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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