Governor meets boy’s wish

Press, 26 December 1985, Page 6

Governor meets boy’s wish

NZPA-AP Trenton A 10-year-old boy who asked his father for a skateboard was given three ways to earn it put a baby bear in his room, park an expensive foreign sports car outside, or persuade the New Jersey Governor to visit So Christopher Lackowitz went to work, and the Governor, Mr Thomas Kean, dropped by his house yesterday for tea and cookies, yielding a ?USIOO ($198) skateboard for him. “When he took the time to sit down and write that letter and pour out what he really wanted, if you had gotten that letter, I think you would have come,” said Mr Kean. “This was a very, very good letter, well-organised. He cared obviously about what he is after.”

Christopher’s father, Richard, said that he had made obtaining the skatboard difficult because he wanted his son to take some initiative. “It’s easy to get something. It’s harder to work for it”

Christopher, who received knee and elbow pads and a helmet to go with the skateboard, said that he had written to Mr .Kean because the other two options given to him by his father were too difficult “A bear was too hard. I wouldn’t know where to get a bear. A Lamborghini is too much money.”

He believed in taking chances. “If it doesn’t work out then at least I tried,” he said. The Governor met Christopher, his 13-year-old brother, his parents, and maternal grandparents. More than 30 reporters crowded into the house.