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Show PAGE 10 B DoiluSHerald MONDAY,JUNE 22, 2009 EDITOR | Elyssa Andrus - (801) 344-2553 - eandrus@heraldextra.com CaroleLynchvia Orange County Register Ten-year-old Colby Curtin, diagnosedin 2005 with vascular cancer, desperately wanted to see“Up” but was too sickto go. (rirl gets dying wish to see ‘Up’ HUNTINGTON BEACH, Calif Colby Curtin got her final wish The10-year-old girl desperately wanted to see the new Disney Pixar movie, “Up.” But the cancer stricken girl wastoo sick to go to a theater Thanks to a family friend who got in touch withthe movie studio Pixar, an employeeof the Em eryville-based companyarrived at Colby’s home with a DVD copy of the movie, The Orange County Register reported Friday. The girl died later that night Colby's mother, Lisa, said she had asked her daughterif she could hang onuntil the movie ar rived “I'm ready (to die), but I'm go- ing to wait for the movie,” she said her daughter replied Up” is the animated tale of a grumpy old man who, after his wife's death, tries to fulfill their joint dreamofvisiting South America by tying thousands of balloonsto his house and floating away ‘When | watched it, I had re ally no idea aboutthe content of thetheme of the movie,” Colby's mothertold the Register. “I just know that word ‘Up’ and all of the balloons and I swear to you, for meit meant that (Colby) was going to go up. Up to heaven Colby, who was diagnosed with vascular cancer in 2005, sa pre views for the film in April It was from then on, she said, Thave tc cool,'" said family friend Carole Lynch. But the girl's deteriorate. health began tc On June 4, Curtin asked a hospice company to bring a wheelchair so that her daughter could go to a movie theater but the chair w not delivered over the weekend, Curtin aid By June9, Colby to go anywhere Another family friend, Terrell Orum, called both Pixar and Di ney, which owns the animation studio. The message was received by Pixar officials, who agreed t send someone to ( house the next day with a copy of for aprivate screening, Orurr “Up’ said. The employee arrived with the DVD, stuffed animals of charac ters and other movie memorabilia Colby was unable to open her eyes to see the movie so her moth er described the scenes. When her mother asked if she enjoyed it, the girl nodded, Curtin said The Pixar employee left after the movie, taking the DVD, whict ed. Lynch, whe h the family during the screening, said the employee's eyes were just welled up. A call to Pixar seeking com ment was not immediately re turned Friday Colby, withher sarents nea! diedlater that night Her mother said one of the memorabilialeft by the Pixar em ployee was an “adventure book Rachel Abramowitz here's a photo or the jacket of Nor manOllestad’s memoir, “Crazy for theStorm: A Mem oir of Survival,” that could make aparent weep. In it, a man is surfing in the ocean. On his back in a canvas papoose is a baby blond, happy oblivious to the dan er of a stray sudden paternal miscal. The babyis Ollestad, and the man is his father, also named Nor man, @ onetime FBI agent turned lawyer who devoted himself to t his only son in extreme sports. The younger ( Mestad skied at 3 whipped dow fifficult black <dia mond slopes at and surfed mam moth tube waves in elementary school. No pry ical fear or men tal fear was left unchallenged Good thing. When he was 11 mountains, 8,500 feet up. Ollestad’s father and the pilot died on impact in the middle of her h forehead anda dislocated arm Determined t alive. young 30 years later. It was as if he were levitating over his ownbody, he says, as if he were watching the wholething fromoutside. “Now| was a father,” Ollestad says, “I hadalot better under standing of what mydad’s point of There we were,” he remembers of himself and Sandra, “huddled view was. He had memories, crisp memo- under the wing of the plane.” At some point instinct kickedin. “I ries, but they werecolliding snap- shots. He talked extensivelyto his therapist about thecrash, began moved around the mountain like an animal. It was wolfish. Now 41, Ollestadis deceptively reading newspaper accounts and watched the footage of his Ll-year: old self being interviewed by Walter Cronkite after his miraculous small, with the massivetorso of a much larger man. He haspen: etrating blue eyes and a deep, journey commanding voice. He's having lunchat the Reel Inn on the Pacific Coast Highway, across thestreet from the Topanga beach where he grew up ‘Crazy for the Storm” has been officially out since June2, but even before publicationit was named Bros. for adaptationinto a feature film. The book alternates between a detailed account of the plane crash and Ollestad's story ofhis parents’ busted marriage Of particular interest is his char ismatic, adrenalinejunkie father. whom the author describes as a somewhat methodical, somewhat Norman half-carried, half prodded reckless “enchanter,” devotedly her down the mountain until she fell into an icy chute and tumb thousands of feet to her death leaving a blondy smear Afterward, he climbedthe, rest of way down an almost vertical stone gulch by his fingertips and until one day he was driving his ‘ownson, now 8, up to Mammoth Mountain toski, and Noah began asking about the plane crash so third person,” Ollestad recalls book program and sold to Warner withhis dad and two others when their tiny Cessnacrashedin the directed industrial films and wrote aself-published novel. He'd never given much thought to a memoir I was very focused. | was aware that | could be afraid, that I could be freaked, but it was just thelatest selection in Starbucks's Ollestad was flying to Big Bear His father's girlfriend, Sandra survived the accident, with a Here, he workedonscripts, later slalomed on his Vans sneak ers usingtree branchesas poles driving his son to early-morning hockey practices and faraway ski tournaments but also dragging him along to Mexico, where they woundup strandedin the jungle without food or money after flee- ing bribe-seeking federales wield ing guns Saying no wasn't an option for young Norman. 1 was scareda lot ofthetime, hesays of childhood with his dad. “That's the whole point. He showedmethat being afraidis OK. You can either dance with it or you can run from it. In life it’s better to dance with it, because even if youlive a sheltered life, it's going to find you. I'm still scared Eventually he hiked back up the mountain twice. “I have a very geographical memory,” he says Tt was amazing how the trees and some of the terrain brought back another level of stuff The smooth rock funnel down which Sandra fell wasstill there. He flew the doomed plane's route again, with a friend, and combed the transcripts of conversations betweenthepilot andair traffic Mediately # turns into, ‘Oh man, if control In the year after thecrash, Ollestad was afraid of the dark. feel so good.’ It goes right into the pleasureI could have, the thrill. It gets converted ity that might creep into his life. Althoughthat passed, the pain lin geredfor a long time whena big wave pops up, but im 1 make that drop in, I'm going to Otlestad attended the University of California, Los Angeles, and thefilm school there; then spent much of his 20s ski-burnming, surf. ing and traveling solo around the world. He finally settled back in the Los Angeles areain his 30s shut down. allergic to any negativ Even though my daddidn't purposely leave me or abandon me, the practicality is that he did. Ollestadsays. “Life can change on a dime that's in my conscious. ness in a way that it might not be in other people's.” based on a scrapbook that. in the mov ie, is kept by the wife of the main character TT have te fill those adven- tures in for her of her daughter Norman Ollestad, 41, is the author of 4 Memoir of Survival by RINGO H.W. CHU |