Life at 8 mph Read online

  Advance Praise for Life at 8 mph

  “Peter Anderson has written an honest, unsentimental, sometimes terribly funny and deeply poignant account of lasting friendship…”

  —Dr. Rosalie de Rosset, author of Unseduced and Unshaken: The Place of Dignity in a Young Woman’s Choices and Professor of Communications and Literature, Moody Bible Institute

  “Far more than an engrossing read, it offers real-life tools for finding your own happily-ever-after—accessible tools, made for imperfect people. This book is for everyone whose heart beats. Anyone. Anywhere. Of any race, gender, or economic situation. I feel blessed for having read it.”

  —Tara Taylor Quinn, USA Today bestselling author

  “Laced with rich wit and wisdom … a profoundly different philosophy that might change the way everyone views their struggles.”

  —Lyla Swafford, author of It Takes More Than Legs to Stand

  Life at 8 mph

  How a Man with Cerebral Palsy Taught Me the Secret to Happiness

  R

  Peter Bowling Anderson

  Copyright © 2019 KiCam Projects. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the publisher.

  Cover and book design by Mark Sullivan

  Cover illustration by Rebecca Hipp

  ISBN 978-0-9997422-7-3 (paperback)

  ISBN 978-0-9997422-8-0 (e-book)

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Names: Anderson, Peter Bowling, author.

  Title: Life at 8 mph : how a man with cerebral palsy taught me the secret to

  happiness / by Peter Bowling Anderson.

  Other titles: Life at eight miles per hour

  Description: Georgetown, Ohio : KiCam Projects, [2018].

  Identifiers: LCCN 2019000135 (print) | LCCN 2019007901 (ebook) | ISBN

  9780999742280 (ebook) | ISBN 9780999742273 | ISBN 9780999742273(paperback)

  Subjects: LCSH: Anderson, Peter Bowling. | Male caregivers--United

  States--Biography. | Herrin, Richard (Reverend) | Cerebral palsied--United

  States--Biography. | Clergy with disabilities--United States--Biography. |

  Christian men--United States--Biography. | Male friendship.

  Classification: LCC RC388 (ebook) | LCC RC388 .A53 2018 (print) | DDC

  616.8/360092 [B] --dc23

  LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2019000135

  Printed in the United States of America

  Published by KiCam Projects

  Georgetown, Ohio

  www.KiCamProjects.com

  R

  For Mom,

  who stood up more than she sat down at dinner.

  R

  Contents

  chapter one | Mr. Persistent | 1

  chapter two | The Outsider | 11

  chapter three | The Elephant Awakens | 23

  chapter four | Protector of the Disheartened | 34

  chapter five | GO | 43

  chapter six | A Second Chance for Three | 51

  chapter seven | Down from the Ledge | 61

  chapter eight | The Quest Continues | 72

  chapter nine | Abandoning the Unsinkable Broken Boat | 83

  chapter ten | Adventures in Knitting | 96

  chapter eleven | A Safe Haven | 110

  chapter twelve | The Bottom of the Unknown | 122

  chapter thirteen | How to Hold a Fork | 132

  chapter fourteen | Under the Dog Pile | 146

  chapter fifteen | Something Important | 1601

  chapter sixteen | The South Shall Rise and Hug | 171

  chapter seventeen | A Part to Play | 181

  chapter eighteen | The Greatness of Junk | 191

  chapter nineteen | Finding the Fishing Pier | 200

  chapter twenty | A Part-time Job | 211

  R

  “Our destiny is frequently met in the

  very paths we take to avoid it.”

  Jean de la Fontaine

  R

  Chapter One

  Mr. Persistent

  The only thing I knew for certain was I didn’t want to work for him. It took me all of two minutes to reach that conclusion.

  I’d come to Richard Herrin’s small, two-bedroom duplex on Wheaton Street, just around the corner from a nearly empty Chinese restaurant and a packed Whataburger, because I needed a job, any job, and I was desperate. I’d been in Fort Worth for over a month, with nothing panning out. I needed a full-time job to cover my bills, yet something kept nixing each prospect, leaving me increasingly dispirited. One day in the lounge of my roommate’s graduate school, I saw a notice for a tutoring job. The position was only for ten hours a week, so I grabbed a tab and forgot about it until that night when emptying my pockets. After another unsuccessful day of job hunting, I thought it might be time to adopt a different strategy. I read the tab again: REV. RICHARD HERRIN SEEKS TUTOR, 10 HOURS WEEKLY, GRADUATE STUDIES. I knew of another part-time job I thought I could get, and I was just starting to play in a band in Dallas. Perhaps between the three jobs, I’d be okay.

  I called the number on the tab, and a severely slurred voice answered. I said, “Hello,” hoping the connection would clear.

  Yet I heard the same, garbled, indecipherable response. This wasn’t a poor connection. Somewhere inside me, the first alarm rang out. There would be many more. I tried saying hello again but was met with a string of slurred speech that overwhelmed me. I considered hanging up, before I heard the first word I understood: “Richard.”

  I introduced myself and told him I’d seen his job notice, and I asked if he’d like to meet. What I really wanted to ask was what was wrong with him, because I couldn’t follow a word he was saying.

  But then I heard it—the second word I understood—and this one made a much more profound impact on me than his name.

  “Palsy.”

  I almost dropped the phone, partly because I feared it might be contagious through the connection (I was a bit of a germaphobe, to say the least), and partly because I knew what that word meant. I certainly wasn’t an expert on cerebral palsy, yet I’d seen people on TV with it and read a few stories and I instantly understood I’d already bitten off far more than I could chew. This tutoring position was going to be much more than I could handle.

  I stammered, “Listen…uh…I’m sorry for bothering you. I need to go…now…”

  Yet with the persistence to which I’d soon become accustomed, Richard cut me off and said the first full sentence I grasped: “Can you come tomorrow?”

  I shook my head as if he could see me or to remind myself of the correct answer, though what tumbled out of my mouth was something entirely different. Undoubtedly born from my exhaustive, fruitless job search, I answered, “Yeah, I can do that.”

  Richard had to repeat his address eight times before I copied it all down correctly, but the next day at 10 a.m. I was at his home near East Gourmet Buffet, the sleepy Chinese restaurant, totally unprepared for what I was about to experience.

  I knocked on his peeling, beige door, yet no one answered. I knocked again but heard nothing. A wave of euphoria swept over me. I wanted to scream, Yes! I’ve been released!!! I’d done the right thing and faced my fears and come despite not wanting anything to do with this terrifying situation, and now I could return to the want ads with a clear conscience. I turned to leave, when it ha
ppened.

  The door opened.

  By itself.

  It was like something out of a horror movie. The door even creaked. There was a rope tied to the inside handle pulling the door open. I halfway expected a mummy to stagger out wielding a hatchet. I’m not going in there, I swore to myself. We can just meet outside. I’m fine right here.

  This was the first of roughly two thousand times I heard Richard’s motorized wheelchair approach. I didn’t know what to expect, though I’d seen people with cerebral palsy before. For some reason, I couldn’t get the image out of my head of a masked Hannibal Lecter being wheeled out on a dolly. If he cracked, “Love your suit,” I was sprinting to my car.

  Then Richard appeared in the doorway, his mouth hanging open, his torso slumped to his left in his dull black wheelchair, his fingers curled as if he was trying to ball them into fists but they’d frozen in transit. His short brown hair was parted to the left, his face clean-shaven and pale, and he wore navy blue dress pants and a long-sleeve, white dress shirt stretched over a small potbelly. My eyes returned to his gnarled fingers. His right hand rested on his wheelchair’s joystick that directed the chair’s movement and, as I later discovered, allowed him to recline as far back as a dentist’s chair, while his left hand waved at me. Instinctively, I took a slight step backward in his driveway. But Richard wasn’t going to let me get away that easily. He lurched out of his duplex in his motorized wheelchair straight for me. I realized that even if I tried to race to my car, he could chase me down. There was no way out. He’d trapped me as soon as I’d exited my car. This was the moment I was certain I didn’t want to work for him.

  Richard had an orange light on his chair, like on top of a tow truck, which sat on a pole behind his left shoulder. It wasn’t on, but I could picture it flashing and rotating as he sped down the street. It must’ve been quite a sight. I wondered if he had a siren. Richard was forty-six when we met that hazy, sweltering June morning in his driveway, though when he smiled, he looked closer to forty. I had to admit, he had quite a smile, an engaging, welcoming smile, the kind that made me forget all about his cerebral palsy, if only for a moment.

  I introduced myself and reminded him of our conversation on the phone, though he just laughed and replied, “You’re not selling Bibles?”

  I wasn’t sure I’d heard him correctly. His speech was very slurred, yet it sounded like he’d made a joke. I took the safe route and repeated my introduction, almost verbatim.

  He began laughing so hard, drool spilled out of the left corner of his mouth. Then he flicked the joystick with his right index finger to make his wheelchair spin around in a circle, as he exclaimed, “I’ve got cerebral palsy; I’m not crazy!”

  I couldn’t help but chuckle. For a moment, we both just stared at each other, smiling.

  I decided it was safe to follow him inside his home, where his service dog, Troy Aikman (his trainers had named him after the Cowboys’ old quarterback), greeted me. However, Richard snapped, “Aaaagh,” for Troy to stop licking my hands. Richard then said, “Door,” and Troy hustled over to the wall and poked a button with his nose to automatically close his front door. I was impressed. Richard zipped down a ramp from his dining room to his living room, waved me over to the couch, and then proceeded to spend the next ten minutes trying to explain why I couldn’t pet Troy or look at him or speak to him or acknowledge his presence in any way. Troy was a two-year-old Golden Retriever that had received extensive special training to service Richard’s unique needs. He could pick up items Richard dropped, bring his own leash and service vest to Richard if they were headed out, open and close doors, and provide companionship and affection that Richard sorely needed. All of this training cost $20,000, for which Richard had to do considerable fundraising, and it could be ruined, or at least severely compromised, if Troy started bonding with someone other than Richard.

  So I couldn’t pet Troy, ever, even though he was gorgeous, incredibly friendly, and I’d grown up in a house full of dogs and dog lovers. My family used to let our furry friends sleep on our beds, when they weren’t finishing our meals or watching TV next to us on the couch. Now I was potentially going to sit next to a sweet pooch each day that I couldn’t give belly rubs or scratch behind his ears or sneak treats. Talk about torture. This was another strike against taking the job.

  Richard endeavored to explain how he needed my help, repeating himself over and over, but I struggled mightily to comprehend. I could tell he was growing frustrated, and I couldn’t blame him. How hard would it have been to spend all day every single day trying to get people to understand? I would’ve been exhausted and seriously contemplated becoming a shut-in.

  Finally, after what felt like half an hour, I was able to deduce that he needed a tutor to help him with an online master’s degree in religion/counseling that he was working on through a Christian college, and that he’d just started the program.

  He stared at me with his head cocked to his left waiting for my answer. I smiled. Troy began wagging his tail, so I immediately looked at the plant in the corner so Richard didn’t think I was smiling at his dog. Suddenly, the living room felt very warm. I didn’t know what to tell Richard, or at least how to say it. I didn’t want the job. I thought our communication would be far too difficult and time-consuming to meet assignment deadlines, but I didn’t want to hurt his feelings or crush his spirit. It was obvious he was very enthusiastic about his new degree program. If I didn’t help him, would anyone else? Would he just give up? Was that the right reason to take the job? Was it safe to stop watching the plant yet?

  I decided to buy myself time, so I answered, “Can I pray about it?” Since he was a reverend, this seemed like a safe, positive response.

  However, Richard merely raised his eyebrows and asked, “You wanna pray right now?” Then he added a smile to convince me. He should’ve been a used-car salesman.

  “Uh…actually…uh…I have another appointment to get to,” I semi-lied. I had to buy toothpaste and shaving cream on the way home. That was sort of like an appointment.

  He turned up the wattage on his smile to full power and said, “You sure?”

  I stood to gain momentum for the door while nodding very quickly like a bobblehead doll. “Yeah, I need to go. But thank you so much for seeing me. I’ll call you by the end of the week with my answer. Is that okay?”

  Not for Mr. Persistent. Not even close. He said, “Can you call tomorrow? I’m behind in school.” He crept closer in his wheelchair with the most desperate look on his face, like his life literally clung to my decision. I was sweating through my Polo shirt. I had no idea what to say, so, naturally, I agreed. When inconvenient, the truth rarely volunteered itself; it had to be dragged out kicking and screaming, claws and all.

  On the way home, I dug around in my pocket and pulled out the little tab I’d yanked off Richard’s Help Wanted ad in the lounge. I remembered seeing another name at the bottom of the slip of paper. “With additional questions, please contact Mike Shreve.” As soon as I got home, I called Mike to learn a little more about Richard and his situation. Even though I didn’t want the job, my conscience was holding me hostage. I just couldn’t say no without finding out Richard’s options.

  Thankfully, Mike was very informative and helpful. At the time, he worked at the graduate school and had posted Richard’s want ad in the lounge. He’d known Richard for a few years. He told me Richard was divorced with three kids and that his youngest son, Michael, lived with Richard, though I hadn’t seen him in the home. The other kids lived with relatives in the country. He said Richard employed three attendants, but the one who’d worked with him for the last three years was quitting because of a new job. I let that sink in for a second…three years. I didn’t see how that was possible. That attendant must’ve had a true servant’s heart and an inexhaustible supply of patience I didn’t possess.

  Richard had had it pretty rough growing up. He w
as born in Texas, but his parents got divorced when he was a baby and his mother moved him to Oklahoma. He lived with his mother until he was seven, but then she shipped him back to Texas to live with his dad because she was tired of dealing with the struggles and inconveniences of someone with CP confined to a wheelchair.

  His dad placed him in a children’s hospital that concentrated on teaching and rehabbing physically challenged children. When Richard aged out of that facility at fourteen, his dad put him in another school for cerebral palsied children until Richard turned sixteen. Both of these facilities were about four hours from Richard’s father’s house, and his dad allowed him to return home only at Christmas and for two weeks during the summers. At sixteen, Richard aged out of the second facility and had to start high school at McKinney High near his dad’s house. This was the first time Richard lived full-time with his father, and as with Richard’s mother, this ultimately wore out his dad. Richard attended high school until he was twenty-one and aged out. He didn’t receive a diploma, and by then, his dad was burned out and placed Richard in an institution for the mentally challenged, even though Richard didn’t suffer from this disability.

  When Richard finally got out of the institution, he bounced in and out of nursing homes for a few years but was able to get into Section 8 housing, receive meager government assistance and food stamps, and start living on his own with the help of attendants through the CLASS (Community Living Assistance and Support Services) program. During these years, Richard earned his GED and became an ordained minister. Eventually, he attended Texas Wesleyan College, where he earned a degree in liberal arts. He’d wanted to major in counseling, but the head of the department had made it so complicated for Richard that he and his advisor decided to switch to a liberal arts degree.

  Richard also met a woman with cerebral palsy at a park where Reach, a group that helped physically challenged people live on their own, was hosting a picnic. The two were married for fourteen years and had three children, but then she cheated on Richard and they divorced. After that, his two oldest kids, Nathan and Charity, went to live with relatives in the country, while Michael lived with Richard. They moved a few times and had been living at the duplex on Wheaton Street where I met Richard for about a year. Michael was now ten.