“If you’re worried about how you look, you are cheating yourself out of opportunities,” said Chris Koch, the keynote speaker at the 50th annual Farmer Appreciation dinner. The dinner was held at Affinity Place this year due to an overwhelming increase in demand for tickets.
Koch, who was born with stumps for arms and one leg, (about one foot in length), told his audience of about 550, that “growing up was easy for me, because I didn’t know what it was like to have arms and legs.”
His shortened stature has not decreased his sense of well-being or sense of humour, and, in fact, he states, “I have set the bar quite high for myself.”
The personable farm worker who spends a good deal of time travelling and delivering motivational messages, said, “you don’t have to walk on eggshells around me.”
The humour was evident throughout his address as he related stories of tricking taxi drivers, or explaining to youngsters on Halloween that his “costume” wasn’t really a trick outfit or the challenge he was presented with for swimming with sharks. As he noted, “what the heck did I have to lose?”
As a youngster, Koch said he was outfitted with prosthetic arms and legs, but found them too hefty and clumsy.
“You know how you feel at the end of a working day, taking off your work boots and what a relief it is? Well, that’s how I felt when I removed my prosthetic legs.”
It’s all about balance, he said. Balance physically as well as in life’s pursuits. In fact, he said with a chuckle, he wondered how “you guys keep your balance with all those arms and legs sticking out.”
Smaller objects like cellphones are no challenge, as he demonstrated, using his one stubby half-thumb as a gripping tool. “But my selfies are awful,” he joked.
Texting and other phone manipulations are rather easy.
Koch’s speech was interspersed with video clips of his appearance on Oprah Winfrey’s OWN television network as well as bits from documentaries filmed of him as a child and his current work as a farm hand manipulating complex seeding and harvesting equipment.
Farming is a passion for him, he stated, noting he always takes a time out from his travel schedules to accommodate seeding and harvests. Taking a stroll in a stubble field can be painful though, he explained with another laugh. He hops along on his one short leg and explained, “it’s about a foot in length. The normal stubble field is a foot and a half. You do the math. It can be painful.”
Working on farm equipment without appendages, draws a lot of interest, not only in the farm community, but among the casual observers too and those who don’t know the back story he said, “kind of wonder why they’ve put me back on the lawn mower when obviously it didn’t go very well the first time.” That led to another round of laughter from the appreciative audience.
Video clips of Koch snowboarding and surfing were displayed on the overhead screens at Affinity Place, but, he admitted, life vests are used in the water. “I swim like a bowling ball,” he said. “But if I can, you can do anything too. As long as your spirit is strong.”
His adventures have taken him to several countries where he has enjoyed mingling with children and adults with photos taken of him riding his long board with a couple of youngsters piled on top and a few more pushing them along.
In England, he said, “people kept trying to give me money,” thinking he was heading out to do some panhandling or some such thing. He kept refusing the proffered donations until one day he decided to go along with it as a social experiment. He ended up with about $400 at the end of the one-day non-begging adventure.
He met the challenge of scaling he CN Tower in under an hour and each of the steps in the Calgary tower in 97 minutes.
“I’ve always been around agriculture and my mother and father are my heroes, along with Chris Chatterton (the spokesman for the War Amps, now deceased)” he told the Mercury in a brief interview prior to the event. “They never favoured me or coddled me, so I grew up in a very normal fashion. I find it a nice break to get on a tractor and recharge my batteries.”
Koch, who worked on a Torquay area farm last fall, will be returning again this year for seeding in April or May.
“I’m all ears for any other challenge. I would like skydiving, but I understand I would need a specially built harness.”
“Possibilities are endless, enjoy them,” he told his audience.
Due to the additional interest and sponsorship for this year’s dinner, Farmer Appreciation Day chairman Alf Tide announced that this year’s event will show a profit, which will be turned into a scholarship for a local student(s) pursuing a post-secondary education in the field of agriculture. He said that decision was made by the committee as they realized that the event that was usually operated on a break-even basis, was going to exceed expectations this time around.
