He is 7 years old, lives in Sonoma, CA and was born with with Spinal Muscular Atrophy (SMA). SMA is a genetic disease that weakens the voluntary muscles associated with walking, crawling and swallowing. More info can be found here: http://www.fsma.org/
There is no current treatment for this disease, which is often fatal. So donations toward SMA research are the best way to combat it, and hopefully one day, find a cure.
This is where my hike fits in. Starting Thursday the 19th, I will be hiking through the Shenandoah National Park here in Virginia. During that time, with your help, I will be fundraising online for SMA.
Here's how it'll work: donations will be category-based, in that you donate a certain amount of money for every time something occurs in that category. I'll list them now, and once this part of my hike is over, I'll report back and let you know how many of each category happened.
Here they are:
Rainy Days. Donate an amount of money for each rainy day you think I'll have. The whole park should take me about 5-6 days to complete, and if it rains at all during the day, I'll count it as a rainy one.
Spills. How many times will I take a digger? I'd say I'm averaging about one spill every two or three days. This will be, of course, amplified by any rainy weather.
Snakes seen. I've seen a lot of black snakes (probably one every three or four days), and a couple days ago, I almost stepped on rattler. That would have been a fun day of limping and paralysis.
Liters of water pumped. I'd say I pump about 4 or 5 liters per day. More if it's hot.
Comments on my hiking skirt. Apparently it's a skirt, not a kilt. Whatever. But every so often I get questions from day-hikers about it, and it's level of comfort.
Money spent on snacks inside the park. I'm planning on packing out 5 days worth of food for the hike, but apparently there are several little stores and snack bars throughout the park that I know will tempt me with their hot, fresh food. So basically, you'd donate what I'll spend (I'll try to limit it though).
Longshots (heh heh):
These things are pretty unlikely, so you might as well bet the big bucks.
Pictures of bears. Many other thru-hikers have seen bears so far. I have not. But I've been told that if there's any place to see one, it's the Shenandoah's. So there's a decent chance of that happening, but could I snap a photo off in time? You be the judge. (I'd definitely post the photo).
Celebrities seen. This totally won't happen. So I think you should bet the farm.
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So place your bets in the comments section of this post, or if you prefer to do it privately, send me an email at ljoecks@gmail.com. You can give to more than one category, and more than one person can give to the same category. Please donate what you can!example:
longshotfan said: I'll give $1 for each liter you pump, and I'll match whatever you spend on snacks inside the park.
If you aren't the betting type, you can always donate per mile (there are 107 of them), or even give a flat amount. It's up to you.
The donation site is https://secure.groundspring.org/dn/index.php?aid=21710
I'll repost the link at the end of the hike.
Again, I'll keep track of all the categories as I hike, then tally them up at the end, and give you the totals (I should be done around the 23rd or 24th). You'll then write in whatever the donation comes to in the "other" box on the donation site.
Sorry if this is a bit complicated. If you have any questions, email me (ljoecks@gmail.com).
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By the way, I'm staying with my cousin Chris, his wife Karen, and their daughter Isabel in Richmond for a couple days to get some much needed rest. A big thank you to them for that! Also, I get to see game 6!Double also, I think it's funny that everyone is so aghast at the sight of my beard. It's wicked common out here!
7 comments:
we will donate $5 for every toe on your left foot at the end of your noble walk! broken toes count twice.
Oh god, not math. It's too early!
I'll bet a buck on rainy days, water pumped, snakes and comments. $5 for a bear photo [maybe $10 if it's not smudgy and requires defense of whether it's a bear or a large tree].
Seems wrong to "bet" on you spilling.. who knows then you might be just tossing yourself over cliffs left and right. And while it is for a great reason, if you end up unconscious at the bottom of a cliff, how will you post the bear shot?
As for the beard, I'm sure it's common in VA for hikers, but if at the end of all this, you return to us northerners, will you be keeping it? :)
I'll give you $15, plus five per fall. No falling on purpose :)
Contact with the outside world would be a recurring theme in The Long Shot’s adventures. Calls from the only woman to ever really stick by him, Mother Dearest, very much defined the dichotomy that surrounded communiqués. On good days the tenderness of her voice would put a fire into his muscles, driving him on toward the wily woods of Maine with renewed determination after months of soggy solitude. Other times the tears would roll softly down his cheeks when she gave her final salutations and the click of the phone would vibrate inside his skull for hours, giving pseudophysical form to the demons of homesickness. But still he marched. Always one foot in front of the other. Everything seemed so far away. Not just the end point, not just family and friends and the sweet flesh of fresh New England corn, but the beginning. What had brought The Long Shot here? What had he been thinking? All those miles ago it had seemed like a way out, a new adventure, a chance to make up for whatever fatal flaws had secretly plagued him through the daily monotonies of sleep and work and play. Now it was one foot in front of the other. The clouds seemed to follow him. The Long Shot could almost turn his head and see the gently rolling white puffs staring back, waiting. They could sense his fear, his desperation, and they were waiting for the perfect moment to transmogrify into heavy black beasts, belly laughing lightning through the pelting rain, all too quick to get a poncho on. Wet again. Alone with his dreams. A grilled cheese sandwich, made at home, with one slice of tomato, a half sour pickle and an arbitrary form of chipage, pretzels perhaps. And a beer. The decent into the next town took a long time, but the excited chattering of his hiking partners kept our hero in high spirits, despite the fact that the clouds were most definitely stalking him. He turned a wary eye toward one particularly innocent looking spread of suspended moisture, warning it that he knew and he’d be watching. The Long Shot left his cohorts at the ice cream parlor for a quick jaunt to the post office. Mother Dearest had promised him a package a few weeks back and his anticipation had grown over many long, sweaty miles. He opened the glass doors with care, his strength having grown over many hard miles to the point that he feared breaking the everyday contraptions of mortals.
“Excuse me,” he eeked out at an elderly man behind a long wooden counter, “do you have a package addressed to The Long Shot?”
The old man’s eyelids moved slowly up, so he could better peer at the young interloper. He mumbled something about the god damn kids these days and their gang names while sliding off his chair to shuffle back to wherever it is old men in post offices keep their stockpiles.
“Come round here.”
“No, this is my first time in town.” The Long Shot had gotten used to the strange southern dialect and the way they started polite conversations with foreigners.
The old man poked his head out, looking distastefully at our bekilted adventurer before speaking loudly.
“I say come round here.” He pointed to a pathway beyond the counter. The Long Shot stammered in his adorably blonde way and moved to obey the federal employee. Pausing for a moment before stepping of the bright yellow line that declared, “Do Not Cross.”
The Antagonist For The Moment led The Long Shot through a maze of plastic crates filled with mail and the sorting machines that put them there. He passed through door after door, by a short series of cubicles that gave away the federal nature of the institution despite the southern charms of its purveyor. They came to a large garage door, open to the heat and sun. In the back lot there stood a large wooden box with a series of small holes along the top. The crate was heavy and looked well worn, as if its wood had been recycled from a series of earlier construction projects. Our bearded protagonist looked at the giant wooden box and sent a querying look to the postal officer, who offered him a crowbar rather than an explanation. There were documents from the US Customs Agency stapled to the outside, but no hint at what was inside. The wood was clearly labeled “The Long Shot” so he took one last look at the sky, pending an answer. When none came he jammed the business end of the metal bar into a seem and used the almighty power of the lever to free the box’s contents. When it was all over and the dust settled on the splintered wood, our hero and the postman peered into the dark recesses of the parcel from a far off land. Perhaps predictably, there was a woman. She wore a modest white skirt, tennis shoes, and a pink leopard print t-shirt to which was pinned a letter. The Long Shot looked around. Confused. The letter offered little in the way of answers. Her name was unpronounceable, as was that of her homeland, but she was from somewhere in the former soviet block and had been sent here to wed the mysterious hero known in legend as The Long Shot and provide him with children. There was fear in her eyes, which was increasingly mirrored in his as the gravity of the situation dawned. He thought back to the fifth grade, watching the Miracle Of Life on VHS in Health class. Suddenly he had a ward, and she was drop dead gorgeous. Things change quickly in the woods. Laymen think of the forest as a place of rest, of peace. But the trees are at war. Very slow war. You have to be on guard at all times, lest you suddenly find yourself alone in inhospitable circumstances with a mail order bride and only enough water for one. He gave it to her. She smiled. The Long Shot handed the postman his crowbar and led his newfound friend away, ignoring the underbreathed cussing of an old man who now had to dispose of a rather large wooden box. As they walked she began to speak, he couldn’t make anything out of the sounds and said as much with his eyes. The Long Shot has a very expressive face. She ceased her warbling and began to prod her prospective partner. She touched his beard, which made him shirk away, and then began to tug at his clothing, which was made of strange materials not know to this world just a few short generations ago. She examined his pack and his shoes, ruffled his hair and finally stopped him, blocking his path to make visual inquiries into his kilt. She motioned to it, and then back to her own open bottomed garment. She did this multiple times before looking at him queerly.
“It’s a kilt.” He found himself saying for the thousanth time, though it wasn’t in the strictest sense, which he was tired of hearing from some of the more elitist Scotsmen on the trail. “It’s very comfortable. Breezy.” She smiled, not comprehending, but accepting that an explanation had been given. She took his hand and marched him forward. The Long Shot knew she must be hungry, but for what he could not imagine. She must need food. She must need interaction. She must need friends and family. She was so far from home, and traveling in a wooden box can not be particularly comfortable. Eventually they made it back to the ice cream parlor and sat down to a frappe, or whatever it is they have in Virginia that is roughly equivalent to a frappe. A frappe with jimmies on top. There they whiled away the hours taking turns telling their respective stories. They listened intently to one and other, and though the language barrier prevented any direct comprehension, it also freed the pair to air their deepest fears. They were both searching for something, something hidden and wonderful in a hostile world that seemed to want to pin them down at every turn. He to a cube, her to a rich man, and myriad other more subtle things not fair to print. The Long Shot found himself lost in her eyes as she talked about her homeland. He wanted to help her, but he didn’t know how. He didn’t know how to help himself. He was having enough of a hard time on the trails without dragging a random woman along with him. So they sat and ate and talked. Days passed quietly in the little town, and those with the power to do so took artistic license with the audience’s sense of time to quickly bypass the raw emotions that were displayed at their little parlor table, opting to skip ahead to the payoff, as all existence is relative to perspective and attempting to truly understand the motivations and complications of The Long Shot and his maiden would quite possibly blow our collective minds. Suffice to say that the pair found a way to communicate without language, using pictographs in the sands at the beech, interesting highway signs, sideways glances, flowers, and the grating reality of silence to tell each other every last detail of their lives thus far.
It was only after spending much time with this confiscated young creature, who, it turned out, was a genuinely kind and generous person, that The Long Shot stumbled upon an idea. He took her by the hand and ran down the street as fast as he could. The confused cooing that came from her mouth quickly turned to panting as she struggled to keep up. Four weeks in a box does quite a number on one’s legs. They passed parlors and barbers and barbeques and ballerinas and pallbearers before coming to a stop in front of a tiny strip mall with a line coming out one door. He smiled and pointed. She looked confused, but the faint smell of hot gruel gave her pause, just like momma used to make. She stepped cautiously forward, looking back for encouragement. The Long Shot just smiled and waved her on. She inspected each of the men waiting in line, dirty with the detritus of industry, smelling of sweat and oil, they were the workers of the southlands. She stepped past them, through the door, none complained at the site of a beautiful woman, childlike wonder in her eyes. Her smile broadened as she saw where the line was headed. She raced to the front and vaulted the counter. The workers looked at her with shock and awe. What was a clean white girl in a designer (albeit knockoff) skirt doing here? But their questions were soon cast aside as the kind foreign woman began to cook and serve the gruel to the long line. Each man carried a small bag to fill for their wee ones and she served them generously. When one of the workers tried to caution her against giving each man so much, she ran into the back pantry, not knowing where anything was, and came out with a series of basic ingredients. Within minutes she had doubled the quantity of food available to the line and streamlined the cooking and dissemination processes so that each man might actually have a moment to sit and enjoy his meal before returning to the grind. The Long Shot cleaned tables and watched her work. The sun began to set and she had not stopped. This strange visitor had showed everyone here what a little love could do. A little love and a childhood spent under communism. When the sun began to set, The Long Shot walked over to the maiden and made to shake her hand. It was time for him to go on to his destiny. She jumped the counter and shocked our hero with a kiss. He had seen through his own pains enough to find meaning in the life of another and bring her to where she needed to be. The world was an alright place. He walked back from the town alone but happy, not knowing what adventures tomorrow would bring, but excited for the opportunity to engage them. His footfall was as thunder through the mountains, booming encouragement to his fellow man, and each in their turn would do something kind for another, volunteering in the towns they passed, helping strangers get to where they need to go. All was well in the mountains that night thanks to the driving inspiration of our hero, now determined to see his way through. And that’s how The Long Shot saved the spirit of Christmas.
Dave, every time you outdo yourself, and then you outdo yourself again. Why, it sounds JUST like something that would happen to my Logan...
raising money for Skylar - count me in. I was debating between $1/mile or a $1 a word that Dave writes....figured no need to go broke so young - so count me in for 107 miles! Keep it up Long Shot!
Since you are saving so much carbon dioxide emission by walking (assuming you are not eating too many leaves) I'll donate the value of a barrel of oil calculated on the day you finish this leg.
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