Heroes Walk Among us
This is the 183rd entry in this blog. It was started with a flippant comment in one of my many meetings with Dave Grace for my book A Hero's Journey: Beyond Little Norway and Olympia Sports Camp that I should start a blog called Tuesdays with Dave. The blog would be about content in the book, about the journey of Dave Grace and the 50 years of Olympia, about the Olympia community of heroes we have met along our journey. About the the successes, and losses that the Olympia family has been through.
This blog entry has nothing to do with Olympia, but it's all about a hero that walked among us.
A man of many talents, but that's not the whole story of Simon Lewis. To get a truer picture of this hero, who passed away last Friday after a two-year battle with cancer, we need to go back to those crazy days of Covid. We can all relate to the confusion and frustration we all felt, with death tolls rising daily and one leader saying we could just inject bleach into the lungs to clear it up and others saying that the vaccine is worse than the virus. There had to be sanity somewhere and luckily for this small street in Burlington we had Simon Lewis.
Actually, what took place on our street was a benefit of COVID even happening. Like most neighbourhoods, we knew our neighbours, but didn't really know them. COVID changed that. When it was deemed that we needed to stay away from each other, we started what we called driveway drinks, where Joy and I would sit at the end of our driveway and talk across the street with our neighbours. Sounds crazy to even write this. That evolved into Sanity Saturday. Once we were allowed to be with a certain number of people, but not inside, 8 of us on the street met every Saturday night at 7 pm for a year and a half. One crazy night when they said the number was five, we sat at the fence line with four of us one one side and four on the other. Now that's insanity. Funny thing is we didn't let the insanity of the world dominate our discussions. We talked about family, friends, and we got to really know each other. Our neighbours became family, and Simon's generosity and wit were at the centre of it all. He rigged tarps all around his carport to create what we called Tent City. Had to be big enough so that we could be six feet apart. This was year round so Simon had this tarp set up and a little gas fireplace to give us a little warmth.. We laughed a lot at Simon's crazy Welsh humour. We often had to have him repeat what he said because he was so quick. He literally carried the day on most nights. I'm glad to have got to know such an amazingly talented and down to earth guy. Heroes are those who live the right way and get up and go to work each day. People like Simon Lewis.
One quick Simon story before I go. I must admit that the line I use about myself is that when it comes to being handy around the house I know lot about basketball! The house next to us was about to be torn down. One night we were on our deck and Simon commented that the awning they had on their deck would fit nicely on ours. He suggested I ask the owner. Once we knew the owner was OK with us taking it, Simon went into worker bee mode. One day he rigged up a rope pulley system and he undid the six bolts that were into the brick while I held on for dear life. We lowered it down to the ground and a couple of days later we arranged to have five neighbours come and carry it around to our yard. In the meantime, while I was out golfing one day, Simon came into our back yard and drilled the holes into our brick, without him even telling me he was doing it. It took him hours to measure and drill. That Saturday it looked like a neighbourhood party as we had four ladders and six people lifting this huge awning into place and Simon bolting it to the brick. None of this happens without Simon. His talent yes, but his generous heart more so. Stop by and buy a book and check out the beautiful awning!
What an unbelievable moment in our lives provided by a man who just wanted to make the world a better place. At least our part of the world. I thank Simon for bringing sanity to our street and we will all miss him dearly. Don't worry Kay. You're surrounded by family.
Ever get the sense that you are better off having met a person? That was Simon Lewis. May he rest in peace.
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A Hero’s Journey chronicles the people that make up the history of Olympia, but it does far more than that. It serves as an inspirational guidebook for readers to become the hero of their own path. In order to do this the book examines the history of the land on which the camp has been built, from its indigenous origins to the European settlement process of the 1800’s. and the use of the land by the Royal Norwegian Air Force during WWll. The book is built on a collection of stories related to mentorship, sports psychology, and community building. With this book author Chris Dooley honours the 50-year history of the camp while giving us all a window into seeing a deeper level of understanding of the world and our place in it.
Books Available at:
- Amazon and Indigo.ca
- Indigo, Burlington Brant Street location.
- The Different Drummer Book Store on Locust Street in Burlington\
- Cedar Canoe Books on Main St in Huntsville
- Etransfer me $30 and I'll drive it to your house !
- available online at aherosjourney.ca
- audiobook version is available at Audible, Amazon, and iTunes
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