"Anderson, Bill - Whispering Bill" - читать интересную книгу автора (Anderson Bill)

two years i couldn't walk, stand, sit, or even lie down to sleep without
wincing from the excruciating, piercing pain that seemed to be
constantly radiating from my back all the way down my long left leg,
into my foot, and out the very tips of my toes.it was constant agony,
but i wasn't able to take the time and attention away from my duties at
home or my work as an entertainer, smiling tv game show host, and
national restaurant spokesman long enough to undergo the corrective
surgery and lengthy rehabilitation necessary to alleviate the problem.
as a result, i strapped myself into a stiff elastic and metal back
brace, stuffed painkilling medication into my body like it was popcorn,
and whenever i'd find a break in the action i'd make the rounds of
doctors' offices, hospitals, and pain clinics anywhere i might find
them, searching for a miracle cure that would not come.

at almost this very same time, with so much of my energy and most of my
time being sapped by the events unfolding around me, i discovered that
some very large business investments, which i had practically ignored,
were swiftly going sour on me.i woke up one morning and realized that i
owed creditors all over the country sums of money reaching well into the
millions of dollars ...and that i was facing the definite possibility of
owing several million dollars more.the totals were staggering.after
twenty-five successful years in business and after having been
repeatedly called one of the best businessmen in country music, i found
myself suddenly hanging by a very thin financial thread indeed.

but, believe it or not, fate wasn't through.in a matter of only a few
more months i was standing at the bedside of my critically ill
twentyfive-year- old daughter in a hospital almost a thousand miles away
from home, listening to some of the best medical minds in the country
tell me that the tumor they'd just removed from her young body was
malignant.

it reads like a bad script from a soap opera, but i can assure you it
was all very, very real.

most of what i am about to share in these pages revolves around my life
as an entertainer-all the years spent singing, smiling, and laughing-but
i've deliberately set it against the backdrop of this seemingly
impossible period in my life when the only smiling, laughing, and
singing i managed to do for a long time was on the outside ...and in my
memories of a better day and time.

i've chosen this way to tell my story because of the profound effect
these recent years have had upon me as a human being.an autobiography is
the story of a person, but in my case it may well be the story of two
people-the person i was before all the anxiety and turmoil of these past
few years and the person i feel i have become as a result of it.i've
grown, i've changed, i've discovered, and more importantly i've
re-discovered.i was taught at an early age most of the things that
matter in life.my problem was that somewhere along the way i had managed