“Thou shalt not judge a book by its cover” – Anonymous
As promised, I am going to tell you about a local talent closer to home. From Forbes, actually.
Subscribe now for unlimited access.
$0/
(min cost $0)
or signup to continue reading
A mate of mine, Fred, (not his real name but he does not mind me calling him anything but late for a drink) had the misfortune of contracting polio during his childhood.
That alone should remind people who are vehemently against immunisation of the serious effect of poliomyelitis.
As a result of that childhood polio our friend has underdeveloped lower limbs.
He had a number of orthopaedic surgical procedures and he wears calipers to help support his weight and aid his mobility.
Despite that, he leads a normal life.
He does not let his disability stop him from doing things that even some more able bodies would shy away from. Despite his disability he did work for years to put food on the table.
Just as notably, he was also active in pursuing his sporting ambitions. He took up weightlifting successfully – I say successfully because even though he never bragged about it he was good enough to compete in an international arena.
It is about this that I would like to tell you. He competed in games held in Surakarta in central Java, Indonesia. The Australian contingent was accommodated in a certain camp.
You would remember what happened recently to our Paralympic gold medalist in Rio – similarly the athletes were vulnerable to criminals.
Strict rules were laid down for our athletes for their safety, including a curfew after dark. But boys will be boys, especially in Surakarta where life starts after dark.
Our friend and a few others decided to break the curfew and sneak out to see the real world. Before long, in the semi-darkness our friend spotted a shady-looking character with a pair of beady eyes trained on them.
Sensing the danger and fearing for their lives, they hailed a pedicab and ordered it to head straight back to the camp as fast as possible.
As the pedicab pusher huffed and puffed, they looked back only to find the afore-mentioned character in another pedicab in hot pursuit.
As they headed toward the camp gate the other pedicab started to gain on them and they could see our would-be robber was yelling in his native tongue and waving his arm frantically. In the end they had to stop right in front of the gate.
Before I continue, let me digress for a moment. I would like to tell you about someone even closer to home. To my home that is, because he happened to be our next-door neighbour.
He was a trucker who ran his own business and transported goods interstate.
He was a decent bloke, a hard-working man.
As a quiet family man, he went about his job and stayed away from troubles.
One day, while driving along a stretch of long and lonely road, he heard a knock and a bang followed by a kerfutt, kerfutt.
The truck quickly lots its speed and came to a complete halt. The driver jumped out to investigate, only to discover he could do nothing to get the truck going again.
After what felt like an eternity, he heard a rumbling in the distance which quickly increased. A black blob in the distance materialised into a big, stout body perched on a Harley-Davidson with ape-hanger handlebars. It pulled over and a six foot-10 giant of a man in Ray Ban sunglasses, leather vest and pants with chains and studs got off.
Our friend froze, his heart skipped and thumped.
The biker extended his hand to grab and squeeze our friend’s hand, he could feel the skull rings crushing his knuckles.
A deep voice boomed, “run into a problem mate? Let’s have a look.”
Our uninvited guest swung into action.
An hour later the truck engine purred to life. Satisfied with this result, our feral-looking and awe-inspiring biker then set out to leave as quickly as he had arrived.
He uttered a few words of goodbye and turned down an offer of thank you payment.
Our friend could only stand and stare in amazement as the Harley disappeared.
And what has become of our athlete friend?
As his pedicab screeched to a halt, the pursuing pedicab stopped just in front of him and the “shady” character jumped out.
Still waving one arm, he pointed with his other hand and shouted “money fell, money fell”.
Unbeknownst to our friend, his wallet had fallen out of his pants pocked – not speaking English, our good Samaritan was unable to tell him.
You would remember WYSIWYG, but what you see is not always what you get.
Do not judge a man by what he wears and more importantly, do not prejudge.
