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Posted on 02/01/2002 8:53:32 AM PST by Puliko
In a supermarket, Kurtis the stock boy, was busily working when a new voice came over the loudspeaker asking for a carry out at check register 4.
Kurtis was almost finished and wanted to get some fresh air, so he decided to answer the call. As he approached the check-out stand a distance smile caught his eye, the new check out girl was beautiful. She was an older woman (maybe 26, and he was only 22) and he fell in love.
Later that day, after his shift was over, he waited by the punch clock to find out her name. She came into the break room smiled softly at him and took her card and punched out, then left. He looked at her card, BRENDA. He walked out only to see her start walking up the road.
Next day, he waited outside as she left the Supermarket, and offered her a ride home. He looked harmless enough, and she accepted. When he dropped her off, he asked if maybe he could see her again, outside of work. She simply said it wasn't possible. He pressed and and she explained she had two children and she couldn't afford a baby-sitter, so he offered to pay for the baby-sitter. Reluctantly, she accepted his offer for a date for the following Saturday.
That Saturday night he arrived at her door only to have her tell him that she was unable to go with him. The baby-sitter had called and canceled. To which Kurtis simply said, "Well, lets take the kids with us."
She tried to explain that taking the children was not an option, but again, as not taking no for an answer, he pressed. Finally Brenda, brought him inside to meet her children. She had a older daughter who was just cute as a bug, Kurtis thought, then Brenda brought out her son, in a wheelchair, he was born a paraplegic with down syndrome. Kurtis asked Brenda, "I still don't understand why the kids can't come with us?"
Brenda was amazed. Most men would run away from a woman with two kids, especially if one had disabilities. Just like her first husband and father of her children did.
That evening Kurtis and Brenda loaded up the kids, went to dinner and the movies. When her son needed anything Kurtis would take care of him. When he needed to use the rest room, he picked him up out of his chair, took him, brought him back. The kids loved Kurtis. At the end of the evening, Brenda knew this was the man she was going to marry and spend the rest of her life with. A year later, they were married and Kurtis adopted both of her children and since they have added two more kids.
So what happened to the stock boy and check out girl? Well, Mr. & Mrs. Kurt Warner, now live in St. Louis, where he is employed by the St. Louis Rams and plays quarterback and will be in the super bowl this week-end.
Dr. Steve
GO RAMS GO!!!
There you have it ladies. For every slug out there, there's a real man waiting to step in.
...continued in post 45
Your friend sent you an urban legend, albeit with some truth in it. Here's the real story, from www.snopes.com:
Origins: Eeesh, what to do with such a glurge? The premise of the story -- that Kurt Warner of the Rams married the mother of two children, one of whom which had severe medical problems -- is true. On the other hand, most of the key details given in the now widely e-mailed story are wrong. (Which in itself is a crying shame because the real story about Kurt's and Brenda's path through life is far more inspiring than this factually incorrect one.)
Let's address the inaccuracies first:
Kurt and Brenda did not meet while both were working in a grocery store, so you can throw out all that bit about his mooning over her timecard. They met in 1992 at a country bar while he was Northern Iowa's starting quarterback. (After being cut by the Green Bay Packers in 1994, Kurt did find employment in a grocery store, though: He stocked shelves at a Hy-Vee in Cedar Rapids for $5.50 an hour.) The next morning Kurt brought Brenda roses and wanted to meet her youngsters. She'd told Kurt about her children the night before, so there was no dramatic surprise when she wheeled in a paraplegic son.
The Warners' was a lengthy courtship. They married in 1997 after meeting in 1992 (not "a year later," as the e-mail has it).
Brenda (who is four years older than Kurt) had two children by a previous marriage; however, the e-mail version has their birth order reversed. In real life, Zachary is three years older than his sister, Jesse Jo. (More on this seemingly picayune point later because it's pivotal to the real story of Brenda Warner's life before Kurt.)
Zachary Warner (now 12) does indeed have serious physical infirmities, but how he came by them is far more of a story than the Internet fiction lets on. He was a perfectly healthy infant, not a Down Syndrome child. When he was four months old, his father dropped him, and in the blink of an eye, this previously healthy baby was suddenly clinging to life, his grip slipping fast. He suffered severe brain damage, and both of his retinas were ruptured. At the time, few thought Zachary would live, and fewer still held out any hope he would ever see, sit up, read, walk, or talk.
Zachary's recovery has been long and arduous, but he now walks and talks. Though still legally blind, he can make out colors and shapes. No longer strictly a special-needs student, he is integrated for half-days in a regular seventh-grade class.
Kurt adopted Zachary and Jesse after his wedding to Brenda in 1997. The Warners have since added two more children to their brood: Kade in 1998, and Jada in 2001.
As for what sort of lad Zachary is and what kind of relationship he enjoys with his adoptive father, this anecdote should say it all: After the Rams victory in the NFC Championship game in 2000, 10-year-old Zachary presented Kurt with a homemade card done in Rams blue and gold. Inside, in childlike scrawl, it read: "You're as good a dad as you are a quarterback!"
Zachary's birth dad could hardly be described in similar fashion. An inability to come to terms with the injuries he'd visited upon his son led to the breakup of his marriage to Brenda. He left her when she was eight months pregnant with Jesse.
Over and above the numerous inaccuracies, the worst offence this particular e-mailed glurge is guilty of is omission. Not content with recasting the details of the Warners' lives (and the reality had the fiction beat, remember), it leaves by the wayside horrendously large chunks of a truly thrilling story of the sort one usually pays $9.00 to see at the movies:
All the heartbreak Kurt endured trying to get into the NFL, and the many setbacks he had to weather along the way. So many of our gridiron heroes go in as highly touted draft picks it's sometimes hard to realize some take a tortuous path to the pigskin paradise of the NFL. Kurt presented as a free agent to the Green Bay Packers in 1994, was signed, then cut by them that same year. In 1997 he had a tryout scheduled with the Chicago Bears which fell through when an injury sustained during his honeymoon rendered him hors de combat. (A venomous spider had bitten him on his throwing elbow.) He had to muck about in the Arena and European leagues before finally being taken on by the Rams in 1997 as their third-string quarterback. In 1999 he stepped in during the preseason in place of injured Trent Green and began almost immediately to rewrite Rams' history.
Brenda's battle to make a life for herself and her two children after her first husband deserted her. This former Marine had to return to her parents' home when she was eight months pregnant with her second child and with a brain-damaged child already in tow. She completed her nursing training during this period, getting by with the help of food stamps and student loans.
The death of Brenda's parents in Mountain View, Arkansas, in a tornado in 1996. They'd retired there just a year earlier.
Kurt's embracing of the Christian religion in 1996. (He'd been raised Catholic, but he dates his spiritual awakening to those dark days in the wake of the deaths of Brenda's parents.)
Kurt's throwing for a record 414 yards in his 23-16 Super Bowl XXXIV victory over the Tennessee Titans and being named that contest's Most Valuable Player. This new mark topped the previous record of 357 yards set by San Francisco's Joe Montana in Super Bowl XXIII and capped an astounding 4,353-yard, 41-touchdown regular season that won him league MVP honors.
As you can see, falling in love with and then marrying a gal who had two children, one of them a special needs child, was just part of this most remarkable story.
In Super Bowl XXXVI, Kurt Warner will again lead the St. Louis Rams in their quest for another victory, and perhaps on that day yet another chapter of triumph will be written in this man's life. But win or lose, Warner is already the stuff of legends. Deservedly.
Barbara "it's a warner-ful life" Mikkelson
Last updated: 29 January 2002
The URL for this page is http://www.snopes.com/glurge/warner.htm Click here to e-mail this page to a friend
Uh oh. Watch out for incoming.....
I bet that's his "good luck" stubble. Serious athletes can be a superstitious lot.
Tom Brady, quarterback for the Patriots, is a solid guy as well. He is only in his second year (first as a starter) and he has yet to get rattled. He is always upbeat and positive and it reflects on those around him. Drew Bledsoe is a good guy as well and he has responded to his job being taken away form him with as much dignity and class as can be expected. Bledsoe was on the sidelines most of the season coaching Brady and giving him encouragement even though Brady's success was making it increasingly unlikely that Bledsoe woudl get his starting job back again.
It's a shame that one of these two teams have to lose Sunday. I hope it's the Rams only because they've got their Super Bowl ring already and the Pats are 0-2 in Super Bowls so far. Plus the Patriots have had one hell of a season.
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Thanks for pointing out the inaccuracies. I saw Kurt Warner and his family at Disney World two summers ago. Warner was the grand marshall of the parade that day. His son looked perfectly normal and happy...I didn't even know that he had any kind of problem.
Oh, please. The real story is good enough to stand on it's own. There's no need to embellish it. If an embellished story is just as good as a true story, let me go dig up that story about Al and Tipper Gore being the inspiration for Love Story... or was that Love Canal?
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