The Spectacular Scar. Owen Mahoney

     This is a speech I originally wrote as a school project. The assignment was to write about a realization or epiphany that you have had. I am hoping to read it aloud at some point during the Alabama trip.
      I am posting it here for you to tell me your thoughts(if you want to) and so that some of you guys who have not been can here an example of what alabama is like.
      Enjoy!

A Spectacular Scar

Heat, beating sweltering heat, and a gashed thumb. A gummy pulp in my mouth. Glaring sun in my face. I was roasting on the cracked and buckled asphalt, sucking away a hot paste of paint, brick dust, and polyurethane, attempting to get at the deep gash and the welling blood underneath. I sucked and chewed and spat the nasty plaster from off my thumb so I could see the slice underneath. It was a good cut, and deep.  The paint scraper had done well. My first thought was that it would leave a spectacular scar.

I had been carving small slabs of plaster off the dusty floor of an abandoned store, and a Tom Callos had told me my thumb was bleeding. “You alright man?” Tom asked. 

Tom Callos is the founder and leader of the One Hundred, a group of one hundred martial arts business owners who are committed to not just running their businesses ethically, but also striving to be the best teachers, martial artists, and people they can be. He has been a martial artist for over forty years. Tom is short, bald, and has an amazing talent to inspire people to do amazing things, so much so, that he was able to bring hundreds of people from around the world to Hale county Alabama.  My Sensei, Paul Castagno, had been called by Tom to come down to Alabama and help build a house for an elderly woman who lived in an old trailer without running water or electricity. 

I was currently working downtown refurbishing a deserted storefront. Standing there in the dusty sunlight, andsurrounded by the faded, peeling wallpaper of the old store, with my hands coated in a thick adhesive of brick dust and industrial strength varnish, and my pants and shirt dirty and sweaty from the hard work of helping people, I stared at Tom’s kind smiling face, and my thoughts on my thumb shifted to thoughts on my wider condition.

I began to think about how I had been sleeping on the had cement floor of a church the past few nights. And about the layer of sweat and dirt that had accumulated on my unwashed body. And about how yesterday's work had been shut down early because of a tornado. And then about the kind of person standing in front of me. It felt like I had opened my eyes and I could see. 

I saw that I was the one who should be thankful. Though other people may have an I-phone or a flat screen TV, I was the one who was wealthy. I should be thankful for the opportunity to come to an impoverished community and cut my thumb. I was the one who had had a gift bestowed upon me, because I was the one who had been given this miraculous opportunity to come to Alabama and meet one hundred high-minded and ethical people, and to be surrounded by these positive ideals. I was the one who could speak to and be surrounded by amazing and inspirational people, people who had such a wealth of knowledge for me to draw from, for me to learn from. I, the one with cuts and the malicious hand glue, was the one who is not like the person who worries about his facebook and clothes and popularity. My involvement with Tom, and Paul, and the hundred others there is why I am special, because I have the experience and the knowledge, because I would have the spectacular scar. Tom asked again, “You OK?” “Yeah, I’m good” I said. “Well, I'm not paying you to sit around.” Said Tom, “In fact, I’m not paying you at all!” I laughed and Tom walked out. “I’m good” I said again quietly to myself. I’m good.