It is the type of stuff that makes you rub your eyes in disbelief.
The stories in the daily newspapers, that is -- doom and gloom from around the world, delivered courteously to your doorstep. With a midsummer week free from an editor's deadline, I had time to peruse an assortment of daily rags teeming with news stories, each one bleaker than the last.
Along with my usual consumption of the Niagara Gazette, Buffalo News, USA Today and Toronto Globe and Mail, I also looked in on the online editions of The New York Times, Boston Globe, Washington Post and the London Daily Telegraph. What I found were endless tales of assault, robbery, rape and murder -- and that was just on the sports page.
Seriously though, here's an undeniable fact -- newspapers are a drag. It's understandable that newspapers must carry major stories of strife and warfare, such as what is going on in Liberia right now. It is another question entirely as to the relevance of non-local news items detailing tragedies from around the country or globe. You know the type: "Man shoots wife, kids before turning gun on self," or "Eighteen-month-old dies after being locked in car in 90 degree heat while mom gambles in casino."
After a full week of absorbing these stories, I started to wonder, why do I need to know this? If the mother who locks her child in the car to play the slots is at the Seneca Niagara Casino, then I can understand why inquiring minds here would want to know how it could have happened. But when the tragic deed takes place in, say, Atlantic City, why does it warrant inclusion in a Western New York newspaper? Tragic? Absolutely. Depressing? You betcha. Newsworthy? Only to a fatalist.
Maybe that's who daily papers are really targeted at, the world-is-going-to-hell-in-a-handbasket crowd. If you're a card-carrying member of that club, then be forewarned you're not going to like the rest of this column. For those of you who need a little cream now and then to brighten up the black in your coffee, I've got three names for you, culled from recent editions of an assortment of newspapers from North America and Europe: Mike Newman, Enrique Oliu and Maynard Hill.
This feel-good trinity did some pretty remarkable things during the week that we at the Reporter took our summer siesta. Newman set a new world speed record in an automobile, Oliu served as a radio announcer for a Tampa Bay Devil Rays game and Hill became the first person to successfully fly a model airplane across the Atlantic Ocean.
Big deal, you're probably thinking. Records of all sorts are broken every day -- that's why they have to print a new edition of the Guinness tomb each year. And what's the big deal about a guy doing color commentary on a ballgame? I can flip on the tube anytime and watch Tim McCarver or Joe Morgan, can't I? Oh, I did forget to mention one small detail in telling you about Newman, Oliu and Hill -- they are all legally blind.
Mike Newman is a 41-year-old bank manager from Greater Manchester in England. The father of two already held the world land-speed record for the blind in the category of motorcycles, having ridden one at 89 mph. On Aug. 13, he added the record for driving blind in a car to his resume, when he drove his specially adapted Jaguar XRJ 4.2 sports car at 144.7 mph on an airfield runway. The mark smashed the previous record of 141 mph, which was set in 2002 by a sighted driver wearing a blindfold.
To accomplish the feat, Newman received radio back-up from his stepfather, a licensed driving instructor. Newman undertook the challenge to raise money for guide dogs for the blind and to raise consciousness about the capability of blind people to overcome obstacles and succeed at seemingly impossible tasks.
Newman described the ride as "noisy, heart-pounding ecstasy."
His stepfather said, "I told him to just floor the accelerator and go for it -- the most difficult bit wasn't the speed but stopping. We didn't have too much room for error and Mike had to guard against waggling the back end. He braked it beautifully and there was hardly any movement."
If you think that Mike Newman might rest on his laurels, think again. He's already got his sights set on a new endeavor -- a solo motorbike circuit. He says that the thought of attempting it excites him "because it'll involve the new challenge of going 'round bends."
Ted Williams once said that the secret behind his hitting prowess was the fact that he could see the red stitching on a baseball as it spun toward him at over 90 mph after being released from a pitcher's grasp. Enrique Oliu would have no idea what the cryogenically frozen one was talking about, as he has never so much as seen a baseball -- he has been blind since birth. Yet the two men have many more things in common than you would think, with Major League Baseball being one of them.
Oliu has been doing the color commentary for Spanish broadcasts of Tampa Bay Devil Ray games for the past five seasons. He has also called pro football games for the Tampa Bay Buccaneers of the NFL.
How can a blind man describe a baseball game, you ask? With the help of a good woman -- his wife, Debbie. Oliu, who possesses an encyclopedic memory, prepares for games by having Debbie read to him several articles from the sports section of the newspaper. Next, he utilizes Debbie's help to study an assortment of media guides and magazines. Once the game begins, Debbie sits behind Enrique and describes to him what is happening down on the diamond.
Oliu's amazing abilities at the ballpark are not strictly limited to the broadcast booth. At a game this season, he caught a foul ball, then he caught a second one for good measure. He also was recently invited to throw out the first pitch before a game between the Devil Rays and the Anaheim Angels. It should come as no surprise to you that the man who's never seen a pitcher shake off a catcher's call threw a perfect strike right down the center of the plate.
On Aug. 9, Maynard Hill sent a 10.78-pound crafted piece of balsa wood forth on the same course and completed the first transatlantic crossing by a "true" model airplane. The flight took 38 1/2 hours to complete. The airplane landed at Mannin Beach in western Ireland, a mere 33 feet from the planned landing spot.
Hill is a retired metallurgist from Maryland who holds 25 model airplane records. He worked most of his professional career at Johns Hopkins University's Applied Physics Laboratory.
Last week's flight was the fifth time that he had attempted the transatlantic flight, the previous four all failed due to weather or equipment difficulties. Any storm would probably spell disaster for a plane as small as the one Hill flew, thus his crew tracked weather patterns for over a year before attempting the latest flight.
The airplane flew at an altitude of approximately 984 feet -- low enough to be safe from real airplanes and high enough to clear the masts of the tall ships sailing the ocean. The plane, which cruised at an average speed of about 43 mph, was equipped with miniature onboard computers that tracked its status and progress throughout the flight.
Maynard Hill is in his late 70s and is legally blind and hard of hearing. He dyes his airplane glue bright red so that he can see it well enough to apply it properly. Hill was described as "totally overwhelmed with emotion" when he was informed of the successful landing of the plane.
Hill's flight has inspired model airplane enthusiasts everywhere. His impact on the ever-growing hobby was put best by Carl Layden, a model maker from Newfoundland.
"He is to model aviation what Gordie Howe is to hockey," Layden told reporters after the flight.
So as I drifted awash in a sea of muggers, killers and thieves, three blind men threw me the raft I was seeking to make it back to the Cape of Good Hope. If you find that the accounts of rapes, robberies and arsons in today's daily newspaper are bringing you down, take a moment and think about the amazing accomplishments of Mike Newman, Enrique Oliu and Maynard Hill.
They sure are a sight for sore eyes.
| Niagara Falls Reporter | www.niagarafallsreporter.com | August 19 2003 |