The topic is anger. We are introduced to the author as she is flying back to the states after a failed relationship with a British musician – a devastating ending that came as a surprise to Zailckas. Wanting nothing more than to be left alone, she lashes out at a kindly elderly gentleman who sits next to her. So begins her quest to find out why anger has played such a major role in her life – but more the repression of it, rather than its expression.

Zailckas turns to various sources for answers and “fixes”: therapy, homeopathic remedies, yoga, and often, the existing literature on the topic. She allows us to see her intimate process, and in doing so, lands on some terrific insights. The chapters: Incitement, Anger Ignored, Anger Turned Inward, Anger Intellectualized, Anger Displaced Conniption and Aftermath, drive the narrative onward, as she peels away the layers of her discontent, and her struggles with being responsive to her own emotions, in a family that has various ingrained and frequently adversarial strategies for avoiding those emotions.

The book slowly (in the best way) works its way to a hopeful, cathartic ending, as Zailckas begins to make peace with herself and her loved ones. Her story is compelling, educational (I highlighted a third of the book!) and the prose is exquisite.

I will never forget the sight of him that day. He had on dress pants and loafers and a pretty shirt unbuttoned at the neck, to show his tattoo, but I cannot remember if he was sober or just well groomed. He had always been a clean drunk, a well-dressed drunk, what people in that time called a pretty man. He might be cross-eyed drunk, but his shoes were always shined, always the best-dressed man in jail. His children and wife might go without, but his shirts were always pressed. Some people had backbone to lean on. Daddy had starch.

All Over was, for the most part, his mother’s story, from Bragg’s childhood through current day. His father, Charles Bragg, is a central character, but as a ghost more than flesh and blood. In The Prince of Frogtown, he takes center stage, though his portrait is mostly painted by his friends and family’s memories, as opposed to his son’s direct experiences with his primarily absent father.

Interspersed throughout these humorous and harrowing recollections, the author places short chapters about “the boy”, the son of Bragg’s current day (at least in the writing of this book) paramour, known simply as “the woman” or the boy’s “mother”. These “episodes loosely parallel Bragg’s insights into his own dad, as he attempts to be a proper father and dare we say role model to this next generation of men.

Shoutin’ was a classic, but here the prose is even sharper, and more literary. The stories of his father are rich with detail, cinematic without being conscious of the camera. The contemporary essays about his new son are poignant, self-effacing and undeniably full of love and fatherly pride.

Change Me into Zeus’s Daughter

Moss, with pitch perfect prose, describes a father who is gone more than around, which is mostly preferable given his propensity for inflicting pain:

I had just turned seven years and didn’t think Dad’s disappearance was such a bad thing; no more dishes shattering into the wall, no more whiskey breath and smell of urine, no more fear of being discovered, of having to peek into a room before entering to see if he was slumped in a chair waiting for you to walk within his reach.

“Now I’ve got ya,” he would shout, like he had just caught a raccoon raiding the corn patch, pulling his leather belt from the loops as the unwary one struggled to get free. You didn’t have to do anything – anything at all – to get pinched, poked, shoved or hit, just be where he could reach you when he was drunk. “You belong to me and I’ll do with you what I want.”

 Unless, which often happened, he decided you didn’t belong to him at all.

The whole, awful time, Moss’s mother, Dorris is pathologically, unconditionally devoted to her brutal, irresponsible husband. Her weakness makes her unable to protect her children from his drunken rampages, and his bizarre three in the morning routine of waking the kids up and demanding they clean the house – or else – inside and out.

To make matters even worse, Moss has to live with a face – a “Silly Putty-stretched face” –  disfigured by malnutrition. Even so, to characterize Moss’s memoir as all sad and hopeless would be far from right. There is humor and sweetness in her depictions of her siblings, who, despite the large number of them, are each distinctly drawn and indelibly stamped on the reader’s mind. There are priceless anecdotes about other colorful family members or neighbors whose life stations, and psychological circumstances, are not far removed from the author’s troubling childhood environment. Saddled with these extreme disadvantages – and some might argue because of them – Moss grows up to be a superb writer, and an accomplished artist.

Bill Clegg had a successful literary agency in New York City, which he owned with a friend. In too short a time, thanks to a near lethal addiction to drugs and alcohol (chronicled in his first memoir, Portrait of an Addict as a Young Man), Clegg wrecks the business, his bank account, and relationships with clients, colleagues, his life partner and other loved ones.

Ninety Days begins with Clegg’s reintegration into “real life” after six weeks in rehab. He returns to New York City, but is determined to avoid the “hot spots”, places and people who aided his addiction. Ninety days is significant in recovery terms, because it marks a milestone in remaining sober. But, from what I know about this process, it just means you have to stay sober on day 91 too. And every day afterwards. And it’s always a fight.

At first Clegg dutifully “follows the rules” by attending recovery meetings several times a day, avoiding people and places and situations that are more likely to make him want to use again, and checking in regularly with his sponsor. But, before long, Clegg falls victim to his worst tendencies and internal demons, and is off on a binge, depleting limited cash funds (he’s not working yet), damaging his body, imagining he’s being followed by DEA agents in bouts of extreme paranoia, and testing the already tested patience of the very few people in his life who stuck around after his first dramatic fall. He lucks into a quantity of money that will keep him up-to-date with his landlord for several months, then practically blows through it in one impulsive night.

If you’re like me, you’ll be angry and frustrated with Clegg, because he’s testing the reader’s patience too. But that’s also a testament to his writing acumen, because you like this guy, and you like the folks who are still trying to keep him focused on moving forward.

The prose is understated throughout – but that’s not to say it is anything other than exceptional. You just don’t notice it. Here’s an example:

“I remember that I’d run out of drugs, and exceeded my ATM limit for the day, so with passport and cash card in hand, I rushed to this branch. Rough from many sleepless nights and crashing from more than an hour without a hit, I withdrew three thousand dollars, stuffed it in the upper front pocket of my black Arcteryx jacket, and headed for the door. In my hurry I failed to notice that the zipper on the bottom of the pocket was unzipped, and when I stepped out of the bank into the vestibule, the cash dropped from my jacket. With air rushing through the doors on either side of me, the money flew everywhere. Hundred-dollar bills, mostly. I remember how, for a moment, it didn’t look real and I was mesmerized. It looked like one of those game show challenges where people are put in a chamber of wind-tossed cash and they have thirty seconds to grab as much as they can. But when I saw a hundred-dollar bill fly out the door into the street I snapped to life.”

 For all of Clegg’s exasperating missteps on the road to recovery, there is catharsis, and I found myself moved to tears several times in the final third of the book. And that’s, surprisingly, always a welcome thing.

This article first appeared in the Tennessee Register.

When you walk into Hannah Dwyer’s fourth level classroom at St. Bernard Academy, your eyes are immediately drawn to the bright red posters on the wall. In bold black letters they read, “Bullying is unBEARable,” punctuated underneath by a bear’s claw – these are the St. Bernard Academy Bears, after all.

The claw is followed by a set of four rules, which are the cornerstones of the school’s brand new anti-bullying initiative.

Although Dwyer is the school’s coordinator of that initiative – officially, the Olweus Bullying Prevention Program – the red posters are not unique to her room. They are strategically placed throughout the school, since this is, by design, a building-wide project.

“One of the reasons we selected this program in the first place was that there was a strong research base to it,” said Dwyer. “One of the things I found was that in a meta analysis of 93 different studies, the Olweus program, and those that are rooted in it, are found to be the most effective across the world.”

As coordinator, Dwyer keeps the program “on track,” but she relies heavily on a committee of folks who are spearheading its implementation. That team consists of one teacher from each of the four grade units: pre-K, kindergarten, grades 1-4, and grades 5-8; the Academy’s office manager; the head of school and assistant head of school, its director of studies; the after care director, and, perhaps most integral of all, the school’s sole guidance counselor, Seraphine Bitter.

This implementation committee had its two-day Olweus training a year ago this month. Originally, the idea was to bring the rest of the school faculty, student body and parents on board in January, but scheduled commitments and too many snow days put a kink in those plans.

“It just became too important to rush,” explained Dwyer. “So we said, ‘Let’s really do this the right way, and give it the time and attention it deserves by kicking it off the following school year.’ I think that has been such a good decision across the board.”

Improving supervision

However, instead of just waiting for the following year, the committee handed out a survey/questionnaire to the students in the spring. That instrument revealed how many students had been bullied, how many students are doing the bullying, how often it’s happening, and where it’s taking place on the Academy grounds.

In response to that data, teachers began providing more supervision in the problem areas and the number of incidents decreased.

Parents were trained in the Olweus program the Tuesday after Labor Day, immediately following the Academy’s Home and School Association meeting. Families were made aware that the training was going to take place that day, and, consequently, it was the best attended HSA meeting in recent memory.

The next day, on Sept. 7, the students were introduced to the initiative. Although in operation, officially, less than a month, committee members have already noticed a change in the air. “The kids are aware this program’s ‘out there,’ and are aware of what’s expected of them,” Bitter said. “I have noticed children embracing the fact that they’re going to look out for, and care for, one another.”

With Olweus, it’s not enough to train the faculty, the parents and the students. It is vital that individuals in all environments that come in contact with the children are involved. To that end, Bitter recently facilitated training for the school’s aftercare staff. “Because we want to be consistent in classes, outside of class, in the hallways, on sports teams, on the school bus, in after care, we have to teach everybody the same intervention,” said Bitter. “There need to be no holes in how we address what’s going on.”

Planned conversations

An essential component of the Olweus program is scheduled “class meetings” with the students, designed to help the youth process the program’s principle tenets, to ensure that a “no bullying” mindset is entrenched in the culture of the school.

Class Meetings take place once a week, and last anywhere from 30-50 minutes. It’s a time to “check in” with the kids in an “open forum” as the initiative moves forward, to see if they have any questions or concerns. Suggestions made by students in these meetings are written down, and the comments, reviewed by Bitter, have the potential to improve the program’s effectiveness.

Olweus defines bullying as an intentional, aggressive action that inflicts harm, either emotionally or physically, to a person who has trouble defending himself or herself. It almost always involves an imbalance of power, be it size, age or popularity, and is usually repeated. According to program materials, the effect that bullying has on children is similar to that of physical, sexual or emotional abuse.

However abusive the intention or the result, in the Olweus program bullying is not a “zero tolerance” offense.

“Because this is such a serious situation, we’re not just going to say, ‘You’re bullying, you’re out,’” said Dwyer. “Schools are really about educating the whole child, and if you just say we’re gonna get rid of you it doesn’t do anything to teach that child empathy. Lack of empathy is s major cause of bullying.”

When there is a situation that is identified as bullying, students who did the bullying behavior are required to complete a behavior reflection form, in order to meaningfully process the event. There are more serious consequences for repeat offenders, and follow-up interventions for the student who did the bullying, as well as the student who was bullied.

“We want to be careful about whatever emotional effects are in place,” said Bitter. “We want to follow up with that student so that student feels safe. Kids will tell you that they don’t report these situations because of a fear of retributions.”

Social media concerns

The program also addresses concerns about social media and technology, and their corresponding opportunities for kids to bully others in cyberspace and with portable electronic devices, often anonymously. Olweus provides a cyber bullying curriculum for grades four through eight.

“We at St. Bernard have a 24/7 policy,” said Dwyer. “So anything that happens off-campus at any time students can be disciplined for. We know that we definitely need to focus on that area, and we are still in the process of developing that.”

“We’re also talking to parents about changing the culture at home,” added Bitter, “where the computers are located and the amount of time that these students spend unsupervised. There’s no excuse for a child to be in their bedroom, alone, on a computer with the door shut at 11 at night. That leads to a lot of these issues.”

An ounce of prevention

If the Olweus program works at the Academy as it has in numerous other settings, St. Bernard’s students should feel safe coming to school and safe to bring up concerns with adults when, or even before, bullying issues surface. The Academy is investing a significant amount of money and staff time to create such an environment, not necessarily in response to current severe problems, but as insurance against being another school in the news where unrecognized or overlooked behaviors end in tragedy.

“And if we never have an incident of bullying all this year, I will not see the Olweus prevention program as being unnecessary, I’ll see it as being completely successful,” said Bitter. “Some people say, ‘We don’t need that; we don’t have that here.’ I say great, and hopefully we never do.”

Brittany Leedham was severely injured in a car accident in 2008 when she was a senior at Father Ryan High School. She now volunteers as a Peer Visitor with the Trauma Survivors Network at the Vanderbilt University Medical Center. She talks with patients and their families in Vanderbilt’s Trauma Unit and the Stallworth Rehabilitation Center, where she was treated after the accident, about her experiences and what they can expect.

By Ned Andrew Solomon

This article first appeared in The Tennessee Register.

When Brittany Leedham visits with patients and families at Vanderbilt University Medical Center’s Trauma Center, she brings a unique perspective. Three years ago, Leedham was a patient there herself, having barely survived a car accident in Brentwood that killed her boyfriend, Zak Kerinuk.

Leedham, who graduated from Father Ryan High School in May 2009, volunteers as a Peer Visitor with the Trauma Survivors Network, a two-year old initiative at Vanderbilt designed to provide care, support and resources for families whose loved one has undergone a significant trauma, such as brain injury, spinal cord injury, amputation or multiple fractures – like Leedham. There are currently six fully operational TSNs in the country; Vanderbilt’s Network is the only one in Tennessee.

“It was brought here because a lot of programs deal with support, with cancer and heart disease,” said Susan Sutton, MPH, TSN’s program manager. “Vanderbilt has a high volume of trauma patients – over 3,000 a year – and we have a need for resources and support for our survivors.”

Leedham provides some of that support, and her visiting has proved beneficial to her own recovery as well.

“When Brittany comes out of a patient’s room, when she’s been chatting with a family for 45 minutes, she kinda gets a little bit of a ‘happy rush,’” said Sutton. “She knows that what she’s just said to them made a difference, made them feel better. And because it didn’t come from a doctor, or from me, or from a nurse – it came from somebody who really was in that hospital bed.”

Long Road

It’s been a long road from “that hospital bed” to being able to comfort families. Especially when you consider Leedham is walking into those rooms.

The car accident left her with three broken fingers, a pelvic bone broken in two places, and a completely shattered C2 vertebrae. She spent two weeks at Vanderbilt’s Trauma Center, four weeks in Vanderbilt Trauma Step-Down, four weeks at Vanderbilt Children’s Hospital and four weeks at Vanderbilt Stallworth Rehabilitation Hospital.

“We were told that she would probably lose her legs,” said Teresa Leedham, Brittany’s mom. “And if she kept them, she would never walk.”

Just six months after the accident Leedham did walk, along with her Father Ryan peers at graduation, aided by small-based quad canes. Today she walks independently to her classes at Middle Tennessee State University, thanks to countless hours of physical therapy and 21 surgeries, all on her legs.

The 21st was only a short time ago. “That was my last needed surgery,” said Leedham. “Anything else that comes along will be to remove a screw that came loose or whatever. I have rods and plates and screws and anchors in both legs.”

With all those foreign, man-made elements inside her, Leedham can tell when the weather’s changing, or if it’s going to rain. “I get a different kind of stiffness, and a different type of pain than the average person,” Leedham said. “I just kind of push and go through it.”

That kind of “push and go though it” perseverance has made her a valuable, and inspiring, Peer Visitor at the Trauma

Center, as well as at Stallworth. “She comes in with her bubbly smile, and you’re like, ‘Good grief, if she can make it, I can make it,’” said Sutton.

Leedham first met Sutton at the TSN’s first fundraiser, an NFL “watch party.” Although Leedham expressed an interest in being a Peer Visitor, she was still undergoing surgeries and the timing wasn’t right. Almost a year later, Leedham dropped in to see Sutton to tell her she thought she was ready to volunteer. So, when the next round of Peer Visitor training sessions was scheduled, Leedham took part. “And Brittany has been awesome ever since,” said Sutton.

But it’s not just Leedham’s positive attitude that makes her an “awesome” asset to the TSN. The feedback that Sutton gets from families is that they appreciate her candor. “She doesn’t sugarcoat what it’s like up there,” Sutton said. “She tells you it was awful. The beds are uncomfortable and the pain pump is there for a reason. Brittany also has the experience of being the sole survivor in a motor vehicle crash. So, she lends quite a bit of sage advice and wisdom for someone who is only 20 years old.”

Peer Visitors are formally trained, and are official “Vanderbilt Volunteers,” having completed a background check, medical check and privacy law compliance coursework. Once they’ve passed those elements, each Peer Visitor participates in a detailed TSN training.

Brittany Leedham, center, and Susan Sutton, left, the program manager of the Trauma Survivors Network at Vanderbilt University Medical Center, talk with a patient in Vanderbilt’s Trauma Unit.

Dark days

Among many other components, Peer Visitors are taught not to give false hope or medical advice. However, there don’t appear to be any

specific rules around discussing one’s faith, which works out well for Leedham, a parishioner at St. Edward Church who is also actively involved in her Catholic community at college.

“I always wear my SEARCH cross, and I run into more people that recognize that,” said Leedham. “Most of the people on the Trauma Unit are hanging on to some sort of faith. So, it’s real easy for them to just bring it up. I’ve prayed with families in the middle of the waiting room. I’ve shared my experience and the battle I did with faith.”

Losing her boyfriend, who was a Father Ryan graduate, and potentially the use of her legs, Leedham had serious doubts about the point of it all, and who was in charge. “She was mad,” said Teresa Leedham. “She was mad at God; she was mad at everyone in the world.”

“I figured there couldn’t be a God if I was hurting this bad,” said Leedham. “What kind of God would do something like this? Out of all the horrible people in the world … I was a good person! A great person! Yet, this happened to me.”

Leedham tried taking mood stabilizers to elevate her from a perpetual funk. But since those made her feel little more than numb, she stopped taking them, determined that she could do it herself without help from anybody or anything. Soon after she hit a “wall,” and a string of ever-worsening days. “And people would say, ‘God saved you for a reason’, and I’d say, ‘Really?’” recalled Leedham. “‘Could you tell me what those reasons are, cuz I don’t have any.’”

She went to see her pediatrician – who she still sees as a college student – and was prescribed a more effective medication. The doctor also recommended she get some counseling, but Leedham was resistant, claiming her friends and family were all she needed. Under duress, Leedham agreed to see a counselor at Catholic Charities. During the first couple of sessions Leedham didn’t say a word.

She hit another series of dark days, but finally experienced a breakthrough at one of her Catholic Charities appointments. Leedham felt like she was slowly “returning” to herself, and had more of a desire to re-engage with the world. That improved attitude culminated in a three-day backpacking trip in the spring with her MTSU Outdoor Pursuits class up to Hobb’s Cabin on the Cumberland Plateau.

To get to Hobb’s Cabin it’s almost directly straight up, and at one point, backpackers have to navigate a challenging boulder field – tough even for a person with two typically functioning legs. It seemed like an impossible task, but with the encouraging assistance of her group mates, Leedham made it through.

“As soon as I saw that Hobbs Cabin sign at the top of the plateau … and I’m good with words, but I can’t even put into words what that felt like,” said Leedham. “We went to the overlook, and I looked over at everything we had climbed up, and it was just like everything over the past two years. And I got a deeper feeling of God than I ever got in a church. It was like I had something to prove, and that was it. When I made it to the top of Hobb’s Cabin it was like I let go of that grudge I had with God, and it was the best feeling in the world.”

Brittany Leedham, right, speaks with Susan Sutton, left, the program manager of the Trauma Survivors Network at Vanderbilt University Medical Center.

Looking to future

The backpacking excursion is an aspect of Leedham’s double major in recreational therapy and outdoor recreation. She eventually hopes to have a master’s degree in wilderness therapy. None of this would have come about without her work at Stallworth – and how she was treated there.

When Leedham had been at Stallworth a week, her therapist recommended she go to “rec therapy,” but the sullen patient just wanted to go back to her room and sleep. With her therapist’s goading, she decided to give it a try.

“I put myself in the elevator, got myself to the third floor, and wheeled myself in, and they’re playing the Wii,” said Leedham. “I thought, ‘Why didn’t anybody tell me about this therapy? This is awesome!’ So I rolled in, sat next to a guy who had lost his leg, and he asked me if I bowled.

“We bowled for an hour,” continued Leedham. “For that one hour, I didn’t have people asking me to rate my pain on a scale of one to 10. People didn’t ask me how I was doing mentally. I wasn’t worried about walking, I wasn’t worried about anything else. I wasn’t Brittany from the car accident. I wasn’t the girl who lived. I was just Brittany, and it was a nice break from reality.”

In addition to playing Wii, the patients did activities like balloon volleyball, making homemade ice cream, and attending a Predator’s game. “It was so nice to be ‘normal,’ and I realized that was what I wanted to do,” said Leedham.

In fact, for a person who almost wasn’t here anymore, she’s getting to do many things she wants to do. She is living a very full life as a student at MTSU, a volunteer with the TSN, and as a beacon of light to individuals and family members who aren’t sure what the next day will bring, or if there’ll be a next day.

By Ned Andrew Solomon

This article originally appeared in The Tennessee Register.

Ora Knies may be 108 years old, but it hasn’t slowed her down too much. “She goes 90 miles an hour on her walker,” said her 78-year-old son, Jack Knies, who attributes her longevity and verve to “good genes, number one, and number two, she stays pretty well occupied all the time.”

His mom lives in the Hickory Gardens Assisted Living community in Madison, which is where she recently hosted a celebration on her behalf with 25 family members and friends. As the guest of honor, Knies got to pick the cuisine – Captain D’s fried fish and French fries – and the music, an accordion player who played her favorite song, Tennessee Waltz. “We had a big party,” said Knies. “A lot of people.”

At 108, “a lot of people” have been touched by her life. She proudly proclaims that she has three living sons, Jack, Don and L.C., 11 grandchildren, 28 great-grandchildren and five great-great-grandchildren. “We’re going on the sixth generation,” Knies laughed. “That’s a big crowd when they all get together. It’s a houseful!”

Born Ora Zimmerman in 1901 in Oklahoma, her family moved to Belvedere, Tennessee, near Winchester and Lynchburg, in 1905. She grew up with 10 brothers and sisters. Only her “baby brother”, 93-year-old Roy Zimmerman, survives with her, and lives at McKendree Manor in Hermitage.

The Zimmermans were a Protestant family, but Knies became a convert in 1927, when she married Lawrence Casper Knies. There was no Catholic Church originally in Old Hickory, and her son, Jack recalled dividing Sunday worships between The Cathedral, St. Mary’s and Holy Name.

She is one of the original members of St. Stephen Catholic Community, long before the church had an official home. According to the parish’s historical records, the E.I. Dupont Company established a town at Old Hickory in 1916 to house workers for their powder plant, and the area’s small Catholic population worshipped in the town’s Community Center.

In 1942, Bishop William L. Adrian of Nashville gave boundaries to the community, and the mission was named St. Stephen. The Dupont Company loaned the congregation the use of a house at 1710 Riverside Drive for services, and later donated land on 15th Street and Hadley Avenue for the increasing Catholic population. In 1953, a new church was built.

By 1975, there were 60 families attending Mass, more than half living in Hermitage, Mt. Juliet and Donelson. Because the church had no where to expand on the Hadley Avenue property, and the area around Mt. Juliet and Hermitage was rapidly growing, the present 16-acre site in Mt. Juliet was purchased.

Besides practicing her faith, Knies has kept track of current events, and has been witness to spectacular events like the first moon landing, and tremendous changes in fields like medicine and technology, during her extensive time on earth.

She has her political opinions too. Her favorite president is John F. Kennedy, and she’s had the opportunity to try a few of them on for size. She has lived through 20 presidential administrations, from William McKinley to Barack Obama. In fact, her 108^th birthday was on Obama’s Inauguration Day.

Before she married, and after Lawrence Casper, Sr. passed away, she helped support herself and later her sons by working as a clerk. “It was really lonesome, but I just kept busy doing this and that,” remembered Knies. “When work would come up, I’d just go ahead and do it.”

She has fond memories of working at Sullivan’s Department Store, Steve’s Jewelry Store and a sewing and apparel shop. “At the very beginning I worked for a dollar a day at the five and ten cent store,” Knies said. “I wouldn’t mind working for it now!”

In lieu of a current employment offer, Knies has no trouble keeping busy. She regularly bowls and plays bingo at Hickory Gardens, and loves to sew, crochet and knit. In her words, that’s the secret to her sticking around so many years. “I just like to stay busy, and go out and have a little fun.”

by Ned Andrew Solomon

Jackie Page’s mission throughout her professional and personal life has been about two things: access and attitude. Born with quadriplegia during the depression in Asheville, North Carolina, Page had to adapt to life with few resources besides her own self determination.

She came a long way to a BA (’63) in Sociology, an MA (’64) in Counseling and an EdS in 1989, all from Peabody. Until her undergraduate education, Page was taught at home. In her earliest years, that amounted to little more than 90 minutes two days a week. “My mother worked nights as a private duty nurse,” recalled Page. “If she had to sleep, I’d have her put a textbook on my table, and I’d read. The teacher would get so aggravated, and say, ‘well, I’m not up to there yet.’ But there was no TV; I didn’t have anything else to do except read.”

Page became the first Peabody student in a wheelchair to get a degree. In later years she broke through other barriers as a disability advocate, and in her work with Outlook Nashville here and Easter Seals in Asheville. She is best known for her nearly three decades as director of the Metro Government Disability Information Office. In that role, Page was a regular fixture on panels and at conferences, spreading public awareness about the needs and rights of those with disabilities.

“It was a dream come true to be able to introduce clubs, organizations and classrooms to someone who could describe the world as seen by a person with a disability,” Page said.

Retired in 2005, Page has recently encountered significant health challenges. Rising medical costs and a dwindling retirement income forced Page to sell her home and give up her independence. She currently resides in an assisted living center in Nashville, dealing firsthand with the consequences of a state that has virtually no home and community-based services or funding for individuals with physical disabilities.

Which brings us back to access and attitude. “If you have the appropriate attitudes, then you will have already done a lot of these things, and not needed magpies like me saying, ‘when are you going to put this in place?’” Page said.

“You can’t have access without attitudes. And it’s difficult for people to learn what a person with a disability expects from others, unless there’s access. So it’s all intertwined.”

David Meador follows through on his golf shot as his coach Everett Davis watches behind him. Meador, a Christ the King parishioner in Nashville, Tenn., is one of the top blind golfers in the nation.

By Ned Andrew Solomon

This article first appeared in The Tennessee Register.

Christ the King parishioner, and championship golfer, David Meador, got his first taste of the green at eight years old, in his hometown of Salem, Illinois. He picked up the game and his appreciation of the sport from his dad. “I loved the ball,” said Meador. “Just seeing it explode off the club in those early years was something deeper than just the beautiful golf course, and the camaraderie.”

The young Meador’s game steadily improved, but in 1966 at age 18, Meador was in a car wreck and lost his eyesight. Six weeks later he was, in his own words, “going nowhere, sitting on the couch, watching TV,” and worrying about what his new world had in store. Then his father had an idea.

The two got in the car and drove to the golf course. The elder Meador set his son in place, described the distance to the hole, selected the right club for the shot, and let the boy swing. Meador was able to connect with the ball, and reconnect with the pastime he was convinced he’d left behind forever. “My father got me back into the game, in so many senses of the word,” Meador said.

What his father did that day was pretty much what “coaches” do for Meador, and other blind players, today. Unbeknownst to Meador and his dad, coaching in this manner had already been in existence for about 15 years.

Golfing blind sounds nearly impossible to a sighted person, but having a stationary ball – unlike in most other sports – helps. As Meador explained it, “all I have to do is be responsible for my balance, tempo, and returning the club to where it started.”

The Meador “team” practiced regularly, joined the United States Blind Golfers Association and went to their first official blind golf tournament in 1974. “It was an eye-opener to see all of these blind golfers, some of which were phenomenal,” recalled Meador.

One in particular, Pat Browne, proved to be a real inspiration for the young Meador. One of the top three blind golfers of the time, Browne had lost his sight in a car accident the same year as Meador.

David Meador, right, and Everett Davis are partners on the golf course. Davis acts as the coach for Meador, who is blind. Meador, a Christ the King parishioner in Nashville, Tenn., is a past blind golfing national champion.

He was coached by his dad until 1976, when Meadors moved to Tennessee. There he found his second coach, a 16-year-old, Brentwood High student named Stuart Smith. That team trained during the week and played against sighted golfers on the weekend. “Because it’s kind of hard to get up a foursome of blind golfers,” laughed Meador.

The following year they went together to their first USBGA national tournament and Meador won – beating Pat Browne in the playoff. Although Meador has won several other tournaments since then – including the national Guiding Eyes Classic tournament in 2005 and 2009 with his current coach, retired banker, Everett Davis – the 1977 win has proven to be his only USBGA national championship – so far. “We’ve finished second several times,” said Meador. “That darn Pat Browne!”

But there’s so much more to Meador’s story than golf. It’s one of perseverance, even in the darkest times, and continual adaptation. Meador learned Braille very quickly, and figured out how to navigate his universe with a white cane. “The white cane has literally, and figuratively, connected me with the world,” said Meador. “Without it, you really know what blindness is. Thanks to the white cane I didn’t have to sit on that couch the rest of my life.”

In fact, he’s done little sitting still at all. Meador went on to college and a business degree at Southern Illinois University, where he met his wife of 33 years, Connie. He received his graduate degree in personnel and industrial relations from Loyola University in Chicago. Meador worked in the insurance field in Chicago for several years, until the couple decided to move to a warmer climate, and chose Nashville for their new home.

Meador spent the next five years with Metro Government, working in the personnel department. The following 18 years he sold insurance for Northwestern Mutual Life. About 10 years ago, disillusionment with and changes in the industry pushed Meador into a new career, as a motivational speaker and writer.

Although Meador was convinced his accident and subsequent blindness was an automatic “exemption from other biggies”, he has had to endure two other serious health challenges. At age 24, Meador contracted Hodgkin’s disease – a form of cancer – and underwent an intensive chemotherapy program for four years. Although he survived that round, Meador was diagnosed with colon cancer a few years back. Thankfully, his chemotherapy only lasted 12 months this time, but the end result was the removal of part of his colon and a frustrating, daily drain on his energy.

Throughout all this, Meador has relied heavily on his strong faith. He and Connie have been actively involved with Christ the King Church since moving to Nashville, and they consider the parish “the anchor” in their lives. Their two daughters, now grown, were both raised with Catholic educations at St. Bernard’s and St. Cecilia’s. His two grandchildren currently attend Christ the King School.

Despite many life obstacles, Meador has kept a stubbornly positive outlook. Most times he views his blindness as an advantage, allowing him to disregard distractions that might have slipped him up, like the water traps on the golf course he never has to see, or get anxious about. “It’s totally a skewed view,” said Meador. “My wife accuses me with good reason of looking at life through rose-colored glasses. I don’t see the beer bottles on the side of the road – they’re all just paved in gold.”

For those of you unfamiliar with labyrinths, they are kind of like a maze, but better. Unlike mazes, which are purposefully challenging, meant to ensnare the maze traveler in wrong turns and dead-ends, a labyrinth has one seamless, though often circuitous, path to its center. It is not created to cause anxiety – quite the opposite. It’s intended to be a peaceful, meditative “journey”, a path walked, skipped or danced through from entry to end, and back again.

Labyrinths aren’t new; evidence of them appears more than 4000 years ago, pre-dating the Greek and Roman civilizations. They are not “owned” by a single religion or culture. They exist throughout the world, and luckily for us, there are 33 throughout Tennessee – several in Nashville alone.

I first learned about labyrinths from my life partner, Gina, who one day felt compelled to draw one on a piece of paper. For the next several days, like the Richard Dreyfuss character in Close Encounters of the Third Kind, Gina filled our house, and journal books, with ever more complex drawings of labyrinths. About a week later we were at the First Center for the Visual Arts, and we “stumbled” upon an exquisite book on labyrinths in the gift shop. Coincidence? Not likely.

Gina, an avid researcher, found a website, labyinthlocater.com, which identified several labyrinths that were within 20 miles of our home in Brentwood. Over the next few months we walked a number of them, at Glendale, at Scarritt-Bennett near Vanderbilt, at Calvary United Methodist in Green Hills, and even one in the expansive back yard of a private residence near the Natchez Trace.

Each has its own personality, and “feel”. They differ in size, and the manner in which the outline of the labyrinth is established – some with stones, others with bricks or tall hedges. The Glendale labyrinth soon became my favorite. It was the smallest of the four we had visited, but also, by far, the most charming.

*****

Gina and I decided on Monday, October 27th to get married the following Saturday, November 1st. We had been best friends for seven years, life partners for the last three, and we just decided it was time. We also knew we wanted to get married in the center of a labyrinth.

Our wedding was a series of “second chances”. The second minister we contacted – Reverend Doctor Dan Rosemergy – was available, and enthusiastic about marrying us. The second jewelry store we stopped into – Natural Selection in Hillsboro Village – had the perfect wedding bands, or at least a wonderfully accommodating owner who was able to get them within 24 hours. The second florist we visited in search of blue hydrangeas for our wedding bouquet – the Kroger in Brentwood – had the sweetest floral manager who went out of her way to fill our order within our limited timeframe. The second restaurant we contacted about having our after-ceremony meal – Mere Bulles in Maryland Farms – was closed for a private party, but offered to open up another table in a separate room just for our small wedding group.

The “second time’s the charm” worked in the labyrinth department too. We first contacted Scarritt-Bennett, whose labyrinth was booked. They were willing to “squeeze” our ceremony in during the early morning hours, for a fee of $1000. At that point I drove over to Glendale United Methodist Church, hoping we could get married there, though neither Gina nor I were members of the congregation. Pulling into the parking lot, I ran into an old friend who was rehearsing for a Christmas play at the Church. She told me I should talk to Reverend Sandra Griggs.

Reverend Griggs was so gracious, excited and open to my request, that I knew in that moment this was the location for us. She was even willing to have the church’s gardener cut the grass on the labyrinth, though we discovered it had recently been done. In exchange, Reverend Griggs asked me to write an article – not knowing that I was a freelance journalist – about our experience, in the hopes that others would “find their way” to what she knew was a lovely location, connected to a lovely, welcoming church community.

November 1st was a gorgeous, sunny, 70-degree day. We – Gina, me, Reverend Dan, our dear friend and witness, Margaret Berrett, and our dear friend and wedding photographer, Lynette Porter – gathered for an opening prayer. We removed our shoes and walked the circumference of the labyrinth, lighting candles and saying prayers at four locations, to honor our four children, our parents, and our relatives no longer living. Gina and I sat on the bench and sang the first two verses of a song I had written, Till the End of Time.

We gathered again at the opening of the labyrinth, and Reverend Dan read another prayer. Then one by one we walked the path, moving slowly toward the center. In the middle, surrounded by stones that read Strength, Peace, Joy, Hope, Wisdom and Love, Gina and I shared sweet thoughts about our lives together, as we had done so many times before at this labyrinth and the others we had had the pleasure of walking, as we waited for Margaret and Reverend Dan to join us.

Once we were all present, Reverend Dan read the lyrics to a favorite song of ours, For You, by Duncan Sheik. More prayers acknowledging the different faiths represented in our union, an exchange of vows and wedding rings – much laughter and tears of joy. Then, one by one, we danced the return path of the labyrinth, said a final exiting prayer at its mouth, and then moved en masse to the bench again where Gina and I sang the last verse of our song.

It was an absolutely beautiful day. The simple wedding bands and bouquet were beautiful too. The Glendale labyrinth was everything we hoped it would be: charming, lovely, welcoming and intimate, and will be forever etched into our minds, and hearts. The after-ceremony meal at Mere Bulles was delicious too, and the perfect cap to a perfect day.

Thank you so much, Reverend Griggs and the good people of Glendale United Methodist. We couldn’t have done it without you!

This article first appeared on the Glendale United Methodist Church website as happy payment for our access to this lovely space.

All images are by Lynette Porter.