Dr. Franks rarely speaks publicly, and NEVER about what we really do. He has spoken to groups exactly three times since I met him in 1989. Two of those were about cervical adhesions and one was about practice building (which he doesn't do). The latter was for our local Chiropractic Association, and he basically told the members to quit worrying about building their practices and try focusing on being better doctors. It was awesome. He's always awesome, but I sometimes long to hear him teach people a bit of what he taught me in my eight years with him.

I am often aware of a gentle little guilt that comes with having been given so much, so freely, for so long; beautiful magical knowledge of how everything works... knowledge that others would have gladly paid dearly just to have a piece of... countless treatments through the most challenging times in my life. Why had I been so blessed? Why me?

I was expecting a wonderful talk at The AK Club, but nothing too radical. It was held, after all, at the same school where I had been warned, in my first class on my first day, to beware of "fringe practitioners who put bottles of supplements on the bellies of their patients and pull on their arms". I asked Dr. Larsen to bring my video camera so I could show some of my students who live out of state what The Master was really like. It would be the closest they would ever come to knowing what I had experienced.

Dr. Larsen began filming, and I tried to get Dr. Franks to put on a lapel microphone. He assured me that he wasn't going to say anything that I'd want to replay. He was going to talk about "the potential of chiropractic" and how to diagnose from symptoms alone. He didn't put the microphone on.

He did talk about those things, at first. Then something wonderful happened. I cannot describe how I felt when he began to demonstrate on a student while he spoke. I suddenly knew what was going to happen and why I had insisted on the camera. He started with some basic AK, but I knew he couldn't stop there. Nothing would make any sense if he just stopped there. Anyway, he didn't stop. Maybe he forgot where he was, I don't know. Maybe it was just time for this.

When I looked at the video tape sitting next to me on my way home that night, I realized something had changed. I felt lighter, as if I had let go of something I had been carrying for a long time. I know I'll never be able to repay Dr. Franks for all he has given me. I'll never be able to give him anything he doesn't already have, or teach him anything he doesn't already know. But maybe, in some small way, I can help to introduce him to the world.

-William C. Gustafson