Dating While Crippled

 Nowadays there are online dating sites for cripples, where cripples can go to meet other cripples. Or at least that’s how it’s supposed to work. I don’t reckon there’s any enforcement mechanism in place to prevent interloping by verts (which is what I call people who walk because it’s short for vertical). I don’t reckon you need to furnish a doctor’s note or anything like that to be able to join.

I can see the appeal of a site like this to some cripples. Trying to date verts can be inviting a lot of rejection because a lot of verts don't think  cripples can be sexy.

There were no sites like this around back in the days when I was dating. (There weren’t that many dating websites at all back then because it was before the internet was omnipresent.) But even if there had been, I don’t think I would have signed up. My approach to dating was to cast a broad net because you never know. I was open to considering any woman who was a consenting adult and not a republican.

I probably would have thought that limiting myself to cripples offered no guarantee that dating wouldn’t turn painful. A lot of cripples seem like they don’t think cripples can be sexy either. A lot of cripples seem like they’ll only date verts. I find that to be rather sad. I feel like they’re trying to prove something to themselves and\or the rest of the world by demonstrating that they can snag a vert.

 But then again, a cripple like that would never sign up for a cripples-only dating site so maybe if I'm cruising that website at least I can feel confident that I’m in a place where everybody thinks cripples can be sexy.

It’s true that both women I’ve married have been crippled. But that’s not why I married them, nor do I think my being crippled was why they married me back.

I believe they were both the type of women who would think cripples can be sexy, even if they had been verts. There are some verts who are like that. And if I was exclusively cruising a cripples-only dating site, I’d be worried that I might be missing out on something.

I’m just glad I don’t have to worry about stuff like that anymore.

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The Battle of Cripple Creek

 It took some doing. The people of Cripple Creek did not want to change. But in the face of relentless protests, they finally capitulated.

The protesters were a pack of wheelchair people, blind people and people who walked using crutches, with some Down Syndrome people and epileptics mixed in. They called themselves  The Campaign to Abolish the “C” Word. And they descended upon Cripple Creek with but one goal in mind: to get them to change their offensive name.

Their opening salvo was a press conference which was held outside City Hall in Cripple Creek. Several protesters spoke of how they were teased as children by other children who called them the “c” word. They demanded that the name Cripple Creek be changed to something more dignified.

But the mayor of Cripple Creek balked. He said the name Cripple Creek was bestowed upon the beloved and nurturing creek by the first settlers who came to the area generations ago and that it endures as a symbol of the proud heritage of the citizens who have built the namesake town that sprang up around the creek. He accused the protesters of all being “outside agitators.” The Cripple  Creek Chamber of Commerce also balked. The chairman said it would “wreak havoc” upon the local economy to have to change the name of Cripple Creek Boulevard, Cripple  Creek  High School, Cripple Creek Savings and Loan, the Cripple Creek Diner and the Cripple Creek Nursing Home, just to name a few examples..

Public opinion was decidedly against the protesters. Townspeople spat upon them and called them terrorists.

So the protesters adopted more aggressive tactics. They put into play their "kamikaze” strategy, in which they jumped one by one off of the Cripple  Creek bridge into Cripple  Creek itself. Those that couldn’t swim drown.

This drew media attention around the world and forced the town council to hold an  emergency meeting. A resolution was put forth to “modernize” the name of the town and the creek itself to something “not offensive and dignified “ The resolution passed, even though the townspeople who packed the gallery jeered and someone held up a sign that said Over My Dead Body.

And that’s why Cripple Creek is now called Person Who is Differently Abled Creek.

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Big Cripple on Campus

 John the paraplegic was the big cripple on campus at the state operated boarding school for cripples that I attended in the 1970s (which I refer to as the  Sam Houston Institute of  Technology or SHIT).

Actually, John was more like the vice big cripple on campus. The actual big cripple on campus was Ron the paraplegic. Paras usually have muscular upper bodies because they push a wheelchair all day. You had to be that kind of cripple in order to be the big cripple on campus at SHIT. There was no election to obtain this most prestigious status. An unspoken consensus developed among the SHIT inmates as to who was the big cripple on campus, based on which cripple we all felt could beat the other cripples asses. (It was pretty much the same way a wolf pack determines its hierarchy.) And since Ron was even more muscular than John, everyone figured that he could beat John’s crippled ass, too.

But this cataclysmic clash of the titans was never likely to occur because Ron was a much more peaceful guy who didn’t seem too interested in fighting. If John was to challenge him to a duel, Ron would probably just chuckle, yield the title and roll away.

John, on the other hand, was much more of a boisterous bully. He acted like he was looking for a good excuse to beat everybody’s ass. One day I saw him with a silver ring on his finger and I feared that meant that he was setting me up for an ass beating. Because it looked exactly like my ring that had recently come up missing.

So I went up to John's table in the mess hall, very sheepishly, and told him that appeared to be my missing ring.

John said, “Man, I didn’t steal no ring! This is my ring!” He continued eating, acting like I wasn’t even there. I interpreted that as his way of telling me to either go away or get my ass beat. So I went away.

When I told my mother about all of this, she was livid. She told me to point out to her which cripple was John the next time she went to SHIT and she would rip the ring off of his finger.

But I never did that because the only fate worse than an ass beating was being shunned by the other SHIT  inmates for being a snitch,

I haven’t seen John since I graduated from SHIT nearly 50 years ago. But he didn’t end up with much in terms of spoils. It was a cheap ring. It probably turned his finger green. The red jewel atop the ring was probably a hunk of  plastic.

If I ever run into a crippled old man with  one arm, I’ll figure that must be John. I’ll figure my ring must’ve turned his whole arm green and he had to have it amputated.

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