Chuck Searcy was in town last week with his bright and competent Vietnamese colleagues, Ngo Xuan Hien and Luong Tuan Hung. They described, during several gatherings, their work administering Project RENEW, the program that removes the treacherous unexploded bombs that litter the countryside in Vietnam. Meanwhile, Chuck’s old friend Harold Williams languishes in Shepherd Spinal Center in Atlanta, injured as severely as a bomb victim from a fall that broke his neck. Chuck, in fact, went by to visit Harold while he was in Atlanta. Chuck is no stranger to Shepherd, where many years ago his sister, Anne, was confined after a spinal injury. When Chuck was visiting Anne back then, he encountered a young man from Zebulon, Vic Chesnutt, fighting to recover from paralyzing injuries suffered in an automobile wreck. Chuck claims that it was he who suggested that Vic move to Athens.
The latest report on Harold is sort of more of the same: He’s moving his thumbs and has some movement in his fingers; he’s wiggling his toes, not much feeling in his right arm, etc. He’s learning to maneuver a wheelchair. It’s still too early to know the long-range picture, but it could very well include our old friend still in that wheelchair.
Meanwhile, nobody in Athens will be surprised to know that Harold is on a first-name basis with all the Shepherd staff—including the founder—and has given nicknames to half of them. They all love him and bask in his good spirits. His walls are covered with the cards you’ve sent, and they cheer him immensely, so keep them coming to Harold at Room 419, Shepherd Center, 2020 Peachtree Road NW, Atlanta, GA 30309-1465.
Harold was born here and stayed in Athens, after various music-related travels, to settle down, make a living and raise a family. In addition to being everybody’s go-to guy for tax and accounting help, he is a caring, supportive friend and behind-the-scenes doer of good deeds. He is, moreover, Mr. Sunshine, with a quip and a pat on the back for everybody, no matter how little sleep he’s running on during tax time.
Chuck represents that other element of Athens life. Like so many others through the years, he came to Athens for college and stayed around to go into business and buy a home. But Chuck’s path was irregular. His cantankerousness got him invited to leave the university at the height of the war, and he ended up in Saigon in military intelligence, where he fell in love with the country. He came back to Athens, got involved in student politics, started a newspaper, bought a house, then went off to join the Carter administration’s Small Business Administration. He came back to Athens and started a television station and then went off to Atlanta to run the office of the Georgia Trial Lawyers Association, and he also worked as press secretary to Georgia’s U.S. Senator Wyche Fowler. He was appointed to another job in Washington, but it was vetoed by the infamous right-wing senator, Jesse Helms, so, instead, Chuck went to Vietnam, at first to head up a veterans’ foundation manufacturing orthotics for crippled people and now working more directly at the source of so much crippling, heading up Project RENEW. You can read about their work at www.landmines.org.vn, and you can also find out there how to make a contribution to their work. Chuck, Hien, Hung and their other staff are working to lift the scourge of mines and bombs; they’re making great progress, and we can help them succeed.
Chuck and Harold: two great avatars of the spirit of Athens, a city that brings out the best in those who are born here and in those who choose Athens as their home, no matter how far away they may live.
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