"No great deed, private or public, has ever been undertaken in bliss of certainty."– Leon Wieseltie
In last week’s blog, I mentioned three individuals from “It Has Nothing To Do with Age.” These athletes include Jack Sholl, Lew Hollander, and Sammie Stanbro. These folks compete in three different sports and I want to tell you a little more about them. Before I do, I going to comment about the showing of the book trailer last Thursday night at Marco’s. The comments from the young kayak crowd after the viewing were positive and encouraging. I also introduced producer Secretariat in the process. Other films that evening were about individual kayak adventures on dangerous rivers in different countries by these young adventurous studs . If you missed it, you missed a wonderful evening.
Back to Jack Sholl. I am going to share with you just a few of the stories about this remarkable man. Aside from his rowing prowess and contact with Olympians, there is another side to this man who has visited 39 countries and competed in many of them. Not only does his lineage go back to when William Penn recruited his eighth generation grandfather from Germany to come to the new land, but also to one of his relatives that owned a Tavern in Philadelphia that was part of the Underground Railroad.
It is no wonder that Jack is a patriot beginning with his enlistment in the service in World War II. He participates even today as a volunteer for the US Coast Guard and at the National Park Service in Philadelphia. One story that Jack tells pertains to our Liberty Bell. One of the rules associated with Liberty Bell is that no one is permitted to touch it because of the contamination etc. One evening Jack was his Liberty Bell station where he encountered a Marine on leave from Iraq. He struck up a conversation with this Marine and learned that this man had another tour of duty ahead. Against the rules, Jack permitted this soldier not only to touch the historic Liberty Bell but to have a picture taken as well. This man broke down and told Jack that this was such an honor to touch our bell and that he was going to share his experience with his buddies back in Iraq.
Another story by Jack pertains to his knowledge about the Revolutionary War. He tells a story about Gen. George Washington who went to the man that contributed the most money to the war effort. Back then if the soldiers were not paid they wouldn’t fight. It was as simple as that. The man that George Washington went to pay his soldiers was not Robert Morris the man who usually gets the credit for financing the Revolutionary War. The man’s name instead is Hyam Solomon. Read more about Hyam and attend one of Jack’s Power Point presentations and you’ll learn much about our Revolutionary War.
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