Jumping For Gymnastics

Here is a good one for you. I had to spend 89 minutes online with a Verizon technician to fix my email sending and receiving section of my computer. Usually when I call, I get someone in India who is extremely polite, compassionate, caring and knowledgeable. This time for the first time, it was a young man age 20 from Costa Rica. He and I became instant friends while he was trying to fix it. I guessed he was 28, he said lower, and finally I got to 20. So I asked him to guess my age from my voice and he said 35, then 45, then 50 and I finally told him I will be 79 in June. He could not believe it. I have heard this before, so this is nice. He eventually got it back to being great and he told me he was supposed to be right now in Orlando for the Cheerleading competitions. He was on a team and they all were coming legally to Florida. The cheerleading is not our type of girls cheerleading at high school football games or the Ravens games cheerleaders. This is actually gymnastics. He had taken control of my screen with my permission to fix it and then he put on You Tube, where I saw him doing fantastic gymnastics with his team and by himself. He has been studying this for years and he is quite proficient at this. Then he told me that many from the teams were not given their visas to come here for no apparent reason and so all of the team was not present. He had paid 300 dollars for a team uniform that he can use there in other events and he hopes to come next year to USA wherever the competition will be held. This seems ironic that a person coming into this country for an athletic sport with his group and legally asking for a visa is turned down without any reason. There were many in the different teams who got the rejection besides him. I told him he should go to Mexico and he could get here easier. He is working full time for Verizon in Costa Rica and I told his supervisor afterwards how competent, nice, dear, and how he tried so hard to fix it. During the repair period, something silly popped up for me to check ok on. It wanted for me to pay Verizon 30 dollars for a year of doing this or 10 dollars for last night. I do not pay them for ordinary tech work and it was in this case, he told me, a breakdown on Verizon’s end and it would be fixed in 24 hours. However, he got it working good after 89 minutes and then it worked even better after about three hours, so evidently it was from Verizon and nothing I did. He wiped out the fees and I did not sign for them anyway, so I am not responsible. The moral of this story is that here is a team member, a fine young man and many of his team mates were kept from coming here to Orlando to compete in this competition, because probably some snafus on the United States whatever department it is called’s part. Yet in the Boston Marathon killings, it seems the older perpetrator went back and forth to Russia and we were warned about him coming back here from Russia, and somehow nothing was done. When my Dad at age 7, he and his parents and siblings came to this country from Russia legally in 1900, they came and their names are on the walls at Ellis Island of the immigrants who came and passed through there. My father-in-law came here when he was eighteen in about 1913, he too came legally and passed through Ellis Island, New York and his name is also on the wall at Ellis Island. Now days, millions come here illegally, stay and receive benefits galore. Here is this fine young man, a gymnast and his co- team members and they apply to come for an event of sports and they are denied visas with no reasonable explanation. He is very spirited and he said they will all try again. They were notified only one month before their departure of no visas. I am not an expert on legality or denied visas, but this seems wrong. Many years ago, probably about fifty, my sister-in-law had a cousin, a prominent medical doctor come from Israel to work at Johns Hopkins to continue on his life saving research on some disease. Hopkins was proud to have him and he stayed two years doing the combined research with Hopkins and Israel. He was well received and liked and his visa was up and he wanted to stay for an additional 6 months and Hopkins wanted him to do that. He was denied even one day past his visa expiration and Hopkins was so upset that they would lose him before the entire expert work was completed. Of course, he left. So here was an esteemed medical person doing necessary research and work for an illness and he had to leave. He was told if he stayed one extra day, he would be arrested. So tie in the story from 50 years ago with the story of yesterday and they are similar. One is a sport, the other for humanity and illness. As they say “all is not fair in love and war.” Jonathan Castro from Costa Rica, we hope you can obtain your visa next year. It was my joy to have a fine young man of your caliber take care of me with my Verizon email problems. Keep up your excellent work for Verizon and next year, I hope to see you and your team here in America at the Cheerleading competition which should really be called Gymnastics Supreme, because from what I saw on the video, you all are superb, qualified and excellent in this. Good luck and we will welcome you here to see our country and to participate in this delightful happening. There is another saying: “Wisdom is not gained by knowing what is right. Wisdom is gained by practicing what is right and noticing what happens when that practice succeeds and when it fails.” You, Jonathan will accomplish and fulfill your wish to come here and compete next year and you are still a winner either way. elita sohmer clayman Fairfax Station Patch