EVERETT – As the world’s most talented athletes prepared for competition in Athens on Friday, Louise Jorgensen had her own Olympic miracle in Everett.
The venue was the activity room at Seabrook Assisted Living and Retirement Community. The event was the beanbag toss in the Seabrook Olympics.
Jorgensen, 94, is nearly blind. But she threw three beanbags through holes in a wooden board to help her team’s effort.
The crowd of more than three dozen cheered as each bag made it through. Only one bag missed the mark. Jorgensen was as surprised at anyone else at her success.
“I don’t know how I did it,” she said with a laugh. “I just heaved it in. It was an accident, believe me.”
It’s a well-worn cliche that it’s not whether you win or lose, but how you play the game. But it’s hard to imagine a place where that was more on display than at Seabrook. The rewards were much deeper than the medals made of cardboard covered in gold and silver paint given to team members after the events.
“Mary, this is the funnest fun we’ve had,” Virginia Shelley, 71, said to activity director Mary Hanke.
Many residents spend much of their day in their rooms, Shelley said.
“This got everybody out,” she said. “And it keeps you thinking. If you sit in your room and don’t do anything, you’re stale. Depression sets in, and you don’t want that.”
The competition nearly had its own version of an Olympic doping scandal when Daniel Cavallo pondered whether to use a piece of chewing gum to gain an advantage in the balloon-on-a-spoon race.
The object was to win a walking race while balancing a balloon partially filled with water on a large spoon.
“I’ll have no problem,” said Cavallo, 83, with a mischievous smile. “I’m chewing gum. I’ll just put it underneath.”
“No cheating,” Hanke warned.
The competition was lighthearted and friendly, but participants played to win.
Lucille Frederickson, 84, knew that the egg she was balancing on a spoon was probably going to drop if she kept walking as briskly as she was. But she couldn’t let Imajean Moran, 71, get ahead.
Both dropped their eggs before reaching the finish line.
“I should have slowed down,” Frederickson said. “Let me try again.”
Reporter David Olson: 425-339-3452 or dolson@heraldnet.com.
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