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Talents

Here is another story I told my class, with the goal of connecting it to a language concept. The story is interesting, anyway.

Because we’re all unique, we each have different strengths and abilities. Some of us are better at sports than academics; while others are good at talking to other people, but have trouble playing sports.

One man was made famous by his unique ability to walk across tight ropes. This man, named Blondin, came up with the original idea of walking on a tight rope across Niagara Falls. The walk was 1100 feet long and 160 feet above the water. He first accomplished this in 1859, but returned a number of times later with different variations. At one point, he walked blindfolded, at another time he put himself in a sack and walked across, rolling a wheelbarrow, carrying someone on his back, on stilts; and one time, he even sat down in the middle of the walk to make and eat an omelet. At one point in 1861, this man walked across a rope at a building in London called the Crystal Palace; completing somersaults while on stilts 170 feet above the ground.

Another man named Philippe Petit, still alive today, illegally walked across the Twin Towers in New York City on a tight rope, at 24 years old. He apparently had the idea while in a dentist’s office in Paris, France in 1968. He became infatuated with the towers, which were not yet completely built. He not only studied articles about them and traveled to New York City to see them first-hand, but he eventually created fake identification cards to gain access to the roof, even studying what the construction workers wore and used as tools so he could blend in with them as easily as possible. He even claimed to work for an architecture magazine to interview the workers. The day before the walk, the men took the equipment to the 104th floor to store it. To get the rope across the buildings, they used a bow and arrow to first shoot a fishing line. They then passed larger ropes across so they could eventually pass the larger rope, which he would use to walk the expanse.

He began the walk at 7:15AM that lasted 45 minutes, even speaking to a seagull that circled above his head. He made eight crossings. When he saw others watching him, he began to smile and laugh, and even started to dance. He even jumped up and down, with his feet at times leaving the wire. Eventually, he feared that the wind from the nearby helicopter would knock him off the wire, so he walked to one side and allowed himself to be arrested by waiting officers. When asked why he did it, he responded “When I see three oranges, I juggle; when I see two towers, I walk.” the charges against him were dropped, but he was sentenced to perform a show for children in New York City, which Petit turned into another high wire act.

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