Spiraling Through The School Of Life

Good afternoon. I'm very pleased to be here today. And for many who have asked me, I'm not related to Alan Ladd. They're a great family. I am related to Tennessee Williams. Actually, my name was Linnear a Ladner. I'm from Mississippi. My father was a veterinarian and I'm going to share an important story with you. That happened when I was five years old. I had an aunt, beautiful Aunt Bertha, who was dying of cancer. We were living in Mississippi, so we had to go to Mobile, Alabama, to be with her. And we settled in a little village called Chickasaw, Alabama.

While living there, there was an outbreak of spinal meningitis. And the lady across the road had a handsome, beautiful 17 year old son. He got spinal meningitis. She took him down to the mobile infirmary. There were so many people ill with that dreaded disease. They had beds in the aisles everywhere. They had no room for any more patients. And the doctors said to this mother, I'm so sorry. Take your son home. He will be dead by morning. We cannot take him in the hospital. She drove eight miles back to where we lived. She came to our house and knocked on the door and came into my father. She was sobbing. She said, Mr. Lanier, please help, my son is my son, my child, my baby boy, my only child. He said, Lady, I'm an animal doctor. I take care of dogs and cows and horses and chickens and pigs. I'm an animal doctor, she said. But you are her doctor, and that's my son. I got nobody to help me. Nobody in God's name helped me. He said, You go home now. I'm gonna do something. You go home and I'll be over there. She went on home. My father turned to me. He was standing in the doorway. His chin was quivering. He said, Diane, I was five years old. He said, always remember this. You never give up on life as long as there is life. And he went out and found a young doctor that just graduated from John Hopkins Hospital. He got that doctor I don't know how come the guy decided to come way down to Alabama, but he did. And he got that doctor and they went over the boy's house. Now, in spite of meningitis, the body curls backward until the back breaks. Well, the neighbors came in and set on this boy's feet and hands and held him down, you could hear him screaming all night long. That boy lived the next day, lived to be handsome and strong without a mock owning