Tom Casey-my great friend who taught me how to scoop!

A few years ago I made some great friendships that I will forever cherish. Four individuals were riding their bicycles across the country and were calling themselves the Friends for Phinney. It was an awareness and fundraising campaign to benefit the Davis Phinney Foundation. They were Tom Casey, Rick Baker, Kevin Cartin and his wife Kathleen Donahue. They had a website and it encouraged people to come out and ride with them. They were starting in Oceanside CA going to New York City. I thought it would be fun to meet up with them and ride. I contacted them and we made arrangements to meet in Durango, CO. We were going to Colorado to ride in the Copper Triangle, and Durango was an enroute place we could easily meet up.

We met up there and I planned to ride with them for one day. It happened to be the day they would be riding over Wolf Creek Pass. We started in Durango and finished in Del Norte, about a 109 mile ride. That day was an exhilarating and challenging day. All of them were so good to me and kind. It was so easy to be friends with them. Tom’s brother Mike Casey, was the support driver that day, and he too was especially helpful as he encouraged me so much up that high elevation mountain pass.

My family had left later than me and met up with us as we were reaching the summit. What a great sight it was to see them and be with them as I accomplished this challenge.

We finished in Del Norte that evening and had dinner with them and my family got to meet my new friends. We went on our way to Copper Mountain while they stayed the night and would ride the next day into Copper Mountain. I was able to drive out to meet them along the route and cheer them on.

When they got into Copper Mountain it is there that I met Tom’s wife Amy. If I remember right we were sitting around visiting having a great time getting to know each other, and “the Scoop” was brought up and Tom and Amy proceeded to teach me about the scoop. It is a combination of stretching while expressing affirmations of gratitude. Tom had learned it from a young man he had met one day while making a work stop.

Here’s how  you do it:

  1. Identify 3 things that you are going to scoop for
  2. Bend y0ur knees, get ready to squat down low and raise your arms up high above y0ur head
  3. While doing a scooping motion down towards the ground and squatting down scoop up the first thing you are grateful for or an affirmation of what you intend to do
  4. repeat for 3 scoops
  5. On the final scoop after you have scooped it up, pretend you are shooting a bow and arrow and release the arrow up to heaven with a shwoosoing noise and send the arrow up to heaven where all the blessings come from!

I have since taught the scoop to many people and encourage them to pass it on.

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