Here is yet another column I wrote for The Phoenix circa 2006...
This is a story about friendship and not giving up.
Hunting season is upon us, and countless hunters are hitting the woods, hoping to get lucky by bagging a deer.
The same holds true in Minnesota, where Mike Mesia, 44, and Mike Stauner, 43, live. Both Mikes have been friends since childhood. They have hunted and fished together for years. They rode snowmobiles in icy Minnesota during the frigid winters. They were the closest of friends.
Bur nothing has changed. They still hunt, fish, and snowmobile together.
"Do you want to be around someone who is mopey? I don"t," Stauner says. "So I decided, you got a life. You can either sit on your butt or get out and try to see what is there."
It"s an understatement to say that both buddies have had their share of adventures together., even after the accident. Their friendship endures. But through trial and error, doing the things they still love to do-such as hunting- have been adapted a bit.
For instance, there was no doubt that Stauner wasn"t going to continue to hunt. The question was, how to get a wheelchair through the rugged woods?
At first, Mesia built a trailer so he could pull Stauner into the woods behind a four-wheeler. But that wasn"t too stable,ans Stauner"s ride p[roved to be a rocky one.
But, where there"s a will, there"s a way, and Mesia built two contraptions so Stauner could hunt with him. "The Condo" is a log-sided stand five feet off the ground, sort of a lower tree house, which Mesia carries Stauner onto. Mesia just hoists Stauner over his back and away they go.
The second is "The Elevator", a hydraulic lift which Mesia built, with assistance from his four-wheeler to pull the ropes, to hoist Stauner onto another platform fifteen feet above the ground.
Now, instead of chasing deer, they let the deer come to them.
"Mike has gone out of his way to make deer hunting work out," Stauner says.
Stauner has shot several deer since his accident. Because of little feeling in his hands, he squeezes the trigger on his rifle by biting down on an aluminum clamp that looks something like a clothespin. The clamp, secured to his gun"s stock, pulls a cable attached to the trigger.
"I learned not to use a high-powered rifle," Stauner wisely comments. When the gun recoiled, the aluminum clothespin would take a chunk out of his cheek.
Sitting together on Mesia"s deck, sharing a beer, they chuckle about some of their adventures together. Like the snowmobile incident. Mesia had to bungee Stauner"s feet onto the running boards- because where else would they go, as Stauner held on for the ride?
But Mesia wondered why he couldn"t accelerate one day up to his 40 MPH maximum speed. It turned out, Stauner"s feet were still strapped to the running board, but the rest of him was dragging in the snow.
"He was flippin" behind me like a kite," Mesia laughs.
Dangerous adventures? Comical? Fun? The two things which stand out from their activities are trust- things may not always work out, hence the trial and error- but Stauner trusts Mesia, not only with his health, but in figuring out a solution. There is no giving up between these friends. They are determined to do everything they did before the accident- and in the process, collect even more memories.
The other aspect which stands out is something which often happens when one ges to truly know someone with a disability. Many, like Stauner, are not defined by their physical limitations.
Stauner earns his income as a computer-assigned design draftsman. He has traveled extensively with the U.SD. Wheelchair Archery team, winning a bronze medal in 1988 in Seoul, Korea. He drives. He lives on his own. He is bright and witty.
He also just happens to be paralyzed from the neck down.
"Stauner has always been a trooper," says Mesia with admiration.
One more story of their adventurous determination and friendship: They were out ice-fishing one day on Mesia"s boat. The craft was going at a good speed when the outboard motor unexpectedly smacked a rcok reef, wrecking the lower unit. Stauner fell out of his chair from the jolt, landing on the floor. Whenthe boat settled down, instead of worrying about injury, Stauner simply looked up and yelled "I"m in for half!"
Their adventures might make a fun movie.or reality tv series. Their friendship is an example to everyone
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