Tribute To Courage

the scene is Washington the auditorium of a  big government building just down the street from the White House there's an overflow crowd of  men and women from every state in the Union the aisles are filled with wheelchairs it's the annual  meeting of the President's Committee on employment of the handicapped a hush comes over the hall  we're the voice of David Brinkley well-known news commentator delivering a testimonial to the  handicapped American of the year does a brilliant enquiring inventive mind require a sound body we  know it does not and we have a case to prove 27 years ago a helpless 11 year old Armenian boy  was carried off a ship in New York he had come looking for medical aid in the United States he  was born in Iran had traveled with his parents to Russia and Germany looking for help for a  frail uncontrolled and almost useless body but even in the United States there was no physical  help for this palsy boy because medicine had no answer he was condemned to spend his life in a  wheelchair physically an invalid but those who passed the sentence didn't know his mind and  didn't know his courage and they didn't know his parents who were strong-willed Armenians who  loved him and were grateful for his intellectual gifts he had a helpless body but he also had an  iron will an insatiable curiosity a quick mind of precise memory he and his parents recognized  these gifts at an early age like every young boy he was fascinated with model electric trains  but he soon tired of watching him roll around the track and he wanted some action he resolved he  wanted an automatic railroad bridge or mentally he made mechanical drawings this slow painfully  formed words he explained them to his mother who transferred them the working blueprints he  chose the parts from a metal construction set and his mother put them together that is boy who  had no use of his arms hands or fingers was now an inventor and his invention was an automatic  railroad bridge operated by an electric high lacking virtually every physical facility the  simplest act was for him a monumental task but using his mind he learned to learn how to  go around the obstacles how to get what he wanted through ingenuity without ever touching  pencil to paper because his fingers were unable to hold a pencil he went through seven years of  grade school in one year learning the English language as he raced along when he was ready  for high school he found the high schools in New York City had no facilities for such severely  handicapped students so his parents packed up and moved again this time to Chicago where Spaulding  High was very happy to welcome a crippled boy who had a vastly superior brain and then it was  time for college but the guidance counselor's advised against it despite his genius they were  convinced they said that a higher education and a in the field of science were impossible but again  they had underestimated his will and his courage perhaps another person would have accepted this  disability but to him it was a challenge to his brilliant mind and so in spite of the experts  he went to Eureka College in Illinois and then he went on to take his master's degree from  Columbia University somewhere along the way he decided that communication and his painful  halting speech was too slow and inaccurate so what did he do he invented a typewriter that he  could operate with his breath over him it is all a pattern you meet the physical obstacle and you  use your intellectual powers to overcome it you can't use your fingers so you make a typewriter  that operates on air you can't throw a switch so you design a knee operated panel to control your  electrical equipment you can't lift the telephones or you design an arm to lift it to you you can't  climb over the side of a boat so you design a crane and lower yourself into the water with a  blonde contact and while you're at it you consider the problems of other people a little time and a  little thought and an obsolete army switchboard became a standard office board for training  amputees well is that enough you wonder you plunge into work with the United Cerebral Palsy  Association of Westchester County with a Stanford Connecticut chapter of resources unlimited  you plead the cause of the handicapped before industrial groups and on television programs you  go to Washington to fight for tax abatement for all of the handicapped not just for the blind and  all the while you are advancing your own career is engineer and inventor and you whose own  internal nerve communication system has suffered a complete breakdown our becoming an  expert in the field of communication between men and machines perhaps it is natural you should  find this fascinating when even the simplest form of communication the written word the spoken  phrase has to you always been a major problem but still you haven't finished perhaps you think  we haven't yet realized the full potential of the electronic computer perhaps some cut somehow  it could be put to work to repair a defective human nervous system controlling the radiation  beams which would perform bloodless surgery on the afflicted brain areas that caused palsy well  if this most remarkable idea of our wizard in a wheelchair is ever realized he may be known one  day as the Jonas Salk of cerebral palsy but right now he is known as a unit leader for the teller  register corporation of Stanford Connecticut the director of a task force developing advanced data  communications systems he is a respected engineer an author and inventor climbing to the heights of  a highly skilled profession from his wheelchair and today he bares his own name proudly Emek  Alexander Avakian the handicapped American of 1961