DIANE MAKAR MURPHY Stroke prompts man to tell his life's story

"Around 1948 [when I was 15], there was a place on St. Louis Avenue called the Good Humor Man. They sold ice cream and Popsicles. I tried getting a job driving the motor scooters, selling their wares, but I didn't have a driver's license, so I had to drive their three-wheeled bicycles, which was a lot of work peddling them around. Ray Snyder and his brother, Don (my buddies) and me all got jobs. I think we ate more than we sold, so after a few days, they fired us ..."
So reads the unexpected result of Charles Stearns' 1994 stroke. The words are, in fact, from the 67-year-old Boardman resident's autobiography -- the project he undertook after a stroke left his left side paralyzed and his speech impaired.
"My stroke had left me with nothing to do. I was divorced and by myself," Stearns recalled. "My boy is a professor at Akron University, and he bought a new computer. He asked me if I wanted the old one. I told him, 'Sure, I'll fool around with it.'"
Turned into project
So, in 1997, three years after the stroke caused him to fall down in a parking lot and visit an emergency room, he started hunting and pecking the keys on his keyboard one-handed. He decided to give his relatives rather unique Christmas gifts -- the story of his life.
"I thought, 'I'm getting older; I've lived a pretty good life, had a good experience with things. I should write it down for my grandchildren,'" Stearns said. "As I went back, it was like reliving it again. ... The stroke affected what I remembered yesterday, but not years and years ago as a kid."
For instance, Stearns writes in his autobiography, "I remember the Cleveland School Paper Drives during the war. Going around with a wagon, which the school provided, house to house, collecting for our school. ... If I found anything good, I'd take it home. But Mom just made me turn the stuff over to the school, saying it's for the War, and not for us to keep. We didn't have much, but Mom and Dad were proud Americans, and backed the War effort. As a kid, I didn't understand why we couldn't keep the stuff, but obeyed their decisions."
The first edition took Stearns eight months to produce. He visited old friends to verify memories, included photographs and had it bound by a copy shop. He distributed 75 copies at Christmas.
As Stearns talked to more and more people, he began to get calls requesting copies. "At a reunion a couple of years ago, I got requests and gave out copies," Stearns said. "A fellow asked for a copy at a funeral; by then, I was keeping copies in the trunk of my car."
Gives them away
The books cost Stearns $14 apiece, but he gives them away. He makes 50 at a time and makes more when he distributes them all. "I've given out 300 now," he said, explaining that old friends, and friends of friends, mentioned in the book are eager to read it.
It has been the best kind of therapy for Stearns, who said he will not recover use of his left arm and leg. "I told the doctor what I had in mind, and he said that's the best thing for you; it'll exercise your brain," he said. "Now I have a new computer and a scanner and printer and everything. I also started researching our family tree ... on the Internet. I don't really know what I'm doing, but you can't screw it up that bad." He laughed.
A little rough
Stearns' autobiography (now in its third edition) is a little rough around the edges, but he's fine with that. "I write in my own way, like I'm talking," he said. "I tried to write like the real writers and it wasn't any good. ... Now, I write it and I'm done. I did a little spelling check, but I got bored with that. If that's the way I spell it, that's me."
Though the signs of Stearns' stroke are evident when he walks, they're not when he talks. "I feel young right now," he said, as his Dalmatian happily poked her nose into his hand. "I've always been that way. I've been a jokester and punster my whole life. People might think, 'Well, you're crippled.' I live with that. It takes me much longer to do things, but I'm always happy."
murphy@vindy.com