[Nfbc-info] {Spam?} RE: Blind & abandoned, the boy with the amazing memory found friend for life

[Christopher Sabine, ONH Consulting]

	Hello. Just some feedback here from Ohio, just back from a wonderful
70th Anniversary State Convention last weekend in beautiful Independence,
Ohio. I could relate completely to much of this article. I have Optic Nerve
Hypoplasia, which is a neurological condition that is the cause of my
blindness. I also had some fairly significant fine motor skills difficulties
growing up and a very superior memory. I participated in a study of those
with superior autobiographical memory that is taking place at the University
of California, Irvine. I can also tell you the exact times and dates of many
significant events in my own life and history, particularly during my
childhood.

This said, I'm not sure if I can recommend the article for the portrayal of
blindness it depicts. For once, it discusses openly H. K.'s inability to cut
his own food at Chick-Fil-A and goes on to say that he may never learn to
tie his own sneakers or button his shirt independently. Like many of us on
this list, I'm sure, I can do each of these things. On July 13, 1987 at 1:46
P.M. Eastern Time, I buttoned a shirt for the first time independently while
a student at the Summer Program at the Clovernook Home and School for the
blind in Cincinnati--it was a stifling, hot Tuesday afternoon in the city
where the center is located. ON August 6, 1988, I tied my shoes for the
first time. I remember on September 29, 2000, while at the Ohio Convention
of that other organization serving blind people, I ordered a 16-oz Ribeye
and ate it totally independently. It was a Friday evening. 

I realize I learned these skills at an age way behind my sighted peers (not
do to blindness, but other developmental challenges), but I did learn. I
hope readers of this article will remember that blindness is not the
disability that most people believe it is, and there are blind people living
very successful, independent and productive lives. This coming from a
Federationist who also has superior memory. BTW, I remember the main
headline of October 16, 1999, was the rescue of the ER Physician Dr. Jerri
Nielsen from the Amundson Scott Research Base in Antarctica after she was
diagnosed with breast cancer that had metastasized; it was a Monday. She
passed away on June 30, 2009, also a Monday, I believe. 

 Very Best,

Chris



-----Original Message-----
From: NFBC-Info [mailto:nfbc-info-bounces at nfbnet.org] On Behalf Of nancy
Lynn via NFBC-Info
Sent: Saturday, November 19, 2016 4:34 PM
To: mcb chat; nfbmo list; NFBC List
Cc: nancy Lynn
Subject: [Nfbc-info] Blind & abandoned, the boy with the amazing memory
found friend for life

Blank

Jessica Bliss
, jbliss at tennessean.com 3:23 p.m. CDT October 27, 2016

HK Derryberry and Jim Bradford have forged an unlikely friendship for the
past 17 years that both hope will last a lifetime. Larry McCormack / The
Tennessean

Almost no one in the world has a memory like HK Derryberry.

He can tell you what he had for dinner (spinach Alfredo and noodles) and
what he watched on television ("Star Search" on Channel 5) on March 19,
2003.
And he knows exactly what time that night (8:45) that newscasters broke in
to say troops were shooting houses thought to be occupied by Saddam Hussein.

He remembers the score of the Tennessee Titans game five days after Jan. 2,
2001 - the day he went to Jeff Fisher's radio show at Applebee's, sat on the
coach's lap for a photo and got an autograph from tight end Frank Wycheck.

And he can recall specific details from the Season 8 premiere of Everybody
Loves Raymond, which he watched on Sept. 22, 2003. That same day, he notes,
a car exploded near the United Nations.

Derryberry has superior autobiographical memory, also known as
hyperthymesia. The 26-year-old Nashvillian - with his buzz-cut brown hair
and eyes that squint every time he shows his broad toothy smile - collects
memories like others may collect stamps or coins. He can remember what he
has done every day since age 3. Fewer than 100 people in the world have the
same remarkable aptitude.

Though Derryberry has the ability to recall all the particulars of his life,
there's one relationship where the details aren't really important. It's the
enduring friendship with the man who has served as his father figure for the
past 17 years. Though the man wouldn't know it until well after they first
met, Derryberry has a remarkable and tragic story - one filled with early
memories he would rather forget. One the two friends would eventually share.

It all started with a chance encounter at Mrs. Winner's Chicken & Biscuits
the morning of Oct. 16, 1999, which - Derryberry will tell you - began as a
chilly, 55-degree Saturday.

Jim Bradford and HK Derryberry share some time together as they wait to be
seated at a Waffle House July 2003 that is HK's favorite place to eat.
Michelle Morrow / The Tennessean

Oct. 16, 1999: the friendship that changed everything

Jim Bradford, a silver-haired, gentle-faced Brentwood businessman, started
toward Starbucks after playing tennis that morning.

On a whim, he went to Mrs. Winner's instead.

"I really think God was my GPS that morning," Bradford says.

He had eaten at the fast-food joint once or twice. He certainly never
remembered going there just for coffee. But inside, he purchased a 25-cent
cup of Maxwell House with his senior discount.

There, he saw a boy - age 9 - sitting alone at a table by the window
listening to a beat-up old boombox held together by three strips of duct
tape. The boy wore a white T-shirt stained from breakfast and wrinkled cargo
shorts. He had white, plastic braces bound around each lower leg and an
awkward bend in his right arm.

In the past, when Bradford noticed children with special needs, he simply
walked away feeling a mixture of sympathy, relief and thankfulness for the
health of his own family.

This time, though, Bradford asked about the boy. The child, an employee told
him, sat by the window most weekends while his grandmother, Pearl, worked
the cash register. Pearl didn't have the money to hire someone to be with
him, and she was his full-time caregiver. Sometimes, he sat there for a full
nine-hour shift.

Moved by the story, Bradford approached the boy. "Hey buddy," Bradford said.
The boy looked up, searching for recognition. He introduced himself as HK.

July 8, 1990: the crash

Derryberry's most significant moment is one he will never remember - and
never could. The day he was born.

On the Saturday night before his birth, his father, William Howard
Derryberry, drove a beat-up Hyundai along the twisting country roads in
remote Maury County. His mother, Mary Kay Davidson, snuggled against his
father's side.

William Derryberry pushed the accelerator, directing the car along the
curves after a 10-hour day stacking hay bales and a few post-work beers. He
cut one corner too close. The car's balding tires began to slide. The back
end crashed into an oak tree. William Derryberry remained restrained behind
the wheel, not seriously harmed. Davidson's unbuckled body hurtled from the
car.

LifeFlight airlifted her to Vanderbilt with severe head trauma. At the
hospital, attention turned toward her unborn baby. In an emergency
C-section, doctors delivered a little boy - 13 weeks premature. His mother
died hours later.

He weighed barely 2 pounds. He was blind, his retinas not yet fully formed.
Just days after his birth, he developed a deep brain bleed. 

The result: the underdevelopment of his right limbs and cerebral palsy. But
the small soul soldiered on.

The boy was given his father's name, William. His parents' middle initials
became his middle name. As he grew, he simply became known as HK.

After 96 days in the neonatal intensive care unit, on Oct. 11, 1990, HK
Derryberry came home.

Dec. 17, 1993: moments to forget, and remember

HK Derryberry's first memory, as he tells it, came at age 3 1/2 when his
father put him in a satchel and carried him around the house like Santa
Claus.

Father and son lived in East Nashville then, with William Derryberry's
mother, Pearl. The moment is one of the happy ones. But there are many HK
Derryberry would rather his unique memory not recollect. Like the day his
father abandoned him.


HK Derryberry, right, signs books that his friend and mentor Jim Bradford
wrote about their relationship in preparation for one of their many speaking
engagements.   Thursday Oct. 13, 2016, in Brentwood, Tenn.  (Photo: Larry
McCormack / The Tennessean)

The heaviness of life after his mother's death proved too much for his
father. On a cold February morning when Derryberry was 5, his dad filled up
his grandmother's Toyota pickup with gas. Then he got in his own truck, left
the boy with his grandmother and disappeared.

>From that point on, Pearl Derryberry assumed full-time care. She learned to
administer her grandson's many medications and manage his medical issues.

She enrolled him in the  Tennessee School for the Blind, taught him to
recite his letters while driving around in her pickup truck, and fought for
the tools he needed to learn Braille using only his good left hand- not two
hands. She drove him to twice-a-week doctors' appointments and therapies.
She dressed him, pulling on long, white tube socks under his braces.
She bathed him, wiped his mouth after he ate. And she took him to Mrs.
Winner's every weekend while she worked the cash register. 
"I was so consumed by the daily living things," Pearl Derryberry says.

The morning Bradford walked in for his coffee, everything turned.

"How often do you look the other way and feel like you can't connect," Pearl
Derryberry says of usual reactions to her disabled grandson. "HK's life was
changed because of a conversation over coffee. And Jim's, too."

The relationship built slowly at the beginning, with Pearl Derryberry giving
Bradford permission to take her grandson on short excursions. The duo
explored Brentwood together, stopping for chocolate shakes at Sonic or
swinging by the Ace Hardware. They grocery shopped, got the oil changed,
washed the car.
Every man Derryberry had ever loved had left, but not this one. Bradford
felt energized by his new young friend.

"He stayed with me," Derryberry says of the man whom he always calls Mr.
Bradford. "That's what really made me think this could be a longer
friendship."

That feeling solidified the night Bradford brought his new friend home to
meet his wife, Brenda. The couple had raised two daughters in their
four-bedroom brick ranch, but they were grown and gone.

Soon after the introduction, Derryberry enjoyed his first dinner at the
Bradford home: steamed broccoli, baked chicken and cornbread lovingly baked
by Brenda. It wasn't long before - at Brenda Bradford's suggestion -
Derryberry began to spend Saturday nights at the Bradford house. On Sundays,
they went to church together.

Around that same time, Derryberry's memory magic began to show itself.

March 12, 2002: a Tuesday, not a Thursday


Bradford first discovered his young friend's memory abilities when the two
were together at Harpeth Hills Church of Christ one Sunday morning. As the
two walked down the hall toward the church auditorium, Derryberry overheard
a conversation.

"The meeting is scheduled for Thursday, March 12th," one man said as
Derryberry walked by.

Derryberry intervened. "March 12th is on a Tuesday, not a Thursday," he
said.

The skeptical man pulled out his Palm Pilot and confirmed.

"That's a pretty good trick," the man said.

But it was more than a trick. Derryberry could remember most every detail of
his life.

HK Derryberry meets with his friend and mentor Jim Bradford at Chick-fil-A
in Brentwood. (Photo: Larry McCormack / The Tennessean)

Remembering comes effortlessly, he says. He absorbs sensations and
experiences. The news of the day often acts as a trigger.

His memories, and those of others like him, tend to be self-centered. He can
remember "autobiographical" life events in vivid detail, but he isn't
superior in the rote memorization of facts we learn in school. He is no
better than average at recalling impersonal information, such as random
lists of words.

But when he thinks about something from his own past, it's as if he is right
back in that situation.

"It's really almost impossible to know" what causes it, says Brandon Ally,
a former assistant professor in the departments of neurology, psychiatry and
psychology at Vanderbilt University.

Ally knows Derryberry well. He first came to Ally at age 19, still in high
school and hoping to go to college. It wasn't to be, both because of the
financial hardship on his family and his daily care needs, and Derryberry
felt devastated. But, after extensive study of his brain structure and
memory abilities, Ally diagnosed Derryberry with hyperthymesia. MRIs show
that even though he can't see, Derryberry's optical lobes are not atrophied,
instead the remain highly active. The region in his brain associated with
emotion is not only larger than normal, but also six to 10 times more
connected to the memory center.
Both findings could account some for his abilities.

It became the linchpin to a new purpose.

Oct. 13, 2016: a shared story

Thursday night is "boys night" - 6 p.m. dinner at Chick-fil-A.

The duo has dined at the Franklin Road restaurant every week since July 18,
2008, when a new store manager at Mrs. Winner's told Pearl Derryberry she
could no longer bring her grandson to work with her.

Bradford, with his still-thinning hair and ever-kind demeanor, is 73 years
old now. Derryberry is 26. He is 4 feet, 11 inches tall, and his right leg
is still shorter than his left, but he is bigger than the day they first met
and more confident.

They talk about football. They stir up memories about bluegrass nights they
used to attend. They joke. Bradford cuts his friend's dinner - always a No.
1 meal with a chicken sandwich, waffle fries and a sweet tea - into
bite-sized pieces.

Often, other families, who know the pair as regulars, stop by their table to
catch up. A restaurant manager comes by to say hello. Strangers overhear
snippets of sports talk and join the conversation from across the
restaurant.

When Derryberry meets new people, he always asks their birthday and tells
them exactly on which day of the week they were born. Regardless of how old
the person is, he always adds with a sly grin: "And you don't look a day
over 18."

Occasionally, a longtime friend joins them to eat. On this night, just such
friend asks Derryberry to sign a copy of his new book - one featuring a
photo of Derryberry and Bradford on the front.

Though Derryberry may be able to remember all of their friendship, Bradford
cannot. So, now, they have it all recorded in "The Awakening of HK
Derryberry." And together they travel the country recounting their story for
others.

Derryberry has found his purpose: "to inspire people."

He may never be able to button his shorts or tie his blue New Balance
sneakers by himself, but he can remember co-piloting a single-engine Cessna
to Kentucky.
He landed on Oct. 18, 2003, and ate pork chops at Patti's 1880s Settlement
Restaurant, all for his 13th birthday party.

And with Bradford by his side, he has done so much else.


HK Derryberry, right, talks with his mentor Jim Bradford and friend Chris
Lynch as they enjoy a meal at Chick-fil-A. (Photo: Larry McCormack / The
Tennessean)

He spent an hour with Alan Jackson before the country music star  performed
"It's Five O'Clock Somewhere" for his "famous friend HK." He got a watch
from retired Alabama football coach Gene Stallings as a present - one he
still wears strapped around his left wrist every day. And he sat in the desk
chair of former Nashville Mayor Karl Dean, acting as honorary mayor.

Then on June 1, 2012, draped in a royal blue cap and shining graduation
gown, Derryberry received a high school diploma. Two months later, he and
Bradford went with friends to Destin, Fla., to celebrate Derryberry's 22nd
birthday. Derryberry knocked in two holes-in-one during a putt-putt golf
match, Bradford by his side, steadying him as he swung.


It was another day in an enduring friendship. Aug. 15, 2012 - which
Derryberry will tell you - was a balmy 89 degrees with rain showers.

But not enough to dampen his spirits.

Reach Jessica Bliss at 615-259-8253 and on Twitter @jlbliss.

Meet HK Derryberry and Jim Bradford

HK Derryberry and Jim Bradford have several upcoming promotional appearances
for their book, "The Awakening of HK Derryberry." All of the book's
proceeds, along with the professional speaking fees Derryberry and Bradford
earn, go into a trust fund established to financially support Derryberry. 

For more about the book visit: 
www.hkderryberry.com.

Nov. 1: 45-minute speech at Lipscomb University's campuswide devotional
called "The Gathering," focused on how special friendships change lives, 11
a.m., Lipscomb University's Allen Arena (1 University Park Drive, Nashville)

Nov. 6: A reading from "The Awakening of HK Derryberry" and a book signing
by Derryberry and Bradford, 2 p.m., 
    Parnassus Books  (3900 Hillsboro Pike, Nashville),
www.parnassusbooks.net/event/author-event-andy-hardin-jim-hardin-and-hk-derr
yberry