from the cover Kathy then trained as an optician, a field that would allow her to get work wherever Jim was stationed. She suspended her career to care for their autistic son, James Jarvis, called J.J. Schools were just starting to grapple with special needs, so Kathy became an advocate for J.J. and other children with autism. She traveled to North Carolina to learn about and share teaching techniques and co-founded the Chenango County Autism Society. Logging sports remained a constant in their lives. After Marty retired, they switched to assistant coaching for the SUNY Morrisville team. The school is closer to their home in Oxford, about 30 miles northeast of Binghamton. Back where they started Kathy and Jim continue to maintain their connections with FLCC alumni and attended the 50th anniversary celebration of the logging sports team in April 2024. By then, they had signed up for the Africa trip that left such an impression. An encounter with a rhino left them breathless. The driver of their open truck had told them to keep an eye out as the animals could be anywhere. “If you see something, you shout out,” Jim explains. “So I said, ‘Hey … I saw something grayish.’ … The driver backs up and says, ‘Oh, that’s a rhino.’ So he goes off the road –” “– he’s driving over little trees,” Kathy adds. The driver stopped a short distance from the hulking beast so they could observe. “He said, ‘This hardly ever happens. Usually you can’t get up to them this close. So we’ll just sit here quietly and watch,’” Jim says. “So it’s there, and all of a sudden, it sees us.” “It tips its head sideways a couple times and it trots right over,” Kathy adds. “It’s horn is this far from the side of the vehicle,” Jim says. He raises both hands, holding them just over a foot apart. “He’s not exaggerating,” Kathy confirms. “The girl who was sitting at that canvas door, she was scared out of her mind. Finally, it just rumbled off,” Jim finishes, still astonished as he tells it. A formidable black rhino The travel course faculty and students, posing with their four guides.
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