Every day I search for people who inspire me, who “run to the roar” as I like to call it, and it seems like they always pop up in the strangest places. Not many people send “snail mail” anymore, which is one of the reasons our post office isn’t what it used to be, but two pieces that just arrived in my Monday mailbox struck me pretty hard.

From Blue Cross-Blue Shield came a health-conscious calendar that wonderfully salutes Tennessee’s Senior Olympics. Yes, I know it’s now February but since January has passed it just means I don’t look at that page.

My point being, the calendar is still a joy.Chattanooga’s Beverly Ligon, a cyclist, is the calendar girl for the month of May while Signal Mountain’s Amy Brown, wearing quite a determined look, is “Miss August.” Not to be outdone, Soddy-Daisy’s Donald Nelson, an accomplished archer, is “Mr. November, 2011” and Warren Barker, competing in track & field, is captured in the main photo for July.

At the same time, the latest issue of “Spirit,” a fabulous magazine Siskin Rehabilitation Hospital puts out each quarter, tells the glowing story of Signal Mountain’s Cutler Cole, a cross country athlete who broke his C-5 and C-6 vertebra when a back flip off the 47-foot cliff near Hidden Harbor on Lake Chickamauga went horribly awry.

The story, written by Lindsay Wyatt, tells of great success in Cutler’s recovery and rehabilitation but the picture of him on the cover – just the look on his face – is what makes it special. The kid has got “Yes I can!” written all over him and that absolutely stokes my heart.

Listen to this: It seems Cutler’s mom had to endure celebrating her 50th birthday in the middle of Cutler’s trials so she asked those invited not to bring any gift for her, suggesting a donation for Siskin Hospital instead. Are you kidding me? Her friends plunked down $2,500 the cake was so good and the Richard Cole family promptly bought the hospital a fancy exercise gizmo that anyone going through rehabilitation can now use.

Well, I just love stuff like that and it’s all because every-day people who walk among us have learned to “Run to the Roar.” I’ve told this story a 1,000 times but it is as true today, be it at the Senior Olympics, which Blue Cross-Blue Shield has now sponsored for 30 years, and at Siskin Hospital for Physical Rehabilitation, which will have its 9th annual Possibilities Luncheon on Feb. 22, as it was the first time I ever heard it.

In Africa a big family of lions is called a “pride,” like cows in a herd, and the pride is ruled by the meanest, toughest, strongest lion of all, hence “The King of the Jungle.” But after some years, the king wears out and starts goofing up – his hunting trips yield no meat and he always strikes camp too far from the oasis. The young lions begin to grumble behind his back and, one day, the mightiest of the young warriors challenges the King for leadership of the pride.

The old lion, whose mane is matted, his claws already fallen out, and his bursitis bursting, doesn’t stand a chance and the whipping is worse than the way the top-ranked Kentucky basketball team slaughtered South Carolina by 34 on Saturday. The old lion is embarrassed and ashamed and will never decide anything again.But the pride doesn’t expel him because, in nature’s perfect way, his roar just gets stronger and louder with age so they still take him on hunting trips, letting him have a few chewed bones at the end after every other lion has feasted. (C’mon, it’s not all that bad, the pre-chewed bones are softer than what he’s been used to.)

The way it works is that the “forward scouts” in the pride spy an antelope hiding in a thicket. As the toughest and strongest and fastest lions creep around to the back of the bushes, the old lion walks to the front of it and, when he gets the high sign, the old man belts out some roaring and screams that send the terrified antelope flying out the back, where the awaiting toughies absolutely clobber the poor beast.

Here’s the trick: if only the antelope, with warp speed that can easily outrun the fastest lion, run  “toward the roar,” it could have kick sand in the old lion’s face like Charles Atlas. Don’t you get it? If only the antelope had only confronted its fear instead of running from it, he would have escaped unscathed. The same has been true for years for those who run to the roar.

Here we have the Senior Olympics participants – determined to eat right and watch their cholesterol while making great new friends – instead of the “couch potatoes” among us who create havoc with health costs and doctor’s bills. We salute each of them for exercising and doing exactly what the rest of us do not.

Then we have gutsy Cutler Cole, brave enough to do a back flip off a 47-foot cliff at Lake Chickamauga but then becoming a genuine role model for people everywhere in his determination to overcome a broken back and the paralysis that went with it. It’s all that simple: they run to the roar.

* * *

The 9th annual Possibilities Luncheon, featuring Chris Waddell, the most decorated skier in Paralympic history who has since climbed Mount Kilimanjaro despite being paralyzed from the waist down, will be held on Wednesday, Feb. 22, at the Chattanooga Convention Center. The event, which starts at 11:30 a.m., is being chaired by Jim and Linda Sattler and information on tables/tickets can be obtained by calling Siskin Hospital at 634-1208.

royexum@aol.com