WHEELCHAIR THEME MUSIC, OR CONTEMPLATIONS ON PSEUDO-INDUSTRIAL NOISE, SOUTHERN HIP HOP AND SONGS COVERED BY LEONARD NIMOY

Some days, I think I need theme music. Not because I’m important or special or deserve attention. In fact, if it were up to me, I’d make my way through the world largely unnoticed.

But because I use a wheelchair for mobility, the world has chosen for me. Often, I get stared at, but that’s a given. What I’m referring to goes beyond that.

Many days, I’ll be rolling down the sidewalk minding my own business, steering plenty clear of pedestrians. Yet someone half a block ahead will see me approaching and yank their child out of my oncoming path. I mean darn near tear the kid’s shoulder out of the socket. Sometimes the sight of the poor little kid flying through the air jolts me so much, I whip around to see if I’ve unknowingly left a row of maimed bodies behind in my wake.

Then there’s the wannabe comedians. You know the guy at the party who keeps repeating the same corny jokes that were only mildly funny the first time he told them? Well, that guy follows me around. I can always pick him out of the crowd by the goofy smile on his face as he sees me approaching. He thinks he’s clever, yet I know exactly what he’s going to say before he says it:

“Hey, little lady. Better slow down – you’re gonna get a speeding ticket!”

Someday, I’ll get up the courage to holler back:

“Hey, doofus. Better stop passing gas – you’re gonna get a farting ticket!”

But perhaps simply broadcasting theme music from my wheelchair as I motor along would be the way to go. So, I’ve been researching songs that might work.

The first one I considered is a song by the noise rock band, The Jesus Lizard, called “Wheelchair Epidemic.” How perfect is that? I mean, it’s got the word “wheelchair” in the title, for Pete’s sake. Plus, it’s got a hard driving beat and true to its guitar-driven pseudo-industrial noise roots, the vocals are nearly indecipherable.  

But before I downloaded it and blasted it on my Beats Pill, I thought I should check out the lyrics online. Here’s the first verse:

“Hep hep, hep hep, hep hep, hep hep

 Your words are broken, you got the flu, that tour of smokin' your times are through

 Your body's achin’, you need a rest, your body's achin', take a rest I say

 Ah ah, ah ah, ah ah, hey”

Then the “hep hep” picks up again and the F bomb is dropped. I didn’t have a problem with the any of that. But then I discovered the second verse includes an ugly homophobic epithet.

No, thank you. Back to the drawing board.

Perhaps I would do better with a song about rolling along, and I immediately thought of Chamillionaire’s “Ridin’”. Who could forget those immortal Southern hip hop lyrics:

“They see me rollin’/They hatin’/Patrolling they tryin’ to catch me ridin’ dirty.”

But then I remembered the song also uses a word, frequently found in rap music, which makes me very uncomfortable.

Un-uh. I had to try again.

What about reaching further back into music history for a song with a more subtle message? I racked my brain. The only thing that came to mind was a song written by country and western music legend Mel Tillis, made famous by Kenny Rogers and the First Edition. The song charted number six on the Hot 100 in 1969. Anyone reading this blog remember “Ruby Don't Take Your Love to Town”?

I hadn’t listened to the song in ages, but recalled its indirect reference to the Viet Nam War. That appealed to the Boomer in me. A quick search online revealed that “Ruby” has been covered by many artists, including Waylon Jennings, Roger Miller, Carl Perkins, Cake, The Killers – even actor Leonard Nimoy.

I queued up “Ruby” on Spotify, then it all came rushing back. The song’s about a paralyzed guy in a wheelchair who can’t satisfy his woman, so she steps out on him to get her needs met. Then he fantasizes: “(i)f I could move I'd get my gun/And put her in the ground.”

Yikes. Looks like I’m going to have to write my own dang theme song.

Become Famous! Get Hit by a Car!

About a week before the end of the fifth grade school year, I was hit by a car.

It was a rainy afternoon when the school day ended. I had ridden my banana seat bike to school and would now have to ride home in the rain without a jacket. I would also have to negotiate a line of backed-up traffic. In our bedroom community, nearly every mom was of the stay-at-home variety. Now a legion of them was swarming the school to pick up their kids. To let kids walk home in the rain meant they were in the same “bad mother” category as women who used Hamburger Helper as a crutch instead of making home-made meatloaf.

As I came out of the building my mom was there, with my raincoat in hand. I whined that I wanted her to put my bike in the trunk and drive me home. She insisted I would be fine on my bike, that I needed the exercise and could negotiate the half dozen blocks on my own. She was right, but something made me uneasy. I put on my coat and headed for the bike rack.

One second I was leaning over to unlock my bike, the next I was lying on pavement surrounded by a group of kneeling adults. My eyes slowly began to focus on the faces of my third grade teacher, my fifth grade teacher and my mom. I could hear people crying and sirens wailing. My mind was equally split between panic and “what the hell?”

A mother had jumped the curb with her car and mowed through the school yard. Had she wanted to inflict maximum damage, she couldn’t have picked a better spot: right through a crowd of kids at the bike rack. I had gotten a glancing blow that fractured my leg. When I fell, my head hit the pavement and I received a concussion and the retrograde amnesia that went with it. I was the second worst casualty; another little girl had actually been run over and was in critical condition.

Had I been an average kid, I would have been sent home with a simple cast and crutches and told to use my arms and other leg to get around. But the arthritis's damage to my wrists meant I couldn’t use standard crutches. Nor could my one good leg bear the weight of two. Instead, I went home with a long leg cast with a rubber heel on the bottom and a platform walker without wheels that was so heavy and primitive, it would have been better suited to Herman Munster.

The first two weeks after the accident were a non-stop procession of my parents’ friends dropping by to offer condolences and nights on the couch in agony as my tibia began to knit. By week three, the pain eased and I traded out the long cast for a below-the-knee model. It was then that I began to enjoy my new-found status as a local celebrity.

In my town, the mere possibility of a McDonald’s opening – the only chain fast food joint besides a Dairy Queen -- was cause for controversy and excitement. So it’s not hard to imagine how just being one of those girls that got hit by that car at the school upped my suburban Q score considerably. But this time my notoriety had nothing to do with my arthritis and everything to do with fame earned by mere happenstance. I was "famous" for being famous. Kind of like being a Kardashian.

Friends dropped by my house daily: close friends, casual friends, even long-lost ones. Often they had a card or a small gift, and a story or joke to share. Naturally, they wanted to hear my version of The Accident. Did I see the car flying toward me or hear the engine rev? (No and no.) Did I remember being hit? (No, but I had nightmares about menacing cars.) What was it like to ride in the ambulance? (Claustrophobic.) Did my leg itch inside the cast? (Often.)

An older sister of one of my friends worked as a summer parks employee, teaching arts and crafts to kids. Several times she brought me goodie bags loaded with supplies and trinkets from her class. Though I couldn’t get out of the house to catch butterflies, I enjoyed the treasures she brought. On hot afternoons, I sipped my mom’s sweet tea while I taught myself to make lanyards and drew pastel sketches of fuchsia plants in hanging pots.

My leg healed fine by the end of July, but the weight of the cast and my struggle to walk with it had put a lot of strain on my knee. It swelled to soft ball size and hurt like hell. I lived in daily fear that I would need to have it aspirated, a procedure in which a large needle is inserted deep into the joint and fluid is withdrawn.

I was starting junior high in the fall. Grades six through nine were housed in a building bigger than my old school, which meant a lot more walking between classes. The school was too far away to walk to it, so I’d have to depend on a bus that was supposed to change its route and stop in front of my house. I was nervous about meeting new teachers and kids, brand new people to whom I’d have to explain why I limped or why I sometimes struggled to get up out of a chair.     

The richly-symbolic menacing cars and the increasing awareness of my precarious health were always with me, in the back of my mind, as I drifted into sleep on late summer nights while the crickets chirped and the cicadas sang.

LESSONS FROM SELMA

A film has just been released about Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., and the 1965 civil rights marches from Selma to Montgomery, Alabama to demand voting rights for African Americans. The film is called Selma.

 

I haven’t seen it yet, but I plan to. So what am I doing writing about it?

 

What stirred me is the promo photo that ran with the film’s review in my local newspaper. (Yes, I still read one of those.) It shows the actor portraying Dr. King with actors portraying a Jewish rabbi and a Greek Orthodox clergyman.

 

What struck me about the photo was the coalition it depicted between people from other groups who –like African Americans -- have also faced bigotry. A united coalition fighting for the rights of a marginalized group of people.

 

Fifty years has passed since the march on Selma. Like other minorities, people with disabilities are still fighting for equality. For access to jobs. Housing. Attendant care at home rather than in nursing homes. Medical care. Transportation. And on and on.

 

While the passage of the ADA in 1990 was a landmark of progress, I fear that the disability rights movement is at a stand-still. That we’ve reached a plateau we may be stuck on for quite some time.

 

Everywhere I look I see steps at the entrances of businesses which have still not undertaken barrier removal. The demand for accessible, affordable housing far exceeds the supply. In many cities, it’s still nearly impossible to get a wheelchair-accessible cab. Even public transit in many locations has barriers. Young people with significant disabilities and few resources end up in nursing homes because community-based attendant care is a pipe dream.

 

We still have so many barriers to get past. The way to do this is for leaders in the disability community to come forward and form coalitions with other minority groups who have made significant progress in their struggles towards equality.

 

I look forward to the day a disabled person stands at a podium with leaders from the African-American, Jewish and gay communities and the speakers tell the world that discrimination against one is discrimination against all. That refusing to put up a ramp at an entrance is equivalent to posting a sign that African Americans or Jewish Americans people or Gay Americans will not be allowed to enter. That transit inaccessible to wheelchair users is the same thing as banning women or Asian Americans from riding the trains, buses or taxis.

 

U.S. Rep. and Congressional Black Caucus Chairman Emanuel Cleaver said, “There is more power in unity than division.”

 

A basic truth we can all learn from.

FINDING A FRIEND IN A MOST IMPROBABLE WAY

I am just as human as anyone else. Which means I’m susceptible to the stupid ideas that humans can have.

 

I must confess that, even though I pride myself on championing the rights of the marginalized, I am sometimes guilty of buying into ugly biases and stereotypes. In this case, I held prejudices about a friend.

 

I met her about a year and half ago. She lives in my neighborhood. When we first saw each other, I sensed that she wanted to connect with me. Looking back now, I can see that she was clearly afraid of trusting too much.  Afraid of getting hurt.

 

I took her standoffishness as arrogance, because that is what I’d been taught to believe about her group. That her ilk thought themselves better than everyone else.

 

So I steered clear of her, until her overtures of friendship became more insistent. Okay, maybe she’s different, I thought. Plus, I’m a sucker for a pretty face, and she surely has one. Her eyes dazzle like blue topaz stones.

 

We began to connect over food. My husband was the one who suggested we break bread together. And after a week or so, it became clear that we were nurturing a real friendship.

 

I finally began to let go of my prejudices. Why? Because once I got to know my new friend, I realized she was amazing. Smart. Sweet and gentle. Funny as all get out.

 

Within a month, she began visiting our house on a regular basis. After two months, she was coming to our house every day, both before I went to work and just after I returned in the evening.

 

Shortly after that, I had to admit that my initial biases about my friend were really more about me than her. I harbored unfair notions because I was afraid of being rejected. Of being made to feel not good enough. Of being seen as an awkward freak in a sinister, mechanical contraption on wheels.

 

But my friend treated me no differently than she treated my able-bodied husband. She was not the least bit afraid of my wheelchair. She didn’t run and hide when I moved closer to her. In fact, when I transferred to my living room recliner, she would sit in my wheelchair right next to me. She still does.

 

Perhaps you’ve guessed by now that my friend isn’t human. She’s a cat. A gorgeous, brilliant, delightful Siamese kitty.

 

I’d grown up in a family of “dog people.” I bought into their anti-feline propaganda. That cats are cold and unaffectionate. That they see humans solely as sources of food and toys. That they are incapable or unwilling to bond and love the way dogs do.

 

What rubbish. In a few short months, Princess Miyuku Honey Bear of the Royal Court of Siam (that’s her name) taught me the beautiful truths about cats. The finest of those truths is that cats can love and accept me, sometimes more wholeheartedly than humans do.

 

I am most honored to be one of Honey Bear’s guardians. Because she’s sweet and silly and whip-smart. But mostly because she accepts me, wheels and all.

POSTER CHILD HAS-BEEN

Check out the link below to the excerpt from my forthcoming memoir, The Earthbound Tomboy at New Mobility magazine online. It's about my stint as a poster child for the Arthritis Foundation. New Mobility is the premiere lifestyle magazine for wheelchair users.


http://www.newmobility.com/2015/01/poster-child/

THE MEANING OF (MY) LIFE: OR, THAT CHICK’S GOT CRIP CRED OUT THE YIN-YANG.

I’m ecstatic, ebullient. Over the moon.   My mind is blown and my heart is a-flutter.

You see, I’ve had an epiphany of Biblical proportions. I have discovered the meaning of life, or rather the meaning of my life.  And I didn’t have to go to an ashram in India to do it. It simply came to me out of the blue.

I now understand why I was put on this Earth, and it’s not about my own personal journey of self-discovery or growth. In fact, it’s not about me at all.

I exist solely to make non-crips feel good about themselves.

That’s right: the purpose of my existence is to reassure those who don’t (yet) use canes, crutches or wheelchairs to get around.

Why, you might ask, do those folks – the ones who don’t move through the world in gimpy fashion – need reassurance?

I’ll tell you: when you can get out of bed in the morning without pain and go about your day without restrictions in movement, it’s pretty dang scary.

I mean, who wouldn’t be rattled by having no worries about whether your caregiver will show up on time because you don’t need a caregiver at all? Putting on your own clothes and making your own breakfast is stressful. Not having to rely on para-transit to get you to work on time is nerve-wracking.

OK, I’m just going to say it: non-gimps have a pretty crappy life.

But, see, that’s where I come in. I am absolutely, positively, undeniably disabled. For one thing, I use a power wheelchair for mobility. And on the rare occasions that I stand up and take a few steps on my own two feet, ain’t nobody gonna mistake me for an Olympic athlete.

In fact, I wouldn’t be surprised to someday overhear someone whisper: “Say what you want to about Heidi, but that chick’s got crip cred out the yin-yang.”

Clearly, my life’s purpose is not to be a valued, autonomous human being with my own meaningful existence. No sir. I was conceived, raised and put out into the world to serve as an example of what NOT to be. Of what to be thankful that you’re not. A sort of goofus gimpy human being to serve as a foil for the non-gimpy gallant ones.

I’m a living embodiment of the tried-and-true bromide: “I was sad that I had no shoes until I met a man who had no feet.” (In this case, I’m the one who has no feet. Except in reality, I do have feet, though they’re mangled and pretty messed up.)

Imagine, a half-century I’ve spent contemplating the purpose of my existence. All the wisdom I’ve sought from the teachings of philosophers and sages. Countless hours of ruminating.

All along the answer was to be found in the pity-filled gazes of non-gimps not-so-secretly grateful that they’re not me.

Thank you ever so much, all you graceful-gaited, altruistic non-gimps.

Without you, I would be nothing.

BAD VACATION, Part Two

The next day, my husband's job interview went just fine. We were turning the tide. I called the airline again. Perhaps they had good news. While the customer service rep had me on the phone, he noticed I was from Ohio.

 

"I see you're from Columbus, ma'm," he said.

 

"Yes, that's correct," I responded, thinking this info would help him locate our bags.

 

"I'm a celebrity of sorts in McConnelsville, Ohio," he claimed.

 

"Oh, really?" I replied, just to be polite.

 

He continued: "Why yes, my four-year old daughter was murdered there."

 

When I hung up, we were no closer to getting our luggage, and I was creeped out by the child murder anecdote.

 

Our third night was spent in a different hotel: this one at ground zero for South Beach nightlife. How cool! How fun! How freakin' noisy! We had failed to consider there would be a DJ jamming tunes until 4am around the pool, a pool that was separated from us by one thin pane of glass. Even our portable white noise machine was no match.

 

The next morning, we rose at 7am to head to my job interview. I hoped my under-eye concealer would hide the dark circles. Okay, we'll be fine. We'll re-group.

 

Uh, no. The only elevator in our historic art deco hotel was sporting a big "out of order" sign and rather boastfully, I might add. Like a teenage boy flaunting his first hickey.

 

Now that we were facing four flights of hotel stairs, the airplane's one flight seemed, by comparison, like a walk in the park. Or a roll to the tarmac.

 

I stayed put while my husband descended the stairs to the lobby registration desk. Fifteen minutes later, we were both descending in the elevator. Seems "out of order" really meant "routine elevator maintenance."

 

I made it to my interview, which went well. That was the watershed moment of the trip; we were certain of it. We passed the remainder of the day pleasantly, shopping, dining and strolling around Miami Beach.

 

The next day, we changed lodging again. We had planned months ago to stay at three different hotels so we could write about our trip and sell it as a free-lance travel story.

 

The last hotel was a beautiful art deco property from the outside, but careworn inside. The lobby was dingy and wheelchair access was via a luggage cart ramp on the side. But we were committed to pulling this trip out of the crapper. We even resolved to ignore the room's imperfections: blood on the box springs, smashed insect stains on the wall, threadbare carpet and an unpleasant conglomeration of odors not in our best interest to contemplate.

 

We stayed out late, enjoying a balmy Miami night, and climbed into bed around 1am.

 

Just as we'd begun to drift off the sleep, we were startled by a very loud, very shrill emergency klaxon. Whatever could it be? A fire? An emergency? A hurricane four months before the start of the season?

 

We couldn’t ignore it, and threw on clothes. Down to the lobby we went, along with many other guests. “False alarm,” we were told by the same trio of hotel staffers who were the only ones working. The klaxon stopped.

 

Annoyed and weary, we returned to our room. Once again, we laid down our heads.

 

Ten minutes later – you guessed it – the klaxon sounded again.

 

Now we were very annoyed, weary and worried the elevators might automatically turn off if this was a real fire, even a small one. We pulled on our sweats and went back down to the lobby.

 

In between answering one call after another, the guy at the front desk looked up and emphatically told our bedraggled group of tired guests, once again, this was a false alarm. But this time the klaxon continued.

 

What to do, what to do? We decided that fate was telling us to get the hell out of Dodge, so my husband when back upstairs to pack our things. I stayed in the lobby, where I watched a hotel staffer run to the hotel’s front entrance just as Miami Beach Fire/Rescue arrived.

 

“It’s a false alarm,” cried the staffer, using his body to try to block fire service personnel from entering the hotel. He did not succeed.

 

Soon we made our escape, then spent the night sleeping in the airport and caught a plane home the next morning.

 

Some folks would forget such misery after returning home, or would simply re-tell the story for laughs at parties. We are not such people.

 

Over the next week, my husband and I filed complaints about the hotel from hell to every regulatory agency we could think of, including the Miami Beach Building, Code Compliance and Fire departments.

 

We thought this would probably take us to the point of closure. Alas, no. The owner of the hotel with the non-stop fire klaxon called and left a lovely message on our home answering machine. In a decidedly threatening tone, he told us that he knew we’d filed the complaints and that we better “watch our backs.” After hearing his message, we filed a complaint with our local police. We never heard from him again.

 

As for our bags, they were finally located by the airline one month to the day after we’d filed the lost luggage report. Fed Ex delivered them completely intact, everything inside just as we’d packed it. No explanation.

 

Guess they just went “round and round” somewhere for a month.