Greg Pearce loves to show off his motorcycle helmet with pink stripes, a gift from the Road Maggots in Lebanon when they participated in fulfilling a bucket list wish for him.
Pearce, a Navy veteran and resident at the Edward C. Allworth Veterans’ Home, shared with Kelly Odegaard, administrator of the home, that he’d always wanted to ride on a motorcycle. That conversation kicked off the idea for staff to help fulfill bucket lists for the residents.
BETTY PARRISH gets a long-desired helicopter ride, thanks to efforts by the Edward C. Allworth Veterans’ Home staff, who arranged the event.
While serving as a hospital corpsman in Vietnam, Pearce was shot and was ultimately medically retired due to being paralyzed. He was 19.
After that, he never thought much about riding a motorcycle until he watched a documentary about a wheelchair user who drove a motorcycle to Sturgis, Pearce said.
So Odegaard asked Megan Eddy, recreation director, how they could make that happen.
“When I first got hired on, [Odegaard] told me there was nothing we can’t do,” Eddy said. “We can do it all for our veterans.”
It took several months to find a sidecar suitable for Pearce to sit in, but it was well worth the effort.
“It was an excellent drive and I had a great time,” Pearce said.
During this same time, fellow veteran Betty Parrish had also been sharing her dream.
“Betty, in Alpha, moved in and was very boisterous about wanting to fly in a helicopter,” Eddy said. “So the two kind of happened at the same time.”
Parrish, who served in the Army for almost three years, said she’d flown in Army and passenger planes, but never a helicopter.
“I always thought that would be so fun, and I finally got a chance,” she said.
She was flown north to Tillamook and was impressed she could see the town. In regular planes, you can only see clouds, she said.
Eddy attributes much of the progress made on the bucket lists to Ryan Newby, an administrator-in-training at the home. A veteran himself, Newby is a motorcyclist and he also had a friend who flew a helicopter.
“So right away, when Ryan came on board he had these connections, and we talked about these needs for the two veterans expressing their interests in doing a bucket list item, and we made it happen,” Eddy said.
Since then, a few groups have come forward expressing their desire to sponsor bucket list items, she said. Eddy is encouraging her staff to find out what other bucket lists might be dwelling in the hearts of their residents.
Parrish said she’s thinking about other bucket list ideas, but Pearce already has two in mind. He wants to go on the Honor Flight, and he would also like to go back to Vietnam to see the town he helped serve while serving as a medic.