Al is a professional humorist, inspirational/motivational disability speaker, and author. After experiencing a brain injury from a motorcycle crash over 25 years ago, which has caused him to be partially paralyzed and have a slight speech impediment , Al's learned many things the hard way. Through these experiences Al has gained insights and learned principles regarding living with a disability that he shares with audiences nationwide.
Doctors told him he'd never walk, talk understandably, or drive. Al met these challenges head on. They changed him from ordinary to extra ordinary. Today he drives to his speaking engagements, limps onto the stage, and gets paid to share his humorous insights with people who begin to see their own situations in a new light. Suddenly they see hope in their own possibilities.
 Al shares his personal story
I was born in Detroit in 1961 and raised near Seattle. I quit high school and earned my GED during my junior year so I could get a job and buy the things I loved. At that age, snow skiing and backpacking, cars and motorcycles were more fascinating than chalk boards and textbooks.
Right after leaving high school, when I was 17, I obtained a job as a hot tar roofer. It was hard work, but I made good money.
In the 1970s I loved going to rock concerts . On my way to a spring concert in 1980, after leaving the house of my fiancée and speeding down the road (way over the speed limit), my motorcycle crashed into a pickup truck that ran a stop sign right in front of me.
After spending a month in a coma, I woke up with a brain injury and the left side of my body paralyzed. I held my breath as I watched the neuro-surgeon's expression. He took a deep breath and held it in as he looked at the alphabet board I had used to ask him when I could get up and get going. The sounds in the hospital corridor formed dull background noise that sounded like it did all day every day, but this wasn’t like any other day. This was the day my journey began. The surgeon looked me in the eye as he told me I would never walk or drive again.
Never walk?! Never drive?! I’m a 19 year old roofer. I have to walk. I have to drive! Frantically I pushed my paralyzed leg off the hospital bed and tried to stand up. I fell on my face. Two nurses helped the surgeon put me back in bed, but as soon as they turned around I climbed back out and fell on my face again. This time they put me back and strapped me in.
As I lay there, staring at the ceiling, I could read the writing on the wall. Instead of hanging out with friends, snow skiing, water skiing, back packing, going to rock concerts and to the beach, I was going to be spending my time in physical, speech, occupational and psycho therapy and potentially have a life long disability. What a drag, what a bore, what a challenge!
The crash that left me head injured, paralyzed and alone could easily have been the end of my happy and productive life. Depression and fear hounded me as I considered my disability. I tried to rebuild my life, but it was impossible. My crash had been 15 or so years before this, and I had tried every angle of working again that I could think of. I tried school, but brain damage and studies are about as compatible as fire and ice. It took me 7 years to graduate from a community college with a meaningless two year degree. I tried voc rehab, but the boring, dead end jobs they had me doing paid me too little to earn a living; and going out on my own and finding work that I could do with my physical limitations was proving impossible. Having a disability was very devastating.
I didn’t think standup comedy could lead to a potential career as I stood quietly in the church lobby looking at the poster advertising an upcoming Amateur Night. Joke telling wasn’t among the suggested type of talents to display, but I didn’t sing, or quote long passages of scripture, or play a musical instrument. A lot of other people didn’t do those things either. A lot of people wouldn’t be in the program. But I wanted to be in the program. As I studied the poster, my imagination kicked in. I imagined doing a performance that would make people laugh.
Amateur Night was a night to remember. Not only did the people laugh enthusiastic-ally, a young lady who had been a professional comedian approached me after the show and convinced me to let her take me to a local comedy club’s open mic. I did the open mic show and I loved it.
At the time, I was working as a substitute Teaching Assistant, fun and interesting but with absolutely no future. A few years after beginning to do standup, one of the teachers I was working with asked me to share the details of my crash with the kids in her class. I did. They loved listening to my story and laughing at my jokes.
I loved it, too. I especially enjoyed knowing that my description of my crash could help them be more careful and therefore safer and the fact that I, a person with disabilities, was making them laugh and think about life may open their minds to their own possibilities. The fact that I could encourage them to see possibilities instead of stereotypes was the best part. People’s tendency to judge a book by its cover keeps some folks isolated and robs other folks of the opportunity to know some very quality friends. Learning to see possibilities opened many doors for both myself and for people I’ve met and become friends with over the years.
 From amateur night at a church function I became an award winning comic at Giggles, a Seattle Comedy Club. While I still do comedy shows at times, I realized if all I get out of my rehab journey is a few good jokes then it’s been a colossal waste of time. That is why I developed my speaking skills and have become a professional speaker. I love sharing on the topics of "Disabling Disability Myths", "Delighting in Differences", "Winners Dont' Quit", "Accepting Change", and many other subjects.
Accepting the book I’ve been given, Believing I can write a happy ending, and Caring about others gives me peace of mind and insights that have helped other people overcome their own, unique challenges and to help individuals to understand those who have unique challenges because of some type of disability. I do many presentations based upon my insights as a person who has overcome a disability. Go to www.winnersdontquit.org to learn more.
 Read No Limits Book, an autobiography of Al Foxx. By the end of the year Al hopes to have his new autobiography published. It is written from a Christian perspective. When given the opportunity Al enjoys speaking about his Christian faith.
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