Working for a better life

Oct. 17 was a big day for Karen Kendall, 45, and her husband Ronnie, 52. Inside their ground-floor suite in the Superior Creek Lodge, Mrs. Kendall proudly showed off her certificate from the Heavy Construction Equipment Operator program at Chattanooga State, the first step toward helping them rebuild the life they had lost.

Long-haul truckers, the Kendalls once earned about $8,000 a month driving a route from Georgia to Washington State. The job was tough, and they lived on the road most of the time. But their comfortable salary allowed them to purchase a piece of property in coastal Alabama and to begin saving for a truck of their own.

Their plans came to an abrupt halt a year and a half ago, during a routine run to Las Vegas, when the front right axel caught fire. Attempting to douse the flames himself, Mr. Kendall inhaled so much of the black smoke from the burning oil that he soon started wheezing and coughing up black mucous. A couple of weeks later, he had a full-blown respiratory attack.

The attack left him disabled overnight — he was connected to oxygen 24 hours a day and unable to even walk short distances — forcing his wife to stop working to take care of him.

“My whole life changed because I couldn’t really do anything,” Mr. Kendall said.

He was awarded seven years of workman’s compensation but the $500 a month he received pales in comparison to what the couple was accustomed to living on. And while his insurance pays for his medical supplies, it doesn’t cover the almost $800 a month it costs in electricity to keep oxygen flowing to his blackened lungs.

The couple fell behind on the $575-a-month rent for their apartment in Dalton, Ga. They eventually moved in with a family friend. Last July, they made the move to Superior Creek Lodge.

The three sparse rooms they now call home represent a low point in their lives, they said, but one that they hope will springboard them toward better things to come.

“Sometimes when people hit rock bottom it makes them get up and want to go,” Mr. Kendall said. “Either you’re going to stay down there in the bottom of the crud or you’re going to try to find a way to get out of that crud ... I don’t want to just live and blame the system for what’s going on. I want to find a way to get out of what I’m in.”

As part of their participation in the HEAD program, a state program to help food stamp recipients move out of poverty, the Kendalls attend classes daily. Mr. Kendall is doing his basic math and English requirements and hopes to return to college to pursue a career in psychology. Mrs. Kendall wants to become a nurse.

“You’ve got to want something out of life. If you don’t want anything you’re not going to have anything,” Mr. Kendall said. “I mean, when I see somebody out there driving a Lamborghini, I want a Lamborghini too, but I’ve just got to figure out what stages I’ve got to go through in life to be able to drive that Lamborghini too and to have that big old house sitting up there on top of the hill.”