Did I Leave The Iron On?

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Did I Leave The Iron On? <br/>
by Greebo T Cat

Several A/K/A Random's 'sporting blues'


Ahem, testing, testing, one, two, twelve, sixty-six... I still hear an echo... anyway, on with the AmSports report and this one is REALLY going to the dogs and their people. Your intrepid reporter tends to go with the wierd and marvellous, rather than the mundane digits that so embody the subject at hand.

The Iditarod Sled Dog Race 'out there where the north winds blow' in Alaska, USA has officially begun. I've written before about the 20-year-old blind girl, Rachael Scdoris, who is finally allowed to compete this year. Seems she met the qualifying standards in '03 and '04, but A) race officials wouldn't let her 'eyes' drive alongside in a snowmobile and B) she couldn't afford another sled with her 'eyes' following her. She has now received permission with corporate sponsorship to have another team of dogs lead her, warn her when to duck under branches and in which direction to steer her 16-dog sled over 1,150 miles of Alaskan wilderness.

Rachael's 'eyes' are 51-year-old Paul Ellering - who finished the race in '01. He preceeds her but she still has to re-supply her sled and tend to her dogs by herself, as does he. The course record is 8 days, 22 hours, 46 minutes and two seconds - these fanatics have globally timed this endeavour. I'm surprised they don't use tenths of a second.

The following is a new wrinkle in the Iditarod - a man who has recently lost part of his right-hand middle finger (The Universal Sign) is being allowed to compete in the race also. Martin Buser, age 46, is seeking to tie Rick Swanson's record five Iditarod victories in his 22nd year of competing and is certified okay by the doctors, long as he takes care, uses antibiotics and doesn't start bleeding thru his gloves.

'It can't be a one-handed race. I can't do my job effectively with one hand. So I'm going to require a lot of help from my index finger and my thumb, especially to put on booties and ointments to the various dogs. That's a daily chore we do five-to-six times a day.'

It has been pointed out to me in last week's replies to Quizzical's Running With Scissors article
that up here, in some of the northernmost states of the USA, we seem obsessed with cold weather - snow, ice and the like. But these idjuts up there even farther north are even more obsessed with their environment, and these folks who VOLUNTARILY choose to participate in this world-reknowned race MUST BE, shall I politely say, a bit more than daft.

More like blinking crazed, obsessed and downright looney tunes. No way I'm gonna spend over a week watching dog's butts and sleeping buried in the snow where the polar bears and wolves roam!!!! (Pass me another Pan-Galactic Gargle Blaster, please ? Oh, thank you !)

So this is several. a/k/a random, wrapped in woolies and contemplating baseball's spring training in Florida and Arizona, almost over and out. I say almost, because I have notes on America's largest Livestock and Rodeo happening in Houston, Texas and the CBC (Canadian National Broadcasting) filling in the time pro hockey used to have by showing curling on their prime network, but that's a WHOLE 'nother story for a different time and place.

As always, any comments, additions, complaints etc will be gleefully appreciated and NOT buried under doggy-doo... 'don't you eat that yellow snow' as the song goes.

Stay warm! (NOW it's over and out, thankfully, and early for deadline, for once, so Shazz doesn't shoot me.)

Did I Leave The Iron On?

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