Tad's Life

"We have to tell your grandfather. He'll laugh until he's blue in the face, " I told Jonathan last Friday.

Thursday afternoon and Friday Dakar Academy had its annual "Olympics Day." The kids competed in track and field events of various kinds, running and jumping and throwing and generally having a great time. Even the less than athletically-gifted ones usually enjoy it because the atmosphere is pretty relaxed and supportive. You even get points for your team just for participating.

But, of course, the competitive ones can't help themselves. And Jonathan is one of those kids.

He did reasonably well all day. In the 10-11 ear-old 100 meter final, at right, he pushed past his good buddy Fyne half way through, but got beat at the very end by his other buddy Scott. He jumped and threw and did all that stuff all day long, showing himself an all-around athlete.

But not winning is kind of tough.

The final event of the day is a relay race. Each of the 5 teams (red, green, blue, yellow and white) designated two boys and two girls from each age group. Jony ran for the red team's 10-11 year olds as the final runner. But by the time the baton got to him, he was almost 50 meters behind. Argh!!!!! But so was Faisal, the runner-up of the 50 m, who was running anchor for another team. So the two of them took off full-speed, racing as if they were battling for a gold medal! And Jonathan pressed past him just at the end, pushing himself to the limit. It was dramatic and amazing and I wish I had a video.

Then he collapsed in pain on the track.

We all rushed over and our resident EMT did a few diagnostics. He said that Jonathan had hyper-extended his knee a bit. Ice. Ibuprofen. A little rest. That was the prescription. Not to worry. In fact, within 30 minutes he was on it again without problem. I think fatigue and the stress of the race added to the whole thing.

Then the strangest thing happened. This Korean fellow walked up and took Jonathan's hand. He started to massage the last joint on his pinky finger. Then he massaged the thumb. Hard. Really hard. Then he started working on the pinky again. I didn't know what to say. Jonathan didn't know what to say. Our boy is super polite and I didn't want to be rude either. "Besides," I thought, "Maybe it's working." Jony wasn't pulling away and he seemed to be telling the man that the the acupressure was helping his knee. I was about to be amazed.

The fellow gave us instructions about how to do it ourselves at home and finally left.

When I asked Jonathan if it had helped, he said, "No, but I didn't know what to say to get him to stop!" If he asked, "Does that hurt?" and Jony said, "Yes!" he just did it more and harder! It was a real dilemma!

As we left a few minutes later, Jonathan limping only slightly, he said, "Dad, it really hurts."

"Your knee?"

"No! My hand!"

I confess. I laughed and laughed. I told him about what my dad would say when we would whine as kids. He would offer to pinch us or punch us in the arm or what was it now... (Oh, shoot, I forget, Dad!) Anyway, he would offer to induce pain somewhere else on our body to make us forget the little thing we were whining about.

My dad was teasing to help us get perspective, of course. But apparently it works!