Mark Elswick


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Topics of conversation:

  • TBI - Traumatic Brain Injury definition
  • TBI as a national problem and with returning military
  • Personal experience with TBI
  • Percentage of profits donated to Brain Injury Association of America
  • Finding humor in life

Immediately after a 1992 automobile accident, doctors told Mark Elswick's parents that he wouldn't make it through the day. A week later, Mr. and Mrs. Elswick were told he would live life as a vegetable IF he ever regained consciousness. Since that time, he graduated from the University of Michigan-Flint with a B.A. in English and double minor in Writing and British Literature. Then, he earned his M.A. from Central Michigan University. In addition to his student status, Mark has been a sportswriter, sports editor, substitute teacher, a Jr. Hi. teacher, a college professor, and an university coordinator. Nearly two decades later, he amazingly shows virtually no signs, outside of a slight speech impediment, of the accident that left him on life-support for over a week and in a month-long coma.

Padman: A Dad’s Guide to Buying...Those and Other Tales (eBook)

Mark Elswick
Modern History Press (2011)
ISBN 9781615999026
Reviewed by Joseph Yurt for Reader Views (8/11)

Read the review on ReaderViews.com


Synopsis: In this collection of short essays based on personal experiences, Mark Elswick offers humorous episodes about being a man and father. Whether it’s his daughter sending him to the store to buy those…well, things that transforms him into “Padman”; his realization that at forty-two, he is slowly turning into an old man; or his reaction to his middle school aged daughter dating a “man” two years older than her, readers—male and female alike—will find themselves cracking smiles when they aren’t busy laughing out loud.
Elswick also has a serious side to him. Interspersed with the comical tales are heartfelt looks into the lives of people who experience a Traumatic Brain Incident (TBI) injury, including his own story of being in a life-threatening car accident that left doctors predicting he would be a vegetable for the rest of his life. With compassion and insight, while retaining his sense of humor, Elswick writes to raise awareness about TBI; a portion of Padman: A Dad’s Guide to Buying…Those, and Other Tales’ proceeds will go to TBI research.

* Readers will laugh out loud at the comical real-life humor
* Women will marvel in amusement at male misperceptions
* Men will shyly smile putting theirself in these predicaments
* You will understand the capabilities of a Traumatic Brain Injury
* Indirectly donate to the Brain Injury Association of America