Special Olympics: People with disabilities participate in athletic events. We used to call them mentally retarded, then mentally challenged, then intellectually disabled and who knows what next. It is hard to keep up with the “political correctness” police. Some of us just call them “Special” and let the rest go fly a kite.
Anyway, my special son John was born with a severe mental deficiency. He never completed normal brain development and you can’t measure his IQ because he can’t understand the questions or formulate the answers. He is assigned an IQ of 20. But man, can he run. A regular Forest G. He doesn’t understand competition, though, or winning.
In his first Special Olympics entered one of the distance runs, I don’t remember which, but a quarter or half mile or so. He was lined up with the other guys and when the starter said “GO” he just stood there talking to the starter. He finally figured out he was supposed to run so he took off and soon passed all the others. Then he stopped, walked to the crowd and tried to talk to someone (he doesn’t make much sense, but this crowd understood that.) The folks in the crowd got him running again and once more he passed the field. Then, stopped and waited for them to catch up and he just ran along with them and was talking a mile a minute. In the end he finished near the back or maybe the back, but with a roar of approval from the crowd.
Believe me when I say it: John WON! And in every Special Olympic race since (he no longer does this) he won in exactly the same way. Good Old John.
Photo of the Search Boys (A few years ago) L to R: John, Hal and Matt.
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