So many incredible stories happened Thursday with Julie Moss at Kona Stories Book Store. One expects fans to show up and want autographs and photos with this Ironman star but the stories that happened Thursday surprised and thrilled me.
I own a bookstore, I am not an athlete nor aspire to be! I have a faithful boarder collie who gets me out of bed everyday for a long walk but that’s it. She is my only motivator to exercise. I do host lots of authors and enjoy hearing their stories. When Julie Moss reached out to do a book signing at Kona Stories, I had to look her up to see who she was. I know, not politically correct in this town which hosts the Ironman triathlon every year, but seriously 1982 — I was still in high school.
Julie Moss needs no introduction to most people. She literally crawled across the finish line in 1982 and put Kona’s Ironman on the map. Most people light up right away at the sound of her name because of her inspirational story. I got to see why!
Thursday, she got to meet the lady whose high-school-age daughter held back the crowds so they would not help her up and thus disqualify her from the race. She met the lady who, now in her 80s, is still a volunteer for Ironman and was at the last station to cheer her on before she collapsed, encouraging her to continue and not give up.
The announcer from that day came to hug her and share his memories of her on that day. A first time Ironman competitor this year came to meet her from Sri Lanka. As a child he only had one American TV station, which was ABC Wide World of Sports. He recalled watching her finish that race and vowed that one day he would race. This is his year.
These stories went on and on all afternoon, with one chicken-skin tale after another. But there was the moment — the moment when Julie Moss met Carol Hogan for the first time. Carol was the photographer who took the famous crawl photo of Julie used by press around the world. They had never met. Thursday, Carol found her way to Kona Stories to hug the woman who crawled across the finish line creating Ironman history 36 years ago.
Brenda McConnell is the co-owner of Kona Stories Book Store.