Excerpts from THEY CALL ME WHEELS:
1. Well, How Did I Get Here?
- Posted : 11/1/2009
It is March 1984. I am nineteen years old and I lie in the Intensive Care Unit of John Dempsey Hospital in Farmington, CT, paralyzed from the chest down after shattering the 3rd and 4th thoracic vertebrae of my spine, and unable to breath from two collapsed lungs. It will be weeks before I can piece together exactly what happened, but the last thing I remember right now is riding in the front seat of my friend’s Volkswagen Scirocco. We were about a mile from my house, on the way home from a night of fucking around at the local bars. Months from now, I will read the official police report and discover I had flown seventy five feet through the front windshield when the car veered off the road into a drainage ditch. My friend who was driving would only suffer minor injuries.
2. Nothing is Sacred
- Posted : 11/4/2008
Nothing is sacred anymore – I now understand it. It has taken me just four weeks to realize what every parent has long known; that there will be no stone unturned, no corner of this house untouched. Every closet, window sill, drawer and pantry; down to the last trinket or scrap of loose change will be analyzed, and/or manipulated by these children at least once, if not hundreds of times.
3. Is it just me...
- Posted : 11/6/2009
...or does it seem that everyone else’s kids are better behaved than ours?
4. Josh at Bat
- Posted : 5/10/2009
Josh hit a triple just a few moments before, but at this new development in the game, he’s leaping skyward, arms up, shouting with such wild exuberance. Josh learned yesterday of his nomination for the Farm League All-Star team, but even that accomplishment didn’t earn this kind of joyful reaction—and I ought to know, since I had attended almost every game since his tee-ball league three years ago.
5. The Sandlot
- Posted : 5/29/2008
Who among us hasn’t at least once thought about how grand it would be to raise a professional athlete? As I watch Josh and Ben’s growing enthusiasm for the sports they play, I can’t help but wonder, which one could go pro? It would certainly help with college tuition. But I remind myself to draw the line between encouraging and pushing. It’s Josh and Ben’s desires that count, not mine. And not that dad shouting behind me in the stands, or that fat-cat who bought his kid’s position in the batting order.
6. Humanity's Crossroads: The Gas Station
- Posted : 2/22/2008
In all my years confined to a wheelchair, some of the strangest experiences I’ve ever had have occurred at gas stations. A generic, mundane chore for the non-disabled invokes a weird, sobering form of irony. The federal Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) has provisions that require self-serve gas stations to provide a full-service alternative for disabled drivers. Like most ADA rules, it’s self-enforced, and in fact the average attendant sitting in the cash booth, watching a little TV and working for minimum wage at many of these stations have never heard of the ADA!
7. It's your Fault You're in a Wheelchair...
- Posted : 6/19/2011
[The follwoing is an excerpt from chapter 10 of "They Call Me Wheels"]
When trying to impress upon your kids the many dangers—and potentially bad choices—they will face as teenagers, having a living, breathing parent in a wheelchair can be mighty handy. Both Josh and Ben know the general circumstances surrounding my accident, in as much I wasn’t wearing a seat belt. It’s a great tool getting Ben to wear his own seat belt, now that he’s out of his booster seat.
8. Alone with the Boys
- Posted : 11/18/2009
Did I lose focus that easily, or shift gears so unpredictably as a child? Hell no. I was an angel. I can’t for the life of me, remember giving either of my parents a hard time – especially not during the sacred “TV Time”. And with our black and white GE 19” television that pulled in a whopping 2 and a half channels through the deluxe rabbit ears, the commercials were actually more exciting to me than the dreary line-up of late 1960’s TV programs. Get up from your spot in those days and you might miss the ‘Plop-plop Fizz-fizz’ ad or the one where the dog chases around the little animated chuck wagon
9. Disability: is there a Rhyme & Reason?
- Posted : 6/12/2005
Of course, sometimes there actually is a rhyme and reason for disability. The fact is, the majority of the time we were doing something pretty stupid. In most cases we could have done something to have prevented it.
10. Adventures in Fertility
- Posted : 11/19/2009
Fertility is a dodgy subject among us spinal cord injured. It is definitely a possibility, for at least a fraction of male spinal cord injured victims have managed to procreate the normal way, and with modern fertility techniques such as artificial insemination, the world is open to an even wider array of possibilities and options.
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