A Measure of Endurance: The Unlikely Triumph of Steven Sharp - Hardcover

Mishler, William

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 037541133X ISBN 13: 9780375411335

Publisher: Knopf, 2003

Synopsis

The remarkable, heartwarming story of a courageous teenage boy, who, after being gravely injured while using a farm machine, takes on its powerful manufacturer and wins.

Steven Sharp was a hardworking, energetic sixteen-year-old growing up happily in a tiny farming community in eastern Oregon, in a remote high desert valley. His family was his harbor. Nothing pleased him more than the outdoor life, fending for himself in the nearby mountains. In the last hour of the last day of a summer job on a local ranch, his life was changed forever when a huge baler he was inspecting suddenly and mysteriously turned itself on and severed both his arms. Slipping in and out of consciousness, stumbling through a field, he followed a fence to a nearby house. Soon he was on an airplane, hoping time was still on his side.

His recovery was amazing. Somehow he maintained his optimism and his zest for living. In the hospital, his desire to get on with his life inspired both his doctors and his fellow patients. He returned to school, joking to reassure his classmates on what could have been an awkward first day. His relaxed, down-to-earth manner put his family and neighbors at ease. Finally he was back in his beloved mountains, hunting and fishing, with the hospital’s prosthetics and his own rigged-up rifle compensating for his missing arms.

Although he was convinced that the machine that had injured him had malfunctioned, he had no intention of seeking redress—farm life had its risks and rewards. He wasn’t going to dwell on the past or let his setback change his way of life. But by an amazing quirk of fate—a friend’s memory of a notice in a three-year-old magazine—he came to learn that others had been similarly injured while using the same kind of machine. Now, with the help of a brilliant and idealistic trial lawyer named Bill Manning, whose commitment to Steven seemed something of a completion to his own spiritual journey, Steven took on the multinational, multibillion-dollar company, withstood their counterattack, and emerged triumphant.

A Measure of Endurance is a gripping, poignant, and truly unforgettable story.

About this title

About the Author

William Mishler grew up on a small farm on the outskirts of Cleveland. In 2002 he retired from the University of Minnesota, where he taught Scandinavian languages, literature, film, and culture. He wrote extensively on these subjects for journals and anthologies. In 1989 he was the corecipient of the Richard Wilbur Award for the year’s best volume of translated poetry. His own poems appeared in The Mudfish, Denver Quarterly, and Chicago Review. He died in December 2002.

From the Back Cover

"A Measure of Endurance knocked me down. I read it in two sittings, fascinated by its harrowing story and its tale of courage and integrity—but anything I say about it pales in comparison to the triumph of Steven Sharp, his family and their lawyers. This is one of those rare books which proves once more the worth of the human spirit, at its best, when most challenged."
—Kent Haruf, author of Plainsong

From the Inside Flap

The remarkable, heartwarming story of a courageous teenage boy, who, after being gravely injured while using a farm machine, takes on its powerful manufacturer and wins.<br><br>Steven Sharp was a hardworking, energetic sixteen-year-old growing up happily in a tiny farming community in eastern Oregon, in a remote high desert valley. His family was his harbor. Nothing pleased him more than the outdoor life, fending for himself in the nearby mountains. In the last hour of the last day of a summer job on a local ranch, his life was changed forever when a huge baler he was inspecting suddenly and mysteriously turned itself on and severed both his arms. Slipping in and out of consciousness, stumbling through a field, he followed a fence to a nearby house. Soon he was on an airplane, hoping time was still on his side.<br><br>His recovery was amazing. Somehow he maintained his optimism and his zest for living. In the hospital, his desire to get on with his life inspired both his doctors and his fellow patients. He returned to school, joking to reassure his classmates on what could have been an awkward first day. His relaxed, down-to-earth manner put his family and neighbors at ease. Finally he was back in his beloved mountains, hunting and fishing, with the hospital’s prosthetics and his own rigged-up rifle compensating for his missing arms.<br><br>Although he was convinced that the machine that had injured him had malfunctioned, he had no intention of seeking redress―farm life had its risks and rewards. He wasn’t going to dwell on the past or let his setback change his way of life. But by an amazing quirk of fate―a friend’s memory of a notice in a three-year-old magazine―he came to learn that others had been similarly injured while using the same kind of machine. Now, with the help of a brilliant and idealistic trial lawyer named Bill Manning, whose commitment to Steven seemed something of a completion to his own spiritual journey, Steven took on the multinational, multibillion-dollar company, withstood their counterattack, and emerged triumphant.<br><br><b>A Measure of Endurance</b> is a gripping, poignant, and truly unforgettable story.

Reviews

This is a well-paced, vibrant chronicle of the trials, both physical and legal, endured by Steven Sharp, a farm boy from rural Oregon who, at the age of 17, lost both of his arms in an accident involving a defective hay baler. Given the emotional nature of the topic, Mishler does a fine job of telling a compelling story without indulging in purple prose or mawkishness. That's not to say, however, that he doesn't highlight the tragedy of Sharp's ordeal. After all, Sharp was an athletic, outdoorsy kid who was specifically chosen to run the baler because of his presence of mind and attention to safety. That Mishler never gets carried away with melodrama, however, may owe to Sharp himself and his nearly stoic reaction to his plight. The people of the community come across as real rather than bucolic stereotypes, and the dialogue, filled though it is with phrases like "I ain't" and "It don't," is not overdone. Mishler keeps the legal struggle between Sharp and the manufacturer animated, though it drags a bit at times, particularly since the crux of the issue comes down to one's definition of the word "off" (as in, had Sharp really turned the baler off before trying to clean it). The defense attorneys are not rendered in a favorable light, but they're hardly demonized. In all, Mishler offers an absorbing account of a tenuous legal battle and, more strikingly, a resonant portrait of a determined individual for whom some small measure of victory was recouped for all that he lost.
Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information, Inc.

At 16 years old, Steven Sharp was horribly injured in a machinery accident in his rural farming community in eastern Oregon. On the last day of his summer job at a local ranch, Sharp stopped to inspect the huge hay baler he had been operating. The machine suddenly turned itself on, catching his hands and, finally, severing his arms. The bucolic community, used to farm-machinery accidents, accepted Sharp's misfortune as a tragic fact of life. Sharp, stoic by nature, focused on recovery and returning as much as possible to the active life he had led before his accident. When his family learned of a law firm investigating the manufacturer of the hay baler and claims that the machinery was defective, Steven decided to join the effort to hold the manufacturer accountable. Mishler provides a compelling, heartrending portrait of a singularly determined young man and the tense courtroom drama that pitted farmers against a heartless multibillion-dollar corporation. Vanessa Bush
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

CHAPTER ONE

Steven sharp woke in the night to the percussion of hooves on the thin mountain soil. With only a folded blanket between his ear and the ground he could sense their approach before he could hear or see them. Elk. Then he felt the commotion of their heavy bodies pushing through the brush and the low branches a stone's throw from the clearing where he'd built his fire. The early June night was chilly and moonless. Unmoving, he lay in the dark, his lanky body folded in on itself inside the thin sleeping bag, inured through long habit to the pebbly bumpiness of the cold ground, reading the sounds of the herd's movement for the number and size of them. They were heading for the new grass in the lower meadow that bordered Hidden Lake, now passing close enough through the undergrowth for him to distinguish the guttural grunting and snorting of bull, cow, or calf. To be on the ground among large animals, potential prey, though with no thought of hunting them, brought him to an alertness indistinguishable from joy. All game commanded his attention, perhaps elk most of all, for to the hunters in the Pacific Northwest elk were a prestigious prize. What drew Steven, however, was not the allure of the animals as trophies so much as the force of the connection he had established with them half his young life ago. His father, R. E., had first brought him up into these mountains in the fall of 1981, when Steven had turned seven and was first capable of sitting a mule. Since then Steven had never missed a hunting season, which began early in October. Usually the weather could be counted on to be decent-cold, but still free of snow.

On that first trip, however, which had begun in bright sun while he and his father spent half a day packing in on muleback, snow surprised them. It fell in the night, starting sometime after midnight and silently blanketing the world. At dawn father and son had emerged from their tent to find the pine branches loaded and the meadow below covered in nearly a foot of snow. The air had a sharp, ozone edge to it, frosting the inside of their nostrils. Scanning the apron of the meadow, R. E. found fresh elk tracks. Hurriedly he pulled on his high boots and heavy jacket, then bundled Steven in an extra flannel jacket and a hunting cap with earflaps. The two of them set out after the tracks, wading in the snow toward the lake. The trail led around the rim up into Box Canyon, and was so fresh R. E. couldn't resist heading over to see whether he could catch a glimpse of the elk on the canyon trail.

Assuring Steven he'd be gone no more than ten minutes, R. E. posted the four-and-a-half-foot boy as lookout in a level expanse of snow that flowed seamlessly over the meadow and across the lake, telling him to stand there and to shout if he saw something. With that, R. E. was on his way, stepping storklike through the drifted snow, rifle slung on his back. For some moments Steven watched as his father disappeared while silence settled around him like a transparent bell. In the stillness he became aware of the sound of his breathing. Whenever he moved the cold clustered around him like invisible bees. The light off the snow flooded his eyes. His boots creaked on the new snow with a squeaky sound. Minutes passed. And then without warning, turning again, he found himself staring at a five-point buck at no more than twenty paces, poised atop a slight knoll, as if it had bloomed there or as if the air had opened and it had stepped through, coming into view so quietly and matter-of-factly that its presence seemed both totally expected and yet as strange as if a mountain had taken a step closer to him. The buck was huge, particularly seen from the boy's lower vantage. Vapor puffed from its nostrils. The animal dropped its wonderfully encumbered head and snorted. Sober curiosity and wild excitement warred within Steven while he and the buck stood measuring each other. Finally Steven shouted for his father. Again the bull lowered its heavy head with a clearing sound in its throat. Again Steven called, his cry echoing clearly off the canyon walls. This time, faintly, his father answered.

At a leisurely pace the buck advanced in Steven's direction. The boy watched it come with eyes that ranged as eagerly as hands over the long shaggy body, from the massive antlers to the heavy knobs of its forelegs to the ragged and uneven coat that hung in ropy tatters off its belly. The long hair on its back inner thighs was matted with urine and excrement. As it drew nearer, the boy caught a whiff of the animal's rank musk. Steven stood utterly still, heart racing, scarcely breathing. Moving past, the buck gave him a glance with a swing of its heavy head, then kept on toward the woods, grunting softly, its forelegs articulating stiffly, a forlorn dignity in its stiff, measured gait.

Then it was gone.

And now Steven's father was crossing the snow toward him, running.

R. E. gave a whistle when he saw from the tracks how close the buck had come to his son. He clapped Steven repeatedly, as if to congratulate him for somehow having conjured the animal into appearance.

Then he took the boy's hand and they followed the tracks back into the trees, but the elk was not to be found. "That's OK," R. E. said, meaning it sincerely, "that's OK," from which Steven understood-not in so many words but nevertheless clearly-that what counted most for his dad in the matter of hunting was not necessarily getting the animal lined up in his scope but the encounter.

Since that first trip Steven had been coming back regularly with his father or grandfather or brother, and then later, during his teen years, as often as not, alone. Hunting with a buddy was fun, but it could be distracting from what he was gradually discovering to be his real purpose for coming into the wilderness-namely, to push himself, to test his capabilities, to use every part of himself. Hanging out with buddies could be done anywhere, and never offered the kind of satisfactions available only in these pristine surroundings. There was risk, of course, in camping alone in the mountains. One slip could, and occasionally did, send him sliding down a sheer rock face or tumbling among boulders, but that was a price he was more than willing to pay.

More than once, while bandaging Steven or applying a splint, his mother, a trained nurse, would try to get him to agree always to take a buddy with him. "Stevie, you could die up there, and we wouldn't know for days."

"Right," he would say ambiguously, hoping she wouldn't try to pin him down.

But if she did and he was forced to declare himself, he'd tell her that, sure, of course he'd try to be more careful. He wasn't interested in hurting himself. "On the other hand, Mom, once a guy's taken reasonable precautions he might as well do what he feels like. Otherwise, he'd spend his life being scared and that's hardly living at all."

now, in the June night, Steven felt the herd moving down into the same pasture where he had been left standing that snowy October morning ten years before, the sound of their passage dying away, skittering and scurrying noises returning in the dark. In moments he was asleep.

At dawn, which came prior to the sun as a spill of light from the higher snow peaks, he rolled out of his sleeping bag, stowed it near a fallen tree, and pulled on his bill cap. Around him the trees swayed like silvery ghosts in the drifting ground fog. His breath smoked. He drew the charred remnants of last night's fire together, banked them with twigs, then held a match to them. Once the flame caught, he headed with a steel pot to the meltwater creek that fed Hidden Lake. The icy dew drenching the silver grass stung his bare feet like fire. Balancing on a rock in the middle of the stream, he snagged some water with his coffeepot. He squatted close to the flame until the coffee came to a boil.

From his pack he took his rod and reel and assembled them, his hands going easily through the routine motions, then he set out through the meadow between him and the oval of Hidden Lake. He moved in slow zigzags, scarring the dew, scraping with his toe at any likely brown or green speck, for it was too early in the day for the grasshoppers to be stirring on their own. At every telltale twitch or flicker he sprang and stomped. By the time he reached the lake, some hundred yards, he had a pocketful of the trampled insects. Rounding the east shore, he came in a matter of minutes to a point that had been his grandfather's favorite fishing spot, and then his father's as well. In Eagle Valley below, and even in neighboring Pine Valley, beyond the mountain twelve miles distant, you could for brevity's sake refer to the Sharp's point at Hidden Lake and most people would nod.

Steven dropped his fly not far from a ripple and began to reel it in. A blue heron stood on the other side of the water, smudged by mist. The first fish to strike was a bluegill. Then a sunny. For upwards of an hour he continued to cast and pull fish from the lake, releasing most of them, the wet line singing by his ear with a thin whistle. Casting a line was as exhilarating to him as pitching a baseball, feeling the flow of energy in his arms and in the roll of his shoulder as he canted back from his waist in order to pinpoint his target; he also loved the subtle draw of the line through the water when his fingers and wrist and forearm were functioning like an antenna tuned to the slightest strike.

The sun moved above the rim of the mountains and filled the upland valley with light. Steven felt its soft heat on his shoulders as he continued to flex and whip his fly rod. Now he was hungry. He secured his hook and locked his reel. He chose a trout from his stringer, and with his folding knife gutted and filleted it. Grasshoppers were starting to sing in the grass and sail waist high through the air as he headed back through the meadow to his clearing. He noted the droppings and trampled grass where the elk had trekked the night before. There was birdsong and a dis...

Edition details

• Publisher: Knopf
• Publication date: 2003
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 037541133X
• ISBN 13: 9780375411335
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 320