Owner of Bluewater Towing, Carson's Story - TEAROFF

Tearoff



An autobiography by Carson Thompson

It is a hot sunny August afternoon and the racetrack grandstands are full to capacity at the local fairground. The perfectly groomed oval half-mile dirt track is normally used for horse racing but will be used for something different this day. The crowd that has gathered here from hundreds of miles around is aflame with excitement in prospect of the upcoming event…motorcycle racing. In the distance the rumbling sound of the motorcycle engines fills the air, as does the smell of the special oil used for the powerful racing motors. Most of the people here have been to this kind of an event before and they know what to expect. They are about to watch something that is as thrilling a spectator sport, as it is a participant sport and that is why they have come. Dirt Track racing is the world’s oldest form of motorcycle racing. It is known for the out of control-in control sight of man and motorcycle sliding sideways into the corners at speeds close to 100 mph.

From the grandstands the crowd can see the riders in the pits carrying on with the normal business of preparing to race. Each racer is busy making the final adjustments to his or her machine and protective equipment. Winning is the agenda for each rider and they know that having their gearing on the motorcycle just perfect, the right tires on their machine and the engine running to it’s maximum performance is critical to being first over the finish line.

Minutes before race time, the riders and their motorcycles are seen lining up at the track entrance where a referee will let them on the track one at a time. The senior referee/flagman is standing on the dirt surface in front of the grandstands. At the toes of his shoes is a straight white powder line that has been laid across the dirt to indicate the start finish. As the riders approach the line, he guides each one into their position for the start. When the front wheels of all the motorcycles are parallel at the white line, he moves toward the inside of the track. He stops and stands at a spot that is clearly in their view while remaining safely out of their path. All eyes are on him as he gives the signal to get ready. On that signal the sound of the engines becomes deafening as each rider brings his or her motorcycle to the highest revs possible. It creates a roar so loud that children cover their ears. Other people in the stands have to yell into each other’s ear to be heard. The flagman is closely watching each motorcycles front wheel for premature movement. One motorcycle lurches ahead of the signal to go and the flagman drops his flag to the ground indicating a false start. All the motorcycle engines become quieter as the flagman sends the guilty rider and machine to a newly formed second row. The flagman resumes his position and picks up the flag to start the race. When he once again gives the signal to get ready, the engines again begin their loud roar. All the riders and the spectators excitement is exhilarated beyond words… the crowd is ecstatic, everything seems OK… then finally the signal... GO! With that, the entire group of motorcycles lunge forward in unison as the rear wheel of each one spins wildly sending a spray of dirt sailing through the air behind. Each rider is leaning over the gas tank of his or her motorcycle to keep the front wheel on the ground as they accelerate toward the first corner.

They pack together and jockey for position on their approach to the corner. Upon entering it each racer leans their motorcycle to the left and gives the throttle a hard twist causing the rear wheel to spin and slide the motorcycle sideways. In the same moment they put their left foot on the ground to help keep their balance and steer the bike around the corner. The group bunches together as they move closer to that ever-treacherous number one corner. Sometimes banging elbows, handlebars or wheels, the first corner has become well known for crashes.

Being first to the corner is the best. This is taking off from the start/finish line getting the jump on everyone.

If the riders negotiate the complete corner safely they are then faced with a long straight stretch known as the back straight. Depending on each rider’s skill, they will have already begun to accelerate somewhere in the corner for the straight-away ahead. By the time they’re fully into the straight the throttle of each motorcycle will be wide open. Seconds later, they're speeding down the straight towards another corner sometimes at a speed over 160 km per hour. This time they're closing in at a much greater speed than they did at the first corner. Once again the rider of each motorcycle must lean the bike to the left and give the throttle an off/on twist as the left foot goes to the dirt surface… It is these movements that propel the motorcycles to slide sideways into the corner and send more dirt flying into the air behind. When the racer slides completely around this corner, he or she will then enter the same front straightaway from where they had just begun approximately 30 seconds earlier. This is dirt track racing.

Tucked in down a back straight to gain maximum speed and closing in on 160 km per hour
can make the difference of a split second win at the finish line.

Motorcycle racing had always been my dream… but when you have raced your last race, your bike lies crumpled, you lie paralyzed from the neck down in a hospital bed, and you hear those dreaded words from the doctor echo like the great crash of a gong in your heart… “You will never walk or use your arms and hands again", things change... they change for the rest of your life! In a split second my life as I knew it was over. All my life’s dreams, accomplishments and abilities flashed through my mind like a motion picture… family and children, playing hockey, swimming, playing guitar, cooking a gourmet meal, rebuilding or repairing cars and motorcycles, driving freight trains for the Canadian National Railway. All these and more would be abilities I would never again use. How completely unbelievable and devastating it seemed. ‘This can’t be!’ I felt a crushing in my soul… ‘This only happens to other people... not to me!’

Childhood memories…
Since the dawning of time, “Dad” has been the hero and role model in almost every “little boy’s” eyes and heart. My dad was mine! To me, he was the smartest man in the world. He could build things and fix anything. He could play hockey, shoot pool and play catch… and boy did my hand burn after one of dads’ fastballs. He was the boss at his work. He was the leader in our home. In my eyes, he was the greatest man on earth. There was one thing in particular that really made me glow with admiration and pride of my dad. He raced motorcycles. I thought that was so awesome. It was always a proud moment for me when I could tell friends about my dad being a dirt track racer on a Harley Davidson. Nobodies’ dad did that!

I can clearly remember the excitement that my brother Dan and I felt when we were going to watch some of dad’s competitions. We loved the enthusiasm of the crowds, the rumbling of the motorcycle engines, the rich sweet smell of the engine racing oils, and the smell of food cooking at the food stands, and the greatest thrill of all; seeing our dad race! What fun it was! That was “My Dad” out there racing that thunderous and powerful Harley and I was proud of him!

On the rare occasion, Dad would treat my brother Dan and me to a special thrill. He would take us for a ride on,”Moaning Mable”, that monster of a Harley Davidson that I had watched him racing on. With this peculiar name Dad had given his motorcycle, she was more than just a motorcycle to me. I remember my terror at hearing the pounding clap of her engine and the fire-breathing snort from her exhaust pipes. She had a strong thunderous personality, and boy did she scare me! My heart always trembled at her roar. I remember the fear, yet excitement that ran through me when Dads’ strong hands would grab me under my arms to carefully lift and sit me in front of him on Moaning Mables’ seat. My little heart would be pounding, as I’d watch Dad take my brother Dan from my mother’s arms. Dad would then lift Dan over my head and place him on the seat in front of me. The earth shaking sound that came with each rev of that motorcycle always made me tremble. Her sound alone shook my insides. Once I was sitting on her seat I remember the vibrations I felt from the sound suddenly became a tidal wave going through every fiber of my body. What a sense of awe it was to be getting a ride on Moaning Mable with my dad. I was terribly afraid of her but I knew Dad was her master. I saw her under his power and total control, and that made me feel safe. I hung on to that seat for dear life as Dad rode her slowly up and down our street. In spite of my fright, I thought that this was great. Dad was my hero! I loved even being in his presence. He exhumed a wonderful positive strength of character and loving kindness and I remember the respect he got from those who knew him. I admired these qualities in him! I wanted to be like him.


Mom and Dad in 1949 when they were dating. Dad had just won the provincial Championship race for Ontario, Canada.


Fort Erie…
I was born in the town of Fort Erie in 1952. I have two younger brothers, Dan and Kevin, also born in Fort Erie in the 50’s. Until the age of 9, we lived in a bungalow three houses away from the fort and lake that the town gets its name from. The actual stone fort stands at the mouth of the Niagara River and Lake Erie in Canada. From the fort is seen the skyline view of Buffalo New York in the United States. Originally built by the British in the 1700’s, the fort has looked out over these same waters towards Buffalo for more than 200 years. This grand old fort became famous in the “War of 1812” between the United States and Great Britain. During the time line of the war it was a strategically pivotal military fort that was destroyed and rebuilt more than once during the war. After the final destruction of war caused to it in 1814, it was left in ruins until it was rebuilt in the 1930’s. Now looking as it did in 1812 it stands as a majestic monument to the brave American and British troops whom fought and died there 2 centuries ago. From 1812 to 1814 the fort changed hands a number of times between the two countries. In the end, it was left with the British and in 1867 became part of the then, newly formed confederation of Canada.

A fact of history and an interesting discovery that I’ve made about Fort Erie is that the British, during the summer of 1814, attempted a daring nighttime attack on the then U.S. occupied fort. The point of interest about this attack is that 250 British troops on the night of August 14th, with the flints removed from their muskets, had crept quietly over the very property where our house would eventually stand 150 years later. In order to avoid the accidental discharge of a musket alerting the U.S. soldiers of the sneak attack, the British command had ordered their troops to remove the flints from each musket. As the British troops moved towards the fort through the heavy woods and underbrush, the Americans heard the breaking of twigs and rustling of bushes long before the British advance guard arrived. The American soldiers turned the sneak attack around and prepared to ambush the enemy. When the British came into view, the American troops opened fire. Unable to return fire, the British troops panicked. In their haste to get away, they threw their following troops into disorder. It was not until daylight that the regiments involved were able to reform, too late to renew the assault. The hapless advance guard was abandoned to their fate of death or becoming a prisoner-of-war.

This map shows the British attack approach on the night of August 14th 1814. The (X) indicates the location of our house.

If I had known of this daring attack that had been orchestrated over the ground where our home would eventually stand, I have no doubt that our yard would have had many holes in it. With the thrill of adventure and treasure in our boyish hearts, my brothers and I would have been busy digging for the buried treasure of artifacts from that battle.

We were all thrill-seeking boys and as such, we loved spending many adventure filled hours playing around the outside and within the walls of the fort. We climbed the stairs on the inside and playing the part of being soldiers of old; we would run along the wooden runways shouting out commands and orders to each other. These walls hosted numerous canons pointing out all around the fort. Peering through the opening where each cannon pointed we pretended to be in battle shooting at wooden war ships or attacking infantry. We would make thunderous booms or bangs with our voices to simulate the cannons and muskets firing again and again. We pretended to be soldiers along the fort runways where the real soldiers many years before had actually ran and taken their positions to shoot in battle. The sense of awe I had felt as a young boy, being in the old fort and playing on the hallowed grounds around has never faded. The emotion of it all clearly remains in my heart and mind to this day.
I can still feel the thrill of the winter Toboggan …and crawling over these cannons to just see …and looking through these cannon
Rides down the moat hill by this drawbridge… what it would look like as the enemy charged… gunnery ports at our house… the same view
U.S. Soldiers had as the British approached
the fort that eventful night in 1814…

Walking from room to room inside the fort brought forth a feeling of despondency and sadness that I didn’t fully understand then. Viewing the different actual torn American and British uniforms was undeniable evidence to me of the lives of these men. Some of the uniforms had the musket and bayonet holes clearly marked for visitors to observe. On one officer’s uniform visitors could still see the blackened stains where his blood had spilled from a mortal musket ball wound. The dents and holes I saw in a piece of chest armor displayed on a headless mannequin were undoubted markings of the end of someone’s life. The piety I felt whenever I viewed the officers’ uniform or the holes in the armor still wells up within me to this day. As a boy, and as much as I was entranced with the thoughts of being a soldier, my reflections were, “These men were actually here and alive. This war ended their existence on theses very grounds inside and surrounding this fort!” Death became sobberingly real to me in those rooms. “What could have been so wrong that would cause these men to have killed each other?” These artifacts on display here were clear evidence of their lives and the fighting that they were part of. This was all that remained to represent these soldiers on their last days on this earth. Seeing their actual written letters and orders, the clothing they wore, the guns and swords they used, their bunking quarters and mess halls all made their lives abundantly clear in my young mind. I thought, “How could God have ever allowed such horrible things like this to happen?” As I stood in their living quarters, I realized that here also was the canonizing finality of their deaths on this earth. There was a gentle sobering cry in my heart. “What then for them? Where was God in all this? Death is so final… now they are gone forever… or are they?”

Mom and Dad...
My mom and dad were wonderful family providers and loving parents. They taught us right from wrong, to respect authority, and to have a tender conscience toward the good will of others. Considering the good morals that we had learned from my parents, and the love that they extolled to us through their nurturing and caring, there were some things that were still very ambiguous to me.

My parents were not church going folk yet they taught and guided my brothers and me in many things of God. There was a confusing double standard that created a great amount of bewilderment within me. Why had mom read all those stories to us from the Bible? Why did she pray the Lords prayer with us every night? Why did they teach us to live by the golden rule, “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you”? I have fond memories of kneeling at my bedside praying with mom and my brother Dan. Why did they send us children to the little Baptist Church around the corner each week for Sunday school? Why did dad say that going to a Sunday school would be good for us? If it would be good for us, then why didn’t they ever go? Why did mom keep my great grandparents beautiful old 1800’s family Bible on display on our fireplace mantel? Why did Grandma and Grandpa go to church three times a week and my parents never go at all? Maybe you need God when you get old? As a child this was all so puzzling to me. Was this normal in every family? What’s right and what’s wrong? I remember thinking “Are you really their God or are you just the imagination of religious people like my gram and gramp?”

Having their friends and our relatives come to our house for a time of playing cards and drinking was something mom and dad enjoyed and did frequently. Actually, most weekends meant some form of partying for them somewhere. Visitors always seemed to have fun when they were at our house. They laughed, they joked, they argued, and not infrequently people got drunk and angry. I remember how embarrassed I felt for some of them when I saw how silly they acted in their drunkenness. During those times there were lots of comments made about other people they knew or situations they were discussing. Often the comments were with cursing and swearing using God and Jesus’ name. “It’s so disrespectful towards God and Jesus; but they are the adults so it must be ok to be that way, they know what they’re doing”, I thought. No matter how I justified things in my young mind, something deep in my heart ached in spite of what I thought.

Confusion…
I felt mixed emotions when my parents talked about my Grandparents going to church and referred to them as being, too “Religious”! My head and my heart seemed to go in circles like a dog after its own tail when I listened to them talk. The love for my parents, the love for my grandparents, something deep inside my heart, what’s religion and church, who’s right and who’s wrong, what’s good and what’s bad, who’s Jesus and who’s God, what’s truth and what’s not the truth? Everything that I had learned and understood about God and Jesus from my childhood all seemed to battle within my soul and mind. I was confused. I didn’t understand this tug of war inside me. I do now.

What made it even more confusing was the sense of peace and warmth I always felt whenever I quietly pondered about God or Jesus Christ. I especially loved curling up in the large Victorian style armchair in our family room to look through the old family Bible. Our Bible, from my mom’s side since the late 18 hundreds, mystically entranced me as I opened the pages to see the beautiful pictures of angels and Jesus. The powerful comfort and security I always felt and sensed when I pondered my way through it was always overwhelming and captivating. There was truly a spiritual peace that my childhood mind and heart gravitated to. It puts me in mind of the words of Jesus. And he said: "I tell you the truth, unless you change and become like little children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven.

There was one night in particular that had an enormous impact on me regarding people who had anything to do with Christianity in their life. So much impact that it played a huge part of the conclusions that I came to on how I should view Christians for many years to come. That would remain unchanged in my mind until fifteen years later. I say in my mind, because in my heart there remained another gentle notion that my conclusions were wrong.

I remember on this particular night that my parents were sitting at our kitchen table with the neighbors. They were playing cards, laughing and talking about Hank and Marge Reddecop, good friends of theirs whose names I recognized. As I listened, the adult’s voices became serious. It was the seriousness in their voices and tones that caught my attention, and caused me to listen very closely. Hank and Marge was a couple who were always very kind to my two brothers and me when they visited mom and dad. We always thought they were great fun to have around at home. They hadn’t been at our house in a long time and I had wondered why their visits had stopped but I had never asked mom or dad. I understood by listening in on my parents’ conversation. The Reddecop’s had stopped coming around because they had become Christians and the comment by mom and dad that they had “Gone Religious” was used more than once as they talked. This comment was stamped in my mind forever that night. I didn’t know what “Gone Religious” meant, but by the tone and the innuendoes of the conversation, it sounded like it was a really bad thing. I understood from listening to the grown ups talking that Hank and Marge would likely lose all their friends and never be able to enjoy anything again. “Lose your friends!” “No fun ever!” I thought in shock! “What a boring life, I don’t like that. That can’t be for me” was my conclusion. My mind had been scarred towards Christians and Christianity that night. My heart disagreed with my mind, but because of what I had just heard and the deception in those words, the conclusion I came to was to discard Christianity. I believe that every human being faces this same struggle over who God is or isn’t within their soul. Everyone has numerous moments in his or her life that causes the same questions and struggles within. I have come to understand this phenomenon from the Bible as a spiritual struggle that the Bible puts this way. “For we are not fighting against people made of flesh and blood, but against the evil rulers and authorities of the unseen world, against those mighty powers of darkness who rule this world, and against wicked spirits in the heavenly realms.”

Oh such confusion about God and life. As much as I wanted closure to this issue of God, Jesus and religion, it was not to be. The tug of war I felt in the depths of my heart would not stop. As I grew into my adolescent years, I decided that I wanted to enjoy my life to the maximum. The last thing I wanted was to ever be called “Religious” and be laughed at by my friends. Given the resources of my experience of life in my few years alive, to the best of my understanding of how to enjoy life was to be a good person and by all means do not become “religious”. I wouldn’t really understand the deception regarding, “religion” until a dramatic experience in 1973 at a rock concert in Detroit MI. Besides that, God never gave up on me. His Holy Spirit often knocked on the door of my heart (the positive force of my struggle within). I chose not to open my heart until during this experience when in desperation I called to Him. It was in a situation where I faced the fear of death and hell!

Dads’ job…
My dad had been promoted at his work with the Canadian National Railway, but it meant he would be stationed in Toronto, Ontario. We still lived in Fort Erie and Dad worked in Toronto through the week and came home on weekends. That was many years ago and as a young boy I remember I hated dad being away so much. In 1961 we moved from Fort Erie to Georgetown. Georgetown was a lot closer to my dads’ work and he was home every day. This was great, I would see dad every day.

WRITE about…
­ Move to Georgetown>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> End Georgetown
­ Move to Bramalea
­ Meeting Phil Beck
­ New school
­ Dorset school
­ High school
­ Friends pressures
­ Little thoughts of God until...
­ Grade 9, Phil’s parents, religious, went to a couple services
­ Drugs
­ Football
­ Partying
­ Pressures>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> end Bramalea

Teenagers of all generations experience a void in them that they do not understand. The need to have a purpose and a meaning for life was as evident in teens of the 60’s and 70’s as it is in the youth of today. In fact, teens since the first teens of time have struggled with the same emotional insecurity. The feelings of inferiority as they endeavor to overcome their challenges of life and to “grow up”. Teenage years are a time in every person’s life when they are trying to sort out who they are and what they want or need in life. They are all seeking to attain a full and happy life. The world bombards them with entrapments of what will bring them happiness. The bombardment I am speaking of today comes through the persuasion in media’s like TV, music, magazines… and their peers, especially peers.

The insecure feelings of inferiority are truly a difficult challenge to almost every teen. It is so sad to say that it has cost thousands, maybe millions, their lives as they face the pressures from peers and the world to conform, or be left out! Many have performed acts of courage in the hope of becoming that “popular person” they all want to be in the eyes of their friends. I know this first hand and can say, “Thank God”, I survived those foolish and dangerous acts in my life. Tragically in many other cases, these performances to impress their friends with acts of heroism have resulted in the end of their lives. Others, tragically, have deliberately taken their own lives because of the deep struggles of normal teenage life. A feeling that they will never be liked or loved by anyone is common to teenagers and is fatal to some. Those who have come from broken and loveless homes are in the most jeopardy. The heartbrokenness of being “unloved at home” added to the “normal teenage insecurities” can be unbearable to some. To be cast or left out from “the circle of friends” is as disastrous to some teens as it is to a fish cast out of water. Some have chosen suicide as the alternative to rejection. They don’t know what it’s like to have the sanctuary and security of complete unconditional love at home. They come from homes where they have felt unwanted and just, “in the way”; their entire short lives. People at any age need a haven of refuge where they feel safe and secure. For every person alive and especially teenagers, that place of sanctuary for him or her should be the place they call home. I will talk more on this later about joy and peace and the security of an eternal home that is for everyone who seeks it.

As a teenager, I was fortunate enough to enjoy a teen life that had the security of a home where I felt safe and loved. There was never any fear of abandonment. There was no alcoholism or abuse. I had two parents who loved each other and who loved their children. I thank God for them and my heart breaks for those who don’t have a home where they feel safe and secure. Even with having such blessings in my home, I was still a teen with teenage insecurity, attitudes and desires. I thought I knew everything and that my parents knew nothing. We had many heated arguments. I used to think, “If they would only listen to me they would understand”! Now I wished that I had listened to them more. If I had, maybe I would have understood and it would have saved a lot of grief and arguing for all of us!

In spite of a secure home, I still had an unquenchable need for the security that I thought could only be attained through the acceptance of my peers. Being part of the “In group” was the most important thing to seek in my life. I would discover later in life that even though I felt I had this acceptance and approval from my friends, there was still something missing. Jesus says, “Behold, I stand at the door, and knock: if any man hears my voice, and opens the door, I will come in to him, and will sup with him and him with me”. There was a need in my heart, as there is in every person. I understand now that when I was young and had the struggle within about God, Jesus, truth, untruth and Christianity that this was the Holy Spirit gently tugging on the door strings of my heart. JHHI didn’t really understand it but have learned that the need I felt back then can only be filled by one other.

Like most teenagers of my era, I spent many hours glued to the TV or listening to rock and roll. Just like the teens of today, TV, magazines and music all play a role in molding who we were and eventually who we would become. Just as it is to the youth of today, the “party scene and money” was portrayed to me as the governing factor to attaining and enjoying the good life. I believed everything I saw, everything I read, and everything I heard from these media’s. I was convinced that the only people who could truly find enjoyment in life were those who lived this kind of life style. My whole teenage life was completely engulfed in the pursuit of happiness through what my peers and I perceived was the only road to the fulfillment of that end. I would learn the hard way about the emptiness and vanity of this ill-perceived pursuit of the “Good Life”.

The party begins…
High school, in the late sixties, was an era in time of great social upheaval in North America. It was a time of teenage rebellion against parents and authority. It was a time of protests (particularly of the Vietnam War), all in the advent of bettering the world. It was the dawning of sexual freedom and drug abuse of unparalleled proportions in history. This was the age of rock and roll and the flower child. We were part of what helped to introduce a change to mankind’s morals, as man had never seen before. All these influences played a meaningful part in the teens of my day. They were the avenues that would bring tides of change to our generation and generations to come. Including the generation of today. All for the betterment of the world was our thinking! My generation is known as “The Baby Boomers”, or as we are better named, the “ME generation of the sixties”!

I was in grade 10 when I met Rick Jessop. Rick was my age and I remember he was one of those macho guys who seemed to have the strength of character and confidence that I longed to posses. I often thought of how I wanted to be more like Rick. I figured that if I patterned myself to be more like him that the “in crowd” that I admired at school would accept me. I remember so desperately wanting to fit in to that group of people. Rick would be my friend and my way in to that group. The only problem was that Rick was a drug user and I was not. To this, things didn’t add up in my head. He was nothing like what I thought a drug user would be like. He was certainly intelligent, a good dresser, and it did not seem as if the drugs had affected his thinking ability at all. It just seemed to me that Rick just had it all together. I really enjoyed being in Rick’s company as it made me feel better about myself because he and the rest of the “important people” of the group accepted me!

This was the beginning to the deterioration of my parents teaching on the pitfalls of drug abuse. It is a perfect example of how peer pressures can alter any young person’s good sense of reasoning. I began thinking that my parents didn’t really know as much as they thought they did. Look at Rick Jessop! He is proof!

Not too long after I started chumming around with Rick and listening to his stories of using drugs, I began thinking differently. Rick explained to me the peaceful high of this one particular drug. This was my first real temptation to give it a try. After Rick answered some of my questions about this drug, it wasn’t long until I gave in to the temptation to experiment with it. This led to more abuse of other illegal drugs and soon drugs and drinking became a regular part of my life. I become totally involved with the party scene and the cool people at school. Remember, I thought this was the road that would lead to the “Good Life”. The kind of idolizing I had for Rick plagued me the rest of my adolescent years as I found myself conforming to be accepted by different circles of peers as the years passed. If only I had been secure enough and had the strength of character in whom and what I was to stand up and be myself. But I didn’t! I couldn’t! I was weak to the desires of my vulnerable heart.

With this new life style of drug abuse in my life I began living and doing things on the wrong side of the law. My attitude towards the police slipped from one of respect to one of disrespect. Just like the peers in my life, the police became the enemy in my eyes. The truth of that is that they were enforcing the law and we were breaking it. At times when I was pushing the boundaries with the police it led to some physical confrontations with some police officers, which eventually turned into a deep resentment toward all police. Over the next few years, I was charged with assault police, drinking charges, and a large number of traffic offenses. Although I was guilty of most things I was charged with, I felt the police and the laws they enforced were unfair. This was typical thinking of teenagers and especially those of the “ME” generation. All my friends and I resented and harassed them which only strengthened my anger toward them.

In spite my true deep inward feelings and awareness of God, I outwardly showed doubt and often mocked Christians and the idea of the existence of any god at all. I remember that whenever I joined my friends in the mockery of Christians or God, that I always had a deep inner feeling of hurt that what I was doing and saying was wrong. In my head I had many questions and doubts. In the deepest resources of my heart, the still gentle voice remained constant, saying, “I Am”. It was the same gentle voice of God that was speaking to me when I was a child in Fort Erie. We all have heard Him knocking at points in our life. As you read these words and if you are honest with yourself, you will admit it also. Instead of opening that knocking door I would brush the feelings of guilt aside. I had this “cool” image that I had worked so hard to get that I had to maintain at all costs. I would not take the chance of looking like a fool or a wimp in front of my friends. My thoughts and words went something like this...“People who have it all together don’t need God. Christians are just a bunch of weaklings who need God in their life to feel adequate.” I thought this in my mind, but it was against how I really felt in my heart. Oh the wretched man that I was, to be deceived by my own mind.

The media had implanted an impression of Christians and Christianity into my mind that was anything but good. This was largely thanks to the overwhelming power and influence of television. I ask you, how many times have you seen a Christian man, or woman portrayed as a fanatical religious freak? Or how many times have you seen one of them portrayed as a dangerous religious psychopath? Or how many times have you seen them as hard unloving, cruel people? Lots of times! Most of the other kids at school held the same view of Christians as I did. All their minds were being fed the same lies coming from the same sources as mine was. Of course, they absorbed it all as being one hundred percent truth, just as I did. What a lie from the pit of hell! Our young, ever-searching teenage minds were so vulnerable.

"What a boring, unhappy life Christians have”, I thought. “They are the deceived ones who don’t know anything about how to really enjoy life"! “Look how pathetic they look”! “Christians are narrow minded and judgmental”! Often when I was on drugs or drinking I felt a conviction in my heart that I was doing wrong against my parents and God. As do most people, I ignored the Holy Spirits whispers in my heart and would nullify the whispers in my head as effects of the drinking or drugs. I just wanted to continue to enjoy the pleasures of the world through my sinful way of life! Oh yes, “The pleasures of sin”. I’ve learned that even the Bible says that sin is pleasurable, but for a moment!

Are you seeking Romance or true Love?
I had never had a long-term girlfriend in high school. Looking back now with an understanding of my teenage insecurities and low self esteem, I can see that I was afraid to have someone special and long-term. It was because of my teenage insecurity that the little dating I did do always ended in short-term relationships. The girls that I really wanted to date I was always afraid to ask out in fear of hearing the earth shattering “NO”! The young ladies I did date were not whom I really wanted to be with. Talk about my peer pressure conception of the ideal girl for me. As an adult looking back I regret not asking those girls out even if the answer was that earth shattering “NO”. The truth as I see it now is that I was every bit, “OK”, as the most popular or talented people in the whole school. Ultimately it is a teenager’s own perception of whom and what he or she is that condemns or confirms them. My desire to have that special someone in my life was the reason why I made some foolish choices in my life and lifestyle. In typical adolescent thinking, I thought that by looking and acting a certain way that I could catch the eye of that special someone. In other words, I would show off.

Destiny...
I graduated from Bramalea Secondary High School in the spring of 1971. Summer, of that same year, dad was offered a supervisor’s position with the Canadian National Railway in dad’s hometown of Sarnia, Ontario. He gladly accepted and our family moved from Bramalea to Sarnia, Ontario that same summer.

In the middle of June 1971, I hired on the Canadian National Railroad as a car checker at Sarnia Yard. I come from a long line of family railroaders. Both my granddads and 2 great uncles also had worked on the Canadian National Railway. My dad’s dad (my grandpa) and 2 of grandpa’s brothers were engineers on steam locomotives since the early 1920’s. My mom’s dad, after serving in the front line trenches in France with the Canadian Infantry in the First World War, hired on at the Stratford Locomotive repair shop in Stratford, Ontario. My dad had hired on the railroad as an electrician apprentice in 1942 and had moved up over the years to a supervisor’s position at a large locomotive repair shop in Toronto, Ontario.

Five years after I first hired onto the Canadian National Railroad and after much hard work both hands on and in the books, at the age of 24, I was classed as a Locomotive Engineer. I had been given running rights to operate freight trains throughout Southwestern Ontario. What a triumphant time that was in my early life. I was fulfilling my family destiny by becoming a Locomotive Engineer like grandpa and a railroader like “Dad”. I was so proud of what I had accomplished and looked forward to many years of doing something I loved to do. Destiny and the consequences of sin had other plans for my life.

The god of Motorcycles…
The longing I had to taste the pleasures of the world enticed me to continue on my travel into the same avenues of adventure of life that I had learned during my school years. Drugs rock and roll and motorcycles. The next few years of living this kind of life left me empty handed time after time; so I began looking in other directions in search of the fulfillment I so desperately sought!

In 1971, I bought my first motorcycle. It was a 1969 BSA 500 cc Thunderbolt. This was the greatest thing that I’d ever owned. I had dreamed of riding a motorcycle some day but my dad, in all his wisdom, had tried to talk me out of it. I argued with him since my teen years in High School. I finally went against his wishes and found the BSA for sale just a couple blocks away from our home. Dad gave in and actually came with me to help check the bike mechanically.

Drinking, getting high on drugs, and getting in bar room brawls became my idea of having fun. In reality I realize now that living like this was all a façade to cover up the real insecure me. Living this kind of life style made me feel like a real "Big Man". Over the next couple of years I gained a reputation for being able to handle a motorcycle and my fists well. Remember the dangerous deeds to fit into cool group I talked about earlier. The partying, bikes and fighting were all part of me “fitting in” and “maintaining” the cool tough guy image. It made me feel important to think that people were afraid of me. Now I was “The Biker” and the insecure me felt secure in this image!

I recall a time when my close friend, Tony and myself, had been visiting the bars uptown. It was a beautiful hot summer night and we were enjoying riding our motorcycles from bar to bar. We had been to a couple of our favorite spots and when we left one of the spots that were located in uptown Sarnia, a police cruiser began to follow us. We were sure that their intent was to pull us over. We both had been drinking for the last couple hours and we knew that we could be charged with impaired driving. When we stopped at the next stop sign, Tony looked over at me and smiled. The police were right behind us. I knew what he was thinking by the smile and the twinkle in his eye. I turned one way and Tony turned the other. The police officers had a choice to make, and when the cruiser turned my way, I gulped, opened the bike throttle full, and the chase began! Up ahead on my left was a municipal parking lot. I knew it would be impossible for the cruiser to follow me through the lot with all the cement parking abutments. I sped into the lot and as I darted around parked cars and abutments the cruiser couldn’t keep up. I exited the lot at another street and as I leaned sideways and accelerated up the road I noticed another cruiser pulling up to the corner of a side street as I roared by at full throttle. The cruiser pulled out behind me in hot pursuit. They were right behind me and after zig zagging through some more of the city streets; I ended up going down a one way street in the wrong direction. The cruiser followed right behind with siren screaming and lights flashing! Up ahead there were cars coming the other way! To avoid a head on crash I rode over the sidewalk, across a lawn, through a hedge, and into someone’s driveway. My motorcycle had jumped into neutral and I was desperately trying to get it back into gear when an officer grabbed me and pulled me off the bike and to the ground. They had me handcuffed and into the back seat of a cruiser in minutes. The result of that episode was me being charged and convicted of dangerous driving.

As the years went on I bought different motorcycles and found myself getting into more and more trouble with the police. It was only by the grace of God that I wasn’t killed during this period of my life as it wasn't uncommon for me to mix drinking and the drugs with the motorcycles. It's funny now as I look back into time how my friends were never concerned about me when I was speeding down the highway screwed out of my mind on drugs and alcohol; but the moment I told them that I had become a Christian they suddenly became concerned and thought that I'd really "lost it". More peer pressure.

Drugs, Rock'n Roll...
In 1973 I went to see a famous rock group of that time at Cobo Hall in Detroit Michigan. Detroit is 60 miles from my hometown of Sarnia Canada. My brother Dan, a couple friends and I loaded into my Ford Pinto for the trip. All of us but my brother took a hallucinogenic drug called mescaline and we headed for the U.S border. My brother was our designated driver so the rest of us were free to get as high and drunk as we wanted. The first stop we made after we crossed the border into the United States was at a party store to buy some wine to drink with some pot we had brought to smoke during our 1 hour journey to Cobo Hall. We bragged to each other about how wiped we would be and the good time we would have at this concert.

By the time we arrived at Cobo Hall I was so completely consumed by the drugs I had taken that I was having great difficulty talking. My brother Dan drove the car into the underground parking. As I exited the car I banged my head against the inside of the door. I fell to the ground and I remember it was like an explosion when I hit the ground. All my senses were extremely heightened from the drugs. The small flash I would normally have seen from banging my head seemed like an atomic explosion. I lay there as I tried to comprehend what had happened. Though I wasn’t really hurt, I was confused! My head was spinning and my coordination was anything but normal. When I realized that I had hit my head and that I was on the ground, I struggled to my feet and staggered to the elevator entrance. My body was really hard to control as the drugs were affecting all my senses of touch and direction. Even when I turned a corner I would lose my sense of direction. Thank goodness my brother and friends where there. With there help I made it to my seat in the concert hall.

Inside Cobo Hall, I was overwhelmed and afraid of the large crowd, the noise, and the drugs. It wasn’t what I had anticipated. When the concert started I was still getting higher and higher from all the drugs and drinking I’d done. Once in my seat my thoughts of fun changed to those of fear. "How stoned am I going to become!?" I asked myself. The reality of the amount of drugs that I had taken was now completely enveloping me and there was nothing I could do to stop what it was doing. The possibility of overdose and death became a truth I dreaded to face. My mind flooded with the thoughts that all my earlier beliefs of what my parents had taught me about the destruction drugs can bring were really going to come true! I was about to die! "I'm going to die, I am sinning against God and He will send me to hell!” were my thoughts. You can’t imagine the kind of fear I felt. I had never experienced this kind of sheer and utter terror in my life. Here I was, in the middle of a screaming crowd, (nowhere to go) hard rock music thundering, overdosed on drugs, and facing what I thought was the certainty of death and hell!! I WAS TERRIFIED! Faced with all this, the deep down heart felt belief that I had in God from my childhood and teen years came rushing to the surface of my mind. I knew in my heart of hearts that I truly was a sinner and that when I died that I was bound for an eternity in hell. My heart was pounding in fear as, in desperation, I cried out from the bottom recesses of my heart to the only one that could help. "Please God No!" At that moment and I’ll never forget it the rest of my life, a peace I had never experienced came over me. A new and wonderful sense of love filled my soul. Unbelievable that in an instant I was brought from sheer terror to utter sweet peace. (Many years later I read in the Bible “There is no fear in love; but perfect love casts out fear”). I was still high from the drinking and drugs but the terrible fear of death and hell fled as this wonderful sense of peacefulness settled into my soul! What a heavenly relief from the terror I was just facing a moment ago! Even with the music still earsplitting and crowd screaming the peace remained.

When an intermission finally came we all decided to go into the hallway. I saw balcony doors behind us and felt an urge for some fresh air. One of my friends, my brother, and me went through the balcony doors and onto the balcony. I was relieved to escape from the music and the crowd. It was at this time that I tried to share with them what I had experienced inside. I began by telling them that I thought I had taken too much substance and that in my fear of death, I had cried to God from my heart. I told them about the peace that overcame me and that still remained. They listened, but insisted it was the drugs that had caused this peaceful feeling and had nothing to do with God. This contradicted the voice in my heart, this peaceful voice of assurance and safety. In all truth, I had been changed forever in that moment. I still here this gentle voice to this day. I know this voice as the voice of my Lord.

We had only been outside for a short time when we decided to go back inside to see the remainder of the concert. We were surprised to discover that the door where we had just entered the balcony had actually locked behind us. I was relieved that we couldn't get back in. On the other hand, my brother and friend were not. I was now experiencing a peace I had never felt before in my entire life and I just wanted to stay away from all the noise and confusion inside.

We checked all the balcony doors and found them all to be locked. We were locked out and there was nobody to open any door for us to get back in. The next place we went was to the ticket gate, only to discover that they wouldn’t let us back in with just a stub. Since there was no way back in, we found our way back to the car in the parking lot. Once we got to the car we got in and waited for the fourth person who had come to the concert with us. While we were waiting in the car all I wanted to talk about was the reality of God and how I pleaded with Him in my moment of crisis. What I knew was that in my fear of death and hell I had called upon Gods help and for certain a peace I didn’t understand had come over me. I had only been to church as a small boy and a little in my teen years with my friends’ parents and I didn't know too much about God. I didn’t understand it then, but I now I do. Everything I was saying that night was words inspired by His Spirit. After the concert ended, the person who we were waiting for came out to the car and we all headed home to Sarnia. During our ride home, I continued to talk about God and the way I felt. I believed I had been delivered from death. Whether I wasn’t really dying that night or not, I don’t know, but I certainly can testify to the sheer terror I had of dying without a good standing with God. Reality is that I was changed that night.

I woke up the next day and was exuberant about the revelation that I had experienced the night before. I felt that I had been touched in a very special way. In the excitement of the truth I now understood, that there was a God, I called the friends I had gone to the concert with to talk about it. Once again, one by one, and to my dismay, they told me to take it easy, that it had just been the drugs. I knew that they were wrong!

In an attempt to find out about this God who had revealed Himself to me, I decided to look into the one logical place where I presumed that I would find the answer I was looking for. That was the Bible. I grabbed mom’s old family bible and brought it to my bedroom. I was very careful about reading it, as I was afraid of my parents or brothers catching me. I kept it carefully tucked away under clothes in a dresser drawer and would sneak it out only when no one was around. In our house, people who had too much to do with God or church were talked about as being or gone "religious". I didn’t want to become religious like gram and gramp or the Reddecops in Fort Erie. The general consensus I felt from my young life was that if a person had "gone religious", that they were an unwanted company by the rest of the “normal” people of the world. Thus, the pressure and persuasion that can come from a persons own home. My parents, in all ignorance of the truth about Christians, had helped to place into my mind all these thoughts about what they thought Christians are like. This was supported with the image of Christians being painted in my mind by television. People make all their decisions in life, based on thoughts and ideas that they have already accepted as being truth from their lives. If these ideas happen to be wrong, then the conclusions that follow will be just as wrong. My mom and dad were acting upon ideas that had been placed in their minds by the world and they were conveying them to us as what they believed to be truth. They’re goal in relaying this to us was out of love. They didn’t want to see any of their children not enjoy living because they had become "religious". This image of Christianity is a lie that had been placed in my parent’s heads through the world by the power of media and their peers. Something that is very confusing is why parents often send their children to Sunday school but will seldom or never go themselves. My parents wanted my brothers and myself to go to Sunday school up until I was nine. I really didn’t understand why we were being sent to Sunday school to learn Bible stories about this wonderful Jesus and go home to hear this same name used as a swear word.

When I began reading the Bible I didn't know what it was that I was looking for. The only thing that I knew about the Bible was the Bible stories that my mom had read to my brothers and I and what we learned at Sunday school when I was a small boy. From what I had learned about Bible truth, I knew that Jesus was the Son of God, born of a virgin, died on the cross for sinners, and rose from the dead. I knew the stories surrounding the more profound characters in the Bible like of Adam and Eve, David and Goliath, Moses, Joseph, Samson and others, but I knew I needed something else. I thought the logical place to begin my search for the missing piece was at the very beginning of the whole Bible. I began by trying to read it like you would read any storybook. Starting in Genesis I got into some of the begets and begots of Genesis and didn't find any answer I was seeking and thinking the rest of the Bible wouldn’t help either, I decided to stop my searI now know that if I had started with one of the Gospels and found out more about Jesus, the central figure of the entire Bible, the rest of it would have fallen into place. In the in the very first verse of the Gospel of John, the scriptures make it clear that the central figure is Jesus. It says, “In the beginning was the Word and the Word was with God and the Word was God”. Fourteen verses later it says, “The Word became Flesh and dwelt among men”.

Even though I stopped reading, the Lord knew my heart and was faithful to bring many Christians into my life. There were people at work, hitchhikers I picked up, people at the beach, and many more. It seemed like I was always running into Christians who would talk to me about Jesus. Before Cobo Hall, whenever anyone tried to talk to me about God I would lash out at him or her with a barrage of verbal insults. This kind of behavior changed as the reality of God was no longer buried within me. Whether people admit it or not; deep down everyone knows. The Holy Spirit whispers, "I am" to everyone; just as He did to me!

In spite of God's miraculous revelation, I slowly slipped back into drugs and parties as the pressures of the partying world once again became the center of my quest for happiness.

Romance vs. Love...
Unlike many young people my age, I had never had a steady relationship with a girl that had lasted any longer than a couple of weeks. I really did long to find someone who I could build a lasting relationship with. Again I make mention of the power of influence from media’s like television, magazines, radio, etc. I thought I knew what "the ideal girl" would look and be like for me. I had all these romantic ideas of the kind of woman and relationship I wanted. Romance had become confused with love in all, up to this point of my life, I had been bombarded with all kinds of romantic notions of what love is supposed to be. Aren't we all?!

In the spring of 1973 which was after my Cobo Hall experience, I met a girl by the name of Ruth Bradley. We were introduced in a bar one evening and I enjoyed talking to her the rest of the night. I thought that would be the last time I would see her but later that summer I met her again in the local park. I was excited about running into this girl again and later that day took her for a ride on my motorcycle. Thus began a relationship that I misinterpreted as love, and that would last until two years after my accident.

The god of racing motorcycles...
In 1976 I bought my first race bike and tried flat track and ice racing. That was it; I loved the thrill and excitement of racing and what an exhilarating feeling to do what dad did! The drugs and drinking disappeared as my interest and love of racing increased.

This became my new found god.............the love of racing!

The day before...
During the early spring of 1977 Ruth informed me that she was carrying my child and was expecting in September. We talked about marriage but decided to wait until after the child was born.

Early in the morning on September 16, 1977 Ruth gave birth to a 7-lb. baby boy whom we named Tyler. After seeing the baby, holding him, and falling in love with him, I asked Ruth if she would mind if I went to the last two races of the season in drive to Quebec City. She said she didn't mind, wished me luck, so off I went to make arrangements for the long journey with, Dave Fair, a close friend of mine who also raced. These races were scheduled for September 17 and 18, 1977.

The evening of the same day Tyler was born I arrived at Dave Fair's house ready to go to the race. It had been raining all day and we were concerned about the possibility of the race being canceled. My bike and gear were ready to go but Dave's motorcycle needed some last minute adjustments. I decided to give Dave a hand getting his bike ready. That was shortly after 6 p.m.

This last minute work turned out to be a lot more than either of us had anticipated. At about one o'clock in the morning of the race day, Dave told me that I should go to his room and try and get some sleep before the big journey ahead of us. I hadn’t had much sleep in two days due to Tyler's arrival the night before and I was glad to oblige. It seemed like my head had just hit the pillow and Dave was shaking me out of my much needed sleep. Bleary eyed, I peered over the edge of the pillow at his alarm clock. It was just 3am. A mere two hours had passed since I had slipped into bed.

I quickly put on my clothes and staggered to the garage as fast as I could. I knew we still had all our gear and the motorcycles to load into his van and onto the trailer. There were six racers all total who were going to ride together to this race. Three bikes on the trailer and three more in the van with all our gear didn't leave a lot of room for people. We also had to bring our cheering section, which was Dave's sister, Mary. This meant there would be seven people riding in the van as well as all the equipment were brining.

The rain continued to come down the whole time we were loading the van. The more it rained and rained the more I wondered if we were just wasting our time going to Quebec. The big question in all of our minds was, "Will it be canceled?"

It was just past four in the morning before we finally got everything packed. Faced with a 600 mile journey and having had only very little sleep in two days, I knew it was going to be a tough trip. At least with seven people in the van it gave us all a chance to sleep as we each took a turn in the driver's seat.

Quebec City, the day...
As we neared Quebec City, the puddles on the side of the roads began to disappear and it appeared that there had been very little rain. It looked as if everything was gong to be OK after all. The clouds were still threatening rain when we arrived at the track but everything seemed to be relatively dry.

I had never raced here before and when I walked over the track for the first time ever, I could tell by the surface that this was going to be a very fast track to race on. Like all flat track motorcycle racers, I had my favorite types of track. Some liked wide cushioned tracks that were deep soft dirt that usually meant a rough and wild kind of ride in the corner. Others liked hard grooved tracks that developed a thin hard black clay surface that was almost like riding on pavement and made passing difficult in the corners. Then there was my favorite, the type of track that could best be described as a combination of the two. I loved the controlled fast slide that comes with this kind of surface and in my mind Quebec was a perfect race-track.
This is the track in Quebec City. I was amazed at the excellent surface when
I walked over the dirt from the chain link fence above to the infield.

Flat track racing had become the number one important thing in my life. Thinking about once again being on the racetrack and the excitement of reaching speeds of close to 100 mph started the adrenaline pumping into my blood. The first thing we did was to pay our racing entry fee and sign up for the race. After signing up we drove the van and trailer into the pit area to unload our gear. My excitement intensified with each motorcycle we unloaded.

It was past suppertime and the growling in my stomach was telling me that I had better do something about it. Along with one of the other riders I went to the track restaurant to get a bite to eat. I never liked to eat too much just before a race in the event of a crash as it could cause vomiting and choking. In the restaurant I was trying to explain to the French waitress that all I wanted was a hamburger. This is a 90% French speaking city and I was having great difficulty making her understand. Finally in my frustration of trying to communicate to her what I wanted, I tried pointing to the pictures in the menu. I ended up with a full meal. I ate only what I wanted of the meal paid the bill and rushed back to the pits to put my racing leathers on and get the bike ready for the practice runs.

It had been drizzling while I was eating which made turned the excellent dirt condition on the track a little sticky but still acceptable to race on. With that kind of track conditions the dirt can easily become a problem as it obscures a racers vision, if not completely blot it out. The solution----a thin piece of plastic called a “tearoff”. The racer can use as many of these important pieces of equipment as he feels he needs. Each tearoff has a tab on it and can be placed over the actual face shield in an alternating fashion that would allow the racer to rip them off one by one. With each tearoff taken off the racer regains a clear vision. He must be careful however, to rip them off in the proper sequence. If the wrong one is tore off first they could accidentally all come off at once. I realize now that I did a very foolish thing by only putting two tearoffs over my shield.

After putting the tearoffs on the shield of my helmet I headed over to where the other racers were gathering for the rider's meeting. I sat down on the grass but quickly got up again as the ground was wetter than it appeared. My first thought was "What's the track like?" and "Will the race be canceled after all?" I hoped not, as we had gone through so much work to get to this race. I should have realized at this time that two tearoffs would not be enough, but my mind was preoccupied with concerns of the race being canceled. The riders meeting is intended to inform the racers about anything pertinent to that race, and to once again with the other English speaking riders, I had difficulty understanding the referees. Their English was very poor and it didn't seem like they were too concerned about us understanding what was being said. I didn’t care anyway. I already knew what the flags meant and my only concern was if there was going to be a race or not. The referees had obviously judged the track conditions as safe because, the next thing I knew, everyone was hurrying back to their motorcycles in the pits.

I was supposed to be in the first group to make a practice run. I pulled my bike off it’s’ stand and began to try and start it. I had always kept the motorcycle in perfect running condition and it always had started easily. But it was different this time. It had just been on a trailer for six hundred miles in the rain. After three or four minutes of kicking the start pedal without even a bark from the motor my heart sank and I thought, "Not now!!" I looked up and saw Dave doing some final things to his motorcycle. I signaled to him that I needed some help and he came running over to see what the problem was. I asked him to give a push and I would try to bump start it. That's a term we use at the track when the motorcycle is started by pushing it. Dave and I started to push the bike and I jumped on it and tapped the foot shift into gear. The motor began revolving as we pushed the bike harder and harder. After trying a couple of minutes without any success we had to stop to catch our breath. Looking up, I could see the other racers in my group sitting on their bikes at the track entrance waiting for the referees OK. I could hear the engines revving up and down as they kept the motors clear and ready to go. Just hearing the motors was getting me more and more excited. I just had to get my bike going! There was one more trick I had up my sleeve to try to get it started. I reached down to the valve on the gas tank and turned it off. I looked up to tell Dave to get on the bike and hold the throttle wide open while I pushed. Doing this would get lots of air into the motor and if it was flooded it might start. Dave and I began to push. He jumped on and tapped the shifter into gear. I continued to push and.... push as he held the throttle wide open. I was just going to give up when the bike leapt forward as the motor came to life. Dave quickly reached down and turned the gas back on so the motor would not quit again due to no gas. I was thrilled! I ran and grabbed my helmet and gloves!

My group was still waiting to enter the track as I rolled to the end of the line. I had just arrived when the referees gave the signal for the riders to begin to go. Dave was waiting at the entrance and gave me an enthusiastic pat on the back as I rolled past him and onto the track.

The entrance to the track was in the corner at the end of the back straightaway. The moment I was on the track I gave the throttle a hard twist, causing the engine to sing and a rooster tale of dirt to fly from the rear wheel. As the motorcycle began to accelerate and slide, I leaned it to the left. I was instantly gaining ground on the rider who had entered the track just ahead of me. I took note that he was on a motocross bike, which is not designed to race on flat tracks. "A French rider", I thought, as many of the French riders were using motocross bikes. The distance between us was quickly disappearing as we both roared by the grand stand and into the number one corner at a speed close to 100 mph. The other rider moved close to the inside rail, as he leaned and slid his motorcycle into the corner. This made it impossible for me to pass him on the inside. When a rider goes into a corner this close to the inside rail, it means he will usually exit the other side at a wider angle, sometimes leaving a good opportunity to pass. I decided to go deeper into the corner and try to cross in behind and pass him this way as we exited the corner going into the back straightaway.

I held my throttle open a split second longer than the other rider and it took me deeper into the corner than he had gone in. Now I was beside him, but closer to the outside fence of the track. At this point my motorcycle was smoothly sliding sideways and putting lots of power to the ground as I rounded the corner. As the other racer and myself came closer to the back straight I saw an opening begin to develop between him and the inside rail. I gave my throttle a little more gas causing me to negotiate behind him and cross over to pass inside. When I made this move, I had to go through the wall of dirt that was flying from his rear wheel of his motorcycle. My vision was completely blotted out the moment the moist dirt hit my face shield. "Can't see!” I thought, as I reached up to rip a tearoff from my shield. As instantly as I couldn’t see, I now could, as I let the muddied tearoff fly from my hand into the air. I had gained ground faster by doing this and I was moving up to pass him. "Got I’m!" I thought, as I zipped past him going into the straight.

It began to rain again. "Only one tearoff left", I thought, as I raced down the back straight towards the corner where I had just entered the track some 30 seconds earlier. Suddenly I couldn’t see again!! This time, because of the rain, it was the dirt flying from my front wheel that was causing the problem. I reached up to rip off my last tearoff and I could see again!

I was becoming concerned about the condition of the track as I had used up my two tearoffs in less than one lap. I raced past the pit entrance/exit as I once again leaned my bike over and slid it sideways into the corner; the French rider in hot pursuit. I was having a great deal of difficulty with my face shield getting covered in dirt. My tearoffs were gone and now I had to improvise. I was trying to wipe the dirt off the shield with my glove. Each time I wiped it would smear mud across my shield leaving only a few clear streaks on the shield to see out of.

"This is crazy--- but I can't slow down now! I’m committed. There's other riders right behind! I can hardly see! I passed the pit exit! I'll get off next time past!" was the parade of thoughts that buzzed through my mind in a blur.

I was on lap two of my practice and once again racing past the grand stand on the front straight. I wiped the shield once more just before leaning and sliding the bike into the same turn where I had just passed the French racer on the previous lap. My heart was thumping with fear. I couldn’t see very well and I wasn’t about to try to ride hard against anyone under these conditions.

I wasn't going as fast as I would be normally as I headed down the back straight. Again, I had to keep wiping the shield off each time my vision became obscured with dirt flying from the front wheel. My intent was to leave the track at the upcoming pit exit so I put my hand up to signal any following riders that I was exiting. As I moved toward the inside rail, I began to slow down on my approach to the exit. This is the last memory I have of riding on the racetrack in Quebec City. Months later, in the hospital in London, David Fair would relate to me what transpired as I approached the pit exit that day.

Dave was still standing at the entrance/exit when he looked up and saw me coming. He said that I had slowed down considerably and had moved to the inside of the track. Dave could see me clearly as the fence around the track is only knee high.

A moment after he spotted me Dave said I unexpectedly began scrapping along the inside fence caught in what is known in racing terms as a "Tank Slapper". This occurs when a rider is in a situation where he is frantically turning the handlebars back and forth in each direction to try and keep or regain control of his motorcycle. When my motorcycle came to the mouth of the exit, it skidded across the opening to where the knee-high fence began again. Slamming into the fence, I was catapulted into the air and I flew headfirst into a steel light post that was standing a few yards away.

Dave was the first person to reach me and he could see that I was unconscious and that my helmet, with its dirt covered shield, was twisted on my head. The helmet was twisted in a manner that was causing the strap to cut into my throat and blocking my air passage. Dave said that I was beginning to turn blue in the face. Without moving me, Dave carefully loosened the strap on my helmet and much to his relief the color of my face returned to normal. Dave told me how it terrified him to see me lying on the ground twisted so badly. It wouldn’t be until many hours later, in hospital, he would learn that, besides the arms and shoulders, I had also broken my neck and that I had a hairline fracture in my skull. The doctors didn't give him much hope of me living more than 48 hours.

La Enfant Jesus Hospital...
It was Dave who had the unpleasant task of calling to Sarnia to tell my family that I had had a very serious crash. From the moment that I hit the pole Dave had taken on the responsibility of being my family representative until my actual family would arrive many hours later. He was allowed to stay in a room, where he could see through a glass, as the doctors worked frantically to save my life. It was Dave who signed the consent forms, giving the doctors permission to operate and do what they deemed necessary to save my life. Dave said he dreaded it when the doctors would come to see him, as they always had bad news regarding the actual extent of my injuries.

Days later, I had my first conscious memory of being in the hospital. "What's that smell.....Ohh? I feel funny... My eyes are heavy; I can't open them... Ohh there they go... What are those lights for?! Hey! What's going on?!" The lights were shining in my eyes as I struggled into consciousness. The moment I was aware enough to realize I was in a bed in a place I wasn't familiar with, I tried to get up from it. When I tried to sit up in the bed I discovered that I was tied to it. So I thought! "What's going on? Why am I tied in this bed?! Someone please help!!” I would learn later that I wasn’t tied to the bed at all. I was completely paralyzed from my shoulders down!!

When I realized I couldn’t get out of the bed I tried to yell for help. I opened my mouth and yelled but nothing came out. Not out of mouth anyway. The doctors had put a tracheotomy into my throat to facilitate my breathing and have a way of suctioning my lungs clear of mucus. Instead of the air passing over my vocal cords it was intercepted by the hole in my throat and vented to the air. Every time I would try to speak, my words would just blow a whistle of wind into the room.

I was becoming frustrated, angry and frightened. I began to panic! Help me! Someone please help!! I thought. I felt so aghast by all this horrifying hospital equipment with hoses and tubes into my arms and neck. I couldn’t make sense out of any of it. I had become frantic and in an attempt to get attention from someone, I began trying to shake my head. "OH NO!” I thought as a sharp stab of pain shot into my head each time I tried to shake it. "Carson!! STOP!! Carson STOP!" A woman was yelling with a thick French accent. I turned my eyes in the direction of the voice. I could see a pretty nurse rushing towards me as she called out. Just as she was getting to me everything began to get blurry again, and I drifted back into a state of unconsciousness.

The only other memory I have during my time in intensive care, besides the pretty French nurse, was that of my parents. I felt as if I was trapped in pitch black sound proof room when suddenly I could hear my mother calling to me from a distance. "Carson...Carson", I could hear her but I couldn’t see her. "She's far away! I can't see you! Where.... Where... Where are you mom?” I was thinking. "I got to open my eyes...got to...got to. open them!"

My eyes began to open and the sudden lights of the room blurred my vision. As things slowly came into focus I could see my mother and father standing over me looking down. My mom was still whispering my name as they became aware that I had responded to her calls and that I was conscious.

As we began to talk I could detect from some of the things they were saying that I had been in a real bad crash.

I still didn’t realize the full seriousness of my injuries yet. I couldn’t understand why they acted the way they did when I started talking about getting my race bike ready for the upcoming ice race season

I became further confused when my father talked about me not being able to return to my former job of driving freight trains for the Canadian National Railway. When he talked to me about this I was thinking, "He can't be right, why not?!"

I was in a semi-conscious state for a period of about three weeks; after which I was transferred from Intensive Care to a ward with two other patients.

I drifted in and out of consciousness for about three weeks before they moved me to a ward on another floor in the hospital. In the room that I was transferred to there was a young man who had been in a car crash and an elderly man who had had a stroke. The young man couldn’t talk or move as he was suffering from severe head injuries and it was unknown if he would recover or not. I remember my mom telling me that the young man would just lay in bed completely lifeless, except his eyes. She said it was really scary because his eyes would follow people as they walked in and around the room. The other was an elderly man, named Henry, who had had a stroke. Henry was a Frenchman, but could speak English well enough that I could communicate with him somewhat... Here I was paralyzed from my neck down, in an almost 100% French speaking hospital with two roommates who I couldn’t even really communicate with. I was confused, terrified, and trapped. It was a living nightmare! It was deeply depressing not being able to move or feel anything and to make things worse, not even be able to talk to anyone. I learned here that the bed I was in is a specially designed bed for people with spinal cord injuries. It’s called a striker frame and had a large shiny steel track wrapped around the center which allowed the patient to be sandwiched and strapped in by a removable piece. This allowed staff to flip the patient face down every two hours while still maintaining the traction through the skull tongs and weights. Although I was in this special bed, they could not flip me due to my broken arm and dislocated shoulders. Instead the nurses would place pillows under my buttock and every two hours reposition them.

It was on this floor where I began to comprehend the actual seriousness of my injuries. I was horrified when I was told that the doctors hadn’t expected me to live for 48 hours. Once I learned this, I turned straight to the One who had rescued me years earlier on that eventful night in Cobo Hall. The Lord!! Just as I had cried out to God from my heart at Cobo Hall I began to cry in my heart once again for His help. I was facing a traumatic nightmare that only God Almighty could rescue me from, and rescue me he did. In the midst of this horrible state I was in, the peace of God and the security of His presence brought to me a peace of mind and soul that I can’t put to words. This turning to God was the final step that brought me to a decision to change my direction in life and live as He would have me live.

Whenever my mother would come to see me, I would ask her to hold a mirror up for me to see what my head looked like. She would always brush me off and try to change the subject. Finally, I insisted!! When she, reluctantly, held up the mirror for me to see, I was horrified at this gaunt creature staring into the mirror! I gasped and told her to take it away!! Although I didn’t outwardly cry, I was inwardly sobbing. The last time I had seen myself, I had a young healthy tanned face with a full head of blonde hair. This creature looking back in the mirror wasn’t me!! The person in the mirror had eyes sunken into the skull, ghostly white skin pulled tightly over the cheek bones that were prominently protruding. The hair had been shaved about six inches back from the front of the forehead on the right and left hand side in two inch wide strips. In the center of these strips were the tongs!! I could see two horrible looking hooks protruding out of my head and attached to taunt wires that disappeared over the top of my head. “Get it away”, I sobbed!!

My mother had wanted to spare me the anguish that the family faced every time they came to visit me and watch my health and vitality shrinking away day after day. I am so thankful to my family for their constant love and support.

My life, as I knew it, would never be the same. The doctors said that all the normal functions of daily living were to become an extreme challenge. Things like brushing my teeth, combing my hair and eating were just a few of the things I would have to learn to do again. I remember being fed, being washed, and even having to get someone to scratch my nose for me. On top of my new inability to care for myself was the French/English language barrier. Some staff, when they became frustrated with my English, would just walk away shrugging their shoulders or shaking their head. Never, in my wildest dreams, did I think I would ever have to face anything like this.

I thank God for my loving family. My brother Dan was a godsend made arrangements with a friend who lived in Quebec City to stay at his house while I was in the hospital there. Dan came to the hospital almost every day during the six weeks I was in Quebec. I looked so forward to his visits!

After a short time on the ward I discovered that I was starting to feel some tingling sensation in my left leg. A few days later I thought I could move my left leg. During one of Dan’s frequent visits I asked him to watch my leg as I tried to move it. He spoke with great excitement in his voice, “It’s moving!!” We both were thrilled when Dan said he could see some very slight movement in my leg. A week or so later the same thing happened in my left arm. First the tingling and then some ever so slight movement. I thanked God many times during my sleepless nights and would pray for His help. I was rejoicing that I had not died and that I was starting to have some return of movement and feeling.

London University Hospital…
In November of 1977 the doctors in Quebec City decided that my neck was now stable enough to move me buy ambulance to London Ontario for rehabilitation. London was approximately 600 miles away from Quebec City, but only 60 miles from my hometown of Sarnia. It excited me to know that I would be that close to my home town. The doctors had a stiff thearauputic collar specially made, which fitted perfectly around my neck and prevented me from moving it at all. This is what would replace the skull tongs, cables and weights fattened to my skull. The stability that the neck brace provided would enable me to be safely transported to London, Ontario. I can still here the high pitched squeaking sound as the tongs where unscrewed from my head one by one. It was a great relief to finally be free of the traction on my neck.

It had been six weeks since the accident and I was finally going to be moved to University hospital in London Ontario, which was close to home. I was ecstatic about the trip to London University Hospital. In my mind, it was here that I would become normal again.

I remember the day that the two ambulance attendants came to my room. They were pushing a stretcher to take me to the ambulance.
The day after I arrived in London a team of doctors came to my room and began probing and examining me. They had what seemed a thousand questions. I remember them poking a needle all over my body and asking dull or sharp, hot or cold. Lifting my legs and arms and then just dropping them. I felt like a piece of meat on display. Once again I was sobbing in my heart. Little doubt that, as I lay in the bed and the head neurological doctor told me I’d never walk again and I’d be dependent for my every need that I became angry and told him that I’d walk out of the hospital.
I spent a week on the neurological floor and had hours of probing, tests, and questions from different doctors, interns and students. After they finished their examinations I was transferred to the 4th floor for rehabilitation.

The Lord was faithful to me by keeping me surrounded by a constant company of Christians from all walks of life. It seemed like whenever I would begin to lose heart that God would have someone there to help lift me back up. I can’t remember all there names, but there were members of staff, visitors to the hospital, other patients, and the Hospital Chaplain. Even the orderly who wheeled the stretcher from the ambulance into the hospital in London was a Christian. These entire where like an army of secret prayer agents that God sent as my protection, encouragement, and teachers. All played a part in bringing me to the point of putting my hand in the hand of Christ!

Of all God’s servants whom He brought into my life during this time, there is one elderly gentleman who stands out in my mind!! After about a week of being on the rehabilitation floor I remember this man coming to my bedside as I lay on my bed looking at the ceiling. He was a gray hared man and he introduced himself as George Brewster, an old Christian friend of my grandparents. I remember looking up into the kind gentle eyes of this man as he said, “Hello Carson.” He was holding out his hand to shake and I told him I was incapable of shaking his hand. He smiled at me and said, “That’s all right” as he gently reached over laid his hand over mine. I looked straight into his eyes and sensed the sincere warmth of his spirit.

Over the next several months George and I would become close friends and brothers in Christ. When he first started coming to see me I wasn’t able to sit up in my bed and the only movement I had from my neck down was a little movement in my left leg and arm. My sense of feeling was starting to come back a bit more. The tingling feelings I had been sensing in my feet had changed to actual feelings of touch and very sensitive sense to hot and cold. George would come into see me many nights. He would share with me stories of Christians who, through their strength and faith in the power of Christ, had overcome insurmountable odds.

The one story I particularly remember was that of a soldier during World War I who had been shot and lay dying at the bottom of a trench on the front line. This story was dear to my heart as it made me think of my dear grandpa Campbell who had fought in the trenches in WW 1. The soldier in this story cried out to his comrades for someone to tell him how to get to heaven. This question was quickly passed down the trench from soldier to soldier and when it got to a particular young soldier, he rushed to the dying mans side. Once the soldier arrived he reached inside his coat pocket and pulled out an old tattered Bible and began to tell the man about Jesus Christ. When he was telling the dying man about God’s gift and love for us, he read to him John 3:16. “"For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him will not perish but have eternal life”. When the man lying in the trench heard these words he smiled and cried out to Jesus that he believed in Him and he closed his eyes and died. I told George that I already had believed this since 1973 in Cobo Hall. He told me that I needed to confess my lost state as a sinner, which we all are, and ask Jesus to come into my life.

Being unable to roll on my sides as I slept at night, the staff would come in to change my position every two hours. This was done to prevent my skin from breaking down and getting sores as I still could no feel my whole body. With the staff waking me, the pain in my shoulders, and the overall trauma I was suffering, there were many sleepless nights I lay awake in my bed. I prayed for Gods help often and for His free gift of salvation through His Son. Each day I felt no different! How would I know I was saved? I knew my heart was for God, but how could I be sure I was His? God answered my prayers and would reveal to me through another patients comforting words that He was already in my life. I suddenly realized that I was saved. (The years have passed and as I’ve grown closer to Christ I realize that when I cried to God for His help in Cobo Hall in 1973 was when Christ came into my heart and I became His child)

I still was now capable sitting up in a bed, but still unable to move my arms or hands to turn the pages of a book. George spent many hours sitting at my bedside reading to me from the Bible or just talking to me about Christ. I looked forward to his frequent visits. Whenever George walked into my room with his comforting smile, I always felt a strong sense of peace. I looked so forward to seeing George come through the door.

I was lying in bed one morning with the bed tilted up when a young woman came into the room and introduced herself as Bernadette Zoar, my occupational therapist. Bernadette explained to me that I had to start to learn all the daily activities of living again. My first reaction was that of anger and I asked her why would I have to learn these things again. I already knew how!!! She detected my anger and immediately tried defusing it as she explained to me that the doctors did not really how much ability I would recover in my hands an arms and that learning new ways to things I would get strength back in muscles that were still recovering.

Over three weeks had passed since I had arrived in London and I was still confined to the bed. The doctors had brought a technician to measure me up for a special brace. This brace would enable me to be safely sat up in a wheel chair and taken to the gym while still maintaining traction on my neck. In the gym was the equipment where the physiotherapist could work on getting my body to function as best it could.

Another week passed by and the same man who had measured me the week before reappeared in my room. He was carrying with him an apparatus that looked like something from a torture chamber in the medieval ages. It looked like a chest shield with straps and clamps to keep it in place. At the top on the front was a chin piece fitted to two steel posts that fastened to the chest piece. This prevented the neck from turning or bending up or down. After fitting it and making some final adjustments, they finally decided to put me in the wheelchair.

A young female nurse was positioned at the end of the bed to lift my legs and a male nurse took hold of me under each arm. On the count of three they lifted. Excruciating PAIN shot through my shoulders that were unbearable!! I yelled in agony and they set me back down on the bed immediately. Once I recovered from the pain they again tried to lift. This time the male nurse lifted me by holding me from the sides of my chest instead of under my arms. On the count of three I was again lifted and this time was set down in the wheel chair. Even gripping me the way that they did the pain was still excruciating. For the first time in almost three months I was sitting up in a chair. The brace supporting my neck was not comfortable, but it was such a joy to be sitting again I ignored all the pain and discomfort. I couldn’t sit for very long. The discomfort of the brace and the pain in my shoulders, combined with my head feeling dizzy got to be too much for me to bear. I asked to be placed back in bed. The nurses lifted me back to bed by gripping me the same way they had to put me in the chair.

I was still completely incapable of doing anything for myself. It was necessary to be turned in bed to a different position every two hours and supported by pillows to prevent pressure sores. I was regaining much more of my ability to feel and was now able to bend my left leg up at the knee and my left arm a couple inches from the bed. The more my feeling returned, the more I would feel the discomforts and pains in my body. I was still incapable of moving myself to a more comfortable position. I would often ask a member of the nursing staff for help. Some of the staff became annoyed with these requests and tried to tell me that this feeling was my imagination. One male nurse argued with me and insisted that this was what he called phantom pain. The mental anguish of all this talk that, “I was just imagining it”, was only surpassed by the physical pain in my shoulders.

A very kind nurse named Marion, who believed I could feel the discomfort, did something special for me so I could get help. She stuck a large glob of tape neatly on the button of the call bell so I could drop my hand on the tape to set the alarm off. The call bell had to be left by my left hand so I could flop the back of my hand against the glob of tape to set it off. I thought this was great! Now, if I needed help, I could get it much easier. I still was experiencing a large amount of pain in my shoulders which was a further cause of my discomfort night after night. If the call bell was not left by my hand after they turned me, I was unable to get the help I needed unless I yelled for it. I hated to yell, but sometimes the aching in my hips or the pain in my shoulders would become unbearable. My shoulders still ache to this day.

I remember one night in particular when my discomfort was at a greater height than usual. The pain in my shoulders had been bothering me and I had had to ring a lot of times for help. The male nurse who was on that night was miserable on his best nights. Every time he came to help it would be accompanied with sighs and grumbling of disgust as he repositioned me and tucked the pillows in position to support my body. One time he had forgotten to leave the call bell by my hand after he had turned me on my side. It had only been about 30 minutes since he had left and the pain began to throb in my shoulder. The call bell had been left on my table where all I could do was look at it lying a mere foot away from my face. The pain in my shoulders was growing. I tried to just lie quietly and wait for my next turning in 2 hours. The throbbing in my shoulder continued to increase and soon became excruciating. I couldn’t bear the pain any longer and I called for help. The male nurse came storming into my room and to my bedside. He had an incredible look of rage on his face as he began poking me in the chest and barked through clenched teeth, “Who do you think you are yelling for me to come down here again!!” I lay there helpless as this man continued to jab me in the chest and verbally insult me over and over. This was horrible!! My mind said to strike out but my body was motionless!! Before my accident I would never stand for any kind of insults at all. Any kind of physical contact like I was experiencing now would have been returned with my fists. I can’t tell in words how hard it was for me to lay there and be poked in my chest and verbally abused by this man. I wanted so badly to hit him as he stood looking down and speaking to me like I meant nothing. He refused to move me, and when he was done assaulting me verbally and physically, he stormed out of the room in the same fashion in which he had come in. I felt like I was losing my mind. Thought after thought went through my head of how I was going to visit the hospital after I recovered. I wanted so desperately to be capable again so I could deal with him the way I would before my accident. Once again my heart, my mind and my body were screaming in physical and emotional agony. The throbbing pain in my shoulders was horrible and I was nearly in tears by the time for my next turning. I never told anyone in authority about what happened this night because I was terrified of what repercussions would befall me at the hands of this man.

The Therapy Begins…
The first week of December in 1977 was my first visit to the gym for therapy. It was here that I would meet with my physiotherapist, Jan. I was taken to the gym every day through the week for an hour in the morning and an hour in the afternoon. Jan would become a very special friend in my life because she gave me the support I often needed. I can still remember her words to me, “I can’t promise you’ll ever walk again, but if you want to try, I will give it my best”. Most of the rest of the rehab staff where convinced that I would never walk again and that I’d be completely dependent for everything for the rest of my life. Their purposes were to help me accept that I would never walk again. Jan never said I would or wouldn’t, but she did say that as long as I was willing to try that she would help me all she could. God bless her because she did just that!!

A couple months later I had regained enough ability that Jan decided it was time to start to prepare my body and legs for standing. This was going to be a process that would take over three weeks. I was lifted onto a flat cushioned stretcher type apparatus called a tilt board. At the bottom of this board was a platform that my feet would press flat against as I lay on the board. When lying horizontally the tilt board resembled a stretcher with a footboard at one end. Underneath there was gears and hinges and a hand crank. There were five straps to keep the patient securely fastened to the board. Like the brace that had been used on my neck and chest, this to looked to me like another piece of equipment from a torture chamber. The purpose of this machine was, to slowly over a period of weeks; tilt the board up a small degree more each day. The platform for my feet would slowly become my position of standing. The tilting process would prevent the blood from pooling in my legs and would allow the circulation to slowly get strengthened to send blood back to my upper body. This process was critical. If I had been stood up without first putting me through this procedure, I would have blacked out from a lack of blood to my head.

Over the next three weeks either Jan herself, or a student under Jan’s direction, would work with me to try and strengthen my legs for standing while in the process of strengthening the circulation in my legs.

When I was first put on the board my left leg had clearly already started regaining movement. The right leg however, had no movement at all. I told Jan that when I tried to move it I could feel it trying inside, but she saw no signs of movement at all. Jan said that the one good sign was that I had regained my sense of feeling in that leg. She said she had some ideas that she wanted to try to stimulate my leg muscle. Jan told me this would help retrain my brain to make my leg muscles work. She had tried a couple of different techniques to make it work, but without success. The one thing that finally worked was the use of a small soft brush on the end of an electrical instrument that looked like an electric tooth brush. When this was turned on the brush rotated and the soft ends stood straight out. Jan would tell me to tighten my leg as she allowed these brush ends to strike the large muscle on the front of my right leg. I’ll never forget her excitement when she felt the major muscle in my leg contract for the first time. She was using the brush on my right leg to stimulate the muscle and told me to tighten my leg. My face winced as with all the concentration I could muster, I tried to tighten my leg as she brushed up and down the muscle. Her face lit up with a huge smile as she looked up at me and said to me, “its working!!” “Really!?!” I replied. I was absolutely ecstatic!!

Over the next few weeks Jan and I did a lot more specialized exercising to strengthen my legs on the tilt board. Finally Jan told me she was taking me to the parallel bars to see how I would do without the security of the tilt board straps. A wave of excitement flashed through me as I expressed to her my anticipation of walking again. I told Jan that I could hardly wait to walk through the bars. She said to me, “Hold On!! We have a lot of work to do before we try walking”. Jan explained to me we had a lot of different exercises to do while just standing at the parallel bars before I could try to walk. I was disappointed, but I was completely confident in her knowledge and ability.

While I was struggling daily to regain enough ability and strength to walk again, I was trying to recover every bit of ability I could. I was also for two hours each day in the occupational therapy learning to feed myself, write with my left hand (I was right handed), brush my teeth, and do every other small thing in life that I had always taken for granted. The return of movement on my left side greatly exceeded my right and for that reason I had to learn to become left handed.

During the winter months of 1977 to 1978 London had been hit with a number of severe winter storms. A couple of these storms where so severe that they paralyzed the city. The streets had been closed, the buses stopped running, and people where leaving their stuck vehicles in the middle of the snow bound roadways.

During one of these storms they even pulled the plows off the roads until the snow stopped. Most of the hospital staff spent the night in the hospital that night. It was during this and storms such as this that George Brewster demonstrated his absolute Christian love toward me. I remember lying in my bed sadly looking out the window at the ongoing blizzard when George Brewster came walking through my door with his pleasant the same warm smile he always greeted me with. I felt so much joy and peace when I saw him. I’m sure I was the only patient in the entire hospital that had a visitor that night.

The truth was yes, if I was a Christian, I would lose many friends and the things I thought were fun would loose their old appeal to me. I didn’t know it but I would learn the real truth and meaning of life through the man who said, “I am the way, the truth and the life”, the man called Jesus. I would gain a whole new circle of friends. Christian brothers and sisters throughout the world would become my eternal family and friends. There would be no loss of anything real and good in life through knowing Him. As a believer in salvation through Jesus, the old things would pass away and life would become new to me. The gift of an eternal hope, love and true life was to be gained by me as a gift from God.
Life was to be gained by me as a gift from God.

I am sorry but I stopped writing in the spring of 1998 upon the death of my mom and my dad… and the subsequent downhill spiral of my marriage. Story to be finished some day……………

“The purpose that I am writing my story is not for me… it’s for you the reader to show you how my story is not really my story at all… it is God’s story! I am only the vessel that He has chosen to bless and use. Just as people from the beginning of time have had His story written through and in their lives, so it has been in my life. We all have a choice in life to either put our hand into the hand of God and to walk His way in life or to reject His outstretched hand and do everything our own way. I was making the choice as a young man to live for myself and seek the pleasures of sin. God has opened the eyes of my heart. Let me say it this way; just as when I raced motorcycles, and when a tearoff on my face shield was covered by dirt from the race track I would tear it off so I could see clearly again; I had a tearoff over my heart but it was dirtied by my desire of sinful pleasures and things of the world. The Lord Jesus removed this tearoff from covering the eyes of my heart and now I can see clearly that He is the King of Kings and Lord of Lords. I know God is real and that Jesus is His only begotten Son who came to earth as a man to pay the penalty of death for our sin. Some day every knee will bow and every person who has lived will confess this as truth”. We all have a choice; we can worship Jesus as Lord with joy now or we can tragically and fearfully acknowledge Him as righteous judge later. In God’s Word it tells us that this will be so and therefore it will come to pass; you can rest assured of that!! Please take time and read the notes below.

NOTES…
C.S. Lewis in his book Mere Christianity writes the following: "I am trying here to prevent anyone from saying the really foolish thing that people often say about Him [Jesus Christ]: They say, "I'm ready to accept Jesus as a great moral teacher, but I don't accept his claim to be God." That is the one thing we must not say. A man who was merely a man and said the sort of things Jesus said would not be a great moral teacher. He would either be a lunatic -- on a level with a man who says he is a poached egg -- or else he would be the Devil of Hell. You must make your choice. Either this man was, and is, the Son of God, or else a madman or something worse... You can shut him up for a fool, you can spit at him and kill him as a demon; or you can fall at his feet and call him Lord and God. But let us not come up with any patronizing nonsense about his being a great human teacher. He has not left that option open to us. He did not intend to.”

So, as C.S. Lewis argued, believing Jesus to be a good teacher is not an option. Jesus clearly and undeniably claimed to be God. If He is not God, then He is a liar, and therefore not a prophet, good teacher, or godly man. In attempts to explain the words of Jesus away, modern “scholars” claim the “true historical Jesus” did not say many of the things the Bible attributes to Him. Who are we to argue with God’s Word concerning what Jesus did or did not say? How can a “scholar” two-thousand years removed from Jesus have better insight into what Jesus did or did not say than those who lived with, served with, and were taught by Jesus Himself (John 14:26)?

Why is the question over Jesus’ true identity so important? Why does it matter whether or not Jesus is God? The most important reason that Jesus has to be God is that if He is not God, His death would not have been sufficient to pay the penalty for the sins of the whole world (1 John 2:2). Only God could pay such an infinite penalty (Romans 5:8; 2 Corinthians 5:21). Jesus had to be God so that He could pay our debt. Jesus had to be man so He could die. Salvation is available only through faith in Jesus Christ! Jesus’ deity is why He is the only way of salvation. Jesus’ deity is why He proclaimed, “I am the Way and the Truth and the Life. No one comes to the Father except through me” (John 14:6). JESUS IS THE GREAT “I AM”!!

Carson today.