This came to me through the Folklore list on BitNet from Patrick Carey (CAREY@PLAINS.BITNET). ------------------------------------------------------------------------ I think that I can even top the story about the blind driver. A few years ago I had a friend and student named Bill. When I say student, I mean that he was in one of my Tae Kwon Do classes. He was blind. He had one of the best senses of humor that I have ever encountered, and he also was one of the most determined people I have ever dealt with. He refused to let his blindness become a handicap. He would come to class and work out harder than the seeing students, and he constantly served as inspiration to all of us. We traveled to Minneapolis for a tournament when Bill was a green belt. It was his first tourney out of the local area, and none of the fighters knew him. being a rather large and agressive guy (240lbs), he easily defeated a number of competitors. He ran into a solid competitor in the third or fourth match, and was taking some punishment. He went wild....... Bill pretty much fought by sound....as the heat was turned up he started striking out at anything that he heard.....the referee took some of the best hits I've ever seen a man take in a match..he actually even countered a few until I could get in the ring and convince Bill that he was hitting the wrong man. Bill was disqualified, but everyone was astonished that a blind man had been able to fight his way up to third place....... It was party time...we hit all the famous Minneapolis watering holes, and before you knew it we were all drunk....except for Bill. We appointed him driver, and he steered us safely back to our hotel. The funny thing was that he actually had a drivers license! he had a degenerative eye disease that had destroyed his sight in less than two years...his license was still valid! If we had been pulled over we would have had some explaining to do, but we would have been legal! To be young and wreckless again! Pat Carey -- Forwarded by Brian Switzer
(From the "Rest" of RHF)