Snakes on the Porch

This is the story of one child's courageous journey, from adversity at birth to triumph through retirement age. An inspirational model for any of us as we encounter the inevitable travails of everyday life, it is a tale of incomparable courage and the uncanny focus of a preschooler who just wanted to be like all the other "kids."

Who would have guessed you'd have a career in medicine if, with the first breath of your life, you disproved the death sentence of the doctor who delivered you? If, from the day of that birth, you had to make your way through daily life using only one arm and hand, could you: Dress yourself? Tie your shoes? Fix your bike? Ride a bull? Drive a tractor? Type a letter? Play a trumpet? Run your own sewing machine? Supervise a Clinical laboratory? We all fail at something, sometime, but failure to try may be the biggest failure of all - especially if you start out facing higher hurdles than the rest of the team. The girl in this story - her story, spent her life refusing to recognize the hurdles before her. She saw them but chose to ignore them, starting at age four, when she looked in a mirror and realized her shoulders were at different levels -- unlike everyone else's shoulders. Most of us probably don't have what it takes to face that kind of reality every day for eighty years, but those who can should write a book -- and she did.

Many children of the 1930's depression years were disadvantaged but some, like "Patsy Edelbrock," were born disabled as well. What Patsy had though, was an innate expectation to prevail despite any obstacles in her way. The late Dr. Wayne Dyer once described himself in childhood as a "Scurvy Elephant." He used the term to describe one who makes his way through life the best he can, with little regard for others' opinions of his progress or methods. Patsy grew up with much the same philosophy and, for more than eighty years did about as much with her one hand as the rest of us do with two - right down to typing the 40,000+ words in this book.