Word: sleds
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Four miles away in Melrose Park, a working-class suburb of modest but tidy homes, live Donald and Stephanie Sled. This summer they packed up their few belongings and moved out of Chicago's westside ghetto, delighted to have found an affordable apartment in Melrose Park. In their excitement to escape the squalor and fear of the ghetto, the Sleds gave little thought to what it might mean to be the first black family in their neighborhood. "This was like heaven," recalls Donald, a 44-year-old handyman who sometimes stutters when excited. "It was so quiet and peaceful...
...then, how many Jewish sled-dog trainers can there be? Damned few besides Ed Blechner, 41, over in Addison. This mountain man was born in Queens and frequented an Orthodox synagogue in the wilds of Great Neck, N.Y. And what about the Beth Jacob Synagogue in Montpelier, where Orthodox, Conservative and Reform all worship together under the same roof? There's a Nobel Peace Prize in there somewhere. "Unfortunately, this is newsworthy in the Jewish world," concedes R.D. Eno, publisher of a bimonthly called KFARI, which means "my town" in Hebrew, and subtitled The Jewish Newsmagazine of Rural New England...
Moonie, Kona and Ed Blechner's ten other sled dogs lie inert in the August heat, dreaming, no doubt, of a 50-mile run at 20 below. Blechner, meanwhile, tries to explain his odyssey from Queens to Addison. He has not attended synagogue regularly since late childhood, when, in preparation for his Bar Mitzvah, he walked to shul, or synagogue, and avoided automobiles and telephones on the Sabbath. Then came varsity football at Union College and Outward Bound's Hurricane Island School and a world beyond Great Neck. "I used to feel funny among Jews," he recalls. "I had taken...
...lugers are all seasoned veterans compared with the Jamaican bobsled team, which first put a sled into a starting chute only four months ago. In Calgary the Jamaicans may well win the gold medal for marketing chutzpah. Their T shirts sell for $15, their sweat shirts for $28. There is even a recorded reggae theme song for sale, Hobbin & A Bobbin. But team members bristle when anyone questions their commitment. Says Driver Dudley Stokes, a captain in the Jamaica Defense Forces: "There are no jokers on this team." There is a sprint champion and a reggae singer, though. Stokes flies...
...Where would you put it?" No American man or woman had ever finished as high as sixth in an Olympic luge, and when Bonny Warner moved up from the eighth position on her final run, she shivered with pleasure. "It's a warm feeling," said Warner, 25, "like the sled has little feelers on it, and it can tell you're happy, so it goes fast...