Scouting Then and Now

If you can judge how far cripples have come by how the boy scouts treat us, it sure looks like cripples in the U.S.A have progressed a helluva lot over the last few decades or so. Because way back when I was but a wee criplet , I joined my local boy scout troop. And I remember that we met in the basement of a church or a school or something. And I remember that the men who were the troop leaders would carry me up and down the stairs in my wheelchair to get me to and from the meetings. But now I see where Scouting America has started up what it calls its Special Needs Prepared Camp program. (I hate that term Special Needs, too, but I’ll save that for later.) Basically, it’s an 11-point checklist that camp operators can use to judge how well that their facility is comfortably usable by a wide range of cripples. Anyone that can check all of the boxes gets a sign that they can put up at their campground declaring that it is “Special Needs Prepared.” I never went to scout camp, probably because I didn’t know there was such a thing. But even if I did know about it, I was used to assuming back then that most everything was inaccessible to me so I probably would have assumed the same in this case. I sure was an ambitious little scout. I wanted to be an eagle scout and have a sash loaded with merit badges. I only made it as far as second class. I don’t recall doing anything to work my way out of tenderfoot and up to the next rank of second class. I think that after a while they just kicked me upstairs. And the fact that I didn’t go any farther than that was no one’s fault but my own. Oh sure, I still badly wanted the rank of eagle and the gaudy sash and all of the glory and prestige that came with them. But they made you work for those things. You had to earn them. Nobody was going to just give you those things, not even if you were a cripple and they felt sorry for you. But maybe they should have. If someone had just given me all of that stuff the first time I showed up for a meeting, I probably would have grabbed it and left and never looked back. And then they wouldn’t have had to carry me in my wheelchair up and down the stairs all of the time. (Please support Smart Ass Cripple and help us keep going. Just click below to contribute.) https://www.paypal.me/smartasscripple?fbclid=IwAR2qrql-UFH19OepgeaCG4WmblyNylb27k2q8eYxXHH-nvFX30Mk2fJx9uI

Call me Smart Ass Weed

A lot of people have told me that they are offended by my use of the word cripple. But I am offended by the way euphemisms like physically challenged and handicable downplay being crippled, as if being crippled was always something bad. But, in the spirit of compromise, may I suggest that we all refer to cripples as weeds instead. Because cripples are a lot like weeds, in that the value of a weed is in the eye of the beholder. One man’s weed is another man’s flower. And when someone weeds (as a verb) their garden or flower patch or whatever, they are, in a way, carrying out a genocide. They are trying to wipe out any trace of the weed from existing in their space. And that's the way many generations of cripples have been treated, historically. It isn’t so much that people have tried to kill us all off. It's more like they’ve tried to pretend like we don’t exist by putting us out of sight and out of mind by banishing us away to distant institutions where the nuns or nurses can take care of us. It’s the “benevolent” version of genocide. But, like any good genocide, in order for it to be most effective, there must first be enough of a consensus reached that officially declares that cripples are weeds. That’s why propaganda is needed to convince enough people that cripples have no purpose. All we do is hang around and ugly everything up. We are useless. We just take up space. Thus, banishing us is the humane thing to do , for the good of all. My online dictionary defines a weed as, “a wild plant growing where it is unwanted.” That sounds like a pretty good definition of a cripple to me, at least according to how some people view us. But really, is there any such thing as a weed? I mean just because not everyone understands the purpose of a plant or its reason for being doesn’t mean it doesn’t have any. Anyway, if anyone out there feels more comfortable calling me Smart Ass Weed, you may do so. I won't object. (Please support Smart Ass Cripple and help us keep going. Just click below to contribute.) https://www.paypal.me/smartasscripple?fbclid=IwAR2qrql-UFH19OepgeaCG4WmblyNylb27k2q8eYxXHH-nvFX30Mk2fJx9uI

Heartbreaker

Because I am crippled, I’ve broken the hearts of a lot of women. Not just women but men, too. But let’s get back to women for a moment, shall we? I know I broke the heart of the woman who worked at my local grocery store. I could tell by the look of intense pain that came over her face after I rejected her overtures. She was standing behind a table offering people free samples of sushi as they passed by. I guess that was intended to jack up the sales of the sushi that was sold elsewhere in the store. But anyway, I was wearing one of my favorite t-shirts that day. It says I LOVE SUSHI on it and it has color pictures of many different types of sushi. The woman had a big smile on her face as she held a morsel of sushi out to me as I passed by. Now, I’m one of those weirdos who usually doesn’t grab anything off of the free sample tables in grocery stores. I do that for a variety of reasons, most of which have to do with my being crippled. Like for instance, instead of asking whomever is passing out the free sample to pop the morsel in my mouth, I’ll just say no thanks and keep going. But when I do that, I get suspicious looks as if anybody who doesn’t stop and grab free food must be a communist or something. But when I said no thank you to this woman, she looked downright heartbroken. And then I remembered that I was wearing my I LOVE SUSHI t-shirt. And that’s why she was so crushed when I said no thank you. Because she was probably going to make her day by making some cripple’s day by giving him the thing he wanted most in the world, a free morsel of sushi. It was a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity and I went and ruined the whole damn thing. No wonder she was so heartbroken. (Please support Smart Ass Cripple and help us keep going. Just click below to contribute.) https://www.paypal.me/smartasscripple?fbclid=IwAR2qrql-UFH19OepgeaCG4WmblyNylb27k2q8eYxXHH-nvFX30Mk2fJx9uI