Saskatoon,
Saskatchewan to Edmonton, Alberta
184
Days on the Road!
Journal
Entry for: Sunday, August
20 – Sunday, August 27, 2000
Week
26
Total
Miles Cycled to Date: 16,148
km (9968 miles)
Community
to Community: Saskatoon,
Saskatchewan to Edmonton, Alberta
Weather
for the Week: Blue
skies, shining at me; nothing but blue skies, do I see
Media
Successes:
-
5
Newspaper Interviews
(Total to date: 116 newspaper interviews)
-
6
Television Interviews
(Total to date: 44 television interviews)
-
2
Radio Interviews
(Total to date: 38 radio interviews)
-
2
Speaking Engagements
(Total to date: 26 speaking engagements)
-
1
Kindness Conference
(Total to date: 10 kindness conferences)
The
Cycling for Kindness Homecoming Celebration!!
We
would love to see you as we cycle back into our hometown and celebrate the
end of our tour on September 17th! We will be pedaling into the
Renaissance Harbourside-Hotel Vancouver at 1133 West Hastings Street at
2:00 pm (and we will be stopping at Capers on Robson Street to visit the
“Living Naturally Fair” from 12:30 – 2:00pm). What a celebration it
will be!
Wilma’s
Reflections From the Road
“This
past week has certainly been one of the saddest for me. Winnie, our
beautiful cat, is no longer with us - the time had come to let her go.
There were lots of tears, lots of memories, but also many feelings of
gratitude. As I wrote my tribute to Winnie a few weeks ago while she was
still with us - and everyone knows how much I loved and enjoyed her - I
thought that the best way to remember her today was to remember her with a
sense of gratitude.
All
those magic moments I shared with Winnie would come into my mind
constantly. The joy she brought to my life by being consistently full of
love and excitement and expressing it without words was so special. Mixed
with all the sadness came a strong sense of gratitude; I am thankful that
we were able to share 10 years of special times together, thankful that
Winnie came into my life. I believe we both were very fortunate.
My
mind wandered to my family - my family in Austria as well as my family in
Vancouver - and of course to all my special friends. Again, I felt a deep
sense of appreciation. Even though I miss all of you great people, just by
consciously focusing on the positive and realizing how lucky I am, my
perception shifted; all of a sudden, the distance didn’t seem that great
anymore. While crying, I even noticed all the wonderful things on and
around me and I was reminded of all the people who gave me these things:
my sunglasses, my camelback, my bike, my cycling outfit. Everything from
face cream to vitamins to cereal to crystals to worry dolls to little
budhas, plus all the cards and emails notes I’ve received (the list is
endless). All of these things came from friends who have supported me, and
the tour vision, for all these months. Behind the success of the whole
tour and behind every one of those gifts are amazing people that care
about me. Each person is accompanying me in spirit. They all have a very
special place in my heart and they are all with me even though they are
not physically here. I feel the same about Winnie.
That’s
what I would call an insight; finally being able to feel with my heart,
what my mind has already known for a long time. Winnie won’t be with me
physically and lots of the people we’ve met along the way won’t be
either, nor will my friends and family in Austria and Vancouver (that will
change soon!). But thinking of all the great times we shared, makes me
appreciate all those people enormously and all of a sudden, they are
very close. Gratitude helps to close the gap when you are far away from
the people you love.”
Brock’s
Reflections From the Road
Wednesday,
August 23
Vegreville,
Alberta
“This
is a very sad day. Winnie, our beautiful and special cat had kidney
failure a couple of years ago. Since that time, we’ve been injecting
fluids under her coat and giving her lots of potassium. We’ve almost
lost her many times, but she has continued to fight back. Just before we
left on our journey, Winnie took a big turn for the worse. Wilma and I
decided to take her with us on the trip – after all, we got Winnie and
her brother Pooh when we were traveling around the U.S. in our camper 10
years ago. We have slept with her and cuddled and loved her for 10
wonderful years. Wilma and I agreed that if she was ever hurting or
suffering that we would let her go. She’s been getting weaker and weaker
and over the years she has gone from weighing 16 lbs to 4 lbs, but she was
still cuddling and greeting us at the door everyday. Today her kidneys
gave in and lately she hasn’t been able to move without discomfort.
We
stopped at a veterinary clinic in a small Albertan town – if we didn’t
have a good feeling about the doctor we were going to wait. When I walked
in, the assistant Cathy recognized me right away – I had spoken at a
convention she attended in Saskatoon a few years ago. She was so caring
and kind and so was Tim, the doctor. Tim knew right away it was time for
Winnie to go. First though, I went across the street and talked to Bob, a
reporter for the Vegreville newspaper. I asked him if he could do a story
on our journey for kindness and feature Winnie. Bob was also very kind and
was so sad about our story. He took a photo of us with Winnie and he was
so sensitive during our interview. Winnie, to me, is what our journey is
all about – she is kindness – so very gentle and loving and so
consistent and forgiving; so innocent and in the moment.
It
was very, very difficult saying good-bye. The moment Winnie went to sleep
and fell softly into my hands, I felt her spirit leave her frail little
body. We have cried so much today and our camper feels very empty, but
both Wilma and I - and all those who’ve met Winnie - know what a
‘great gift’ she was and always will be.”
“Kindness
is more than deeds. It is an attitude, an expression, a look, a
touch…anything that lifts another person.” - C. Neil Strait
Many
Acts of Kindness…
The gang at Promo Media in Vancouver sent us a box full of Cycling for Kindness white
boards! We have been giving them out to people at our events in exchange for small
donations for our tour. Thank you so much to the Rogers family for the nice surprise!
Mark at Rebar in Burnaby, BC helped add a bit of energy to our days by sending us a
huge box of Rebars – a tasty vegetable bar that we have been enjoying on the tour.
We send you a big thank you, Mark!
We celebrated Brock and Wilma’s 8th Anniversary at Louis’ Place in Lloydminster, AB.
We all enjoyed a very tasty dinner complements of Louis himself. Thank you so much
for the great evening out. The Garden Market IGA in Lloydminster kindly donated a
box of groceries to our tour. We went in to say thank you and when we went out
to our truck, someone had slipped a $20 bill under our windshield wiper in the 15
minutes that we were in the store! Talk about a random act of kindness! Thank you,
anonymous stranger.
Special thanks to High Gear Bikes and Boards in Lloydminster and River Valley Cycle in
Edmonton for doing the tune-ups on Brock and Wilma’s bikes. Smooth cycling all the
way home, thanks to all of you!
We were treated to a glorious night at the Weaver Park campground and ahhhhh…
hot, hot showers! Thank you to the managers, Alec and Darlene in Lloydminster for
their support.
We’ve been having car troubles this week so Clarence at Vegreville Ford kindly offered
to do a tune-up on one of our support vehicles. He then sent us to Norm at Freedom
Ford in Edmonton for a special truck part and the team there ended up working on our
vehicles until 1am! They also let us sleep in their parking lot and use their washrooms.
We received amazing service at both Ford dealerships. We can’t thank all of you
enough!
Warren Erhart, the President of White Spot Restaurants, called all of the Alberta and
B.C. White Spot managers on our route and arranged free meals for our team all the
way home - wow! We enjoyed tasty meals and exceptional service at the new
Edmonton White Spot last weekend. Steve Fee and his team welcomed us with open
arms and we were blown away by their incredible kindness. Thank you so much
Warren and Steve!!
To Toni and Nadine: the thoughtful gift you sent to Brock and Wilma upon the loss of
Winnie really helped to make their week brighter. You are both very, very special and
they send you hugs and heart-felt thanks xoxo
We received an amazing fruit and cheese basket from the Gateway Safeway in
St. Albert, Alberta. Special thanks to Genevieve, Derek and their manager Rob for
the sweet surprise. You guys are the greatest!
We arrived at the Riopel’s cozy home in Edmonton on Friday and were greeted with
incredible warmth and special gifts. Jennifer had baked us the most delicious cookies
and Ester sewed us “kindness pouches” filled with practical goodies for the road. We
were so touched! And if that wasn’t enough, Don Hobbins from Hearts in Harmony set
up his table and gave all of us glorious Shiatsu massages! Debbie and her family then
hosted a big potluck dinner party for us and we had a chance to meet the members
of the Edmonton Kindness Movement. Of course, we all connected instantly.
To Sharlene, thank you for Wilma’s trendy haircut (she loves it!) and for MC’ing the
Kindness Conference. To Cheryl, Debbie, Sharlene and the entire kindness team,
thank you for all of your amazing work and your warm hearts. We truly enjoyed your
company and we’ll surely see you again in Vancouver! We love you all.
Quote
of the Week
Genevieve
in Edmonton asked Brock:
“What
has been the most difficult terrain you’ve ridden on the trip?”
Brock
replies,
“Canada.
And the U.S.”
Pay It Forward
Debbie Riopel, one of our amazing kindness hosts in Edmonton, was enthusiastically
recommending this great book by Catherine Ryan Hyde called “Pay It Forward”. Chris
stumbled upon this article in Premiere magazine (Sept 2000 issue) the next day…
On the first day of filming Pay It Forward, director Mimi Leder looked around and said
to producer Peter Abrams, “I’m so glad to be doing a movie without a nuclear bomb in
it.” Following the plutonium-enriched duo of The Peacemaker and the $140 million-
grossing Deep Impact, the filmmaker is now leaving the “she’s gonna blow!” chain
reactions behind for a tale of two wounded people (Helen Hunt and Kevin Spacey)
who find new hope and love through the good deeds of a seventh-grade boy named
Trevor (The Sixth Sense’s Haley Joel Osment). “I always thought I would be doing a
movie like this first,” said Leder, an Emmy-winning veteran of ER who packed the film’s
hospital scene with extras from the TV show. “But that’s not how it happened.”
Either way, she says, “it’s quite a wonderful transition.”
The adaptation of Catherine Ryan Hyde’s novel came together quickly; filming was
nearly completed before the book was even published. Oscar winners Spacey and
Hunt were drawn to the story because it dared to pose big questions. “Is there such
a thing as human kindness? Is the world crap?” muses Hunt, who plays Trevor’s mom,
a recovering alcoholic and Las Vegas cocktail waitress. For his role as the boy’s
emotionally and physically scarred social-studies teacher, Spacey sat for four hours
of burn-victim makeup every day. At the movie’s center, however, is Osment’s Trevor,
whose classroom project – in which random acts of kindness are “paid forward” to a
stranger, rather than paid back to the giver – yields far more than just a passing
grade.
No bombs, no terrorists, no asteroids – still, Leder believes her third film isn’t such a
departure from the first two. “If the concept of paying it forward did catch on,” she
says, “maybe the world really would be saved from itself.”
Random acts of kindness hits the big screen! The film will be released on October
20th, 2000 by Warner Bros.- what a great film to see as prelude to World Kindness
Day on November 13th! Check out the movie’s website (www.payitforward.com) as
well as the foundation’s website which (www.payitforwardfoundation.org) provides
seed money for youth who want to make a difference in their communities. The
foundation serves as both a forum for inspiration and a source of funding for the
development of inspired ideas.
“To be able to practice five things everywhere under heaven constitutes
perfect virtue…gravity, generosity of soul, sincerity, earnestness and kindness.”
- Confucious
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