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.
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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