- Thank you Michael.

And this evening I am joined by author and writer John Holbrook.

John, thank you for coming to the studio this evening.

It's a pleasure to have you.

Yes.

And you know, you have been called an inspiration by many and I think that has a lot to do with the book you wrote from High Beams To A Higher Calling.

It was really that title that immediately caught my attention when we talking.

Yes.

And I gotta know, where does the high beams in that title come from?

Tell us a little bit about yourself.

- Well, I was a, as a young kid, I grew up and did a lot of work and as later in life I became an iron worker.

And so the high beams was being high up in the air and signaling cranes and things like that.

And, and being in Watertown here on WPBS often might went by this station, but on the other side of town as a state office building that I worked down when I was a kid and right outta high school and I would just, as we put the iron up, I would just go into work and start climbing up the outside of the building every day.

And whatever floor we were on, that's what we worked on.

And some days I would just do it for exercise, but, but that was my iron working life from high beams.

- See some people when they do exercise, they're going to Planet Fitness, they're going to the gym.

You're you're climbing up the, you're climbing up the buildings and doing construction.

Yeah.

But you, you and you had retired closer, you were getting ready to retire in about 2005.

Yes.

And that's when you were diagnosed Yes.

With cancer?

- Yes.

In late in 2004, I started losing a lot of weight.

Around September, October and November, I lost 45 pounds in 30 days.

And I was seeing some doctors and finding my local doctor.

And plus guy, he says, I think I think you have cancer.

So he sent me to a specialist and I on sat on sat January 1st, Saturday 2005 is I told my wife, I can't get out of bed, I can't walk anymore.

I could hardly speak.

And so she called the emergency and they, my doctor took me into the city and that was on a Saturday.

And between Saturday and Sunday, I'd already had a bone marrow treatment.

And by Sunday afternoon he had the results.

And he says, you're infested with cancer.

I had stage four lymphoma.

And he says, what, what we need to do?

We have one, one treatment for you.

So they tried to start the treatment Sunday afternoon.

I rejected that.

I went into convulsions.

And so they had to stop the treatment, change the procedure, and finally they got it down me.

And it, it really didn't mean a whole lot for my body at that moment.

I was so sick.

And then the next day Monday, he comes in and he, he says, well, he says he sat on the edge of the bed there and he says, I got kind of some news.

And he says, we have no treatments for you.

This is all we have, and I want you to get your stuff in order.

'cause nothing was happening.

So they gimme another chemo the next day or two.

So, and I went down and had that treatment and when I was in the CAT scan, I was just laying back with my hands on my head and I looked up and I could see a ceiling in the, in the, in the basement there.

And I, I said, Lord, what's this all about?

And immediately I believe it.

I don't believe it.

I know it was the hand of God come on me and went down through my body and out through my feet.

And why I asked that question, I didn't, a lot, a lot of folks might say, why me?

But I just said, Lord, what's this all about?

And now he has shown me what it was all about over these last 20 years that we were, they never found it again.

At that point, they never found my cancer again.

- Wow.

- And to verify that, within six or seven days, I went down for a, some blood work at the oncology center at Brittonfield.

And as I was in there, my man came out and took the blood and went and they, they checked it as, as usual before my appointment.

And he came back out the door and he had another test kit.

And he says, something's a matter with our machine.

And he, there's two ladies standing in the door looking at me.

And so they, they pulled it again and went back and he came back out and there's four ladies.

The staff is standing in the door just staring at me and I'm wondering, what is this all about?

This is so unusual.

They usually just let you go.

And by the time I got down to the doctor's office and went in and my PA come in and she jumped through the door shaking her paper in my face like, like I always related to Kramer on TV, coming into a room.

But that's what she was doing.

And she says, Mr.

Holbrook, Mr.

Holbrook, you, you won't believe this.

You won't believe it.

She says, your blood work is as near normal for anybody your age that's ever been in this office.

- That's incredible.

- And over the next, the next few months, it, it, my blood work never changed and hasn't changed today.

This is 20 years ago.

- It's, it is 20 years ago.

First of all, congratulations on 20 years cancer free.

Yeah.

But that was a lot of where the inspiration for this book came from.

That's where the higher calling of your title comes from.

When did you know this was your higher calling?

This was your moment when you say, this is what I'm meant to do.

- When I came out of the hospital and we were headed home, my wife was driving home in the car.

And I says, I, I says, I call her baby.

So I said, baby, if, if we can do anything to help one more person the rest of our life, and that's our mentality as thinkers, I wasn't thinking big.

And she said, we need to do that.

We need to help one more person.

And over, over the last 20 years, we've helped six to 7,000 people all through the north country and church after church and, and ministering and personally and even, even today, we're working with five or six, seven people right at this time in our life.

And it happens to us.

We don't look for folks.

They come to us and through friends and, and other things.

And the, the objects of of me writing this book was through a friend that I met in a restaurant.

I hadn't seen him in 60 years.

And he, I he, he stopped and recognized me and then we used to slide down the hill together.

- This was Dave Alport, correct?

- Yeah.

David Alport.

And he says, you know what you've been doing.

My wife shared our testimony and he said, I'm an author, you need to write this.

And that was, that was two years ago.

- And you went on to make an amazing story.

It's, it's about 80 plus pages, am I correct?

Yes.

It's 80.

It's 80 plus pages.

And you know, if there's something that when somebody is reading this book, what's something you hope people take away when they pick up this book?

- When I, I had never written a whole lot or read a whole lot and I didn't know how to talk to people in writing.

And I, I got looking into it, a guy in our church looks up words in the Greek to find a definition.

And so the word you came to me, so I looked it up in the Greek and the word you goes from the floor sweeper to the executive and everybody in between individually or a whole stadium full of people could be referred to as you.

So my idea of this was to write to each individually personally by using the word you.

And, and, and that's where, that's where I try to be because we're all in different places at different times.

And my, my whole our our whole point, my wife and mine was to to touch each individual.

'cause they all have different situations.

That's where the higher calling and basically why the Lord our God just keeps putting people in front of us is to, to help 'em - Creating - Inspiration to get the situation - And, and create inspiration for those - Yes.

That are - Looking for inspiration.

Yeah.

So where can folks go when they if to look for your book or even purchase it?

- It's on Amazon.

It's on Amazon books through the title or, or my, by my name on there, John a Holbrook from High Beams to a higher calling.

And that's basically what we're set up to do individually.

We've got books to the north country of all the folks we know, they're in eight or nine different states in different places.

And I assume there'll be one in Maine soon, but we'll find that out la later.

And basically now we're setting up a, an Amazon for Amazon to sell 'em for us.

- Excellent.

And just before we start to wrap up, just real quick, I need to know if there's anything this book proves, what, what would you say that is?

- One thing that I i I like about this book is, is to live by example, connect with other people because of the love and the faith and the trust we have in each other.

And that's things that we live by and to encourage and have and to see other people's life change.

Maybe not in a total healing, but just to see other people's lives change to where they can get through the day with the things they're going through and, and be lifted up and, and be glorified basically.

- John, thank you so much for sharing your story with us today and your amazing book Folks, you know where to go, you know where to look.

Definitely check this book out.

Certainly worth the read.

John, thanks again for stopping by our studio.

It was a pleasure having you.

Yeah, - Thank you.