I've been teaching high school English forever.
The Students were given the assignment to write an essay about childhood obesity.  They needed to decide if it was the fault of the parents, the food companies or the children themselves and defend their position.
This is probably my favorite paper that I've ever collected.
Go ahead and try to read.  It took me a long time to figure it out.

Stop Me If You’ve Heard This One

Last summer, my family sent me to Hawaii. I worried that their expectation was for me to swim back to California, but it turned out to be a round-trip flight.  I was going to see some old friends and a few of the sights.  Not only that, but the mild climate and stress-free lifestyle of the Islands would be good for my MS.

When I left, I gate-checked my wheelchair and was assured that it would meet me at the end of the flight (You see this coming, don’t you?).  Arriving in Honolulu, the isle chair took me to an airport wheelchair waiting for me in the loading area. 

I tried to stay somewhat evolved, but insisted that they find my chair.  They did finally bring me another passenger’s wheelchair (who was looking for it in Baggage Claim), but my chair was nowhere to be found. To make a long story short, my chair was on the tarmac in Los Angeles. 

One of the comments that was tossed at me was, “Well, sometimes baggage does get lost.”  Think about that.

I’m not militant, and I don’t like to make a bad name for my misabled brothers and sisters, but suddenly I had become unclaimed baggage.  I was traveling alone and had suddenly had my “legs” removed.  My mouth was still intact, and several people heard it.  The biggest problem was that no matter how much or to whom I complained, I was still sitting in an airport and not enjoying Hawaii.

The best that they could do was to bring my chair to the hotel when it arrived in eight hours and let me use one of the airport chairs in the interim.  I chose the lesser of evils (the chair that was the closest to fitting a human body), loaded into my friend’s car and went forth.

By that evening, my chair had arrived, and normal order in my abnormal world was restored, but I write this to say something else.  Though the world doesn’t always accommodate me, I have learned to live in it regardless.

I don’t blame anyone for my difficulties, and I’m not mad at anyone (except the jerk who forgot to load my chair).  If I am to thrive in my world and my situation, I have to make a conscious decision to do so and to enjoy the journey.  I have more being-thrown-out-of-my-chair stories than I can count, and I often encounter the insensitive and the stupid, but I usually find humor in trips down Memory Lane to revisit them.

This is my mission in life:  I will see the incongruities and absurdities around (and sometimes in) me in a way that makes me a better person with a better (and more humorous) story to tell.     

What Else Is in a Name?

The only thing that bothers me about what I’m called is the total lack of anything remotely accurate in the terminology.  I’m not an activist, and I don’t go in for militant activities, but I want to saay that some thought needs to be put into the words that describe the misabled.

            Look, I get the annoyance with the term handicapped, but some carry it too far.  I’m told it derives from times-gone-by in Great Britain.  The person with physical limitations would sit in a public place, with his cap in his hand, asking financial assistance of passers-by.  I’m told we don’t like that now because it fosters a certain level of pity.  This is not my problem with the term. 

            The problem I see is the natural protraction of the word handicapped into handicapped parking, handicapped rest rooms, and various other terms.  Though easily understood, something in my literal mind pictures a handicapped parking space as maybe having only one line or dangerous ground cover that potentially damages tires, thus rendering it handicapped.  The same goes for a handicapped rest room with even more embarrassment potential.

            Once again, I’m told (who starts these things that people get “told”?) that invalid is from the French and simply means that which is implied by the term: A lack of validity.  I may have my moments that have caused the rest of the human race to not want me used as an example, but occasionally I consider myself quite valid.  There’s this little trick I do with an earlobe and a few foot-massaging techniques that have elicited very valid responses. 

            Some have sought to soften the affect of unsavory terms by abstraction.  We’ve seen this done by quasi-socialist liberals teaching undergraduate level classes with titles like Her-story.  These same would-be wordsmiths invented handi-capable.  This might defer unnecessary guilt, but it’s downright silly.  Handi-capable sounds like something spouted by rosy-cheeked cherubs on the Good Ship Lollipop.

            The term that puts an edge on my teeth to rival an overdose of citric acid is physically challenged.  This is perfect when associated with athletes who have physical disabilities because their handicap imposes an extra challenge.  To the average person, physical challenge describes a track meet. To the misabled person, pushing a wheelchair or communicating in sign language is bridging a gap, and the gap itself is simply a pain in the arse.

            I don’t need to say much about the word disabled because my problem with it should be clear.  Don’t try to clean it up by saying differently-abled; you already know my position on handi-capable.  My ability has not been necessarily canceled.  Where my limitations say no, I must discover a way to say yes.  It’s all a matter of rerouting focus.

            There are problems with any of the nom de jour used to describe the misabled.  I’m obviously not in camp with any of them.  Those who consider themselves my friends most often call me Cripple, but that leaves a bad taste in the mouth of the uninitiated ear (How was that for strangely overlapping metaphors?).  For some time we shortened it to the familiar Crip, but one of my inner-city students told me that could get me killed in some places.

            I guess, when all is said and done, I’m left with my name.