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Terry Fox: Greatest Canadian Hero · Stuff You Should Know

0:01
Speaker 1: Welcome to stuff you should know, a production of iHeartRadio.
0:11
Speaker 2: Hey, and welcome to the podcast. This is Josh, and
0:14
Speaker 2: there's Chuck and Jerry's here too, And we are gonna
0:19
Speaker 2: go back to Canada because we had such a nice
0:21
Speaker 2: time there in June and July that Yeah, we're gonna
0:25
Speaker 2: do it all Canadian episode.
0:27
Speaker 3: Yeah, that's right.
0:28
Speaker 1: We did six shows across Canada. It was our pleasure
0:32
Speaker 1: to be there as their guests. Yes, and all across Canada.
0:36
Speaker 1: I feel like during Q and A, people would ask
0:38
Speaker 1: us why we haven't or would we and maybe why
0:42
Speaker 1: we haven't. That's like the rudest a Canadian could ever get.
0:46
Speaker 1: It's like very sheepishly to say, why haven't you guys
0:49
Speaker 1: covered Terry Fox yet?
0:51
Speaker 2: Yes, it's specifically. There are two people worth calling out.
0:54
Speaker 2: The first is William the First. He was the birthday
0:57
Speaker 2: boy at our Montreal show. We called them William the
1:00
Speaker 2: First because there were a few other Williams who asked
1:02
Speaker 2: questions asked after him. But I saw he and his
1:06
Speaker 2: mom he asked us to do Terry Fox. And then
1:08
Speaker 2: the next day I ran into him and his mom
1:10
Speaker 2: at the train station and they elaborated further on how
1:14
Speaker 2: great Terry Fox would be for an idea for an episode.
1:18
Speaker 2: And then the other guy, Chris, who met us at
1:20
Speaker 2: the airport in Winnipeg, they also suggested it too, So
1:25
Speaker 2: Canada you can thank William the first and Chris.
1:27
Speaker 3: That's right. Before we get started.
1:29
Speaker 1: We do want to mention though, that we are going
1:33
Speaker 1: on a cruise, a stuff cruise.
1:37
Speaker 2: Right, yes, stuff at sea and Chuck, it's not even
1:41
Speaker 2: a cruise, buddy, it's so high falutin.
1:43
Speaker 1: It's a voyage, that's right. It is a voyage. And
1:46
Speaker 1: we are departing from New York City from Brooklyn actually
1:51
Speaker 1: on October second, sailing to Bermuda and then back to
1:55
Speaker 1: New York. We have since learned that our live show
1:59
Speaker 1: will be on day two, yes, of the voyage, at
2:03
Speaker 1: four pm, and we're still getting confirmation on exactly how
2:08
Speaker 1: you sign up for that specific thing, but just you know,
2:11
Speaker 1: a lot of people have signed up. The boat is
2:13
Speaker 1: filling up, and if you want to come out and
2:15
Speaker 1: go on a sea voyage with us and our other
2:18
Speaker 1: stuff colleagues, there's lots of fun, fun stuff, planned stuff,
2:22
Speaker 1: stuff stuff.
2:22
Speaker 2: Yeah, we're just gonna be hanging out on the boat
2:24
Speaker 2: with everybody too, so it will be a good time.
2:26
Speaker 2: And that show, like you said, it's early in the afternoon,
2:30
Speaker 2: so our hope is that you can all be in
2:32
Speaker 2: bed by six point thirty.
2:34
Speaker 3: That's right. We don't want to mess up anyone's dinner plans,
2:37
Speaker 3: you know. Yep.
2:38
Speaker 2: So yeah, you just search stuff at sea on Virgin
2:41
Speaker 2: voyages and you will find everything you need. And uh yeah,
2:46
Speaker 2: so we'll see you guys in October coming up, Chuck,
2:48
Speaker 2: that's like a month or so.
2:50
Speaker 3: I know, it's really snuck up on me.
2:52
Speaker 2: Same here, it pounds too.
2:54
Speaker 3: That's right. And now not to Terry Fox.
2:58
Speaker 2: Yeah, so I think a lot of I should say,
3:02
Speaker 2: a lot of the world can be forgiven for not
3:04
Speaker 2: having heard of Terry Fox. I actually feel kind of
3:06
Speaker 2: like a shmo for having never ever heard of him
3:09
Speaker 2: or what he did. Oh really, yeah, had you when
3:12
Speaker 2: we were touring Canada?
3:14
Speaker 3: Yeah?
3:14
Speaker 1: And you know, I uh not, because I'm just you know,
3:19
Speaker 1: some sabant that knew about all of Canadian history as
3:22
Speaker 1: a child. Sure, but I was a youngster who had
3:25
Speaker 1: HBO and I watched the Terry Fox movie, the nineteen
3:30
Speaker 1: eighty three movie with Robert Duvall, like more than three
3:33
Speaker 1: or four times.
3:35
Speaker 2: Robert Duval seems old to play Terry Fox, right.
3:39
Speaker 3: He didn't play Terry Fox. But yeah, I saw that.
3:42
Speaker 3: I saw that movie.
3:44
Speaker 1: You know, it was on HBO, And I saw every
3:46
Speaker 1: HBO movie at least three or four times when I
3:48
Speaker 1: was at age.
3:48
Speaker 3: H So that's how I know about the Terry Fox story.
3:51
Speaker 3: It was from that.
3:52
Speaker 2: Film, Okay. Yeah, And that was definitely like when he
3:56
Speaker 2: was part of like the immediate zeitgeist, Like he was
3:59
Speaker 2: world famous. And what stands out to me too is
4:03
Speaker 2: he was world famous for what he did over the
4:07
Speaker 2: course of about a year, like he became like a
4:11
Speaker 2: public figure and then basically what he did to put
4:15
Speaker 2: himself on the map as a public figure and do
4:18
Speaker 2: this amazing thing. I'm just teasing here. I'm not even
4:21
Speaker 2: gonna say what he did yet it was basically over
4:24
Speaker 2: the course of a year.
4:25
Speaker 3: Chuck, that's right, Uh, maybe we should say what he did.
4:28
Speaker 2: I agree, Okay.
4:31
Speaker 1: Terry Fox was a very brave, inspiring person, like like
4:35
Speaker 1: you said, not only in Canada but throughout the world.
4:38
Speaker 1: Because he had cancer. He lost a leg to cancer
4:43
Speaker 1: and planned the Marathon of Hope where he was to
4:46
Speaker 1: run clear across Canada with a prosthetic leg. And that's
4:50
Speaker 1: probably all shit we should reveal for now.
4:53
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, let's let's go back to the beginning. We're
4:56
Speaker 2: going to go back to Winnipeg where we were. That
4:59
Speaker 2: was our last show in Canada. That was great. And
5:03
Speaker 2: on July twentieth, nineteen fifty eight, if you had gone
5:05
Speaker 2: to one of the fine hospitals in Winnipeg and asked around,
5:09
Speaker 2: you might have found Raleigh and Betty Fox were having
5:11
Speaker 2: a baby named Terry. Terry I think he was Terrence
5:15
Speaker 2: Stanley Fox is what he was born. And very quickly
5:19
Speaker 2: Terry said, this is it's way too cold in Winnipeg.
5:22
Speaker 2: Let's move out to the Pacific coast where it's mild.
5:25
Speaker 2: And Betty and Rawley said, let's do that. So the
5:28
Speaker 2: family of six went out to I guess a suburb
5:33
Speaker 2: of Vancouver, Port Coquitlam.
5:37
Speaker 3: Did you are you sure it wasn't a home birth?
5:39
Speaker 2: By the way, my goodness, that didn't even occur to me.
5:42
Speaker 2: I mean, that would make it way harder to find
5:44
Speaker 2: Betty and Rawleigh if you had to go house to house.
5:47
Speaker 1: I get to see that being like the first correction.
5:49
Speaker 1: It's like, guys, they weren't in the hospital.
5:51
Speaker 2: Absolutely no. Like basically, if I have any chance of
5:53
Speaker 2: getting it wrong, I'm going to get it wrong.
5:57
Speaker 1: So when Terry was a kid, he was really into
5:59
Speaker 1: sports and really was his entire life. But he wasn't
6:03
Speaker 1: you know, he wasn't blessed with the like the size
6:07
Speaker 1: of an athlete. He wasn't a natural athlete. But he
6:10
Speaker 1: was very determined, as we'll see, even as a kid.
6:13
Speaker 1: So you know, there are plenty of stories from his
6:15
Speaker 1: childhood where you know, he would go out for baseball
6:18
Speaker 1: practice like an hour early, waiting at the corner for
6:22
Speaker 1: his ride, or when he took up basketball.
6:25
Speaker 3: You know, he was not a big guy.
6:27
Speaker 1: He was one of the shortest and smallest kids in
6:29
Speaker 1: his class in the eighth grade, so he would show
6:32
Speaker 1: up early for practice. He would be the last one
6:34
Speaker 1: to leave practice. And as the story goes on the
6:38
Speaker 1: eighth grade team, he played one minute of actual basketball
6:42
Speaker 1: on the court like during the season, and by tenth
6:45
Speaker 1: grade he was the starting guard and by twelfth grade,
6:48
Speaker 1: his senior year, he was voted co athlete of the
6:50
Speaker 1: Year at his high school with his best friend Doug Allward.
6:55
Speaker 3: Is that cool, that's amazing.
6:57
Speaker 2: I mean. So that's just one of numerous stories about
7:00
Speaker 2: how cool this kid was and how hard he tried
7:03
Speaker 2: it everything and not just basketball. He also played soccer,
7:07
Speaker 2: he played rugby, He ran cross country, and he got
7:10
Speaker 2: into cross country when his basketball coach, when he was
7:14
Speaker 2: playing very little at the time and still trying to
7:17
Speaker 2: practice and get good, his basketball coach was like, maybe
7:20
Speaker 2: give up basketball and go take up cross country, and
7:23
Speaker 2: so Terry was like, I'll just do both.
7:26
Speaker 1: Yeah, And he said does that mean a run across Canada?
7:29
Speaker 1: And they said no, that's just what you call the
7:31
Speaker 1: sport when you're running through the woods and not on
7:33
Speaker 1: a track.
7:33
Speaker 2: And he goes, yeah, run across Canada exactly.
7:37
Speaker 1: It hatched an idea after high school in his athletic
7:42
Speaker 1: career there. He went to Simon Fraser University. He played
7:45
Speaker 1: on the JV basketball team in college.
7:47
Speaker 3: Yeah, and was in a car wreck that fall. Didn't
7:51
Speaker 3: get like super hurt.
7:53
Speaker 1: He was a little banged up, but he started getting
7:55
Speaker 1: some knee pain and for about six months or so
7:59
Speaker 1: he just kind of chalk that up to fall out
8:02
Speaker 1: from that car wreck. Sure, and then that next spring
8:05
Speaker 1: he was like, I should probably go to a doctor.
8:08
Speaker 1: This is March of seventy seven, and when he was
8:11
Speaker 1: at the doctor, you know, he heard those terrible words
8:14
Speaker 1: that you hear in an appointment like that, which is, hey,
8:18
Speaker 1: you have cancer.
8:20
Speaker 2: Yeah, specifically an osteogenic sarcoma, which is bone cancer that
8:24
Speaker 2: starts in the knee. And this was a time where
8:28
Speaker 2: cancer research and cancer treatment was the best thing you
8:34
Speaker 2: could do for something like that was to amputate. Yeah,
8:38
Speaker 2: you have to get not just the tumor out, but
8:40
Speaker 2: all the cancer that's around it. And so they're like,
8:42
Speaker 2: we just need to take off I think that six
8:45
Speaker 2: inches above his knee. And he's eighteen at the time,
8:48
Speaker 2: an athletic kid like this is for most people, most
8:53
Speaker 2: eighteen year old boys who were like into sports, this
8:57
Speaker 2: would just be life shattering, and I'm sure it was.
9:00
Speaker 2: But he had an ability to kind of pick himself
9:02
Speaker 2: up and be like, Okay, this is my new reality.
9:04
Speaker 2: Let's see how I can excel in this reality too.
9:08
Speaker 1: Yeah, And I even remember that, and I kind of
9:11
Speaker 1: scrubbed through some of the Robert de Bald movie. They
9:14
Speaker 1: handle all that in about twenty.
9:16
Speaker 3: Seconds in the film.
9:17
Speaker 1: Really yeah, I mean, you know, it was an early eighties,
9:21
Speaker 1: I guess it was a TV movie, but I saw
9:23
Speaker 1: it on HBO.
9:24
Speaker 3: Maybe it was an HBO movie. I don't know.
9:25
Speaker 2: Hey, I believe that you saw it on HBO. You've
9:28
Speaker 2: been so emphatic about it that even if it was
9:31
Speaker 2: a TV movie, Even if the president of HBO at
9:35
Speaker 2: the time came to me and said it wasn't on HBO,
9:37
Speaker 2: I wouldn't believe him.
9:38
Speaker 1: It had to be, because why else would I have
9:40
Speaker 1: seen it multiple times? Those TV movies just ran like
9:43
Speaker 1: a movie of the week, and they were gone forever.
9:45
Speaker 2: Do you remember the one it was an after school special?
9:49
Speaker 2: It wasn't a TV movie of the week, but it
9:50
Speaker 2: featured Helen Hunt and she smokes PCP and runs and
9:54
Speaker 2: jumps out of a second story window in her high
9:57
Speaker 2: school because she's flipped out on PCP and it was
9:59
Speaker 2: Helen that.
10:00
Speaker 3: Was on HBO. The Home Box Office, Sure, man, we
10:06
Speaker 3: should get them as a sponsor. What a plug?
10:09
Speaker 2: Did you ever see? There's a video of the HBO,
10:14
Speaker 2: the original HBO like I guess title card or whatever,
10:18
Speaker 2: where Like it zooms through the street to this neighborhood
10:21
Speaker 2: and all the lights are starting to come on, and
10:23
Speaker 2: then it gets to the mountains and it says HBO
10:25
Speaker 2: or whatever. That was an actual model. I saw people
10:29
Speaker 2: filming in it and going through with this camera. It
10:31
Speaker 2: was really amazing. There's a like a short video of it.
10:35
Speaker 3: It's great.
10:41
Speaker 1: Oh man, If we're not getting HBO money by the
10:44
Speaker 1: end of this episode, I'm to be really upset.
10:46
Speaker 2: I also want to say to our new listeners who
10:48
Speaker 2: are Canadian and haven't listened to us before but saw
10:51
Speaker 2: Terry Fox episode and started to listen. This is pretty
10:55
Speaker 2: much par for the course for every episode we've ever done,
10:58
Speaker 2: and we're coming up on eighteen hundred of them.
11:00
Speaker 1: That's right, eighteen hundred times we've gotten sidetracked, probably times
11:04
Speaker 1: three at least.
11:06
Speaker 3: Yeah.
11:07
Speaker 1: All right, So back to Terry Fox. He has gotten
11:10
Speaker 1: this terrible diagnosis. He decides, you know, despite his amputation,
11:16
Speaker 1: he's going to move forward as an athlete.
11:19
Speaker 3: He undergoes sixteen months of chemo.
11:22
Speaker 1: And that same summer that he like right after he
11:26
Speaker 1: had this amputation, he goes out and is like, I'm
11:29
Speaker 1: going to join a wheelchair basketball team. And not only that,
11:33
Speaker 1: he joins the Vancouver Cable Cars in nineteen seventy seven
11:37
Speaker 1: in a tournament and leads this team to back to
11:39
Speaker 1: back national tournaments in seventy eight and seventy nine, Like
11:44
Speaker 1: right out of the gate, man, he's after.
11:45
Speaker 2: It, right, So I mean by that time, he's what
11:49
Speaker 2: nineteen maybe twenty for the second one. Have you ever
11:52
Speaker 2: seen a wheelchair basketball game?
11:54
Speaker 1: Oh?
11:55
Speaker 2: Yeah, they're amazing.
11:56
Speaker 3: Yeah.
11:57
Speaker 2: There was a team called that I looked up the
11:58
Speaker 2: name because I couldn't remember, but the Toledo Silver Streaks,
12:02
Speaker 2: And I'm not sure how my mom got into it,
12:04
Speaker 2: but we used to go to Silver Streaks games a lot. Yeah.
12:07
Speaker 2: Oh that's early eighties. It was very cool.
12:09
Speaker 3: I never saw one live. I bet that's a Oh.
12:11
Speaker 2: Yeah, you saw him on TV? Was this on HBO?
12:15
Speaker 3: Just stop shame on you.
12:20
Speaker 1: Around this time, he meets a young woman named Rika
12:23
Speaker 1: Noda and she became She became a very prominent figure
12:27
Speaker 1: in his life, obviously as his girlfriend and someone who
12:30
Speaker 1: would you know, would be by his side through this
12:32
Speaker 1: whole next chapter that we're about to talk about.
12:34
Speaker 2: Yeah, and one other thing about him, So he when
12:37
Speaker 2: he took to his wheelchair for wheelchair basketball, he already
12:40
Speaker 2: had an artificial leg, a prosthetic, but he would train
12:44
Speaker 2: in his wheelchair going up like mountain passes.
12:48
Speaker 3: Yeah, like he he.
12:51
Speaker 2: It wasn't just like level roadways. It wasn't just like
12:53
Speaker 2: going to the gym. Like he would figure out like
12:55
Speaker 2: the hardest thing you could do to train, and then
12:58
Speaker 2: that's what he would go do.
12:59
Speaker 3: Yeah, pretty smart.
13:01
Speaker 1: Like I bet when he got on the basketball court
13:02
Speaker 1: he's like, this is a piece of cake compared to
13:04
Speaker 1: going up a mountain exactly.
13:06
Speaker 2: Yeah, do you want to take a break now, Yeah.
13:09
Speaker 1: Let's take a break and we'll be right back with
13:11
Speaker 1: more on the Great Terry Fox.
13:33
Speaker 2: Okay, Chuck, so dialing it back a minute. The night
13:36
Speaker 2: before Terry's leg was amputated, it was his right leg,
13:40
Speaker 2: and again it was about six inches above his knee
13:44
Speaker 2: was where they amputated. And the night before, his high
13:47
Speaker 2: school basketball coach, a guy named Terry Fleming, brought Terry
13:51
Speaker 2: Fox an article about a guy named Dick Traum who
13:55
Speaker 2: was the first amputee to run the New York City Marathon.
14:00
Speaker 2: From what I could tell, he may have been the
14:01
Speaker 2: first amputee who ran any kind of marathon. And he
14:07
Speaker 2: became after a car accident took his leg. He became
14:10
Speaker 2: an activist for accessibility, and so it was a pretty
14:15
Speaker 2: inspiring article. You know, and it just got right through
14:20
Speaker 2: to Terry Fox, like it was about the perfect thing
14:23
Speaker 2: that his high school coach could have done for him.
14:26
Speaker 1: Yeah, for sure, because he hears his story, and I
14:30
Speaker 1: mean almost immediately afterward, it's like, I know what I'm
14:32
Speaker 1: going to do, Like I know what my immediate life
14:35
Speaker 1: purpose is. I'm going to run across Canada and I'm
14:38
Speaker 1: going to raise money for cancer research.
14:40
Speaker 2: Yeah. And he also was kind of driven to raise
14:43
Speaker 2: money for cancer research because one of his doctors had
14:46
Speaker 2: told him that if he'd been diagnosed just a few
14:49
Speaker 2: years earlier, he would have gotten way way worse treatment,
14:53
Speaker 2: like it was just advancing and just a couple of
14:57
Speaker 2: years ago his survival, his chance of survival would have
15:02
Speaker 2: been way less. So he was like, Okay, actually doing
15:05
Speaker 2: cancer research is definitely worthwhile too, right.
15:09
Speaker 1: Like they're making gains and can make even more with
15:12
Speaker 1: more money and more research.
15:13
Speaker 2: Exactly, you always say it better than me.
15:16
Speaker 3: That's not true. So he keeps this.
15:20
Speaker 1: He didn't make some huge announcement at first. He told Rika,
15:22
Speaker 1: his girlfriend, He told his best friend Doug, and they
15:26
Speaker 1: start kind of training in private again, just sort of
15:30
Speaker 1: keeping it quiet at his local junior high and the first.
15:34
Speaker 1: You know, prosthetics have come a really really long way
15:38
Speaker 1: since since Terry Fox's prosthetic leg.
15:42
Speaker 3: Yeah, I guess we could talk a little bit about that.
15:45
Speaker 1: So the guy who designed his leg, his name was
15:47
Speaker 1: Ben I guess Spiker was how i'd pronounce it. It was,
15:53
Speaker 1: you know, pretty new and like the development of artificial
15:58
Speaker 1: limbs that you could actually like use for running and
16:02
Speaker 1: you know, to be athletic on. It was a sort
16:04
Speaker 1: of a radical idea at the time, I guess, yeah,
16:07
Speaker 1: And so they settled on something pretty simple. They didn't
16:12
Speaker 1: want to get like too wacky with it. They just
16:15
Speaker 1: you know, were like, this needs to be suctioned onto
16:18
Speaker 1: your remaining leg and there's no shock absorption. It's going
16:24
Speaker 1: to be straight like this is, you know, pre when
16:27
Speaker 1: they had things obviously like these days when you have
16:29
Speaker 1: stuff like Oscar Oscar Pistorius and those like blades that
16:33
Speaker 1: he runs on, they're like a pound each. This thing
16:36
Speaker 1: weighed nine pounds and was just straight. So it really
16:40
Speaker 1: modified the way Terry had to use it and had
16:43
Speaker 1: to run.
16:44
Speaker 2: Yeah, because he did. He lacked the muscles like he
16:47
Speaker 2: had hamstrings, but they didn't reach down to his knee.
16:50
Speaker 2: Or his calf, same with his quadricepts, so he ended
16:54
Speaker 2: up having to do all of the work of running
16:57
Speaker 2: with his right hip muscles. And again there was also
17:00
Speaker 2: no shock absorption, and Ben Spiker was really trying. They
17:04
Speaker 2: worked on a lot of different models. One of them, yeah,
17:06
Speaker 2: was like a pogo stick. Basically it was based on
17:08
Speaker 2: a pogo stick. And like you said, they finally ended
17:11
Speaker 2: up on a simple version. And the simple version actually
17:14
Speaker 2: proved to be pretty smart because when he started his
17:17
Speaker 2: marathon of Hope, it needed to be repaired a couple
17:21
Speaker 2: of times along the way.
17:24
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, I think there was this one story
17:25
Speaker 1: where a guy at an auto body shop repaired it
17:29
Speaker 1: with like.
17:29
Speaker 2: Car parts seventy eight Malibu.
17:31
Speaker 3: Parts, hey styling.
17:34
Speaker 2: Yeah, and then there was a welder I think in
17:36
Speaker 2: Salt Saint Marie who fixed who repaired it at one
17:41
Speaker 2: point too. So the fact that it was simple helped
17:44
Speaker 2: him in the long run, even though it was excruciating
17:47
Speaker 2: to run on like he very frequently, I think basically
17:51
Speaker 2: the entire time every day he had blood like coming
17:55
Speaker 2: down where his prosthetic met his leg.
17:58
Speaker 1: Yeah, for sure. The artificial foot was made from rubber
18:01
Speaker 1: and wood. They I mean, they did the best they
18:04
Speaker 1: could with absorbing impact, but it was not great. So
18:08
Speaker 1: he had to adapt, like I said earlier, his running
18:11
Speaker 1: style into what they called a hop and skip running
18:14
Speaker 1: style where he hopped on his left leg and then
18:17
Speaker 1: would swing that prosthetic leg forward and then skip back
18:21
Speaker 1: again to his left leg. So, if you've ever obviously
18:26
Speaker 1: seen the great HBO movie, I think there was one
18:29
Speaker 1: in the early two thousands as well, they did another movie.
18:31
Speaker 1: I haven't seen that one, or just seen a clip
18:34
Speaker 1: of the real Terry Fox. Right, you know it's it
18:38
Speaker 1: can only be best described as like an awkward running
18:41
Speaker 1: style that you just had to grit your way through.
18:45
Speaker 2: Yes, that's exactly right. And if you also, Chuck are interested,
18:49
Speaker 2: I believe three iterations of his artificial leg, starting with
18:54
Speaker 2: the first and then going to the one he ran on.
18:58
Speaker 2: They are at the Royal British Columbia Museum, I think,
19:02
Speaker 2: on display. Yeah, there's a bunch of stuff about him
19:05
Speaker 2: on display there now, all.
19:07
Speaker 1: Right, So they eventually land on a version again that
19:10
Speaker 1: these days it seems very archaic, but back then it
19:14
Speaker 1: did the job. Still a lot of discomfort, but he
19:17
Speaker 1: could start to run longer and longer, and he started
19:20
Speaker 1: training more and he finally entered his first race in
19:23
Speaker 1: August of seventy nine. This is just six months after
19:27
Speaker 1: he started training, and he was like, I'm just gonna
19:29
Speaker 1: get out there and run, like try and get halfway
19:32
Speaker 1: through it, just to see what I can do. But
19:34
Speaker 1: he ended up running seventeen miles finish the race.
19:38
Speaker 2: Yeah, and actually he finished last, but he was just
19:40
Speaker 2: ten minutes behind the last two legged runners. So he
19:43
Speaker 2: also got his first taste of being cheered on by
19:46
Speaker 2: a bunch of strangers who were moved by his determination
19:50
Speaker 2: essentially to become a key theme in the life of
19:53
Speaker 2: Terry Fox. So he was like, okay, I can totally
19:56
Speaker 2: do this. I think when he started he covered like
20:02
Speaker 2: five thousand kilometers I think during his training period. And
20:05
Speaker 2: this is not over a terribly long time, I think
20:09
Speaker 2: you said. He entered his first race in August of
20:11
Speaker 2: nineteen seventy nine. He started the Marathon of Hope in
20:16
Speaker 2: April April of eighty right, So okay, so within a
20:20
Speaker 2: year he'd already covered five thousand kilometers in a prosthetic leg.
20:24
Speaker 2: So he's like, I can totally do this, And he
20:26
Speaker 2: told his parents his mom later said I told them
20:30
Speaker 2: something along the lines of I think you're crazy for
20:32
Speaker 2: trying this, But I read that his dad was like,
20:35
Speaker 2: when are you going to start? It was just the
20:37
Speaker 2: way I think people approached Terry, Like he was known
20:40
Speaker 2: to be very stubborn and determined. Yeah, obviously, but he
20:45
Speaker 2: was like, you know, the point here is not for
20:47
Speaker 2: me to show off. It's to raise money for cancer
20:52
Speaker 2: research in Canada. And like he figured out that doing
20:57
Speaker 2: this was going to attract a lot of attention and
20:59
Speaker 2: he could use that attention to say, hey, thanks for
21:02
Speaker 2: the support, donate to cancer research. He needed the help
21:07
Speaker 2: of the actual like Canadian Cancer Society, And at first
21:11
Speaker 2: when he approached them, they were like, that's a good idea, kid,
21:14
Speaker 2: but we're not really convinced it's going to do anything.
21:18
Speaker 3: Yeah. I mean, you know, he was trying to raise
21:20
Speaker 3: a million bucks. That was his goal. Obviously.
21:23
Speaker 1: The Canadian Cancer Society, like any organization like that, gets
21:28
Speaker 1: a lot of queries and sponsorship requests from people. Sure,
21:32
Speaker 1: so to them, I think this was just another one
21:34
Speaker 1: of those. And they said he was pretty dogged though,
21:37
Speaker 1: and they said, all right, listen, kid, if you can
21:40
Speaker 1: get some other people on board as sponsors, then we'll talk.
21:44
Speaker 1: So he and his mom wrote to a bunch of
21:46
Speaker 1: corporations and it was pretty amazing.
21:50
Speaker 3: They got a lot of support right out of the gate.
21:53
Speaker 1: The Ford Motor Company donated a camper van because they
21:56
Speaker 1: needed a van to ride along on this whole run.
21:59
Speaker 2: Yes, they also donated the grass gas or ass sticker
22:02
Speaker 2: that it came with.
22:04
Speaker 3: That's right. I've onally bought one of these.
22:07
Speaker 1: I think I told you that, No you didn't, Yeah,
22:10
Speaker 1: a couple of years ago. It's my favorite bumper sticker
22:12
Speaker 1: of all times. Yeah, that's hot one. And I put
22:15
Speaker 1: it on the I have stickers on the big, huge
22:19
Speaker 1: heavy trash can at my camp.
22:21
Speaker 2: Oh cool, Yeah I did.
22:22
Speaker 3: I couldn't. I didn't put it on my car.
22:24
Speaker 2: It's gonna say, this is a twist I had not expected.
22:28
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, hits at the camp.
22:30
Speaker 1: So they donate the camper van, Adidas donates twenty four
22:34
Speaker 1: pairs of their running shoes. Yeah, Imperial Oil and safe
22:38
Speaker 1: Way donated food and gas money, and then Pacific Western
22:42
Speaker 1: Airline said all right, we'll fly everyone out to Newfoundland.
22:45
Speaker 1: Where are you going to start this thing? And you know, godspeed?
22:49
Speaker 1: So he had those sponsors. Secured went back to the
22:52
Speaker 1: Canadian Cancer Society and they were like, all right, kid,
22:55
Speaker 1: you know, he went out and did what we asked
22:58
Speaker 1: you to do, so we're gonna get behind you in
23:00
Speaker 1: the Marathon of Hope forty six hundred mile how many
23:04
Speaker 1: kilometers is.
23:05
Speaker 2: At something like seventy four hundred kilometers I.
23:08
Speaker 1: Think, all right, starting out in Saint John's, Newfoundland, all
23:12
Speaker 1: the way to Vancouver, his home, and they were going
23:15
Speaker 1: to begin, like I said, April nineteen eighty. So, you know,
23:19
Speaker 1: we talked about the physical training that happened. There was
23:21
Speaker 1: also the mental game because obviously to undertake something like this,
23:25
Speaker 1: it requires you know, the head, the heart, the physicality
23:29
Speaker 1: to do it all. And so he realized early on, like,
23:33
Speaker 1: I can't think of this as a seventy four hundred
23:36
Speaker 1: kilometer run. I need to think of it as like
23:41
Speaker 1: one day at a time, and then within that day
23:43
Speaker 1: to break it down, like maybe I can run the
23:47
Speaker 1: next mile, and then once I've finished that mile, I
23:50
Speaker 1: can get another mile. And apparently on days that were
23:53
Speaker 1: really really tough on him, he'd say, I just need
23:56
Speaker 1: to run to that next stop sign or to that
23:58
Speaker 1: next corner. He would count telephone polls and do math
24:02
Speaker 1: problems in his head to distract from just the literal
24:05
Speaker 1: physical pain that he was going through.
24:07
Speaker 2: Yeah, which is probably the most difficult thing you can
24:10
Speaker 2: do as a runner. A long distance runner math so
24:14
Speaker 2: much so. I remember, probably ten years ago, there was
24:16
Speaker 2: an article that profiled the woman who had I believe
24:19
Speaker 2: it's retrograde amnesia, where you like just reset like every
24:23
Speaker 2: couple of minutes or every few seconds, depending on how
24:26
Speaker 2: your amnesia is. Yeah, and she was she was protested
24:34
Speaker 2: by other runners, like professional runners, as having an unfair advantage.
24:38
Speaker 3: Oh interesting, because they're.
24:39
Speaker 2: Like that whole like h the as Iron Maiden put it,
24:42
Speaker 2: the loneliness of a long distance runner never built up
24:45
Speaker 2: for her. So they were like, that's not fair. But
24:48
Speaker 2: that just goes to show you how awful that the
24:51
Speaker 2: mental part of running is so much more than the
24:54
Speaker 2: physical part. That they were like, this is this is
24:56
Speaker 2: not fair.
24:58
Speaker 3: And I guess awful competitive li long distance runners are right,
25:02
Speaker 3: like what are you kidding me?
25:04
Speaker 2: Yeah, they're like, have you never heard of dick troum
25:06
Speaker 2: and accessibility?
25:08
Speaker 3: Wow, that's that's nuts. I can't believe they did that.
25:11
Speaker 3: It's not fair. She can't remember how awful it's been
25:14
Speaker 3: for that past hour.
25:16
Speaker 2: That's pretty much the message. Sure, wow, all right.
25:19
Speaker 3: Obviously I'm kidding about long distance runners. They're great people.
25:21
Speaker 1: Sure, So he was getting dizzy spells, he would get
25:26
Speaker 1: double vision. He figured, like, it's just exhaustion. Obviously, he
25:31
Speaker 1: had to get a certificate of health from a cardiologist
25:34
Speaker 1: from the Canadian Cancer Society to even undertake this. And
25:40
Speaker 1: when he did this, a doctor diagnosed him with an
25:42
Speaker 1: enlarge heart, which is not the most uncommon thing for
25:46
Speaker 1: like an athlete like this. But the doctor was like, hey, listen,
25:49
Speaker 1: if you get out there and you're short of breath
25:51
Speaker 1: and you're dizzy, like you've got to stop running. And
25:56
Speaker 1: he just kept terry, kept quiet about the fact that like, yeah, buddy,
25:59
Speaker 1: that's already happy and I'm pushing through.
26:01
Speaker 2: Right, he said to himself quietly, nuts to that exactly.
26:05
Speaker 2: So he's gonna start running across the entirety of Canada
26:10
Speaker 2: with an enlarged heart on a prosthetic leg in nineteen
26:15
Speaker 2: eighty and I feel like that's a great place for
26:18
Speaker 2: a break. And when we come back, we're going to
26:20
Speaker 2: kick off the Marathon of Hope. Chuck.
26:22
Speaker 3: All right, we'll be right back. All right, here we are.
26:44
Speaker 1: It's April twelfth, nineteen eighty. I have just turned nine
26:48
Speaker 1: years old. I don't know about Terry Fox yet because
26:52
Speaker 1: the movie hasn't been made.
26:53
Speaker 2: I'm coming up on four.
26:55
Speaker 3: See that's why you didn't know. You didn't know about
26:57
Speaker 3: Robert Daball and HBO when you were four.
26:58
Speaker 2: Oh, I knew all about Robert Duvall.
27:03
Speaker 1: Big a pocketlyps now fantoms for sure. So Terry Fox
27:08
Speaker 1: begins his Marathon of hope. He started off by dipping
27:12
Speaker 1: his prosthetic leg into the Atlantic Ocean on the coast
27:15
Speaker 1: of Newfoundland, and his goal was, all right, this will
27:20
Speaker 1: be easy. I'll just go out and run about a
27:23
Speaker 1: marathon a day until I reach Vancouver, and maybe I
27:28
Speaker 1: can raise a million dollars by doing this. So lofty goals,
27:33
Speaker 1: you know, to raise a million bucks. It sounds kind
27:35
Speaker 1: of quaint now, but that you know, it's a lot
27:37
Speaker 1: of money back then. I mean it's a lot of
27:39
Speaker 1: money now obviously, but if you're trying to like raise
27:41
Speaker 1: money for cancer research today, somebody would obviously shoot way higher.
27:44
Speaker 1: But that was a ton of money back then to raise,
27:47
Speaker 1: and he it was quite at the beginning, because you know,
27:52
Speaker 1: no one knew about Terry Fox at the time. So
27:54
Speaker 1: he starts out running and there's like, you know, a
27:58
Speaker 1: couple of photographers there from the local paper and like
28:00
Speaker 1: six or eight people maybe clapping for him, and that's
28:03
Speaker 1: how it all started.
28:05
Speaker 2: It did, and he got frustrated really quickly because he
28:08
Speaker 2: had the full support and an encouragement of the Canadian
28:13
Speaker 2: Cancer Society, but that didn't translate into actual action on
28:17
Speaker 2: their part. Like for this thing to actually work, people
28:21
Speaker 2: had to know in towns ahead of right schedule, Yeah,
28:25
Speaker 2: so that you had volunteers who were coordinating stuff like
28:28
Speaker 2: getting the word out to the press, like you needed
28:31
Speaker 2: ccs like spokespeople talking to local newspapers and TV stations,
28:35
Speaker 2: like you had to let people know so that they
28:38
Speaker 2: could show up and see him, be moved by what
28:41
Speaker 2: he was doing and then donate. Like that's just how
28:44
Speaker 2: it had to go, or else he was just doing
28:46
Speaker 2: this for almost nothing, and that's how it went for
28:49
Speaker 2: like the first month. He would get very frustrated. When
28:51
Speaker 2: he'd run through a town, sometimes rather large town, they'd
28:54
Speaker 2: be like, who are you. We haven't heard anything about this,
28:57
Speaker 2: And I think in the first month. The whole month,
29:01
Speaker 2: all he'd raised was twenty five thousand dollars. And so
29:06
Speaker 2: because of this, like he was getting frustrated, not just
29:09
Speaker 2: with the cancer Society, but just frustrated in general. I mean, like,
29:14
Speaker 2: I can't imagine how tired I would be after one
29:17
Speaker 2: marathon rather than a month of daily marathons essentially, And
29:21
Speaker 2: his friend Doug Alward had joined him to drive the
29:24
Speaker 2: van basically slowly with him, and they were living together
29:28
Speaker 2: in the van. So things were getting a touch tense
29:33
Speaker 2: very early on.
29:34
Speaker 1: Yeah, for sure, I definitely remember this from the movie
29:38
Speaker 1: that they were They argued a lot and they thought it,
29:41
Speaker 1: why is that so funny?
29:42
Speaker 2: I just I don't know. I just imagined Robert Duval
29:46
Speaker 2: driving the van and turn around saying, pipe down back there.
29:49
Speaker 1: No, no, he comes along later, Okay. So yeah, they
29:53
Speaker 1: were at each other's throats a lot. You know, Terry was,
29:56
Speaker 1: like you said, a stubborn guy. Apparently he had a
29:58
Speaker 1: bit of a temper, and would you know, he and
30:02
Speaker 1: Doug would get in fights. It was a lot to undertake,
30:05
Speaker 1: Like the pressure of this guy was under to bite
30:06
Speaker 1: off something this big and put himself out there like that. Obviously,
30:10
Speaker 1: there was a lot of stress involved, so Terry's brother
30:13
Speaker 1: Daryl joins them in New Brunswick to just sort of
30:17
Speaker 1: add like a third piece to that to help defuse
30:21
Speaker 1: the tension. I guess a little bit. You mentioned that,
30:24
Speaker 1: you know, he wasn't getting a lot of attention at first,
30:26
Speaker 1: apparently in Quebec. And this was, by the way, not
30:28
Speaker 1: our experience there. We loved Montreal and we found the
30:32
Speaker 1: people there to be wonderful. But apparently he didn't get
30:35
Speaker 1: any publicity coming into town, didn't raise any money at
30:38
Speaker 1: all in Quebec when he was running through and like
30:43
Speaker 1: angered a lot of drivers on the road. Apparently they
30:45
Speaker 1: tried to run him off the road. People were honking
30:47
Speaker 1: at him. He tried running on the highway because it
30:51
Speaker 1: had like a shoulder to run on, but the police
30:54
Speaker 1: there like kicked him off the highway. So he didn't
30:57
Speaker 1: get a warm reception in Quebec at first, right.
31:00
Speaker 2: And also didn't raise very much money throughout the whole province.
31:05
Speaker 2: And I have to say again I agree with you,
31:08
Speaker 2: the people of Montreal were amazing. I had two quebec
31:12
Speaker 2: Qua taxi drivers, one in Vancouver, one in Toronto, and
31:17
Speaker 2: both of them drove like total maniacs. I have to
31:21
Speaker 2: at least say that they were great guys talking to him,
31:23
Speaker 2: having fun, but they were maniacs. As one of them
31:27
Speaker 2: actually turned around at one point where he's shooting down
31:29
Speaker 2: at right turn only lane to cut in in front
31:31
Speaker 2: of a bunch of traffic going quite fast, and he
31:34
Speaker 2: turns around and he's like, how do you like my driving?
31:38
Speaker 3: Wow?
31:38
Speaker 1: All right, so maybe this tracks with his experience with
31:41
Speaker 1: the drivers there. Terry Fox's yes, okay, all right. So
31:46
Speaker 1: had it not been for the Toronto Star newspaper and
31:49
Speaker 1: a reporter named Leslie Scribner, Terry Fox may not have
31:54
Speaker 1: garnered such widespread acclaim because she was drawn to Terry's
31:58
Speaker 1: story and hats off to the Toronto Star because they
32:01
Speaker 1: really really got behind him such that they assigned her
32:04
Speaker 1: to write a weekly column called Running with Terry, where
32:08
Speaker 1: she went on the road with them, basically like reporting
32:11
Speaker 1: on everything that's going on. And by the time they
32:13
Speaker 1: get to Toronto, all of a sudden, he's running from
32:17
Speaker 1: you know, Quebec. His spirits are down, no one really
32:23
Speaker 1: even knows what he's doing, and he comes into Toronto
32:26
Speaker 1: like almost like a national hero overnight.
32:29
Speaker 2: Yeah, pretty much. I read an article, I think from
32:33
Speaker 2: the Toronto Star where they quoted they said a grandmother
32:38
Speaker 2: age attendee. Her name was Edith Cathy. She gave a
32:42
Speaker 2: quote to the paper where she said that she thought
32:44
Speaker 2: she was in love for the first time. It's been
32:47
Speaker 2: a long time since anyone has given me feelings, real feelings.
32:51
Speaker 2: He just seemed to fill your life with something that
32:53
Speaker 2: was missing. And like, that's kind of how he was
32:57
Speaker 2: starting to inspire people. He was making people like feel
33:02
Speaker 2: and it very quickly became the whole country and then
33:06
Speaker 2: eventually spilled out of the borders of Canada into the world.
33:09
Speaker 2: While he was doing this, he finally did what he
33:13
Speaker 2: had set out to do. Like he had finally gotten
33:16
Speaker 2: to the hearts of Canada and Canadians, and now it
33:20
Speaker 2: was time for them to be like, we want to
33:22
Speaker 2: support you. Here's some money for cancer research.
33:25
Speaker 3: Yeah for sure.
33:25
Speaker 1: And you know, he was a young, handsome guy and
33:28
Speaker 1: so that certainly didn't hurt to capture the hearts of Canadians.
33:32
Speaker 2: And he had a cool name, yeah.
33:34
Speaker 3: Terry Fox. Great name.
33:35
Speaker 2: Yeah.
33:36
Speaker 1: When he got to Toronto, they asked him to do
33:39
Speaker 1: the kickoff of a football game there. Apparently when he
33:42
Speaker 1: came on to the field. As the story goes, the
33:45
Speaker 1: stadium announcer says, ladies and gentlemen, and like the rest
33:48
Speaker 1: of it is drowned out because people are just going crazy.
33:52
Speaker 1: He met Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau, he met Bobby Orr,
33:56
Speaker 1: the great hockey player, and Darryl Settler, another great hockey player,
33:59
Speaker 1: apparently his idol. They gave him an NHL All Star jersey.
34:03
Speaker 1: So money starts coming in, celebrity starts happening, and he
34:08
Speaker 1: realized that, like, you know, this is exactly what he
34:11
Speaker 1: wanted to help raise awareness and money, but it took
34:13
Speaker 1: a toll on him, and that now every time he
34:16
Speaker 1: goes to everyone wants to do an interview with him,
34:19
Speaker 1: and everyone wants him to come to an inspirational speaking engagement.
34:23
Speaker 1: So you know, he's running the equivalent of like close
34:27
Speaker 1: to a marathon a day, so he's physically wrecked. He
34:30
Speaker 1: has tendonitis in his ankle, he has a dry cough
34:33
Speaker 1: that wouldn't go away, and he is all of a
34:37
Speaker 1: sudden like has to deal like constantly with being interviewed
34:41
Speaker 1: as a national hero, which was awesome but like really depleting.
34:45
Speaker 2: Not only that, like there were plenty of towns that
34:49
Speaker 2: wanted to help him with fundraising events. But we need
34:52
Speaker 2: you to come give a speech so the Chamber of
34:55
Speaker 2: Commerce can have their picture taken with you for the
34:57
Speaker 2: local paper, like that kind of stuff. Not just we're
34:59
Speaker 2: going to support, we want something from you in return.
35:02
Speaker 2: And so to get that money, he would have to
35:04
Speaker 2: go do that stuff, and that's a you basically can't.
35:09
Speaker 2: You can't run a marathon every day and then spend
35:13
Speaker 2: the evening at like fundraising events. One fundraising event with
35:17
Speaker 2: zero exercise in a day would wipe me out right.
35:22
Speaker 2: Imagine doing a handful of him. And after you ran
35:24
Speaker 2: a marathon that day, you also ran a marathon the
35:27
Speaker 2: day before and the day before that, et cetera.
35:29
Speaker 3: Yeah, for sure.
35:31
Speaker 1: All of the press wasn't kind too, which really really stinks.
35:35
Speaker 1: There were some columnists who was like, you know, you're
35:37
Speaker 1: putting your life at risk, like kind of degrading him
35:41
Speaker 1: for that, which is something I don't understand. He you know,
35:46
Speaker 1: they were like little offhand kind of like quotes they
35:48
Speaker 1: would get from his friend Doug and from his brother
35:52
Speaker 1: about like Terry snapping at them or for something. So
35:54
Speaker 1: sometimes they would paint him as like a tyrant or
35:57
Speaker 1: having like a really bad temper, which apparently had a
35:59
Speaker 1: bit of a temper, but like that's it's not the
36:02
Speaker 1: lead of the story here newspapers, So it's that's really disappointing.
36:06
Speaker 2: Yeah, And it's also one of those things like put
36:08
Speaker 2: yourself in his position, like would you would you would
36:11
Speaker 2: your patience be thin? You know? So he was actually
36:17
Speaker 2: like I think actually after that newspaper article accused him
36:20
Speaker 2: of cheating, he called the newspapers like, you better print
36:23
Speaker 2: a retraction, and they did. But I feel like that
36:26
Speaker 2: kind of like changed his perspective on things after that,
36:31
Speaker 2: and it really kind of brought him down, and he
36:34
Speaker 2: was I don't it might be overstating it to say
36:37
Speaker 2: like he was on the verge of giving up, but
36:39
Speaker 2: he really kind of his spirits had been had taken
36:41
Speaker 2: a beating from that experience. And then along comes this
36:46
Speaker 2: little kid inspiration in a ten year old package, a
36:49
Speaker 2: boy named Greg Scott who has bone cancer himself and
36:54
Speaker 2: as a matter of fact, his leg was amputated as well,
36:57
Speaker 2: and he idolizes Terry Fox. He had been following him
37:02
Speaker 2: basically ever since the Toronto Star sort of reporting on
37:05
Speaker 2: him and he was hoping he could accompany Terry on
37:08
Speaker 2: some of the run.
37:09
Speaker 1: Right on his bicycle, which is just amazing. So all
37:12
Speaker 1: of a sudden, you've got this one kid with a
37:16
Speaker 1: prosthetic leg, a ten year old riding his bike. You
37:19
Speaker 1: got Terry Fox, you know, literally running a marathon a day. So,
37:23
Speaker 1: like the press coverage on this is just being amped
37:26
Speaker 1: up even more and it really obviously inspired Terry, like
37:29
Speaker 1: you're saying to keep going. At about thirty three hundred
37:33
Speaker 1: miles into his run, Terry started, you know, he had
37:36
Speaker 1: a persistent cough, but he started feeling worse and he
37:40
Speaker 1: was like, I might have the flu or something, but
37:42
Speaker 1: he was like, I got to push through. He never
37:43
Speaker 1: took a day off in his entire run, we should mention.
37:46
Speaker 1: So he runs twenty miles that day. Anyway, the next
37:49
Speaker 1: day he runs twenty three and gets to thunder Bay, Ontario,
37:53
Speaker 1: and is like the pain his just is getting worse
37:56
Speaker 1: and worse, and it spreads to his neck and he's like,
37:59
Speaker 1: maybe him having a heart attack, and I'm going to
38:02
Speaker 1: die out here, So I got to.
38:03
Speaker 3: Go to the hospital.
38:05
Speaker 1: He goes to the hospital and they said, you have
38:08
Speaker 1: a partially collapsed lung. We got to do some X
38:12
Speaker 1: rays and investigate what's going on. And Terry has a
38:14
Speaker 1: feeling like, I think my cancer has spread, and very
38:17
Speaker 1: sadly he was right.
38:19
Speaker 2: He was. After a couple of days in the hospital,
38:21
Speaker 2: they came back to him and they said, your cancer's metastasized.
38:25
Speaker 2: Your bone cancer is now growing in your lungs. And
38:29
Speaker 2: it turned out that he had a golf ball sized
38:33
Speaker 2: tumor in one lung and a fist sized tumor in
38:35
Speaker 2: the other lung. Don't forget his large heart that he
38:38
Speaker 2: started out with and again running on a prosthetic leg
38:42
Speaker 2: that from circa nineteen eighty And this was, I mean again,
38:48
Speaker 2: like just to have that life shattering news twice, and
38:53
Speaker 2: not only that, He's like, I can't this is it.
38:56
Speaker 2: I can't run anymore. Now I have to stop and
38:59
Speaker 2: treat this cancer. So he called off the run. Very sadly,
39:03
Speaker 2: he said that I'm going to have to go do
39:06
Speaker 2: this at least for now, but I'm going to try
39:09
Speaker 2: to continue after I beat this cancer. And you know,
39:13
Speaker 2: you guys hang in there with me. And just the
39:15
Speaker 2: devastation from having to stop, and he had gone well
39:19
Speaker 2: over the halfway point which I found perplexing because Ontario
39:23
Speaker 2: is not even the middle province. I think Manitoba is.
39:27
Speaker 2: So I was like, he made it to thunder Bay, Ontario,
39:30
Speaker 2: but he made it all this way. He had hugged
39:33
Speaker 2: essentially the Canadian American border, and that had a lot
39:37
Speaker 2: of ups and downs and ups and downs. After thunder Bay,
39:40
Speaker 2: it was basically a straight line out to Vancouver. So
39:44
Speaker 2: when he stopped, and that had to make it all
39:46
Speaker 2: the more frustrating. When he stopped, he was like, I
39:49
Speaker 2: have done the hardest part. The rest of it is
39:51
Speaker 2: like cake. But he knew that he had to quit.
39:55
Speaker 3: He did, yeah, very sadly.
39:57
Speaker 1: It was one hundred and forty three days into the run.
40:00
Speaker 1: He averaged twenty three point three miles a day, which
40:04
Speaker 1: is just incredible, raised two million dollars.
40:07
Speaker 3: Which is double his goal.
40:09
Speaker 1: But he would end up sort of inadvertently raising a
40:12
Speaker 1: lot more money because in September of nineteen eighty there
40:18
Speaker 1: was a telethon on TV obviously, and forty eight hours
40:22
Speaker 1: there were you know, Elton, John, John Denver, the great
40:26
Speaker 1: Gordon Lightfoot of course, and Anne Murray, great Canadians, Glenn Campbell,
40:30
Speaker 1: all these musicians got together and performed at a telethon.
40:35
Speaker 1: It was a five hour live event, raised ten million
40:38
Speaker 1: dollars to add to his two million that he raised,
40:41
Speaker 1: and so I mean that was twelve million dollars just
40:45
Speaker 1: in nineteen eighty alone.
40:47
Speaker 2: Yeah. And then I think five months after that Marathon
40:51
Speaker 2: of Hope or Telethon of Hope, he achieved a follow
40:55
Speaker 2: up goal that he had, which was raising a dollar
40:57
Speaker 2: for every Canadian citizen, which came to twenty four point
41:02
Speaker 2: one seven million dollars Canadian dollars in nineteen eighty money,
41:07
Speaker 2: which from the calculations I made, is equal to just
41:11
Speaker 2: over ninety three million Canadian dollars today.
41:16
Speaker 3: Wow.
41:16
Speaker 2: Yeah, and just what he started in April and this
41:19
Speaker 2: was September that he managed to do that, by that's tough.
41:24
Speaker 1: So after months of treatment, he got pneumonia in June
41:29
Speaker 1: and nineteen eighty one, went into a coma and passed
41:32
Speaker 1: away very sadly on June twenty eighth at the age
41:37
Speaker 1: of twenty two years old.
41:40
Speaker 2: So as you can imagine, like the Canadian people and
41:44
Speaker 2: everyone following this took this quite hard, and he was
41:47
Speaker 2: immediately memorialized even while he was alive. He was memorialized
41:51
Speaker 2: he was the youngest person to receive the Companion of
41:55
Speaker 2: the Order of Canada, Canada's highest civilian honor, the Order
41:58
Speaker 2: of the Dogwood, which is Columbia's version of the camp
42:02
Speaker 2: Companion of the Order of Canada. He was inducted into
42:05
Speaker 2: the Sports Hall of Fame in Canada, all this while
42:08
Speaker 2: he was alive and as the youngest person, and then
42:10
Speaker 2: after he died, it just mushroomed from there essentially.
42:15
Speaker 3: Yeah, for sure.
42:16
Speaker 1: He's been on a couple of postage stamps in Canada.
42:21
Speaker 1: This is I remember this happening. Actually at the twenty
42:24
Speaker 1: ten Olympic Games in Vancouver, his mom Betty, served as
42:28
Speaker 1: one of the eight flag bearers for the Olympic flag
42:32
Speaker 1: opening ceremonies.
42:33
Speaker 3: Very incredible moment.
42:35
Speaker 1: And you know, he's, like I said, everywhere we went
42:38
Speaker 1: in Canada and Q and A, someone asked us to
42:41
Speaker 1: do a story on Terry Fox. So he's still very
42:44
Speaker 1: much taught about in schools there. His legacy today is
42:49
Speaker 1: probably the Terry Fox Run organized by the Terry Fox Foundation.
42:54
Speaker 1: They separated from the Canadian Cancer Society in nineteen eighty eight,
42:58
Speaker 1: but every year the second Sunday after Labor Day, which
43:01
Speaker 1: is coming up, kids, adults, people all across Canada go
43:05
Speaker 1: for a run to raise money for cancer research and
43:08
Speaker 1: to honor Terry.
43:10
Speaker 2: Yeah, just coincidentally, we had no idea, but this episode's
43:13
Speaker 2: going to come out a couple of weeks before the
43:16
Speaker 2: Terry Fox Run, so you can go try it yourself.
43:20
Speaker 2: It's September twentieth this year, and yeah, just go look
43:24
Speaker 2: up the Terry Fox Run and you can find a
43:26
Speaker 2: place near you that you can join a team and
43:28
Speaker 2: do some fundraising and all that good stuff. And it
43:30
Speaker 2: doesn't matter how far you run or how long, or
43:33
Speaker 2: if you've ran before, it doesn't matter. It's all just
43:36
Speaker 2: about raising money for cancer research and of course honoring
43:40
Speaker 2: Terry Fox for what he did. Again, over the course
43:43
Speaker 2: of about a year, this kid became one of the
43:47
Speaker 2: greatest Canadians of all time, one of the greatest people
43:49
Speaker 2: of all time.
43:51
Speaker 1: Yeah, for sure. And you don't have to be just
43:53
Speaker 1: in Canada to take part in that. The Terry Fox
43:55
Speaker 1: Run happens all over North America and South America. It
43:58
Speaker 1: happens in country. He's in Europe, Syria, Thailand, New Zealand.
44:03
Speaker 1: It's all over the place. And as of this year,
44:06
Speaker 1: that foundation has reached its one billion dollar raise for
44:10
Speaker 1: cancer research.
44:11
Speaker 3: That's awesome, man, incredible.
44:13
Speaker 2: So that's Terry Fox. Heads off Terry Fox. There's all
44:17
Speaker 2: sorts of footage of him doing his thing on YouTube
44:20
Speaker 2: and all sorts of stories, and there's at least a
44:23
Speaker 2: couple TV movies, one of which ran frequently on HBO
44:26
Speaker 2: back in the Yeah. So go check out more on
44:31
Speaker 2: Terry Fox and be inspired. And in the meantime, I
44:35
Speaker 2: think it's time for listener mate.
44:38
Speaker 1: We got an email from a guy named Adam about
44:42
Speaker 1: remember when I was saying the space ghettos for space
44:46
Speaker 1: spice girls. Yeah, and people are writing in now with
44:49
Speaker 1: more of these fun things, which is, if you say
44:51
Speaker 1: this and like this accent, it sounds like this in
44:54
Speaker 1: another accent.
44:55
Speaker 2: Let's hear it.
44:56
Speaker 1: Hey, guys, your tangent of saying words it sound like
44:58
Speaker 1: other words really made me smile as my friends and I.
45:00
Speaker 3: Used to say these all the time.
45:02
Speaker 1: I was delighted. I hadn't heard your example in the
45:04
Speaker 1: episode before. But here are the ones that we said
45:06
Speaker 1: most often. If you say beer can with a British accent,
45:11
Speaker 1: it sounds like bacon in Jamaica, So bier can.
45:17
Speaker 2: Oh.
45:17
Speaker 1: Yeah, I guess nice if you got to say it,
45:19
Speaker 1: that wasn't great British accent.
45:21
Speaker 3: But I see what he's saying.
45:22
Speaker 1: And then Adam says, saying, rise up lights in a
45:26
Speaker 1: British accent sounds like razor Blades in Australian.
45:32
Speaker 3: So hand me some of those. Hand me some of
45:35
Speaker 3: those rise of lights.
45:38
Speaker 2: Yeah that sounded exactly like that, didn't you think so
45:42
Speaker 2: razor blades. I'm really intrigued by this. I feel like
45:44
Speaker 2: we've just cracked into a whole world that I didn't
45:47
Speaker 2: know existed.
45:49
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's a thing. I can't believe you had never
45:50
Speaker 3: heard of any of these.
45:51
Speaker 2: No, I've led a very sheltered line.
45:54
Speaker 3: Yeah all right, Well the doors are open to you now.
45:57
Speaker 2: My friend. I know the doors of perception have been
45:59
Speaker 2: thrown open.
46:01
Speaker 3: And that is for Adam.
46:03
Speaker 1: He says, enjoy listening to you guys in my commute,
46:05
Speaker 1: especially the tangents and long running jokes.
46:07
Speaker 3: Cheers from Adam.
46:09
Speaker 2: Thanks Adam, that was great. I would love to hear
46:11
Speaker 2: some more of those two, so keep them coming, everybody. Yeah. Same,
46:15
Speaker 2: And if you want to share something about Terry Fox
46:17
Speaker 2: or some other inspirational person, or you just want to
46:20
Speaker 2: say hi, or you want to say pipe down back there,
46:23
Speaker 2: it doesn't matter. You can send it in an email
46:25
Speaker 2: to stuff Podcasts at iHeartRadio dot com.
46:31
Speaker 3: Stuff you Should Know is a production of iHeartRadio. For
46:34
Speaker 3: more podcasts my heart Radio, visit
46:36
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46:39
Speaker 2: your favorite shows.