Handicap Goes Unnoticed When Standing on a Galloping Horse

Warren F. Berke, 27, of La Habra spends much of his time lifting weights and lifting people on his shoulders and that’s not bad considering he’s afflicted with cerebral palsy. Even more amazing, his people-lifting is performed on a horse.

“The first time I tried it I fell in love with it,” said Berke, referring to the little known sport of vaulting--gymnastic maneuvers that are performed on a moving horse. “When I first started I couldn’t even stand on the horse.”

Berke and 10 others are member of the Valley View Vaulting Team based at Hidden Valley Ranch in Brea, one of about 15 teams in Southern California that compete against one another to score the highest in compulsory maneuvers.

In competition, Berke is first astride the team’s appaloosa horse while others take turns with him in the saddle or stand on his shoulders, sometimes doing a flip in the air.

“All these compulsory maneuvers can be very graceful if done right,” said instructor Rick Hawthorne, who notes that all performers are required to master six compulsory maneuvers called riding seat, flag, mill, stand, scissors and full flank.

“I sometimes have had trouble controlling my muscles,” Berke said, “and vaulting helps me strengthen and straighten them. I know a 13-year-old girl who had more problems than me and vaulting really helped her with her coordination.”

Although he and another handicapped person are two of the team members, they compete against non-afflicted squads and Hawthorne, himself handicapped with only one arm, feels the handicapped should work with the non-handicapped.

“There should be no wall between them,” he said.

Berke, who has two brothers also afflicted with cerebral palsy, went to a special education elementary school and a regular high school. He now attends night classes at Cypress College. He has worked the past seven years in the housekeeping department at La Habra Community Hospital.

At first, Berke said he was surprised that he could compete in vaulting “but now that I do, I want others like me to see what can be done. It not only strengthens my body but helps me to have better balance.”

Besides team competition every six weeks, the Brea group performs in parades and other outdoor events.

First of all, the fictional Man in the Moon, the old character in children’s stories, is a real person in stories today because of space accomplishments. And that tells how times have changed, according to Fullerton City Librarian Carolyn Johnson, who once was the children’s librarian and told quaint yarns in library story hours which started 60 years ago in the city’s first library. And while such characters as “Rumpelstiltskin” and stories such as “The Little Rabbit Who Wanted Red Wings” are still big favorites in which good always triumph over evil, changes in the story hour were necessary to accommodate children of today’s working parents.

“We now hold story hours during the week because working parents are busy on weekends,” Johnson said, pointing out that even the name “Story Hour” has been changed to “After School Club” to reflect the afternoon storytelling times which continue to attract capacity crowds of children.

But while children are still enthralled with the “good-ending” stories, she said, “We have some parents who object to some fairy tales such as Jack and the Beanstalk, which they say has too much violence.”

Johnson feels, however, that “Children should have a good start in life knowing the good guys win. All the old hero tales and even today’s movies show that.”

To celebrate 60 years of the delightful pastime in Fullerton, the library is holding an exhibit of books used in the first year and are telling the same stories that captivated children in 1925.

“Back then, all the stories had good endings,” said Johnson, “and the children love it.”

After a few minutes of disappointment for not winning a bigger prize in the lottery spin, Anaheim resident Barbara T. Martin, 28, had this thought: “I had a wonderful time and $10,000 is a great Christmas present.”

Acknowledgments--Chris Sybiak, 39, teacher in an Anaheim child care center, presented with 1985 Golden Poet Award from World of Poetry, a Sacramento poetry publication.