Краткий пересказ
Eighteen-year-old Bethany Hamilton paddles furiously into the gigantic wave. As she feels the back of the board lift, she leans forward, then quickly pushes herself up, plants her feet on her board and carefully rides the wave as it moves quickly towards the beach. All this is nothing unusual for a champion surfer, but for Bethany it is a total miracle!
In 2003, Bethany had already won several competitions and had plans to become a professional surfer. Then, one sunny October morning, she was surfing with her friends on a beach near Kauai, Hawaii. Suddenly, a four-metre-long tiger shark attacked her, ripping off her arm.
Most people would have become very depressed after such a tragedy, but Bethany amazed everyone. They couldn’t believe their eyes when they saw her getting back on her surfboard only three weeks after her terrifying experience. This was not easy, though. Apart from the difficulties of learning to surf with just one arm, she also had to face her fear of getting attacked by a shark again. ‘It’s always in my mind,’ she says, ‘and it always will be, but I’ve got to keep my mind on having fun, and just surfing.’
Bethany is not only a champion surfer, but her positive attitude is also an inspiration to many. She has even been to Thailand to help children who experienced the 2004 tsunami disaster with their fear of water. Sometimes, Bethany asks herself ‘Why me?’ but then she thinks of how her experience has helped her be a better person. Bethany’s motto is ‘Me quit? Never!’
It’s five thirty in the morning and fifteen-year-old Tom Conaway is sitting perfectly still in the wetlands of California waiting for some wildlife to come into sight. Before long, thousands of birds are squawking noisily and Tom is lucky enough to be able to film them up close in their natural habitat. But what makes Tom different from any other wannabe film-maker?
When Tom Conaway was only four years old, the car that he was travelling in rolled down a mountain. He was thrown out of the window and his spine was seriously bruised. Since then, his brain hasn’t been able to send messages to parts of his body to tell them to move. But Tom doesn’t waste any time feeling sorry for himself. ‘I’ll be in a wheelchair the rest of my life,’ he says, ‘but I consider myself lucky. Really, I mean. I survived a horrible accident with no brain damage at all.’
One afternoon, about two years after the accident, Tom’s dad realised that filming was a hobby that the two of them could easily share. So, Doug Conaway strapped a camera to Tom’s chair so that he could film his brother’s football games. Now, Tom either uses a ‘helmet camera’ to film, or his dad sets up a camera on a tripod and Tom controls it by wireless remote control while watching the camera view on the screen of a DVD player on his knee. Tom even sees his disability as a secret power when he is filming. The fact that it’s so ‘easy’ for him to sit still means that he can film animals without scaring them off!
Tom’s positive attitude is amazing. ‘Everyone has bumps in the road that they have to deal with,’ he says. ‘That’s all being in a wheelchair is for me: just a little bump in the road.’
Roaring 20's also called the time of dancing and unrestrained fun. It was then that a phenomenon such as dance marathons appeared. At first they represented innocent entertainment as usual competitions at fairs, but then marathons covered the whole country, turning into the ruthless business for the next 10 years.
The stock market crash of 1929, which caused the Great Depression, became the very area of the economic catastrophe of the industrial world. The United States was among the countries most affected by this crisis. By 1931, stocks were worth only 20% of the nominal value of 1929, industrial production fell by half, one in four was unemployed. By 1935, half of American banks and companies were ruined. Even Ford Motor Company, the largest employer in the country, closed its branches. Millions wandered around the country in search of at least some work, typed and stealing. In this era of shattered hopes and empty pockets, one of the most hideous forms of the entertainment industry flourished - dance marathons that, for some ways, diverted themselves from their suffering, watching strangers, and for others -
Dance marathons, or "poor nightclubs", as they were called, arose in the early 1920s as an innocent hobby, with contests for the largest number of pies eaten.
The first known marathon in the US was held in December 1909 in Butte, Montana. It was attended by more than 170 couples. The dance was stopped by the local sheriff after 15 hours of the marathon, at that moment three pairs continued to dance. He claims that such a dance is dangerous for their health.
Mass craze began in 1923, when the first official dance marathon "Audubon Ballroom Marathon", which began on March 30, 1923 in New York. There was also set the first record - Alma Cummings danced 27 hours, without interruption, this time was replaced by six partners and beat the previous British record.
Her achievement attracted her attention and inspired others, especially women, in the same way to get her 15 minutes of fame. And then in America after this, such competitions began to be widely held. People could come in pairs or singly and find a partner right at the marathon.
By the beginning of the 1930s, dance marathons had turned into a very profitable business. There is something strangely fascinating and attractive in watching people who are on the verge - this is what the organizers played. Around the marathons, a lot of people were feeding - doctors, nurses, waiters, musicians, bouncers.
For many participants, the victory in the marathon meant the fulfillment of a dream - prizes of the elected from 1 to 5 thousand dollars, which was a small state (the average salary in the country was 1368 dollars a year). But most of them can get medical care, which they could not afford. Many cruised across the country from one marathon to another, the proportion is thus their existence. Some of them participated in marathons in the hope that "talent hunters" would notice them and offer a contract. But so lucky units - for example, Jun Hawk, attracted the attention of Hollywood agents on the "West Palm Beach Marathon" in 1934, where she danced 3600 hours almost without stopping.
A special role in dance marathons dominated the manager (Master of Ceremony, MC). His main job was to entertain the audience, coming up with new assignments for the contestants. The most typical variant was the so-called "derby", when after several hundred hours of dancing, the participants, already on the verge of physical and emotional exhaustion, had to run along the tracks painted on the floor. A variant was also distributed, in which once every two hours a certain melody was included, and everyone should have danced in this style - otherwise they were weeded out.