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Salonistas, please read this. Lost a great friend, but you can help!
first of all this will most likely be the longest thing i have ever posted anywhere, and the most important. Stay with me, i am no writer, poet, or wordsmith. This is all heart.
I recently lost one of my dearest friends and by far the largest hearted person i have known. A friend who spent several days a week in my Fab shop, many evenings in my home, and hundreds of hours riding motorcycles, climbing, kayaking or just shooting the shit.
Jon Van Doran, who everyone referred to as 'Ironman,' because of his huge upper body from walking on crutches as a parapalegic. This guy was an animal, that never let his inability to walk stop him from doing anything.
I first met Ironman about 15 years ago when he came into my fab shop in Nashville. His first question was, "hey, could you make me some fight specific crutches?" 'Absolutely,' i replied. Jon was a 3rd degree blackbelt and that was the first of many projects we would tackle together. Our biggest being the Harley that we built for him, which he still rode 20k miles a year on. We road motorcycles all over America, we built him a 1956 Apache that he could drive, and a handcycle. This cat was almost unstoppable. He once told me the only thing that he wish he could do was to dance.
He worked at a machine shop up until about 4 years ago until he just got to nervous about tripping or falling or getting hurt. I now live about 75 miles outside of Nashville in a small college town with the State Engineering school. Ironman is sort of a "city kitty,' hardcore music, punk rock and what not. However, he called out one day and asked me about moving to Cookeville to go to school for Mechanical Engineering, he wanted to get a degree and get into Adaptive technology for kids, building equipment for kids to get outside kayaking, caving, fishing, cycling or whatever. He was a semester away from getting that degree, and we were working on his final project which was for a kid with Spinabifida.
We recently built him a rig to rapel with, and that dude would drop anywhere. Nothing could hold him back. So we thought.
About a year a go he started to complain of some discomfort in his pelvic area and hemorrhoids, Docs kept telling him it was because of the way he walked on crutches and that he was always going to be sore. This fucker was tough as nails, if he said it hurt, then it hurt.
2 months ago we are getting kayaks out at an event for kids, he passed out and we were told he had an aneurysm. Life flight to Vanderbilt, 6" scar on his head and this dude wakes up smiling saying how awesome this is all gonna be. WTF?? i am down there looking at him like, only you Ironman can make this positive. Short story, that was the beginning of a very quick demise. His pelvic discomfort was Angiosarcoma that had gotten so big it snapped his pelvis and he had thousands of tumors. Until the very end, he kept saying, "I got this.'' He didnt and i fucking hate everything about cancer, i hate that it took not just a friend, but a heart that the world cant contain.
I dont like when people say that he was a good man, or he is in a better place. But, this was a great man taken from us at 35.
The good news and what you can do:
Before Jon had passed we were working on starting a foundation for disabled kids called The Ironwill Project, that will go on but we are not done with it.
However there is an organization Therapeutic Adventures that we are partnering with until we get that off the ground.
Jackson Kayaks has donated a boat to us to raffle off, and some climbing gear. The raffle is online, all of the money goes to Therapeutic Adventures and you can win a Kayak. A TRUE BALLER, if they won would let us sell the kayak and donate that money as well.! However, i am in tennessee and so is the kayak. if you win it and want me to hold it, or i travel a lot and could meet you or bring it to Ballers this year or whatever, i do not care. I want you to give money to a good cause for a great guy to help kids that need it. Period.
No guilt here, but you should do this.
you can enter at rallyup.com
www.rallyup.com/512499 to be exact
or PM me, the drawing is saturday. So do it now please.
All love to those that help,
Jason Moore-rowdyhillrambler
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