The Kid Across the Street is Crazy.

This journey began 65 years ago and concluded last week 

In 1954, when I was 8 years old and Toronto had a population of less than a million (today it's 5 million), we talked differently.

For instance, then, it was very common for people of any colour to be called negro and anyone with any accent was a foreigner or a DP and mentally challenged people were called crazy. It was a different time - those words were somehow acceptable. 

Perhaps in other Canadian communities during my time as a child, mentally handicapped people were referred to as retarded.

I grew up in the middle of the city in an Anglo Saxon neighbourhood with corner grocery stores and bakery shops and shoe stores and family-run restaurants and a movie theatre that charged 15 cents for a Saturday afternoon of newsreels, serials, cartoons plus a Roy Rogers shoot em up.

Lots of different churches and parks were within walking distance.

My tree-lined street with 3 storey homes on both sides could easily have been considered by Norman Rockwell for one of his Saturday Evening Post covers,

especially on a bright summer day.

Everyone on my street knew everyone else.
If you didn't know someone, the rumours you'd hear about them filled in the blanks. 

Everyone in the phone book with my surname was related to me.

There were lots of kids and we all played on the street. Nothing bad ever happened.

But, I did have the crazy kid across the street.

That's what I called him.
Everyone called him that. 

He was a real person but nobody ever saw him.

Rumour told me and my friends that the family kept him in the pantry off the kitchen and he was never let out of the house. We had a pantry in our house. I couldn't imagine someone spending their time in that tiny space. Even as a kid, I somehow knew his parents were embarrassed by him. What other reason for them to keep him away from others, especially the kids on our quiet, safe street. 

I was the last of 10 children and had two brothers working on the fire department.

Sadly, they were both alcoholics.

I wouldn't mention it to you if it wasn't important to the story I'm about to tell.

There was a seedy part of my neighbourhood that had 2 dingy bars the Arlington and the Concord taverns. My little Irish mother said "not many good things go in or come out of those two places" - except for her two fireman-sons.

On this particular sunny Saturday afternoon, my two brothers were holed up in the Concord. They weren't celebrating anything. They never needed a reason to drink alcohol in the middle of the day.

My friends and I were on our street, dodging cars and playing street baseball when we heard a crash. It was a noise like I'd never heard before - it was in the distance -
2 blocks away but deafening.

We ran to the noise.

The streetcars were already backed-up

and the cars were bumper to bumper.

There was already a crowd of several hundred people.

I pushed and ducked and maneuvered my way to the front of the crowd. 

When I got there, I sorta wished I hadn't.

The crazy kid from across the street got loose from his pantry jail.
He made it to the main street where a car was parked at a gas station and the keys were in it. He started it, put it in drive and put his foot to the floor. He went straight across the street and crashed into the display window of a ladies' dress shop.

Unfortunately, a woman was walking in front of the window at the exact moment of impact and her mangled body was now part of the window frame - there was blood everywhere.

I'll never forget the look of terror that I saw in the eyes of the adults around me.

I would have looked away like many did but my two brothers who'd left their table at the Concord early were on top of the wreckage, covered in blood themselves as they tried to stop the lady from bleeding and continuing to assure her she'd be ok.

I distinctly remember my older brother taking charge.
He tried to soothe her panic ... "you'll be ok doll" "we're here to look after you, honey" " don't move honey, more help is on the way" "you're great, I'm Leo and my brother Bryan are with you".

I remember thinking it was strange that my brother would introduce himself and our brother ... much later, I realized it was his way of keeping her attention on them and away from the catasrophy she was in the middle of. 

My brothers both led very troubled lives. But, on this day, in the midst of that carnage, they were calm, focussed and champions for a stranger.

Weeks later, they visited her in the hospital to take her flowers.
She had lost three limbs. 

I don't know what happened to the crazy kid but I do remember having real difficulty when I was in the same space as a mentally handicapped or intellectually challenged person while growing up - and that was the case for decades.

Brian Etherington

Then, one day in 1988,

a friend introduced me to Brian Etherington.

I'm not sure I can properly describe him.

He had passion, he had persuasiveness,

he had an honest-to-goodness way about him

that made me listen to what he had to say and, he was able to get me to reach those conclusions about him during the course of a simple phone call.

I won't say he was a super salesman (that was me)
but he really drew me in and convinced me of the importance of giving him some of my time ...nothing more, just time.

I couldn't wait to get started.

That day, he described a group of volunteers he had that was working on a fundraising event for Special Olympics and wondered if I had any ideas to raise money.

I only knew a few things about Special Olympics ... started by the Kennedy family ...benefitting men and women, boys and girls with a mental disability through sport ... the first major event, Soldier Field, Chicago 1968. NHL'er Stan Mikita represented the Black Hawks and George Armstrong from the Leafs were involved.

To start, since the fundraiser was going to be called the Sports Celebrities Festival,

I got Toronto Sun cartoonist, Andy Donato to create a caricature of Toronto sports stars (Lanny McDonald was the first - Ernie Witt & Eric Lindros would follow)
and we would sell them at the event's silent auction.

The "Lanny" piece was a great success and we sold all 250 copies. Lanny said how much his parents and inlaws would like a copy. I sold him his own image, twice, for the same price as everybody else. Did I mention I was a super salesman?

Long story short, over the 30 years I've been associated with the charity, we created hundreds of specialty, one-only, sports-related collectibles with the help of the late Special Olympics VP, Frank Selke Jr. and charity president, Jim Jordan

(we were the TriFecta).

Then, the three of us organized The Globe and Mail and Maclean's Magazine and the Toronto Sun to get onboard to help create awareness and secured some solid national brands like Toyota to join us and invited some of the world's great athletes to attend our event - which they always did without payment or fee of any kind.

This week, I was reminded of the story of the boy who was kept in the pantry and I thought about the influence Brian Etherington and the charity had on my life.

Remarkably, Special Olympics Canada is celebrating its 50th year and has over 30,000 young Canadian athletes exercising and training and meeting friends-to-last-a-lifetime as they compete for Special Olympic medals in every country in the world.

When I attended the 2004 first-ever Summer Games to be staged outside of North America, in Dublin Ireland, chairwoman, Eunice Kennedy started her welcoming speech by stating ... "We've come a  long way" - she was obviously referencing her older sister, Rose Marie, who was intellectually challenged and the reason the Kennedy family created the charity.

Incidentally, the opening ceremonies for this first-ever Special Olympics Summer Games were held at Croake Park in downtown Dublin. It was the biggest international sporting event in the world that year. There were 80,000 spectators in the stands and 10,000 more outside trying to get in. 

We'd come a long way, indeed.

Our friend, Frank Selke Jr. was the Canadian Team Coach/Ambassador and proudly led our Canadian athletes into the stadium to a thunderous standing ovation.

Last week, As part of the charities' 50th celebration, they identified 50 of its members who received a special medallion award.

I am very honoured to have been chosen

as one of the recipients

in the charities' BUILDER category. 

But, this very long story isn't about me getting an award.

I can assure you that I got much more out of my association with Special Olympics than I ever put in ... my Ma would say, "I have an embarrassment of riches".

But, the award reminded me of my two big-brothers and how they
both pulled-it-together for someone who desperately needed their help.
They and Brian Etherington showed me the power we all have to get involved,
to help out, to just be there ... to volunteer. 

I read somewhere that the most important word in our language is your name.

The second most important word in our language may be, Volunteer.

A while ago, a friend suggested I write a column about my time with Special Olympics for this blog. The suggestion was a good one but awkward for me. I've got lots of stories of the events and the wonderful, caring folks I've met and shared time with.

It's been a fulfilling experience but I thought talking about it may be misunderstood.

I didn't want to appear to be self-serving.
I've been retired from the smoke-and-mirrors business of advertising & marketing
for 17 years and don't care about or have any use for self-promotion.

My 50th Anniversary Medallion changed my mind.
Maybe my story would help to encourage others to get involved.

My Ma, who would be 105 years old if she was with me today,
would say to me  ... "do good for someone else".

She'd be proud of my medallion and for helping out like my brothers did
in a time of need.