want to leave. They would soon find out why.

The new volunteers often looked like they were wondering what they had gotten themselves into. They had less than 24 hours to learn the routine which consisted of a lot of things. Often times they replaced the OPP or RCMP in the monotonous job of driving right behind me at 5 miles per hour. Rule #1 was: do not run over John.

The other things they had to learn in a hurry involved charging lots of walkie-talkie batteries every night, making sure gas and oil levels were always ready to go, seeing that there was plenty of cold water on board the mini vans along with sun screen, clean dry clothing (especially socks) and things like fresh fruit and juice. Staying hydrated was very important. They were also the eyes constantly checking the mirrors and watching behind us because in many parts of Canada there are lots of “wide load” vehicles. That meant I had to move further off the road to be safe whenever these monster trucks came up behind us. Luckily, with CB radios at that time, the trucking world always seemed to know where we were on the highway.

The volunteers also took charge of doing the laundry, making peanut butter and jam sandwiches, collecting money along the road, spray painting the road at the end of the day to mark our start point for the next morning and shuttling people either backward or forward to wherever we were spending the night. Trish was in charge of this group as well as doing the banking and liaising with the home team.

In London, Maureen Golovchenko was in charge of the Home Team. That team looked after finding places for us to stay in advance of our arrival, dealing with media requests and setting up interviews that were often done from the side of the road as we moved along. The team in London also looked after things like signage, sponsorship and co-ordinating events with service clubs, businesses and many other groups who wanted to host us along the road. And most important, every week they looked after co-ordinating and sending us some the best volunteers Canada has ever seen. They were the ones who, after a week on the road in a life-changing experience, were misty eyed and didn’t want to go home. It was “Moe” and the Home Team that paved the way for me to complete 33 kilometres a day, day after day after day.

It must seem like it was a dull and boring routine – and lots of times it was – but none of us ever lost our focus. Everybody on the Road Team and the Home Team was committed to what they were doing – raising money for research so that a day would come when those boys who never played on a hockey team or a baseball team would be able to what I was doing. They would be able to walk.

And so it went on day 106.

Stay tuned. The journey continues…..

20-years-ago today marked my 100th day on the road since I dipped the toes of my running shoes in the Atlantic Ocean in St. John’s, Newfoundland back in April.

I am now in Brockville, Ontario after being in Ottawa a couple of days earlier.

It’s another hot and steamy day at 32 degrees Celsius, no air movement and the humidex hovering around 40 degrees. The temperature coming off the pavement on the highway is now up over 40 degrees which prompted our motor home driver, Ed Coxworthy from Bell Island, Newfoundland to say with his usual Newfoundlander accent, “By the Jesus Johnny, it’s like walking on a stove and breathing soup.”

In the intense heat I found my mind wandering during my time in Ottawa. As my mind drifted, I realized I was having flashbacks to when Jesse and I were in Ottawa three years earlier when we completed our wheel chair push across Ontario.

Former London Knights Brad Marsh and Darryl Sittler had been there to see that Jesse was honoured at centre-ice when the Senators and the Leafs were ready to open a new NHL season. A thrill for a youngster who didn’t skate.

In the House of Commons, it was a great pleasure for me to see all members of parliament rise in a standing ovation to honour Jesse for what he accomplished in raising the focus on the need for medical research in Canada.

Keep in mind this was just six weeks before the Quebec referendum that nearly saw our country ripped apart.

On the road to Belleville I stopped at the 80-watt radio station on the Akwesasne Reserve to do an interview. The announcer, a handsome young man by the name of Ky was a bit nervous but had a great attitude in doing his first live interview. Ky was using a braille typewriter that looked pretty old, but he sure could make it go fast. He was another of those people who helped me find another piece of the puzzle that explains how Canada works. People like Ky are the kind of people who are the fabric of Canada. And it’s a very tight fabric. It has to be a tight fabric when its stretched over six time zones.

I knew it would be a good interview when I walked into the little radio station and Ky said to me “Shake my hand. I’m not weird. I’m just blind.”

And so it went on Day 100.

Stay tuned. The journey continues……

20-years-ago today I started my day in Saint Timothee, Quebec. It was my 92nd day on the road and it would be my final day in province number five. I was walking with my friend Mario Chioini, the 39-year-old French Canadian school teacher from Central Collegiate in London, who spent 21-days guiding us through Quebec as he took charge in conducting all the radio and television interviews in French.

It’s difficult to explain but sometimes in life we meet people we are going to be friends with for the rest of our lives even though we seldom see each other. Mario is one of those people.

He must have thought I was joking when after knowing him for just 21 days, I asked him if he could do me a favour, a really big favour!

The story starts a few days earlier when I was jammed into Montreal traffic at rush hour with transport trucks on both sides of me. The wheels of those trucks were very close to me and it was a bit scary, even though there were police vehicles in front of me and behind me. Over my shoulder I saw a somewhat scruffy looking man, about 40 years old I thought, with a salt-and-pepper beard and carrying a leather satchel, running to catch up to me. I thought he was a reporter, but it turned out that Jean-Luc Robert had come to Canada from France to ask if Jesse would come to Paris to be part of the annual telethon in France. The Association Francaise contra les Myopathies was very impressed with what Jesse had accomplished.

Back on the road when I asked Mario if he could do me a favour, it wasn’t surprising to see the look on his face when I got more specific: “Mario, do you think you could take my wife and son to Paris in December?”

There were a lot of questions that needed to be answered. Mario would have to take a week away from his job as a school teacher. What would his role be in this project? Was Jesse up to making the trip? After talking through a lot of the issues, the trip to Paris was looking like a go.

At the end of the day, Mario had completed his personal challenge, the entire 33-kilometre distance as I stepped into province number 6, Ontario, my home province. It had been a good day.

And so it went on Day 92.

Stay tuned. The journey continues….

PS: In December, Jesse, Sherene and Mario took part in the telethon in Paris. Mario did a wonderful job. Sherene did everything a mom is supposed to do. And Jesse shone, doing everything he could to help research. The telethon raised $116 million dollars.

Twenty-years-ago, Canada Day fell on a Wednesday as I made my way along Highway 132 which hugs the south shore of the St. Lawrence River. The highway winds its way through the villages of Berniere-St-Nicolas, St-Antoine-de-tilly, St-Pierre-les-Becquets and Ste-Angele-de-Laval on route to Montreal. Passing through these villages, the little houses are painted all the colours of the rainbow and they look like they are dozing in the sun, jammed shoulder to shoulder right up to the edge of the road. The smell of wild roses fills the air from the boxes that seem to hang from every window. This has been an amazing stretch of highway where earlier the air was filled with the smell of fresh cut pine from the dozens and dozens of carving shops along Highway 132 in this part of the province. Some of the shops had full life-sized wooden figures of things like a woman with a corn broom and a man smoking a pipe as well as figures of young children and dogs and cats. These shops are packed full of Quebecois history told through the works of the carvers. The highway also makes its way past lots of huge churches filled with gold and red statuary and massive stained-glass windows that, when you are inside, look incredible when they are lit up from the outside as the sun beams down on the multi-coloured glass. Some of these churches date from the early 1600’s shortly after Cartier and Champlain sailed up the St. Lawrence River. While some of the days were summer at its best in Quebec, sometimes the weather turned violent and a little bit scary. Between Sorel and Longueuil, Quebec the early summer sky churned in shades of grey and black. Driving sheets of rain cut visibility to a minimum and jagged bolts of lightning ripped through the dark sky, lighting up the road and, as wet as we were, it forced us to stop and take cover in the safety of one of the escort vans. When the rain finally eased up, our soggy little troupe, with running shoes that now made squishy noises, stepped back onto the road to finish our 33 kilometres for the day. Under that dark sky with the wind howling and torrents of rain there was a silver lining for one of our volunteers.

Ann Hutchison, is a long-time friend whose husband Peter had been there on Day 1 and interviewed me on the steps of City Hall in St. John’s, Newfoundland.

Now it was Ann’s turn in the spotlight. It had been raining heavily all day and it seemed like an eternity before we heard the honk from the escort van to let us know we had made our distance of 33 kilometres for the day. When I looked beside me, I saw one of those pictures that no camera can do justice to. It was Ann Hutchison, soaked to the skin, with water dripping from her chin and her hair wet and tangled. She was beaming with a smile that said, “I did it!” Ann, a cancer survivor had just become the first woman to spend an entire day on the road with me, walking the full 33-kilometres and passing her own personal test with flying colours.

We didn’t know it at the time, but Ann would be the only woman to complete that distance on the entire journey.

Who is there on your team that goes that extra distance for someone else? Think back. Think hard. Think about thanking them. It’s never too late to say, ‘thank you.’

And so it went on Day 86.

Stay tuned. The journey continues……

20-years-ago this week I was making my way through the little villages along Highway 132 on the south shore of the St. Lawrence River. We began the week in Montmagny, about 50 kilometres east of Quebec City.

This is where the salt water of the Atlantic Ocean pretty much comes to an end. There is a plant that thrives in the water which at this point is a mixture of about 5 per-cent salt water and 95 per-cent fresh water. The mayor of Montmagny told me about the towns big festival in the fall, built around the arrival of 600-thousand snow geese, who eat all the plants in about a week before moving on. Just like those geese, our little caravan kept moving on each day.

Another of the snap shots I wrote about in my journal involved one of our volunteers for the week, Andre Trenqua, who we nicknamed “The Gentle Giant.” Andre was from Drummondville, Quebec and he was joined by Marc-Olivier Roy, a handsome young 18-year-old. If it wasn’t for Jesse’s Journey Marc-Olivier would probably have been home spending summer evenings with a girlfriend. What we didn’t know was that neither one of them spoke any English. In more ways than one, they became our true “French Connection.”

Andre lost a leg in a farm accident when he was just four years old. It had been raining a lot throughout Andre’s week with us and the knee on his artificial leg was squeaking loudly so we had to get out the wrenches and a can of WD-40 to fix it. The funny part came on another rainy day when three or four of us were lined up in the aisle of the motor home stretching calves and thighs and doing knee bends to loosen up before getting out on the road. Andre was sitting watching us with his artificial leg crossed over his other leg. Suddenly he took hold of his metal leg, and mimicking our stretching routine, he threw it over his shoulder. Needless to say, we collapsed in a heap. That’s when it struck me that laughter sounds the same in English and French. When it was time to leave at the end of his week, Andre, “The Gentle Giant” hugged each of us and then, just as quietly as he had arrived, he slipped into the wake of Jesse’s Journey as we moved westward.

Canada Day was now just around the corner and so was another amazing accomplishment by a volunteer.

Stay tuned. The journey continues…….

20-years-ago today it was the longest day of the year and it was also day number 71 on the road. I finished the day in Riviere-du-Loup, Quebec. In the evening as I looked north across the St. Lawrence River, I was happy that we were now in province number five. As we pushed west on Highway 132 along the south shore of the St. Lawrence River, the heat and humidity became stifling. Even at six o’clock in the morning I was soaked, and my tee shirt was sticking to my body. The road team was working overtime to make sure I drank a lot of water to stay hydrated. Working in extreme conditions is when we are most likely to make mistakes – and that’s when Mr. Murphy struck. With a lot of volunteers shuffling in and out, including the permanent road crew taking a well-deserved break, and the heat coming off the highway up over 40 degrees Celsius and feeling like an oven, there was some confusion.

Glistening in the sunlight up ahead was the silver spire of the Catholic church in the little village of Kamouraska, marking the end of my 33 kilometres for the day.

Exhausted and drenched in sweat we reached the finish point only to discover that there had been a mix up and the mini-van that contained our red duffle bags had gone on to Quebec City in the shuffle of volunteers. We didn’t even have as much as a tooth brush. The heat and humidity made it a struggle to think clearly, and which mini-van our duffle bags in it got overlooked. When the volunteers and the mini-van returned at night with our bags, they found us tired, sweaty and dirty. We didn’t know whether to slug them or hug them.

The 21st of June was a Sunday in 1998 and it was also Father’s Day. I spent the day on the road with my friend Mario Chioini, one of the kindest and gentlest people I know. Mario was a school teacher in London at that time and he was our saviour for the three weeks we were in Quebec. Mario handled all the radio and television interviews in French as well as translating everything from road signs to restaurant menus. In the 21 days we were in Mario’s home province, he poured his heart in Jesse’s Journey and he beamed with pride every one of those days.

Mario also taught me to say happy Father’s Day in French. At the end of our day on the road I called my dad in Brantford, Ontario and said, “Bonne fete des peres.”

It was nice to hear his voice. He’s gone now, and there are times I wish I could hear his voice again.

Who is there in your life that maybe you should call? There’s probably someone who would love to hear your voice. It’s a short life. Take a moment to make someone’s day.

Stay tuned. The journey continues……

20-years-ago today I was in Perth-Andover, New Brunswick alongside the St. John River heading toward Quebec and province number five.

Along the Trans-Canada I could hear gunfire through the trees as we passed CFB Gagetown. I just assumed the shots were coming from the practice range and that they weren’t aimed toward the highway!

There were lots of huge canvas covered military green trucks with big knobby tires that passed us as they growled along the highway along with lots of small green jeeps with huge radio aerials whipping back and forth.

I was walking the Trans Canada with my friend Bevin Palmateer and said to him, “Bevin, there goes Canada’s army.” Just as I said that another huge canvas covered truck went by with a canoe sticking out the back. I looked at the canoe and then looked at Bevin and quickly added, “and Navy.”

One of the prettiest little towns we stopped in along the road was Florenceville, New Brunswick, which is on both sides of the St. John river. It used to be two little villages called Buttermilk Creek and Cornsilk Flats. It was renamed Florenceville after Florence Nightingale who cared for British soldiers in Turkey during the Crimean war.

No disrespect to Florence Nightingale but I liked the original names better.

We also passed the world’s longest covered bridge in Hartland, New Brunswick. The story is that you are supposed to make a wish before entering the bridge and then hold your breath from one end of the bridge to the other. Supposedly if you hold your breath the entire time your wish will come true. The bridge, which was built in 1901 is 1282 feet (391 metres) from end to end. I didn’t make it. I think that if I had held my breath for that long, I would have been wishing for a doctor!

And so it went on Day number 66.

Stay tuned. The journey continues……

20-years-ago today I was in Sackville, New Brunswick after crossing the Confederation Bridge on my 50th day on the road. This structure, which is 60 metres above sea level at its highest point is the world’s longest bridge over ice-covered water. It’s an engineering marvel, but its operators were not about to cut us any slack. Jesse’s Journey paid the full freight to Strait Crossing Bridge Limited for the motorhome and two escort vehicles. Sometimes fundraising seems like extra hard work.
In New Brunswick the first two volunteers who joined us were from the local Rotary Club. The wind was fierce and the rain and cold didn’t make things any better. Our newest members of the road crew came on board the motorhome for a cup of hot chocolate and a chance to warm up. They must have been wondering what they were getting themselves into with these strangers from Ontario. I knew that in a week’s time they would be wanting to stay on with us. It happened every week. One of our volunteers was a big barrel-chested man named Hector Maillet whose company processes and ships 4.5 million pounds of lobster each year, mostly to places along the eastern seaboard and the American west coast.
When Hector took us to his “camp” which we would call a cottage, it was a real treat. Sometimes there are things that stick in your mind and I still remember a multi-coloured piece of needle-point on the wall. It said “When God created boys he made them out of string. He had a bit left over so he left a little thing. When God created girls, he made them out of lace. He didn’t have enough, so he left a little space.”

And so it went day after day. Stay tuned. The journey continues……..