The Giant Neon Stereotype

After spending one night in Asheville, North Carolina, I felt closer to Jesus.

 It all happened because I am arbitrarily allergic to cats. When I say that I am arbitrarily allergic, I mean that sometimes I am and sometimes I am not. It all depends on the cat and the setting. I’ve lived in the same household with cats and they never bothered me at all. And I’ve been to some people’s homes where there was a cat present and even though I never saw it I knew that there was one there because I could hardly breathe.

Our fellow traveler had relatives who lived in Asheville and they were nice enough to let us stay overnight in their home as we were driving down to Georgia. But I was having trouble breathing and it was getting worse. I told them that I needed to spend the night at a motel. And, of course, it had to be accessible.

So our hosts told me that I should go stay at the Mountaineer Inn. But the problem was that I didn’t know how to get there. I had no idea how to find my way around Asheville. So our hosts gave me directions to a certain intersection and they said that when I get there I should look for the giant neon hillbilly. That would be the landmark that would let me know that I had arrived safe and sound at the Mountaineer.

I was accompanied to the Mountaineer by my pit crew member who went on the trip with me. I refer to the crew of people I’ve hired to help me do the stuff that everybody needs to do every day, like getting in and out of bed and getting dressed, as my pit crew.

And when we got to that intersection we looked around and sure enough, there was a giant, neon hillbilly. It looked like a granny sitting in a rocking chair and smoking a pipe.

Like Jesus, I was wandering around, nomadic and homeless. Except Jesus was Jed to his warm and comfortable home by a bright star. I was led to mine by a giant neon stereotype.

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No Ordinary Cripple

The traffic noise at the busy intersection was quite loud, so I couldn’t hear everything that the voice coming from behind me was saying.

 I was headed home, one of my pit crew members walking along beside me. I refer to the crew of people that I’ve hired to help me do everyday things, like getting in and out of bed and getting dressed, as my pit crew.

Anyway, we had just crossed the busy intersection when I heard a voice coming from behind me say, “….. Stephen Hawkins?... Superman?,,,”

When the voice stopped, I asked my pit crew guy if he heard what the voice said. My pit crew guy said that as we passed a guy who was panhandling, the guy looked at me hard and said to him, “Hey, man, didn’t Stephen Hawkins have one of those things? Didn’t Superman have one, too?”

 I assumed that the panhandler was referring not just to my motorized wheelchair but to my blower. I have this attachment that I put on my chair that makes it possible for me to drive it by blowing into a straw. It makes it a whole lot easier for me to navigate the uncertain terrain outside of my home than by trying to drive my chair by pushing the joystick with my hand. The polite name for it is a sip and puff device. But I just call mine my blower.

But the reason that I thought the panhandler was referring specifically to my blower was because there once was a time, not long ago, when the mere sight of a cripple driving around in a motorized wheelchair by pushing a joystick with their hand was enough to stir up  everyone’s curiosity. But things have gotten to the point where I see such cripples out on the streets pretty much every day. So I figured that this panhandler must have seen plenty of those ordinary cripples before, being that he spends all day out on the streets. It’s the nature of his work. I bet that guy has seen everything.

But I can’t remember ever seeing another cripple on the street who was driving their motorized wheelchair by using a  blower. So the only way even a worldly guy like the panhandler probably would ever see a cripple using a blower would be on television (Stephen Hawking) or in a movie (Christopher Reeve, aka Superman).

I guess I’m no ordinary cripple.

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Sometimes Awareness Really Sucks

 

I watched the movie The Wizard of Oz again for the nine millionth time.

That was probably the most influential movie of my childhood, as it is for a lot of kids. It was full of things that scared the hell out of me, like tornadoes, houses falling on witches, flying monkeys and midgets, But somehow, our hero Dorothy managed to survive it all.

 But now, when I watched it as an old man, I mostly just grumbled to myself. I never realized before how inaccessible everything is in the Land of Oz.

For starters, take the yellow brick road. Those bricks just look like cobblestones painted yellow to me. And when you try to roll down a cobblestone road in a wheelchair, you  get jostled all over the place because it’s bumpy as hell. So if Dorothy was in a wheelchair, she wouldn’t be able to just merrily skip down the yellow brick road, arm in arm with a scarecrow and a lion. She’d have to move real slow and hang on for dear life.

And it sure didn’t look like The Emerald City was very accessible to me. Sure, the entrance door didn’t appear to have a step. But it didn’t have one of those cripple buttons on it either, where you push it and the door opens automatically. And there were steps all over the place inside. And I didn’t see a single ramp or elevator.

And they sure made light of head trauma. I’ve known people who have taken blows to the head and it crippled them for life. But Dorothy gets knocked out and she wakes up in a technicolor fairyland. And then she’s back in Kansas, where everything is in sepia tones, and all is well. She doesn’t even have aphasia.

I could go on and on but I believe I’ve made my point. If I’d’ve been Dorothy,  I’d’ve been screwed. I’d’ve never made it back to Kansas.

I’ll never be able to view that movie through the same innocent eyes again. It’s like my wise old grandmother used to say: Sometimes awareness really sucks.

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