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Name: Bobby G. Greer
E-mail address: greer.bobby@coe.memphis.edu
Date: 23 Jun 1998
Time: 00:59:22
Remote Name: pt123dpm.memphis.edu
Remote User:
THE DISSERTATION
It's been over thirty years now. A rite of passage every grad student goes through. It's called a dissertation, and I wanted to see what personal adjustment to cerebral palsy was like.
Except for my own experience growing with CP, I had little to go by except the theories from my seminars -- words on a page, research reports, absolutely no flesh and blood.
It took me from 1964 through May of 1965 to interview 59 adults with CP from all over Texas. Each interview was two to four hours long. Thank God for the grants from the military/intelligence agencies for which we conducted research. Such funds made us Texas rich and I could fly to most of my interviews ann go to class Monday through Thursday. I left on Friday mornings and returned Sunday nights. Got used to low altitude Texas turbulence, Love Field and airline food. Interviewed from Sherman to McAllen, from Tyler to Abilene, San Antonio, Dallas, Waco, Houston Amarillo and Lubbock. Interviewed in nice homes, store fronts, pecan groves and in oil fields. Interviewed 18-year-olds to 60-year-olds, people on disability to persons with Master's Degrees.
Some were easy going and likable. Some were angry, bitter, hostile and arrogant. But those I learned the most from were the quiet souls who went about the daily business of living in a not-so-understanding or supportive world. Some were verbally more eloquent than a professional orator. One young man was completely non-verbal as far as spoken language. He communicated through an old clunky IBM typewriter.
Some tried to take me hostage, being alone and finally finding an understanding, if not, patient ear. Some broke down emotionally, recalling growing up being different and misunderstood. Some were broken and some were magnificent.
At the time, I was obsessed with finishing my dissertation. These human beings who shared so much of their lives with me were transformed into statistics in tabular form as I went through the objective, indifferent process of completing my magnum opus. I spent more than 180 hours listening to the stories of the lives of persons with cerebral palsy who grew in times and places where there were no supporting laws and no advocacy.
Writing this now, I am humbled by the things these adults taught me. They were, by and large, their own profiles of courage; working, loving, raising children and, generally, contributing to society. From the older woman who held me hostage that Sunday afternoon for 5 hours, to the young, non-verbal individual who showed me the 260-page novel he had typed on that clunky old IBM. Each keystroke took him 10 to 20 seconds due to his athetoid movements. He lived in a barren shack in West Texas, outside of Abilene. My eyes still fill with tears of awesome inspiration when I think of him.
I can't remember their names, but I do remember their presence of stoic courage and white-hot outrage. I don't even know why I am writing this, except to share what I really learned from my dissertation.
Copyright © 2000 Bobby G. Greer. All rights reserved.
6/17/98
See Bobby's other story, My Life, on tell-us-your-story.com
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