I was taking a leisurely afternoon stroll
around a campground. Coming toward me was a man walking a dog.
When the dog saw me he freaked out. He was
immediately on high alert. His ears went up like antenna. He stiffened and then
did an agitated dance. And then he hid behind the legs of his human walker
The human laughed uneasily and apologized
to me on behalf of the dog.
“That’s all right,” I said. “He’s afraid
of the wheelchair. I’ve seen it before.”
I’ve also gotten the opposite reaction
from dogs. I once came across a woman walking a big dog and when the dog saw me
he started panting heavily and dancing for joy. The dog seemed bent on jumping
on my lap and smothering me with sloppy kisses. The dog stood up on his hind legs
as the woman pulled back hard on his leash to keep him away from me.
“I’m sorry,” the woman said to me. “His
favorite person is in a wheelchair.”
That’s what I love about dogs. They’re
honest. They don’t bull shit around about how they feel.
Anyway, the man walking his dog around
the campground gestured toward my wheelchair and said, “It's just that he’s
never seen one of those before. He’ll get used to it.”
The man and his dog proceeded on past me.
The dog looked at me suspiciously the whole time.
That encounter made me feel hopeful and
optimistic. It made me feel grateful for my crippled ancestors who came before
me. Because that dog freaked out like a lot of humans freak out when they
encounter a cripple, only the humans aren’t honest enough to admit it. Instead of doing agitated dances, humans
react in more subtle ways, like not making eye contact or building things with
steps on the front entrance so cripples can’t get in.
But life has generally gotten better. Navigating
through each day is smoother for me than it was for the generation of cripples
that came before me and the generation that came before them. And that’s
because more and more of those cripples didn’t stay home and hide. They went out and about and eventually humans
didn’t freak out as much. They got used to us.
And I have faith that things will go even smoother in
the future for the criplets of today because I’m out and about.
I really enjoyed my afternoon stroll.
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