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2004 Newsletters

America's Heart & Soul Opens in Theaters Across the U.S.

Jul 7th, 2004

America's Heart & Soul? Opens in Theaters Across the U.S.

America?s Heart & Soul, featuring a segment on Erik Weihenmayer, opened July 2 to patriotic fanfare in theaters across the USA. Produced by Blacklight Films, this Disney film is a series of 20 vignettes of inspiring people who overcame long odds in life and love their work. It appears that filmmaker Louis Schwartzberg hit the road camera in hand to capture the spirit of the American people, and its virtues of self-discipline, good craftsmanship, patriotism and freedom. From Michael Bennett, an ex-felon who turned his life around and became an Olympic boxer, to Erik who fought his way through blindness to ultimately stand on top of the world, America?s Heart & Soul is ?a valentine to the good ?ol USA and the good folks who live here.? Most critics could not steer away from the temptation to face it off against Fahrenheit 9/11, inasmuch as Disney made a last-minute decision not to distribute that film because of its anti-American bias. Check www.americasheartandsoul.com for a beautiful promotion of this uplifting movie.

Erik Off to Climb in the Dolomites

Erik just departed for the Italian Dolomites, where he is participating in a climbing exposition in Cortina, Italy, a 50th anniversary celebration of the first ascent of K2, initially climbed by an Italian team, two members of which are still alive. Erik, Mark Wellman, a paraplegic climber who has pulled himself twice up the 3300? overhanging rock face of El Capitan, and Hugh Herr, a double leg amputee who is now the director of MIT?s prosthetic leg institute, will put on a climbing demonstration at Cinque Tori, a beautiful limestone tower above the town of Cortina. Individually, none of the three could climb this face but, together, using their various strengths to compensate for their obvious weaknesses, they are expected to reach the top?a powerful example of essential teamwork.

Another Billboard in Times Square

Erik is back on Times Square, on a billboard 40 feet high and 60 feet wide, on the Ernst and Young building just off Broadway: Climbed Everest. Blind. Vision. Pass it on!This is part of the nationwide campaign of the Foundation for a Better Life which promotes the values which have made America strong. Similar billboards are placed in airports and on highways across the country.

A Message for Students

Please enjoy these remarks by Headmaster Bo Dixon at graduation ceremonies at his McDonogh School in Owings Mills, Maryland:

For each of you, for me, each year is marked by special moments; literally these moments can be a matter of seconds. Lest any of us believe that seconds in a lifetime are meaningless specks of sand in the hourglass, I hope by now that you understand that decisions you make in split seconds can dictate your life?s road map for an eternity.

For me I will forever associate the Class of 2004 with two very specific snapshots in time. Shortly after Thanksgiving vacation, we hosted a visit from Erik Weihenmayer, the first blind person to climb Mt. Everest. His story is remarkable. Who will ever forget his sightless steps with a full pack on a ladder that acted as a bridge over a crevasse? Even for a sighted person, a mis-step meant an almost certain fatal plunge. At the end of Erik?s presentation a lower school boy asked a great question. 'Mr. Weihenmayer, what was it like on the top?' 'Well,' he replied, 'we spent six weeks getting up there, and five minutes on the summit. I really didn?t think about anything except how I was going to get down.' Obvious translation? Destinations are overrated. It is the quality of the journey which counts. But, oh, how often we seem to bury that message.

Our culture has a perverted and frantic obsession with the final grade. Who is ranked #1, what college is ranked first by U.S. News and World Report. Succeed at any cost. I beseech each of you to develop the habit of making sure your journey is replete with quality experiences, profound meaning and irreplaceable friendships. Erik Weihenmayer has since summited the highest peak on each of our seven continents, but he never sees or even enjoys the view from the top. What he treasures is the way he and his friends get there. Simple, really. But we who clamor to see clearly tend to lose sight of the journey only to focus on the goal. As we get pulled into that crevasse, I want each of you to remember our visit from the blind guy, and how much he treasured the path he never saw.........."