One More Play

By Dr. James M Perdue

At age sixteen, James grew-up fast when his father died. He played baseball in high school and received a college scholarship. Concerned about his mother and brothers, he hoped his athletic talent would lead to a financially successful professional baseball career. Then, one day, while playing a pick-up football game, James was seriously injured and diagnosed a quadriplegic. He asked the doctor, How bad is it? The doctor responded, Bad enough. Youll never walk again and possibly not move from the neck down.

Thankfully, God placed James within a family that didnt accept such advice. After years of hard work, fortitude, and perseverance, he was able to return to college. After completing his bachelors degree, it took him three years to land a teaching contract. Prospective employers saw the wheelchair not the applicant.

As an educator, James received teaching and coaching awards. Confident, he decided to return to college. After completing his doctoral degree in May 2011, James became a motivational speaker encouraging other people to triumph over tragedies.

He knows all of this would not have been possible without God in his life, his familys support, and his personal values the desire to succeed in life and overcome adversities.

• Language: English
• Publisher: WestBow Press
• Release date: Oct 19, 2012
• ISBN: 9781449768690

Dr. James M Perdue

James says, “After learning my family was advised to place me in a nursing home because I would never get any better, I became determined to persevere through life even though I’d become a quadriplegic. My brother Tim encouraged me to use the same determination I had for baseball and direct it toward being successful in life.” Dr. Perdue believes it is his calling to help other people overcome their challenges knowing, from his life experience, life is worth living. Dr. James M. Perdue Ed.D. lives in Gallatin, Tennessee.

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Copyright © 2012 Dr. James Perdue

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ISBN: 978-1-4497-6868-3 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-4497-6869-0 (e)

ISBN: 978-1-4497-6870-6 (hc)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2012917792

Printed in the United States of America

WestBow Press rev. date: 10/10/2012

Contents

Chapter One The Family that Perseveres

Chapter Two Invincible

Chapter Three What Am I To Do With My Life?

Chapter Four Spain, I Can’t Speak Spanish

Chapter Five Readjusting to Home Life

Chapter Six I Can’t Quit My Education Now

Chapter Seven It’s Off to Work I Go

Chapter Eight The Price of Glory is High

Chapter Nine Happy Birthday to Me

Chapter Ten I’m Going Where?

Chapter Eleven Anjouan, Here We Come

Chapter Twelve The Beginning of the End

Chapter Thirteen Good Bye, Andy

Chapter Fourteen Strike Three – You’re Not Out

Chapter Fifteen There’s No Need To Fear – Ricardo Is Here

One More Play

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Ricardo says, Thank you.

Dedication

Thank you goes to Mom and my brothers, Tim and Andy. I know I wouldn’t be where I am in life, if God hadn’t blessed me with all of you as my family. This life has been a long hard road, but you have provided me with the needed support, love, and discipline to become successful.

Acknowledgement

Thank you God for continually putting, One More Play , on my heart so I would finish. I hope the reader can take some hope and inspiration from the reading and use it to accomplish the desires of their hearts. For everybody reading, One More Play , thank you for the times you encourage others and provide hope in their lives. Remember, hope comes in many different forms.

Thanks to many people from different groups, such as Hendersonville Toastmasters, Heart to Heart Storytellers of Hendersonville, especially Bob and Jane, and Canine Companion for Independence – for continually encouraging my dream: to finish this book. Thank you for my editors and readers, Brenda, Cindy, Jane, Jessye, Kay (s), Marjorie and Shirley for finding my mistakes. You made the reading more fluent. Thank you, Dwayne for shooting the front cover and Le Print Express thank you for the author’s picture.

An enormous thanks to my friends who have supported, prayed, and loved me during my road from failure to success. Special thanks to Barbra, Beth, Heather, Pam, Rose and Tom. All of you have been there during my times of need to help support and encourage me. I appreciate your friendship and love. Dr. Case and staff, thank you for keeping me healthy throughout all these years.

Some names have been changed to protect their privacy.

Introduction

Difficulties are meant to rouse, not discourage. The human spirit is to grow strong by conflict.

William Ellery Channing

Paul Bear Bryant, who coached football at the University of Alabama, once said, It’s not the will to win that matters. Everyone has that. It’s the will to prepare to win that matters. He was born on September 11, 1913.

On September 11, 1983, Bryant’s statement took on a whole new meaning for me. While playing a pickup game of football, an ill-fated tackle left me with three dislocated vertebrae in my neck. Rendering me a quadriplegic, I was told I’d never walk again and might be paralyzed from my neck down. My family was advised to place me in a nursing home because I would be too much of a burden for them.

Unable to play sports, I began to read more. I came across Helen Keller’s life story and her words struck me: The only thing worse than being blind is having sight, but no vision. Despite her disabilities, she persevered through the challenges of life and received a degree from college. Helen Keller inspired me to look hard at myself and the vision ahead of me.

I was blessed with eyesight, academic abilities, and a nagging belief that something had called me. Lou Holtz, who coached football at several major universities, once said, I’ve never known anybody to achieve anything without overcoming adversity. I figured God must really have a big plan for me because I’ve had a lot of adversities to overcome.

Confined to a wheelchair at the age of nineteen, I was overwhelmed with the challenges of life. After years of depression, years of thinking about what I had lost, I started concentrating on what I had and could give in life. I now believe there was a purpose to my injury. I don’t understand everything, but understand everything, but I sense the big picture. Before being born, God instilled in me the desire never to quit, the determination to fight, the positive attitude to look toward another day, and the ability to succeed in life. Slowly a revelation has become apparent – My life’s purpose is to be a positive role model to all I meet. My vision is to help others survive through life’s disasters.

Not letting my disability, my personal challenge in life, define me as a person by overcoming adversities and conquering difficulties has made me a stronger individual. Being a successful educator and coach, now a motivational speaker, it is clear that people with disabilities are not limited by their challenges.

Always an athlete at heart, encouraged by admired coaches such as Coach Bryant. His philosophy is burnt in my DNA, It’s not the will to win that matters. He said, Everyone has that. It’s the will to prepare to win that matters. In May 2011, receiving a doctorate degree in education from Tennessee State University, will not only prepare me for opportunities to help people with disabilities, but will also provide a higher platform to inspire more people.

Finally, brothers and sisters, rejoice! Strive for full restoration, encourage one another, be of one mind, live in peace. And the God of love and peace will be with you.

2 Corinthians 13:11

Chapter One

The Family that Perseveres

Nothing in this world can take the place of persistence. Talent will not; nothing is more common than unsuccessful people with talent. Genius will not; unrewarded genius is almost a proverb. Education will not; the world is full of educated derelicts. Persistence and determination alone are omnipotent. The slogan press on has solved and always will solve the problems of the human race.

Calvin Coolidge

I first remember learning what the words persistence, perseverance, determination, desire, and hard work really meant at eight years old. Not by looking up the words in the dictionary, but by watching six members of my family demonstrate the meaning of the terms. These two men and four women were not only successful in their careers but also in life. My grandfather Jimmy, better known as Pappy, and my father George… worked hard their whole lives to provide for their families and set good examples, being men with strong character. Their lives were short lived because of the hard work they accomplished, providing for their loved ones.

The four women who influenced me were my great-great grandmother, Delia Halter; my great grandmother, Glen Short; my grandmother, Rebecca; and my mother, Kate. These women taught me how to love, care, help others in need, and never give up under any circumstances in life.

All six of these heroes were responsible for developing three young impressionable boys: my older brother, Tim (nicknamed Bear), my younger brother, Andy, and me, the middle child, into the men we became.

My great-great grandmother, Delia Halter, died a year before I was born, but I heard stories about what a hard worker she was. She helped labor the farm back in the late 1880’s and 1890’s. When times were hard, her children had to push the plow, leaving just ninety pound Granny to be the mule to pull the plow. She is the earliest example found to show how hard working and determined my blood lines go. She made sure that her family would survive even if she had to be the mule.

My great grandmother, Glen Short, got married at the age of fifteen. Her husband left her and their three children, leaving Glen to keep the rest of the family together and make sure they survived. Glen had a job at the phone company in Portland for thirty-five years. She started out working on the switchboard, saying, Number, please. My mother couldn’t wait for the weekends because she would help Glen on the switchboard and sometimes have fun listening in on others’ conversations. When the dial tone came into service, Glen worked in a little office where the people of Portland could pay their bills. In time, Glen was promoted to a supervisor.

When the phone company started mailing bills to their customers, Glen started working with her son-in-law in the dry cleaners. He would pick up clothes on Tuesday for cleaning, and Thursday he delivered the clothes to the owners. Glen would use an old wringer washer to clean the clothes and starch them. She then hung the clothes on a line to dry, and the next day she ironed them. She laundered until retirement. Glen died in 1988, just short of her ninety-fifth birthday.

My grandmother, Rebecca Short Dorris, was Glen Short’s daughter. She was born in 1915, and we called her Nanny. Nanny played basketball for Portland High School. After high school she was employed by a doctor in Portland until she married my grandfather, Jimmy. She then worked with him at the dry cleaners until she had two children. She was a stay-at-home mom, raising the children and being a wife until the age of fifty-two. Then she decided to go to nursing school and became a nurse. She worked for the hospital for the next fifteen or so years. Nanny died in 2001 just short of her eighty-seventh birthday. The women in my blood line are great examples of determined women who never gave up.

My grandfather, Pappy, was born in 1909 to John C. Dorris, forty-five, and Gertrude Smith Dorris, thirty. The couple had eight children with Pappy being the fourth child. In the tenth grade, my grandfather quit school to go to work so he could help raise his younger siblings. He moved to Indiana to work in a factory and sent part of his income home to help provide for the family.

In 1935, Pappy moved back to Tennessee to start his own dry cleaning business. Three years later he married my grandmother. After World War II, he and two of his brothers became partners. They owned two laundry businesses and sold out in the early seventies. Pappy would come to our house early in the morning in the summer, when school was out. He was growing a garden in the backyard. When I finally got up out of bed, Pappy was already working the garden – tilling, pulling weeds, spraying pesticide to keep the insects away from the plants or placing stakes to support the tomatoes, running lines for the bean plants to grow on, and building mounds for the watermelons. We had rows of corn, beans, peppers, potatoes, tomatoes, watermelons, cantaloupes, and eggplants. When it was time to pick the garden, Mom would can most of the food so we would have some for the winter months. Even in my younger age, I learned to do my part in the garden to earn my food. In 1976, when I was twelve, Pappy had a massive heart attack and stroke. He had worked the garden about half way through the season when he got sick, my mom, my brothers and I finished the season. That was the last garden we planted. Pappy died in 1983, after seven years of being in a nursing home. He was a Lions Club member in its founding year of 1937 and was active in the production of the club’s annual Minstrel Show. While in the nursing home, he received recognition as a lifetime member to the Lions Club.

My dad, George, was my stepfather. No. He was my father, maybe not biologically, but he was the father who taught me about life. He was the one who busted my butt when needed, and he was the one that loved me when I needed it the most. Dad moved to Tennessee from Philadelphia in the sixties. His mother and father were divorced, and he lived with his mother until the age of fifteen. She got mad at him and kicked him out of the house. Dad and his father weren’t on good terms either. Dad lived in his car at night, tried to go to school during the day, and worked in a garage after school so he could buy food and whatnots to survive. He quit school at the age of sixteen and became a mechanic full time. When he turned eighteen, he joined the military. When Mom and George met, he was a mechanic for the school system working on buses. They got married in 1970, when I was six years old.

A few years later, I asked Dad about a huge scar on his left leg. At the age of twelve while riding a bicycle he got hit by a bus. The kickstand went through his leg. He showed me a scar on his lower back from the incident as well. The doctors told Dad that he wouldn’t be able to walk normally the rest of his life. He was bedridden for a year from his injuries and after extensive, sometimes grueling physical therapy, the wounds healed, and he was able to walk without a limp. Dad’s determination to work hard and persevere through the