"During the depths of the Great Depression a handsome and gifted seventeen-year-old high school athlete saw his future shattered when his neck was broken in a football game. Few at the time thought the honor student, Eagle Scout, editor of his school paper, and president of his class every year since the seventh grade would survive. But John Allen Adams, son of a carnival fortune teller, did survive and was able to adapt to his severe handicap and go on to lead a remarkably successful life. Though left a quadriplegic, he proved to be a man of extraordinary inner resources, one who found freedom while bound to a wheelchair and independence while almost totally dependent on those around him. Woven from important strands of Arkansas history, his story reaches far beyond his small hometown, but his family's dramatic and distinguished past cannot account for the strength and amazing spiritual gifts of the man who inspired love from so many people. John Allen Adams was a skilled poet and a courageous worker for world peace, a man who triumphed over tragedy by finding within himself the resources to build a life that made a difference, a difference reflected in the testimonies and memories of those whose lives he touched." --p. [4] of cover.