Tree climber - By Wade

My dad called me last week to come help him fix his play house that has been in his yard for the last 20 years. My legally blind dad decided to cut down a 60" pine tree out of his back yard. So he put his 8' little giant ladder up against the tree to get to the lowest branch. He scaled the tree holding a chain saw in one hand and climbing with the other. He started at the top and worked his way down. He tells me after the fact that the chainsaw blade would only stay on track for about 2 branches and then would come off so he would have to climb back down the 60' tree and replace the blade onto the tracks. He cut off all the branches and decided he could cut down the trunk with this same chainsaw. He cut the trunk and the tree fell right through the middle of the 20 year old play house. His question to me, "can you fix it?" So to sum up this story: a blind man climbs up and down a 60" pine tree 50 times with a chainsaw in his hand...weird!

D.I. - By Wade

My dad hasn't driven a car since I was 14, when he drove me and my brother to work we had to tell him whether he was in the middle of the road or not and what color the light was at the intersection. He would say things like, “There should be an intersection coming up, what color is the light?" like he wasn't really sure there was an intersection but in his mind’s eye there should be. After deciding driving was too dangerous he purchased a bike from D.I. the local thrift store, and began to ride it to and from work. He would memorize the breaks in the white lines on the road that he could see and count the breaks and turns until he had most of Provo and Orem mapped out in his mind. He attached a basket on the back of the bike, also from D.I., to carry other items he would purchase from D.I. Each time he went to D.I. he would park his bike out in front. He said he never locked his bike because "I can’t ever get the stupid thing unlocked... I can't see." One day while in DI he parked his bike in front near the "as is" department. He went and did his looking around and when he returned to his bike it was gone. Thinking his thrift store bike had been stolen by some "Mexican" as he put it; he asked the employees if they had seen the perpetrator. After describing the bike, the embarrassed employee explained the bike had been sold just a few minutes ago while my dad was in the store. As compensation for the bike the managers at DI gave my dad the pick of all the bikes in the store.