Wonderful story Glenn. Thanks for sharing it.
Tim
http://thequadlink.com
--- On Mon, 7/27/09, gah17...@aol.com <gah17...@aol.com> wrote:
From: gah17...@aol.com <gah17...@aol.com>
Subject: Re: [QUAD-L] July 10
To: daa...@aol.com
Cc: quad-list@eskimo.com
Date: Monday, July 27, 2009, 9:56 AM
I am finally doing it! I am finally answering my e-mails from my posting of my
spinal cord injury July 10.
I find that I can not pronounce a simple word, "no." I got myself into a few
time-consuming projects and I said to myself today, "self, answer your e-mails
before everyone thinks you died and went to heaven."
Okay, a few of you ask for some history.
I live on the banks of the Susquehanna River and spent a lot of my time
fishing, hunting and swimming in the river. The weather prior to July 10, 1966
was very hot and we had a storm on Thursday. My mother did not feel safe with
me boating in the river as it was possible to hit a submerged log or other
debris. Instead she said that we could go to the local public pool, a safe
choice. That was a decision that she had to live with for the rest of her life.
Someone jumped on my back as I was swimming, the lifeguard's girlfriend who was
sitting on the lifeguard stand because her boyfriend went home. She was
as qualified as my dog.
Two teenagers that just completed a Red Cross course pulled me out. I was not
breathing and for all intents and purposes, dead.
They rolled me around on the concrete, beat the back of my neck to clear my
airway, my partial denture dislodged and I started to breathe.
Fast-forward to 1969, I had spent the last 2 1/2 years in a state hospital for
crippled children. Due to the fact we could not prove what happened at the
pool, we received $7,500 settlement and my hospital bill was paid. Of course
there was no charge for the state institution that I was a resident for 2 1/2
years.
In the 1960s there was no regiment of treatment for spinal cord injury. The
only thing positive that came out of the Vietnam War was that the government
put gobs of money into the paralyzed vets.
My parents finally had enough of their bull and sign me out of the hospital
December 1969. The charge nurse took my father aside, told him to take me
home, buying me a television, and wait for me to die.
She is now dead, I have gone through 12 or more televisions, and I'm not
finished yet. Do I buy a 32 inch, 37 inch, or 42 inch flat screen TV? My, my,
I hate to make such big decisions.
Soon after I came home I started selling homemade fishing lures from my parents
garage. I expanded somewhat into other fishing and hunting equipment. In
ninth grade, one year before my injury, I took electronics 101 and loved it. I
got caught up in the CB radio craze, started tinkering and soon knew what I
wanted to do. I tried to get a grant from vocational rehabilitation for a home
correspondence course, but no go. Their opinion was I could not physically
work on equipment. I took the money that I made selling hunting and fishing
equipment along with money people would send me in cards and started to take a
home correspondence course. After I was three quarters of the way through it,
they realized I was serious.
In 1973 I received my associate degree in electronics. The CB radio craze was
still escalating and I took over my parents garage and devoted it entirely to
CB radios. I hired a part time student to help work on CB radios and with in
18 months had two full-time technicians. The room was getting quite cramped.
In 1975 I purchased a building lot across the street and built, with the help
of my father and brother, a ranch-style building that I used entirely for
electronics. From CB radios I branched into other consumer electronics and
into the commercial radio field.
In 1981 I married, instant father of three children, and life went on. My wife
was an executive secretary and was able to quit her job and work in the
business around 1985. With in the next two years our advertising of fire
equipment service was in two national magazines as well as a magazine targeted
at Pennsylvania. We sent semiannual mailers to fire departments in 13 states.
I had a niche, firemen want their equipment repaired yesterday, so our
advertising and our service focused on three to five days turnaround unless
repaired parts were needed.
In the early 1990s my wife needed a hip replacement, a fairly common procedure,
but the surgeon was going through a divorce and drinking heavily and taking
drugs. He did everything wrong he could do wrong. The two follow-up surgeries
to try and correct his mistakes ended with my wife having a stroke during
recovery because no one was monitoring the oxygen level to the brain.
She is now permanently disabled, uses a crutch, and has short term memory
problems. Yes, we did sue the doctor, received a fair settlement, only to be
taken by the attorney and the state of Pennsylvania.
My wife was my only caregiver, so all the savings when to my care and to pay
her hospital bills. It was either close the business for sell it.
Unfortunately the sale of the business was to someone who was not business
minded. I worked for him for six years, rented him the building, but had to
throw him out for stealing. With in two years he was bankrupt.
At that point it was necessary for me to go back on disability, my wife was
only two years from being able to collect Social Security, so we kept a small
portion of the business, sold our mountain property and now am semi retired.
I worked too many hours with the local historical society, with a new college
on archaeological digs, in our church, worked with kids at a second church, do
some mentoring with handicapped people, and with the help of two teenage farm
boys, landscaping my property. I started the landscaping in 2002 and have
taken a small area on my back lot and made a wilderness picnic area. I
purchased landscaping stones at the end of the season to be used the following
season. I now have six, no seven different brick patios. Each one of
different style block, but I am going for the rustic look. (I like to brag on
it)
If I would give anyone advice, don't listen to others when you know in your
heart that you can do something. My father did not want me to build "the shop"
and go into debt, but I did. I believe with all my heart that this is what God
wanted me to do and I believe he has rewarded me.
Remember, it takes a lifetime to build up respect, but only a few seconds to
ruin it.
Go for it!
Glenn Henry
G.A.Henry Radio
100 Mill Street
Washington Boro, PA 17582
PS: in the 1970s electronics was the way of the future. In 2009, the computer
is the way of the future. As true today as it was then, knowledge is the key.
There are so many more possibilities today then when I had my accident in
1966. I have a ninth-grade education, my grammar stinks, at least that is what
my wife tells me, and I don't read well. Knowledge is your key, the lock is in
front of you. Open it.
