Latest / Project Candor: Ordinary People. Unexpected Stories / No Ramps. Just Stairs. No Way In. | With Ken Kunken | Ship's Log 36

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No Ramps. Just Stairs. No Way In. | With Ken Kunken | Ship's Log 36 · Project Candor: Ordinary People. Unexpected Stories

0:00
Ken Kunken: I was so proud to go to court my first day, and I couldn't fit through the switching doorways of the court.
0:06
Ken Kunken: They were too narrow to allow me to get through with my electric reaction.
0:11
Ken Kunken: That's how I started
0:30
Jeanne: Welcome to Project Candor, the show where ordinary people share unexpected stories.
0:35
Jeanne: I'm your host, Jeanne Andersen, and today's guest has lived a life that proves the only limit to what's possible is what you decide to believe about yourself.
0:44
Jeanne: In 1970, Ken Kunken was a junior at Cornell University studying engineering and playing football.
0:52
Jeanne: A young man with the world in front of him, then a single tackle left him paralyzed from the shoulders down.
0:58
Jeanne: What happened next became one of the most remarkable stories of resilience, determination, and reinvention you'll ever hear.
1:06
Jeanne: Ken went on to earn multiple degrees, practiced law for more than 40 years, and in 2023, he published his memoir, I dream of things that never were, the Ken Kunkin story.
1:19
Jeanne: Hey, Ken, welcome to Project Candor.
1:21
Jeanne: So glad you joined us.
1:23
Ken Kunken: Thank you.
1:23
Ken Kunken: Thank you for having me as your guest.
1:26
Jeanne: Yeah, I'm excited.
1:27
Jeanne: I've been thinking about you all night long, trying to make sure I can do justice to your story because you're amazing.
1:36
Ken Kunken: Thank you.
1:37
Jeanne: So we're gonna go into some questions that I prepared in advance, and then later on, we're gonna transition to get to know you even more by um playing Two Truths and a Lie.
1:48
Jeanne: Um, we ready to get the questions?
1:52
Ken Kunken: Ready.
1:53
Jeanne: All right.
1:53
Jeanne: I I know everybody likes to talk about what happened to you in college, and I just wanted to go back to you as a kid.
2:01
Jeanne: So let's go back to grade school, Ken.
2:04
Jeanne: Who were your heroes?
2:06
Jeanne: What do you what did you love to do?
2:09
Jeanne: And were you the competitive kid on the field and in the classroom or both?
2:15
Ken Kunken: Well, my heroes all revolved around sports.
2:18
Ken Kunken: I love sports.
2:20
Ken Kunken: I basically played some type of sport all day long.
2:24
Ken Kunken: And excuse me, couldn't get enough of it.
2:28
Ken Kunken: Whether it be baseball or football, uh, I was always active and I loved it.
2:34
Ken Kunken: But when you talk about heroes, I always looked at my grandparents as my heroes.
2:40
Ken Kunken: They were absolutely incredible.
2:43
Ken Kunken: I thought they could do no wrong no matter what they did.
2:47
Ken Kunken: Uh, they just showered me with love, and I couldn't wait to spend more time with them.
2:54
Jeanne: That's something you don't hear very often from kids, is that they just want to spend more time with their grandparents, or their parents for that matter.
3:03
Jeanne: It's more or less like I want to get away from home.
3:07
Jeanne: So that that's very lovely, Ken.
3:10
Jeanne: Um, thanks for sharing that.
3:11
Jeanne: What did your grandfather and grandmother do for a living?
3:16
Ken Kunken: Well, um, my grandfather had a business where um he eventually sold the drug uh drug to help treat epilepsy uh in a foreign country.
3:29
Ken Kunken: And so he was in the exporting business.
3:32
Ken Kunken: Excuse me, can you just give me a drink, please?
3:35
Ken Kunken: Excuse me one minute.
3:37
Jeanne: Um not a problem.
3:43
Ken Kunken: My other grandfather was in the insurance business and he started a life insurance business that my father and two uncles also participated in.
3:56
Jeanne: Oh, that's great.
3:57
Jeanne: So you got your drive and determination from them, would you say?
4:01
Ken Kunken: Absolutely, without a doubt.
4:04
Jeanne: Did they play sports as well?
4:06
Ken Kunken: No, no, neither one of them was active in sports, though my father was, and my older brother certainly was.
4:14
Jeanne: What did they play?
4:16
Ken Kunken: Well, my father played football, and my brother played uh football and baseball.
4:22
Ken Kunken: In fact, my father ran track as well.
4:25
Ken Kunken: So he was very active, and he taught me at an early age how to throw, catch, and hit a baseball, uh, and coached me in football as well.
4:37
Jeanne: That's wonderful.
4:38
Jeanne: So, fast forward a few years to high school.
4:42
Jeanne: Uh, were you working any part-time jobs or was life pretty comfortable?
4:46
Jeanne: Were you popular with your friends and with the girls?
4:49
Jeanne: And did you always have a plan to go to college to play football?
4:54
Ken Kunken: Uh absolutely not.
4:55
Ken Kunken: I had a lot of good friends, but I really tried to concentrate more on my studies.
5:02
Ken Kunken: Uh, I worked hard in school.
5:04
Ken Kunken: Fortunately, I did well, in fact, well enough to be admitted to Cornell University, where I was studying engineering.
5:11
Ken Kunken: Um, but I found that sports was a great way just to relieve some of the stress in my life.
5:17
Ken Kunken: I loved playing ball, so uh I wasn't sure though what I would do in college if I had the opportunity to play, because in high school I was also on the wrestling team, and I enjoyed that sport as well.
5:30
Ken Kunken: Um but when I got to Cornell, I just felt like there was too much work, schoolwork, to actually play a sport.
5:37
Ken Kunken: So my freshman year, I didn't participate at all in any type of athletics.
5:42
Ken Kunken: Um, but I just really, really missed it.
5:46
Ken Kunken: So at the beginning of my sophomore year, I went out for the football team because Cornell actually had a lightweight football team, which was rare.
5:54
Ken Kunken: There were only, I think, six or seven colleges that had a lightweight football team uh where you had to weigh less than 154 pounds two days before the game.
6:06
Ken Kunken: And that was rare.
6:07
Ken Kunken: So it gave me the opportunity to play against people more my own size, and I loved participating in that.
6:16
Jeanne: Yeah, I've never heard that about a lightweight football team.
6:20
Jeanne: They don't have that today, do they?
6:22
Ken Kunken: Well, now it's called sprint football, and they still have it, but again, they're only a handful of teams.
6:28
Ken Kunken: I think there may be six teams that play it.
6:31
Ken Kunken: When I played, I think they're either six or seven teams, but some teams folded, unfortunately, other teams started up.
6:39
Ken Kunken: But that was one of the nice things about having that sport at Cornell, because I was always uh smaller than most of the people on uh the football team when I played in high school.
6:50
Ken Kunken: Um, so it gave me the opportunity to play up against people who were more my size.
6:56
Jeanne: Hmm, interesting.
6:57
Jeanne: So, what was your position again?
6:59
Ken Kunken: Were you quarterback or in ninth grade I was actually the quarterback of the team?
7:05
Ken Kunken: But in high school and college, I just played defense.
7:08
Ken Kunken: And uh I played either defensive end or defensive linebacker.
7:15
Jeanne: Poor small guy.
7:16
Jeanne: Defensive linebacker sounds like a different position that you you should avoid.
7:23
Ken Kunken: Well, when I was in high school, I was probably the smallest defensive end in the league.
7:28
Ken Kunken: I weighed at the time 150.
7:31
Ken Kunken: The defensive tackle next to me weighed 225.
7:35
Ken Kunken: I had to worry not just about the opposing players.
7:38
Ken Kunken: If my own player felled on me, fell fell down on me, I'd be in trouble.
7:43
Jeanne: Oh, wow.
7:44
Jeanne: And then when you got to college, and then you're trying to you have to maintain a weight to be order to play this um this other league or the smaller league.
7:54
Jeanne: What did you call that again?
7:56
Ken Kunken: It was then it was called the 150-pound league.
7:59
Jeanne: Uh now it's almost like sweating out pounds for weight for wrestling.
8:03
Ken Kunken: I was used to that for wrestling to lose weight.
8:06
Ken Kunken: But actually, for this uh league, I was one of the smallest players in the league.
8:11
Ken Kunken: I was naturally under the weight.
8:13
Ken Kunken: All I had to do when we did a weigh-in was take off one shoe and I made a weight.
8:18
Ken Kunken: Whereas many people had to pull about 20 pounds to make weight.
8:24
Jeanne: Wow.
8:24
Jeanne: That's a very interesting concept.
8:26
Jeanne: I'll have to look that up.
8:27
Jeanne: I've never heard of that before.
8:29
Jeanne: So you went and applied for Cornell, or did you get a scholarship to go there?
8:35
Ken Kunken: No, they weren't given out uh scholarships at the time.
8:38
Ken Kunken: So I applied uh to the College of Engineering.
8:42
Ken Kunken: I was always very good at math growing up.
8:44
Ken Kunken: That was my favorite subject.
8:46
Ken Kunken: And my high school guidance counselor said, if you're good in math, you should be an engineer.
8:51
Ken Kunken: Well, I didn't know much about engineering, and that really was not the right field for me.
8:57
Ken Kunken: But I had a friend uh who was going to Cornell Engineering at the time, and he suggested if you're not sure, you're better off starting an engineering, see if you like it, take whatever required courses there are, and if you find it's not for you, transfer out, then start in the College of Arts and Sciences.
9:18
Ken Kunken: Think you may want to go into engineering, uh, and then if you transfer, still not being sure whether you like it or not.
9:25
Ken Kunken: And you'd have to make up some of the required courses.
9:28
Ken Kunken: So his advice made a lot of sense.
9:31
Ken Kunken: Um, so I decided to start in the College of Engineering.
9:35
Jeanne: Oh, nice.
9:36
Jeanne: Yeah, that who was this was a friend that was already in college, or it was actually one of my brother's best friends, uh, who was in the College of Engineering at Cornell.
9:46
Ken Kunken: Um, but you know, my it seemed like my entire family had been going to the University of Vermont.
9:52
Ken Kunken: Um, my father, mother, and brother all went to the University of Vermont.
9:57
Ken Kunken: So I think I kind of surprised a lot of people when I decided to go to Cornell.
10:02
Jeanne: Right.
10:03
Jeanne: That's a really prestigious uh university.
10:05
Jeanne: So I can imagine what did the moment feel like when you were accepted?
10:11
Jeanne: And then how did you feel about life going forward when you're standing there ready to report?
10:18
Ken Kunken: You know, it was interesting because before I received my acceptance in the mail, I had actually gone down with my father to uh look at the University of Maryland, uh, because that was one of the schools I had applied to and was accepted to.
10:32
Ken Kunken: And on the way down, my father asked me of all the schools that I applied to, which would I like to go to.
10:38
Ken Kunken: And all the schools that I applied to were for the College of Arts and Sciences, liberal arts.
10:44
Ken Kunken: The only school I applied to for engineering was Cornell.
10:48
Ken Kunken: So I told my father I wasn't sure.
10:51
Ken Kunken: I just knew it would not be Cornell because I didn't think I wanted to be an engineer.
10:57
Ken Kunken: And he said, that's fine, he understands.
11:00
Ken Kunken: But as soon as I got back from looking at Maryland, the acceptance was waiting in the mail, and my father immediately said, You're going.
11:07
Ken Kunken: But, you know, I went up, looked at the school, it looked great, and I was excited to go there.
11:14
Ken Kunken: I knew my brother Steve actually really wanted to go there.
11:18
Ken Kunken: Uh, that really piqued my interest, and he unfortunately wasn't accepted.
11:22
Ken Kunken: So he ended up going to the University of Vermont, but he encouraged me as well to go to Cornell.
11:29
Jeanne: Well, you can't do wrong in some schools, but Vermont I've never heard of, but I'm sure it's good.
11:35
Jeanne: And Maryland I've heard of.
11:37
Jeanne: And uh, we were rivals.
11:38
Jeanne: I was from North Carolina, I don't really like their basketball team.
11:42
Jeanne: But anyway, that's uh another subject.
11:47
Jeanne: So um now we get to you're at Cornell, and then came the tackle that changed everything.
11:55
Jeanne: How long were you actually down in hospitals, rehab, all of that?
12:00
Jeanne: And did you lose time at Cornell and have to, you know, skip a year?
12:04
Jeanne: Uh and then in the middle of all that, when the world had completely shifted, what gave you your footing back?
12:11
Ken Kunken: Well, what happened is I was in on the kickoff play and I ran down the field.
12:15
Ken Kunken: When I tackled the ball carrier, I broke my neck and severely damaged my spinal cord.
12:21
Ken Kunken: And as a result, I'm a quadriplegic.
12:24
Ken Kunken: I'm almost totally paralyzed below the shoulders.
12:27
Ken Kunken: So I spent the next nine months and 20 days in various hospitals and rehabilitation centers.
12:34
Ken Kunken: And fortunately, I had a vocational counselor at the Rusk Institute where I was doing rehab.
12:42
Ken Kunken: And she encouraged me, as well as my family, of course, to try and go back to school and continue my education.
12:49
Ken Kunken: So I lost a year of study by spending almost 10 months in the hospital.
12:55
Ken Kunken: Uh, but then I returned to Cornell that next year.
13:00
Jeanne: Okay.
13:00
Jeanne: And you how did your world shift?
13:05
Jeanne: I mean, you you did you really want to go back there?
13:08
Jeanne: I mean, you had encouragement to go back there, but did you know what were you doing sitting there in in the medical centers trying to rehabilitate yourself?
13:18
Jeanne: What were your feelings then?
13:20
Ken Kunken: Well, I wasn't really sure how I was going to do it.
13:22
Ken Kunken: Um, I had a number of roommates while I was at the Rusk Institute.
13:27
Ken Kunken: They all had spinal cord injuries, but they all had more movement than I had.
13:32
Ken Kunken: They were all injured far longer than I was, and none of them seemed to be doing much with their lives.
13:38
Ken Kunken: They were all basically just sitting home.
13:40
Ken Kunken: So it was really discouraging.
13:42
Ken Kunken: And fortunately, my family uh kept encouraging me uh to go back to school and try and make the most of my intellectual ability.
13:53
Ken Kunken: So then the question is, where do you go?
13:56
Ken Kunken: And Cornell was one of the least accessible places somebody in a wheelchair could go to.
14:02
Ken Kunken: This was about 20 years before the Americans with Disabilities Act took effect.
14:08
Ken Kunken: Now that act uh mandated that more facilities needed to be made wheelchair accessible.
14:14
Ken Kunken: At the time of my injury, Cornell, which is located in upstate New York, is on a very hilly terrain.
14:22
Ken Kunken: Almost every one of its buildings has steps in front of them, and there was not one ramp or curb cut on the entire campus.
14:30
Ken Kunken: So think about this.
14:31
Ken Kunken: On my first day back at school, I had to be either pulled up or bounced down close to 100 steps just to attend my first day.
14:45
Jeanne: And who did that for you?
14:47
Ken Kunken: Well, I hired a personal care attendant, and between my attendant and fellow classmates, that's how I was able to maneuver and get up and down the steps.
14:58
Ken Kunken: You know, while at the rehab facility, I learned how to use an electric wheelchair, but I couldn't use that at Cordell because of all the steps.
15:07
Ken Kunken: Uh, since nothing was accessible, I had to be in a manual wheelchair, which I could not wheel.
15:12
Ken Kunken: So either my attendant or people at school helped pull me up and down the steps.
15:21
Jeanne: Did you have a lot of close friends there?
15:23
Jeanne: Um you would this happen in your sophomore year?
15:26
Ken Kunken: Uh, this was the beginning of my junior year.
15:28
Ken Kunken: And I had a lot of close friends.
15:30
Ken Kunken: I was in a fraternity, the Sigma New fraternity, so I had my fraternity brothers.
15:35
Ken Kunken: I had played on the lightweight football team, so I had my football teammates, as well as just other colleagues I had met at school.
15:43
Ken Kunken: So I had a good amount of friends there, which was one of the reasons why I wanted to go back there.
15:49
Jeanne: Oh, that's nice.
15:50
Jeanne: Do you keep in touch with any of those people now?
15:53
Ken Kunken: No, none.
15:54
Ken Kunken: I did for a while, but uh now I have one or two that were fraternity brothers that I keep in touch with, but it's only about one or two that I do.
16:05
Jeanne: Yeah, it's hard.
16:06
Jeanne: I I get it.
16:07
Jeanne: I just was curious because uh, you know, that that's quite intensive, you know, what you went through, and then having friends that you could wanted to go back to.
16:17
Jeanne: I didn't know uh if you still kept in touch with them.
16:19
Jeanne: I barely keep in touch with people from high school or college.
16:24
Jeanne: Um, you know, it's it everybody has a life and you go forward.
16:28
Jeanne: Uh so I know you're back at Cornell now, and then you are going up and downstairs, being uh pulled up and bounced down, and you're in classes.
16:39
Jeanne: How are you taking notes, or is somebody doing that for you?
16:44
Ken Kunken: Well, I had to try and figure all of that out.
16:46
Ken Kunken: And what I eventually decided was I gave a you know a pad of paper and carbon paper to classmates in different classes, and that way I was able to get a carbon copy of their notes.
17:00
Ken Kunken: Uh, since I'm not able to write.
17:02
Ken Kunken: So it was difficult.
17:03
Ken Kunken: I hope that whoever was taking notes took decent notes, didn't get too smudged, you know, with the carbon paper.
17:12
Ken Kunken: Um, but at the time I was still trying to get used to my new physical condition.
17:17
Ken Kunken: So it was really tough for me to concentrate at all.
17:21
Ken Kunken: I went back to Cornell just, I believe it was 11 days after I was discharged from the hospital.
17:27
Ken Kunken: And there was a lot of adjusting I still needed to do.
17:32
Jeanne: Well, that's very smart to have somebody use carbon paper.
17:37
Jeanne: Um, amazing what you could do at that point.
17:40
Jeanne: You didn't there was no um tape recorders, I'm guessing, that like small ones you could carry with you.
17:47
Ken Kunken: You know, they didn't have really small ones, they had bigger ones.
17:50
Ken Kunken: But the problem was, you know, most of the engineering lectures were 50 minutes long, and they were extremely boring.
17:57
Ken Kunken: But in addition, you know, a lot of it was writing on uh either a blackboard or an opaque projector, an overhead projector.
18:05
Ken Kunken: So a tape recorder one would have been difficult to record all of that since a lot of it was visual.
18:11
Ken Kunken: But secondly, it was tough enough sitting through a lecture once to listen to a whole 50-minute lecture again would have been really difficult.
18:20
Ken Kunken: And then to do that for five or six courses, there just wasn't enough time.
18:26
Jeanne: Yeah, I never understood people bringing tape recorders to class because I was like, I don't want to hear this again either.
18:32
Jeanne: And I didn't have any problems making my own notes, so yeah, that would have been grueling for you.
18:38
Jeanne: Um, how about your like physical condition as far as sleep and and so forth?
18:43
Jeanne: Um, was that a factor in being able to keep awake in classes and take uh did you take a full mood?
18:50
Ken Kunken: It sure was.
18:51
Ken Kunken: It was really difficult because I had a lot of trouble sleeping.
18:54
Ken Kunken: Uh I would get really uncomfortable because I'm not able to roll over in bed.
18:59
Ken Kunken: You know, I most people roll over, they don't realize it during their sleep.
19:03
Ken Kunken: I'd be in one position and get really stiff and uncomfortable, and I'd have to wake up my personal care attendant and have him or her turn me to my side or back to my back.
19:14
Ken Kunken: So I never slept straight through the night.
19:17
Ken Kunken: I was always up a lot, and as a result, I always felt sleep deprived.
19:22
Ken Kunken: So it was really difficult keeping awake.
19:26
Jeanne: So you're painting a picture of how hard it is um for you at this point in in coming back to school, but then you just went on um to get multiple degrees, and then you went to law school, and then there were you went on to have 40 years as a prosecutor.
19:46
Jeanne: What was the internal conversation that kept pushing you forward?
19:50
Jeanne: And was there ever a moment you said, I just want to give up?
19:55
Ken Kunken: There were a lot of those moments.
19:57
Ken Kunken: They just seemed reluctant to answer many of my questions.
20:06
Ken Kunken: And one day I got a hold of a pamphlet published by the Rusk Institute, and they seemed to have uh the answers to all aspects of questions about spinal cord injuries.
20:19
Ken Kunken: It talked about what type of movement you would have.
20:22
Ken Kunken: Of course, I have very little.
20:24
Ken Kunken: It depends on the level you're injured, whether it be in your neck or back.
20:27
Ken Kunken: I'm hurt between the fourth and fifth cervical.
20:30
Ken Kunken: They would talk about what type of sensation you would have.
20:33
Ken Kunken: And I have very little sensation below my shoulders.
20:37
Ken Kunken: You know, most of my body I can't feel.
20:40
Ken Kunken: And it talked about how it affects your bodily functions, your bladder, your bowels, your breathing.
20:46
Ken Kunken: There was also a section about what type of careers you could go into.
20:51
Ken Kunken: And the only career I saw for somebody injured at the fourth and fifth cervical in the neck would be to someday sell magazine subscriptions over the telephone.
21:02
Ken Kunken: And I was devastated when I saw that.
21:05
Ken Kunken: I mean, here I had been studying engineering at one of the most prestigious schools in the country, and now they're talking about selling magazine subscriptions over the telephone.
21:16
Ken Kunken: And while there's nothing wrong for people who do that, I couldn't even dial a telephone.
21:22
Ken Kunken: This was before they had touch tone phones, and I couldn't dial a rotary phone or take notes.
21:28
Ken Kunken: And I remember lying in bed thinking, I may not even be able to do that.
21:33
Ken Kunken: And I just made up my mind through a lot of encouragement from my family that there would still be something I can do.
21:41
Ken Kunken: And through their help, I pushed myself to try and achieve as much as I possibly could.
21:49
Jeanne: Wow, it's so touching that your family was there and the one and only people that kept you motivated because you would think professionals like the Rusk Institute.
21:59
Jeanne: Would have better answers for people.
22:02
Jeanne: They're supposed to, you know, it energize you, pump you up, help you get over your uh anxiety about what's happened.
22:11
Jeanne: And they're going to give you a list that says, oh, here you go, here's your career magazine salesperson.
22:17
Jeanne: What happens now?
22:18
Jeanne: We don't have many magazines.
22:21
Ken Kunken: Well, I have to give a lot of credit to my vocational counselor there.
22:24
Ken Kunken: Her name was Joyce Mesh, and she encouraged me to go back to school.
22:29
Ken Kunken: Uh, and she helped a lot in getting me back to Cornell.
22:33
Ken Kunken: But most of the other professionals at the Rusk Institute were not very encouraging.
22:40
Ken Kunken: I mean, they they still encouraged you to do something and hopefully go back to school, but they weren't very encouraging or had very low expectations, let's say, of what you could do.
22:55
Jeanne: Okay.
22:55
Jeanne: Well then you must have had to outfit your home to accommodate you.
23:01
Jeanne: Plus, you like you said, you had a personal assistant in college, but you must have a lot of equipment now that helps you move around that's automated or that has some kind of mechanism to it.
23:13
Ken Kunken: Um I think most people think that.
23:15
Ken Kunken: I don't actually.
23:17
Ken Kunken: Um, you know, I really don't.
23:19
Ken Kunken: I mean, I use an electric wheelchair.
23:22
Ken Kunken: Um, I have a bed where, you know, the head of the bed could be raised.
23:27
Ken Kunken: But other than that, I really don't have any specialized equipment.
23:33
Jeanne: Okay.
23:34
Jeanne: Well, I have someone in my family that's got um the use of his arms.
23:41
Jeanne: I don't know exactly um what the term is for what he has, but um from there he cannot move.
23:48
Jeanne: So he's got like a like a hoist or something to help him get up and on and out of the bed.
23:54
Jeanne: So you don't have any of those kinds of things.
23:56
Ken Kunken: No, I've been real fortunate that I married a wonderful, wonderful, incredible woman.
24:02
Ken Kunken: Her name is Anna.
24:03
Ken Kunken: She's sitting to my right just off camera.
24:06
Ken Kunken: And Anna is just over six feet tall and very strong.
24:12
Ken Kunken: And Anna actually lifts me from the bed to the wheelchair and from the wheelchair to the bed.
24:17
Ken Kunken: And we use what's called the sliding board to help slide me part of the way, but it's basically Anna that lifts me.
24:24
Ken Kunken: I don't have a lift.
24:26
Jeanne: Oh, that's that's incredible.
24:29
Jeanne: And Anna, you I I know you're behind scenes because I've talked to you and arranging this, so you're a wonderful woman.
24:38
Ken Kunken: She sure is in so many ways.
24:41
Jeanne: So now let's talk about the personal side because you brought it up.
24:45
Jeanne: You got married and you became the father of triplet boys.
24:51
Jeanne: Um, that is amazing in itself.
24:55
Jeanne: Um so want to talk about those little guys?
25:00
Jeanne: I know they're adults now.
25:03
Ken Kunken: You know, uh, it's my favorite topic.
25:05
Ken Kunken: When I was injured, I never thought that I even get a serious girlfriend, let alone eventually get married and have a family.
25:15
Ken Kunken: I just basically ruled that out of my life, thinking it's just never gonna happen.
25:20
Ken Kunken: And my Aunt Betty encouraged me not to feel that way.
25:23
Ken Kunken: She felt there was still a lot I could offer to, you know, the right person, and someday I would meet that right person.
25:30
Ken Kunken: And fortunately I did.
25:32
Ken Kunken: Um, I met this wonderful woman named Anna, who uh originally uh was hired by me to be my personal care attendant because she was strong enough to lift me in and out of the wheelchair and help me with all my needs.
25:49
Ken Kunken: And it wasn't long before our relationship became one of being very good friends and then a romantic relationship.
25:58
Ken Kunken: And in 2003, Anna and I got married.
26:03
Ken Kunken: Now, I was injured in 1970, so this was more than 30 years after my injury, and now I was in my 50s, and when we got married, in fact, I might add it was actually Anna who proposed to me.
26:19
Ken Kunken: I was too nervous or afraid to even propose to her, and I wasn't sure that was the right thing to do.
26:26
Ken Kunken: She actually proposed to me.
26:28
Ken Kunken: And not only did she propose, but she told me that she really wanted to have my baby, and not just a baby, my baby.
26:37
Ken Kunken: Now think about this.
26:38
Ken Kunken: I'd been paralyzed for more than 30 years, and I was already in my 50s.
26:44
Ken Kunken: But we researched various options, including in vitro fertilization, and we're very excited to learn it still might be possible for someone in my condition.
26:56
Ken Kunken: So we pursued it, and on January 24th, 2005, picture what this was like.
27:06
Ken Kunken: I was present in the delivery room.
27:09
Ken Kunken: I was present in the delivery room when my wife Anna gave birth to triplets.
27:15
Ken Kunken: We have three beautiful, beautiful, wonderful boys, Joey, Jimmy, and Timmy.
27:22
Ken Kunken: They just completed their junior year in three separate colleges in upstate New York.
27:28
Ken Kunken: They're all doing incredibly well, and I couldn't be happier or more proud.
27:35
Jeanne: That is a beautiful story.
27:37
Jeanne: And you were able to participate in their childhood all the way up to who they are today.
27:45
Jeanne: Um, and you could hold them and everything.
27:49
Jeanne: I mean, they made provisions for you to be able to hold them in your arms.
27:55
Ken Kunken: As best I could, I I'd uh maneuver my electric wheelchair around uh town with my boys when they were small, all three sitting on my lap at once.
28:06
Ken Kunken: Uh and as best I could, I wanted to have one or two at least wherever I went, and it was just great.
28:14
Ken Kunken: The greatest thing in the world.
28:16
Jeanne: I'm sure you have beautiful pictures of that.
28:20
Ken Kunken: In fact, if somebody goes on my website, which is kencumkin.com, they'll see a lot of wonderful pictures of my children.
28:28
Jeanne: I have seen some of them on that site.
28:31
Jeanne: Uh one of them was wearing a Cornell shirt.
28:36
Ken Kunken: One of them, I one of them is going into a senior year at Cornell now.
28:40
Jeanne: Oh, I couldn't read the other shirt that was behind you, SUNY or something I was trying to see.
28:49
Ken Kunken: One is at the State University of New York at Morrisville.
28:52
Ken Kunken: He's studying renewable energy.
28:54
Ken Kunken: That's my son James.
28:55
Ken Kunken: And the third is at Syracuse University studying communications.
29:00
Ken Kunken: His name is Timmy, and he wants to be a journalist.
29:03
Ken Kunken: And Joey, the son of Cornell, is studying mechanical engineering.
29:10
Jeanne: So how uh triplets usually like stay together a lot.
29:14
Jeanne: That must it wonder if it's hard for them to be in three different places because those are not really that close in proximity.
29:22
Ken Kunken: You know, that's the first time they were ever separated in their lives.
29:25
Ken Kunken: I mean, they grew up doing everything together, they slept in the same room, and it was their decision to go to three separate colleges.
29:34
Ken Kunken: Not because they wanted to be separated from their brothers, they just had different interests.
29:40
Ken Kunken: So they've stayed really close, they visit each other at school, they've gone to class with each other, um, they do a lot when they're home on vacations with each other.
29:51
Ken Kunken: Uh and uh the schools are actually uh all in upstate New York, so it is doable for them to visit each other without too much difficulty.
30:03
Ken Kunken: And I love the fact that they've stayed really close.
30:06
Jeanne: That's great.
30:07
Jeanne: So this is a full life, by any measure, just talking about your boys, and we haven't even gotten to your career yet.
30:14
Jeanne: So, what would you want your boys to understand about the life their dad built?
30:21
Ken Kunken: Well, they actually all read the book that I wrote, so they know very well about what my life was like before they came into this world.
30:30
Ken Kunken: But basically, that never say you can't do something.
30:34
Ken Kunken: Never say something's impossible.
30:37
Ken Kunken: Because, you know, if you work hard enough, often you can make the impossible possible.
30:43
Ken Kunken: So don't listen to the naysayers, don't listen to people who tell you something's just too difficult or that you can't do it.
30:50
Ken Kunken: You have to believe in yourself and do everything you can to make it work.
30:55
Ken Kunken: And the most important thing that I want them to know and remember is to help others along the way every time they can.
31:03
Ken Kunken: I received so much help from my family and friends.
31:07
Ken Kunken: I can never pay all of that back.
31:09
Ken Kunken: Uh, and I want my boys not only to recognize that, but to help others as well.
31:15
Ken Kunken: And they do.
31:16
Ken Kunken: They're wonderful, wonderful children.
31:20
Jeanne: That's fantastic.
31:21
Jeanne: Anna, kudos to you too, back there.
31:24
Jeanne: So uh tell us a little bit about your career.
31:29
Jeanne: I mean, you um uh worked in law and you were a district attorney 40 years.
31:36
Jeanne: Um that was also probably a challenge to get to the courtroom and to get through all your um briefs and prepare for any kind of cases that you were handling.
31:50
Jeanne: Um tell us a little bit about that.
31:53
Ken Kunken: Okay, well, first I took a number of detours before I went into law.
31:57
Ken Kunken: You know, once I was injured, industrial engineering really didn't seem like a viable field for me.
32:04
Ken Kunken: This was well before they had laptop computers.
32:07
Ken Kunken: So while I graduated with a degree in engineering, um, based on the recommendation of a psychology professor at Cornell, I changed my career goal and decided to pursue a career where I'd be counseling others.
32:20
Ken Kunken: So I stayed at Cornell, earned a master's degree there where I majored in education, and the degree was in counseling and student personnel administration.
32:31
Ken Kunken: And then they increased my counseling credentials.
32:34
Ken Kunken: I went to Columbia University, earned my second master's degree.
32:39
Ken Kunken: This was in psychological counseling and rehabilitation.
32:43
Ken Kunken: So I decided to look for a job as a rehabilitation counselor, and I mailed out, not emailed, mailed out, because this was before they had email, more than 200 resumes.
32:55
Ken Kunken: Look for a job for a year, and no one would hire me.
32:59
Ken Kunken: Think about this.
33:00
Ken Kunken: I had now had two degrees from Cornell, one from Columbia, three prestigious Ivy League degrees, two master's degrees, and everyone seemed to feel I was just too disabled to work.
33:15
Ken Kunken: I was even turned down when I was to volunteer my services.
33:19
Ken Kunken: Excuse me, until I was finally hired by one organization on Long Island called the Viscarty Center.
33:27
Ken Kunken: And they hired me to work as a vocational rehabilitation counselor for other individuals with disabilities, and that changed my life.
33:36
Ken Kunken: Excuse me, can you just give me a drink, please?
33:38
Ken Kunken: Excuse me, one moment.
33:41
Ken Kunken: And I loved working there, and I learned a lot doing it.
33:50
Ken Kunken: And it gave me the self-confidence to decide there's still more I want to do with my life.
33:58
Ken Kunken: And I left the center and went to Hostel University School of Law and did an internship at the District Attorney's Office in Nassau County, Long Island.
34:10
Ken Kunken: Liked it a lot, decided to apply for a full-time job there when I graduated.
34:16
Ken Kunken: And I was fortunate that the district attorney at the time, a person by the name of Dennis Dillon, placed his hiring decision on my abilities rather than my disability.
34:28
Ken Kunken: So let me tell you a bit how I started there.
34:31
Ken Kunken: Right here, I had completed three years of law school, passed the difficult New York State bar exam the first time that I took it, began by participating in a very intensive four-week training program where they taught us all aspects of trial techniques from a prosecutor's perspective.
34:50
Ken Kunken: I was so proud to go to court my first day, and I couldn't fit through the swinging doorways in the courtroom.
34:57
Ken Kunken: They were too narrow to allow me to get through in my electric wheelchair.
35:02
Ken Kunken: That's how I started.
35:04
Ken Kunken: They finally had to widen all the doorways, uh, take off the swinging doors to allow me just to get through into the courtroom.
35:14
Jeanne: Wow, lesson learned for them and for a lot of places, because now, like you said, the American Disability Act has been.
35:22
Jeanne: It changed all of that.
35:24
Ken Kunken: It sure did.
35:25
Ken Kunken: It made a huge difference, not only in my life, but in so many others.
35:31
Jeanne: Well, you you put me to shame.
35:33
Jeanne: I mean, here you are whipping through all these degrees, and I'm like, uh, I was so glad to be out of school.
35:43
Ken Kunken: It was wonderful to know that there was a lot I could still do, despite my physical disability, by trying to make the most of my intellectual ability.
35:54
Ken Kunken: And by the same token, to convince others that there's a lot somebody with a disability can do to be an asset to anybody's company or business or organization.
36:07
Ken Kunken: Because too many people used to feel if you have a disability, you're not able to work.
36:13
Ken Kunken: And I wanted to be able to show people you can not only work, but work well.
36:18
Ken Kunken: And I might add that uh the current district attorney in Ansel County, a woman by the name of Ann Donnelly, actually started an award, an annual award that she named after me, the Kenneth J.
36:32
Ken Kunken: Cunkett Award.
36:34
Ken Kunken: Uh it's been going on now for more than three years.
36:38
Ken Kunken: And it's called the Kenneth J.
36:41
Ken Kunken: Cunkett Award that she presents to the outstanding assistant district attorney each year.
36:47
Ken Kunken: And I'm so honored that she named it after me.
36:51
Jeanne: What an honor.
36:52
Jeanne: That is wonderful.
36:53
Jeanne: So I think I keep thinking about the Rusk Institute brochure that they gave you.
37:01
Jeanne: I think you need to rewrite that and make sure they don't recommend to people that all they could do was be a magazine salesperson.
37:10
Ken Kunken: Well, this was a pamphlet they put out more than 50 years ago.
37:15
Jeanne: I hope they've gotten better.
37:17
Ken Kunken: I believe they have.
37:18
Ken Kunken: I believe they have.
37:20
Jeanne: Yeah.
37:21
Jeanne: Okay.
37:21
Jeanne: Well, I think um this has been wonderful.
37:24
Jeanne: I could keep talking to you.
37:25
Jeanne: It's really hard to, you know, stop.
37:27
Jeanne: But I think it's time for us to play our game.
37:29
Jeanne: Are you ready?
37:31
Ken Kunken: I'm ready.
37:32
Jeanne: Um, so for those listening, uh, we had the guest provide us with two, three headlines.
37:40
Jeanne: Two of them are true and one of them is false, um, or a twisted truth.
37:47
Jeanne: Um, but anyway, we're gonna go over those headlines and then I'm gonna guess which one I think is the lie.
37:53
Jeanne: And then we're gonna have Ken walk us through each of those headlines so that he can um tell us which at the end which one is the lie.
38:01
Jeanne: But don't reveal it while we're going through the stories.
38:05
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38:10
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38:20
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39:12
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39:14
Jeanne: So here we go.
39:17
Jeanne: The number one is Ken lost his mother to polio when he was just 27 days old.
39:25
Jeanne: Number two is people told Ken that he'd never have a career as a quadriplegic.
39:32
Jeanne: In response, Ken sent out 200 resumes.
39:36
Jeanne: And then number three, when Ken became a quadriplegic, the woman he loved left saying they had no future.
39:43
Jeanne: So I got the feeling that number two is true.
39:49
Jeanne: We sort of talked about that.
39:52
Jeanne: Um, but I don't know what to guess.
39:55
Jeanne: Uh I'm gonna say number three is a lie because I'm thinking maybe you told her to go away or you didn't have a girlfriend.
40:03
Jeanne: I'm just gonna guess that.
40:04
Jeanne: I have no clue.
40:05
Jeanne: They all sound true to me.
40:06
Jeanne: Uh anyway, can you walk us through each story?
40:10
Ken Kunken: Sure.
40:10
Ken Kunken: Uh unfortunately, my mother did die from polio when I was less than one month old.
40:16
Ken Kunken: Uh it was in 1950.
40:18
Ken Kunken: Uh, there was a serious polio epidemic spreading throughout the country.
40:23
Ken Kunken: We lived on Long Island at the time.
40:25
Ken Kunken: There were actually 10 cases on our block alone.
40:28
Ken Kunken: Um, my brother caught polio at that time, but fortunately, his was a mild case and he fully recovered.
40:35
Ken Kunken: But unfortunately, my mother did not.
40:38
Ken Kunken: Uh, and she died when I was 27 days old.
40:42
Ken Kunken: Uh and of the 10 cases on our block, my mother was the only fatality.
40:48
Ken Kunken: So, you know, we ended up living with my grandparents for a period of time until my father remarried, and unfortunately, it was not a happy marriage.
40:59
Ken Kunken: I ended in divorce, and he married a third time.
41:02
Ken Kunken: Um, but my extended family always played an important part of my life, and they helped me a great, great deal.
41:11
Jeanne: Which grandparents did you live with?
41:13
Jeanne: Your mother or your grandparents?
41:14
Ken Kunken: We lived with my father's parents, but my mother's parents visited us virtually every day for a long period of time to help out with our care.
41:24
Ken Kunken: Because my brother was only two and I was a baby, uh, and they visited very often to help with our care.
41:34
Jeanne: Nice.
41:34
Jeanne: So the number two story uh did you send out only 200 resumes or were there more?
41:42
Ken Kunken: You know, I lost count.
41:44
Ken Kunken: I lost count, but you know, I just received rejection after rejection after rejection, and it was terribly discouraging.
41:53
Ken Kunken: And you didn't see many people in wheelchairs out in public back then because uh facilities were not accessible.
42:02
Ken Kunken: This was well before the ADA, the Americans with Disabilities Act.
42:07
Ken Kunken: So, you know, employers, I guess, were not used to seeing people uh with severe disabilities out in the workplace.
42:16
Ken Kunken: And I always felt when the DA hired me, it took a lot of guts on his part to hire me because at that time I was the first quadriplegic on Long Island to work as an assistant district attorney.
42:30
Ken Kunken: In fact, when I was at Cornell, I was the first quadriplegic to ever graduate from Cornell and the first quadriplegic ever to earn a graduate degree at Cornell.
42:40
Ken Kunken: Um, so you know it was uh a lot of things that uh we were all learning for the first time that was doable, when a lot of people thought it just wasn't doable.
42:54
Jeanne: Yeah, you had a lot of first, for sure.
42:57
Jeanne: All right, what about the third one and the love of your life?
43:02
Ken Kunken: Actually, the love of my life is the woman I'm married to now.
43:05
Ken Kunken: But when I was injured, I did not have a significant girlfriend at the time.
43:11
Ken Kunken: Uh I was very shy growing up and uh did not date much at all.
43:17
Ken Kunken: And so I dated a lot more following my injury than before.
43:22
Ken Kunken: So it was difficult.
43:25
Jeanne: Um So I think you revealed the lie there.
43:30
Jeanne: So number three is the lie that you didn't really have a girlfriend.
43:36
Ken Kunken: So well, later, um, when I started dating Anna, uh, she became a serious girlfriend, but left me for a while.
43:45
Ken Kunken: Uh and that was so depressing when she left.
43:49
Ken Kunken: But I was very lucky and fortunate uh that she eventually came back.
43:55
Ken Kunken: Uh, and as I say, not only did our relationship resume.
43:59
Ken Kunken: She actually proposed to me.
44:02
Ken Kunken: And it was her idea to have children.
44:05
Ken Kunken: And everything has worked out wonderfully since then.
44:08
Ken Kunken: My boys are now home on their summer break.
44:11
Ken Kunken: We just had a wonderful family dinner last night.
44:14
Ken Kunken: And everything is looking really good.
44:17
Jeanne: Oh, that's fantastic.
44:19
Jeanne: So thank you for the conversation.
44:21
Jeanne: I know people are going to definitely want to get in touch with you and read your book.
44:25
Jeanne: I mean, it's just so intriguing to find out all these details about you.
44:29
Jeanne: So I have a slide here that says the ways to get in touch with you.
44:35
Jeanne: And then also your book, I Dream of Things That Never Were, the Ken Kunkin Story.
44:40
Jeanne: It's published in 2023, and you can find it on Amazon or on your website.
44:46
Jeanne: Is that correct?
44:47
Ken Kunken: That's correct.
44:48
Ken Kunken: Thank you.
44:49
Jeanne: And I will I'll put all these links in the show notes so people will be able to reach out to you.
44:53
Jeanne: But you uh I asked you to provide a quote that meant something to you.
44:58
Jeanne: So you put here the quote.
45:00
Jeanne: You want to talk about that?
45:03
Ken Kunken: While I was still in the rehab facility, I was asked to testify before a United States Health Senate subcommittee chaired by Senator Edward Kennedy.
45:14
Ken Kunken: And eight days after my testimony, Senator Kennedy sent me a glass paperweight in the mail that had an inscription on it that the senator said his late brother Robert Kennedy liked very much.
45:27
Ken Kunken: And the words on that inscription have always been very meaningful to me.
45:31
Ken Kunken: The inscription read, Some men see things as they are and say why.
45:36
Ken Kunken: I dream of things that never were and say why not.
45:40
Ken Kunken: And the senator said his late brother Robert Kennedy liked that uh saying a lot and used to say that a lot in his speeches.
45:48
Ken Kunken: I liked it so much that that's what I use for the title of my book, I dream of things that never were, the Ken Cumpkins story.
45:57
Jeanne: Oh.
45:58
Jeanne: Well, that helps us to know where you got that title from, but it's beautiful.
46:03
Jeanne: And you have dreamed of a lot of things uh that nobody would have expected you to be able to do.
46:10
Jeanne: So thank you for sharing your time with us.
46:13
Jeanne: This has been such a wonderful treat to me, and um, I really hope that uh people will reach out to you and I'll try to pick up your book as well because I want to read the real details behind everything and say hello to your boys when they come to dinner tonight.
46:32
Ken Kunken: Right.
46:33
Jeanne: And thank you, Anna, for helping us here.
46:36
Jeanne: To those listening, I hope you'll tune in next week for another guest.
46:40
Jeanne: Um, and until then, this is Jeanne Andersen, your Admiral of the Unexpected, wishing you all smooth sailing.
46:48
Jeanne: Bye.
46:49
Jeanne: Thanks for joining me on Project Candor, where the doors are open, the stories are unexpected, and the treasure is always real.
46:58
Jeanne: If today's episode made you laugh or think, follow the show and share it with your crew.
47:03
Jeanne: Otherwise, I might just make you squad the deck.
47:07
Jeanne: I'm Jeanne Andersen, your Admiral of the Unexpected.
47:11
Jeanne: See you on the next Voyage.