Richard Hyatt: Polio couldn't paralyze his spirit
Polio took away Roy Abell’s ability to walk but not his ability to believe.
He was a senior at Auburn University when the feared disease of the 1950s took over his body. Children were being vaccinated but not strapping college golfers like Abell. He had been a three-year letterman for the Tigers when he was hit with what he thought was the flu.
A few days later the 22-year-old Columbus native was paralyzed, except for limited use of his left hand.
That could have been the end of his story, but it wasn't. Though Abell became a quadriplegic, he made himself into a legendary entrepreneur and inventor who sold hot dogs at Snuffy's Shanty, jewelry made from pieces of Elvis' first Cadillac and machines that helped the infirm.
Abell, 75, died this week in Atlanta after spending 53 years in either a bed or chair.
He couldn't play golf but he could play the game of business. Left with the ability to dial a phone he could outrun anybody on Southern Bell. His aggressive style overpowered clients who never imagined they were dealing with someone strapped to a chair.
He was always a wheeler-dealer. He went to Auburn on a partial scholarship and paid the rest of his bills by operating a campus laundry business. After being paralyzed, he ran an advertising and specialty printing company out of his parents' house in Columbus.
In 1969, he was one of the state's earliest investors in the fast-food franchise businesses. He opened seven Snuffy's Shanty hot dog restaurants, negotiating a licensing contract with King Features, which owned the rights to the name and image of the comic page character.
Long before cable TV and the ability to sell on the tube, Abell used that medium to market one of his most unusual items. After the death of Elvis Presley in 1977, local businessman Jim Cantrell ended up with a beat-up Cadillac that the superstar bought for his Mama. Abell attached pieces of scrap from the automobile to necklaces that included a letter of authentication. Thanks to Abell, you too could own a piece of Elvis' car.
For the past 18 years he has been involved in developing PIE -- an acronym for the Pulsed Irrigation Evacuation system -- a gadget makes life easier for paraplegics in need of chronic bowel maintenance.
Polio never paralyzed his spirit. Years ago, at a Halloween party in Columbus he decorated his chair as a baby bed and with a bonnet on his head he drank his favorite adult beverage from a baby bottle. He struck up a conversation with an unsuspecting partygoer. Impressed with his costume, she posed a question that Abell thought was hilarious.
"Are you gonna lay there like that all night?" she innocently asked.
And until this week, he did just that.
-- Richard Hyatt is an independent correspondent. He is also found at www.richardhyattcolumbus.com
This story was originally published July 10, 2012 at 10:52 PM with the headline "Richard Hyatt: Polio couldn't paralyze his spirit."