From: Phil deHaan (dehp@calvin.edu)
Date: Wed Jul 30 2003 - 10:02:57 EDT
July 30, 2003 == MEDIA ADVISORY
Calvin College chaplain Dale Cooper's midwest tractor trek has come to a
satisfying conclusion.
Cooper and his brother-in-law, Glenn DeJong, left the Calvin campus on July 23
for an approximately 675-mile trip from Grand Rapids to Alton, Iowa, on a pair
of vintage John Deere tractors: Cooper's from 1941 and DeJong's from 1938.
Just six days later, after averaging about 13 miles per hour and putting in 10
to 12 hour days, the daring duo pulled into DeJong's farm in Alton, completing
what Cooper calls a journey of "1,000 waves and 2,000 smiles."
For Cooper the seemingly quixotic quest had been intended to operate on two
distinct yet related levels.
He expected that it would be fun. He also planned it as a tribute to his late
father who loved John Deere tractors, but gave up farming at a young age to
care for his wife when she became ill with polio. Paralyzed from the neck down
at just 26 years of age, she lived the rest of her life, nearly 40 years, in an
iron lung. During those four decades, John Cooper remained faithfully at
Marjorie Cooper's side. He was her full-time nurse and caretaker - feeding and
bathing her, brushing her teeth, rubbing her back to prevent bedsores.
Prior to the trip Dale Cooper noted that his parents were "big gifts" to him.
"Through a trip like this, he said, "I want to savor the gift and say thanks to
the Giver."
Having completed the journey, Cooper says it fulfilled all that he had hoped
it would.
"It gave me a lot of time to think back over my life," he says. "I spent one
morning thinking about teachers I've had, about meeting my wife Marcia, about
our kids. All rich things that help me realize how my life is full. And
realize that, like my father before me, I am a grateful man."
Cooper says having to slow down was a valuable experience and that he'd
recommend life at 13 miles an hour to anyone. But life on the tractors wasn't
all introspection.
Both Cooper and DeJong were struck by the friendliness of those they
encountered on the backroads of Michigan, Wisconsin and Iowa. DeJong once
waved at 50 people in a single hour. Cooper counted a stretch in which 96 of
100 motorcyclists waved at the pair.
They also had fun with each other, engaging in mock races at various stretches
during the trip. On downhills DeJong would slip his machine into neutral and
get up to 25 miles per hour. Cooper, meanwhile, played the tortoise to
DeJong's hare and maintained a wide-open 14 miles per hour for most of the
trip, eventually catching DeJong whose Deere topped out at 13 miles per hour.
It all was, says Cooper, "crazy fun." And, he adds, likely the grist for many
sermon illustrations and Chapel talks this coming school year at Calvin!
For pics of Cooper and the tractor see
http://www.calvin.edu/news/releases/2002_03/tractor_ride.htm
-end-
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