Seven Wheelchairs: A Life beyond Polio

241 Pages·2008·1.33 MB·English

by  Gary Presley

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Seven Wheelchairs

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W H E E L C H A I R S
A Life beyond Polio Gary Presley
universit y of iowa press, iowa cit y
University of Iowa Press, Iowa City 52242
Copyright © 2008 by the University of Iowa Press
www.uiowapress.org
Printed in the United States of America
Text design by Omega Clay
No part of this book may be reproduced or used in any form or by any
means without permission in writing from the publisher. All reasonable
steps have been taken to contact copyright holders of material used in
this book. The publisher would be pleased to make suitable arrange-
ments with any whom it has not been possible to reach.
The University of Iowa Press is a member of Green Press Initiative and is
committed to preserving natural resources.
Printed on acid-free paper
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Presley, Gary.
Seven wheelchairs: a life beyond polio / by Gary Presley.
p. cm.
isbn-13: 978-1-58729-693-2 (clothbound)
isbn-10: 1-58729-693-4 (clothbound)
1. Presley, Gary—Health. 2. Poliomyelitis—Patients—United
States—Biography. 3. People with disabilities—United States—
Biography. I. Title.
rc181.u5p74 2008
362.196'8350092—dc22 2008010014
[b]
08 09 10 11 12 c 5 4 3 2 1
Title page photo copyright Kenneth C. Zirkel
To Belinda,
friend, lover, life-giver, and soul-mate
Jon,
brother and friend
Verdie B. and Erlyne Pope Presley,
with love and honor

Acknowledgments
This memoir began as an essay, a fi rst-person piece about the days,
weeks, months—time that still remains imprecisely measured for
me—I spent in an iron lung, that antiquated device at once so fear-
some and so necessary, meant to keep alive people with respiratory
insuffi ciency.
I wrote the essay because one of my writer heroes is Richard Selzer.
I wrote it in imitation of his essays about his work as a physician.
I was then a member of an online writing critique group, the Inter-
net Writing Workshop. I posted the essay there for other members to
critique.
“You need to write a book,” was a common response. And so I did,
banging out twenty or thirty thousand words during a week at a cabin
my wife, Belinda, built near the little town of Shell Knob on the shores
of Table Rock Lake in southern Missouri’s Ozark Mountains.
Initially, this book was a series of linked essays, all attempting to
answer the questions people really want to ask after they discover I’ve
used a wheelchair for nearly fi fty years. Many of those short works
were critiqued by the IWW’s nonfi ction group, and to its members I
owe sincere appreciation. Their kind words of support and thought-
ful suggestions have made this memoir a real thing, a living story, a
meaningful history of one life.
As I gained confi dence, many people whom I respect suggested the
book would work better as a narrative. I turned to Jeannette Cezanne
of Customline Wordware, who helped me discover that, yes, there was
a sequential narrative story to be found by reframing the essays.
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Others supported me in less material but no less helpful ways. I
owe signifi cant thanks to Grace Skibicki and Kathleen Purcell, both
of whom have read and reread the manuscript in its many forms, al-
ways responding with keen and knowledgeable comments. They have
been accurate in their criticism and ever-patient with my demands. My
friends Grace and Kathleen are accomplished writers and long-time
administrators of the Internet Writing Workshop, where they have
dedicated innumerable volunteer hours to managing the cooperative
that serves so many so well.
Other members of the IWW deserve recognition for consistently
challenging me, never letting me decide to skip another rewrite or be-
lieve that I am not compelled to tell all the truths I can discover. I will
mention Paul Pekin, Peggy Vincent, Sarah Morgan, Diane Diekman,
Rich Maffeo, Barbara Mullins, Dawn Goldsmith, Mona Vanek, Ross
Eldridge, Karna Converse, Bob Sanchez, Carter Jefferson, and Ruth
Douillette among countless others with whom I’ve interacted person-
ally over the decade I have been a member and administrator of the
IWW. I am grateful for every gesture of support and friendship from
those named, and from others not listed here.
A rare few of us succeed without support of family. Matthew and
Christopher Baldwin, my stepsons, have been patient when writing
pulls me away. My brother, Jon, and his wife, Linda, whom I cherish
more as a sister than a sister-in-law, along with their daughter Karin
and son James, also have cheerfully supported my efforts. My wife’s
family—her dear mother Joyce DeCamp, her sister Roxane Hill, and
her father and his wife, Michael and Nancy Livery—have encouraged
me by laughing in the right places after reading some of my comic
essays.
But it is my wife, Belinda, who reads what I write with her heart, and,
when my words touch that dear place, I know I have found the right
words. Any success I have as a writer has been inspired by Belinda.
To fi nd a publisher is a diffi cult enterprise, one that began for me
by mailing query letters, proposals, and sample chapters to agent af-
ter agent. It was only after I began querying independent presses and
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university presses did I discover the fi ne work accomplished by the
University of Iowa Press. I found the editor-in-chief’s name through
the Internet and shipped a query and two chapters of this memoir to
her. I mailed the package on Thursday, and the following Tuesday I
received an e-mail from the editor, Holly Carver, asking for the com-
plete manuscript.
It is to Holly Carver, who has been a virtual well of enthusiastic
support, that I owe unending gratitude. That my saga is now printed
within the covers of a book—that you hold in your hands a story that
shows that a life disabled is a life worth living, worth celebrating—is
Holly’s achievement as much as it is mine. To Holly, to acquisitions
editor Joseph Parsons, and managing editor Charlotte Wright, I of-
fer thanks beyond my ability to express in words. I also thank Lisa
Raffensperger for her intelligent copy-edits; and any errors that re-
main are mine.
This book is a memoir, a hard-earned narrative, about a seventeen-
year-old boy on the cusp of manhood, sat down to live out the remain-
der of his life using a wheelchair. Names have been changed, at least
a good number of them. I prefer not to embarrass people who cannot
speak for themselves. If people read lines that are less than fl attering
and believe the words were written with animosity and intention to in-
jure, I say that is not so. All that has happened to me—whether I then
perceived it for good or ill—gave me the power and insight to write
this book and the intent to remember Mark Twain’s words: “Kindness
is a language which the deaf can hear and the blind can see.”
I also beg indulgence from good friends like Father Allan Saun-
ders, Richard and Eileen Henderson, and others who are identifi ed by
name.
Of course, the conversations you will read are re-created. They are
the words that fl owered in my memory as I wrote my story. The inci-
dents and anecdotes—and the memories—are as true as I know how
to make them.
I do believe in Truth—that the Infi nite One’s creation seeks its or-
dained end—but I believe each of us lives within our separate truths.
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