A SERIOUSLY HIP DUDE AND HIS HIP SEND-OFF

Thirty-five years ago, I had both of my hips replaced. It was a couple months before my 16^th birthday. While my friends were getting their drivers’ licenses, I got new hips.

It wasn't exactly a fun way to spend a summer, but my arthritis left me no choice. My hips had completely disintegrated. The bones were grinding against each other, sounding like my mom's 1968 Mustang when my sister first learned to drive stick shift. The pain that went with it stopped me dead in my tracks. Life was put on hold until my surgeon readied his bone saw -- along with other nasty implements -- and replaced what Mother Nature gave me with stainless steel and Teflon.

I don't know precisely what happened to my natural hip joints. But I'm guessing their fate and Jimmy Hoffa's were substantially similar. Ashes to ashes, and all that stuff.

I never got a chance to say goodbye to my hips. Not sure what I would have said, exactly. Perhaps "it's not you, it's me" or "let’s try again after I get my head together" or "don't let the door hit you where the Good Lord split you."

Because of my experience, I've always been curious how other folks deal with having parts of them torn asunder. Recently I stumbled upon an online article about Norwegian artist Alexander Selvik Wengshoel, who gave his own hip an interesting send-off.

A wheelchair user since childhood, Wengshoel had his hip replaced when he was 21. The performance artist wanted to take home the detached joint as a souvenir. He woke up after the procedure to find a vacuum plastic bag containing the hip, and a good-luck note from his surgeon attached to it.

But Wengshoel’s story doesn’t end there. He cooked the hip and dined on the meat, along with a side dish of potatoes au gratin and a glass of wine.

When I read this, I was stunned. The first thing that came to mind was "white or red?"

But then I saw Wengshoel's comment:

"It had this flavor of wild sheep, if you take a sheep that goes in the mountains and eats mushrooms."

That answered my question. Had to be a robust red. Perhaps Rocca Delle Macìe Riserva Chianti Classico 2008, from Tuscany, or Beronia Reserva 2008 from Rioja, Spain. Gotta love the way those aromas of succulent black fruit, earth, violets and spice complement meat.

Since I've already told you Wengshoel is a performance artist, you probably know what's next, and you would be right. He documented the entire cannibalistic feast in an exhibition that was featured at the Tromso Academy of Contemporary Art in Norway.

I was inclined to dismiss Wengshoel as a nut job, a kook driven mad by Scandinavian seasonal affect disorder.

But then he elaborated further.

"It had been so hard to have it in my body, and when I took it out, it turned into something else, something romantic. It was a natural process I felt I had to do to move on. I just work with my own body, that is my canvas.”

I sort of envy Wengshoel. At least he got the chance to emotionally work through such an experience.

As for me, I would like to have taken my hips home in a Big Lots bag, but I would have stopped short of ingesting them.

Perhaps I would have turned them into a flower vase.

To display rose hips in bone meal, of course.

HELLO MUDDAH, HELLO FADDAH: FOND MEMORIES OF SPRING FESTIVAL

A Cleveland winter is a brutal thing. When the crocuses finally poke their heads out, the sun reappears and you no longer feel as if you’re living in a Bergman film, it’s time to celebrate. At my elementary school, we marked this time each year with Spring Festival, an evening of song and dance put on for the parents by the fourth and fifth graders. One morning as I washed my hands in the girls’ restroom, I could hear the fifth graders’ resplendent voices through the wall. They were in the gymnasium practicing songs from the Broadway musical, Godspell.

Miss D was our young, newly hired music teacher. She was warm, energetic and in tune with the interests of kids. She was the diametrical opposite of the old battle axe who had previously held the job and had made us sing such jammin’ tunes as The Happy Wanderer and Drill, Ye Tarriers, Drill. I was not sorry to see her put out to pasture.

It was part of Miss D’s job to select the music for the festival, teach it to us and direct the entire production. You wouldn’t normally expect music from a show about the life of Christ to be included in a production at a public school, but Godspell had a decidedly hippie bent to it. Somehow it all balanced out. Plus, there would be a wide array of music, including some Top 40 pop tunes. The choice song and dance numbers went to the fifth graders, the lesser material to us lowly fourth graders. Regardless of which grade you were in, rehearsals meant less time spent on regular classwork. Nobody had any arguments with that.

To be selected for one of the jazz dance numbers was the dream of nearly every fourth grade girl. I wanted to be a dancer so bad, I felt it in my bones. But it was my bones that betrayed me. I learned the steps and made my best effort at the try-outs, but I’m sure the pain showed on my face. And I was probably too big a risk to be selected. If I had a flare the night of the show, it would screw everything up. So no sequined and tasseled jumpsuit for me. I was assigned the job of usherette. I would greet parents at the gym door and hand out programs.

Every day with the arthritis was a struggle, but my spirits were lifted by the advent of spring. Plus, the upcoming show gave me something to think about, to focus on. I wouldn’t dance nor have a featured solo, yet I was excited at the prospect of performing for my parents. I was sure they would be impressed.

Then my dad won a trip to Europe, his prize for being named salesman of the year. He and my mom would fly to New York City and be honored at a dinner at the Italian Rifle Club by the corporate big wigs. They would stay one night at the Plaza Hotel, where rooms cost $80 a night! They’d fly to Germany and take a week-long boat cruise down the Rhine River. Naturally, this would take place the same week as the Spring Festival.

I was disappointed, but somewhat heartened when I found out that my mom’s parents would come to stay with me and my sister that week. My grandparents were quiet and easygoing. They never fought or had mood swings. They’d buy me whatever I wanted at the grocery store. I imagined a week of nothing but pizza, ice cream and Archway cookies.

I came home from school the day of the big event and had an early dinner. I changed into my fourth grade idea of an usherette’s uniform: a white blouse and navy blue pleated skirt. We had to return to school early, before the families arrived.

School buildings after hours always feel a bit creepy, but there was a happy vibe in the air that night. They corralled us in our classrooms while Miss D made last minute adjustments with the in-crowd: the dancers and featured singers. I sat at my desk while three boys groused about how the show made them miss that week’s episode of The Six Million Dollar Man. They proclaimed it a rip-off, but consoled themselves by attempting to peel coats of Elmer’s Glue, intact, from the palms of their hands.

Soon we were herded backstage to take our places. Because I was one of the shortest kids in class, I was put in the first row of the chorus. This meant I would have to kneel down and sit on my heels during almost the entire show. In rehearsals, I had struggled with the pain it caused, but never let it show, nor even contemplated being excused from sitting like that. Now as we took our places, just moments before curtain time, I felt a panic rising within me. Standing at the door passing our programs had made my legs stiffen up. For a couple seconds, I felt tears well up, angry that the arthritis might rob me of this special evening, as it had begun robbing me of so much already. But somehow on cue, I descended to my knees with the other front row shorties without hesitation.

Throughout that evening, we smiled and sang Wilkommen from Cabaret and Hello Muddah, Hello Faddah and the other numbers on key, all the while following Miss D’s direction to the letter. When we rose to form a chain encircling the gym for the closing number – the O-Jay’s Love Train – my legs ached liked crazy. But when I saw the smile on my grandmother’s face as she clapped to the beat, I forgot all about it.

The following year, we fifth graders got to sing Paper Lace’s The Night Chicago Died. It was totally boss, but I think my first Spring Festival will always be my favorite.

INCLUSIVE COMMUNITIES THAT WELCOME EVERYONE

Sometimes I dream big. When I do, I dream of communities that welcome everyone. Places where people of all abilities can live, work and get around. Rights of way that are safe and accessible to folks with a range of mobility needs.

Interested in what it's like to navigate streets as a wheelchair user, what works and what doesn't? Check out my guest blog posting -- Complete Street with Inclusive Design -- on Strong Towns. Strong Towns supports a model of development that allows America's cities, towns and neighborhoods to become financially strong and resilient.

Professional Engineer and Urban Planner Chuck Marohn is the primary author of the Strong Towns Blog, and the host of the Strong Towns Podcast and See it Differently TV. He has a vision of the urban environment that I share and he writes beautifully. He's also a darn nice guy.

Check out the whole Strong Towns website. It's an intuitively designed site chock full of fascinating food for thought on urban planning.

http://www.strongtowns.org/journal/2015/3/2/complete-street-with-inclusive-design

THE STORY OF PEDRO THE CHIHUAHUA, OR A MORALITY TALE ON DURABLE MEDICAL EQUIPMENT

This is the story of Pedro, a Chihuahua. When Pedro was born, his parents welcomed him into the world, although he was different than his other siblings. You see, Pedro had no front legs, which is a pretty tough predicament for a dog. His family took good care of him, but by the time he was weaned, it was clear Pedro was going to need wheels.

So, his parents checked with their health insurer about their durable medical coverage, which is a fancy phrase for “are they gonna pay for a wheelchair or not?”

“Well,” said the client care representative, (which is a fancy phrase for someone who works in a boiler room in Waterloo, Iowa and follows a script on a computer screen) “you have coverage at 100 percent, but only for a chair made from paper clips, Fun-Tak and old Tonka truck wheels.”

Pedro’s mom and dad were not pleased to hear this. Not at all. So they began talking with rehab experts and disability ergonomic specialists and doing research online. To be able to run and play like the other dogs, Pedro needed a Canine Wheel-X 9000. This was no ordinary chair. It was made from titanium, aircraft aluminum and water-resistant micro fiber -- and absolutely no Fun-Tak. His parents got a prescription and letter of medical necessity from Pedro’s doctor, along with a cost estimate for the chair. They submitted these, along with an appeal letter, to their insurance company. Weeks later, they received a letter back.

The letter was lengthy and technical and somehow both overly polite yet very dehumanizing, or in this case, de-canine-izing. The upshot was: either accept the crappy uncomfortable, one-size-fits-most chair of paper clips and Fun-Tak at no out-of-pocket cost, or spend a prince’s ransom of their own money to get Pedro what he needed, i.e. the Canine Wheel-X 9000.

Being dedicated parents who loved Pedro very much, they bought him the Canine Wheel-X 9000. Pedro was overjoyed, and once he received his custom-fitted new chair that actually accommodated his needs, he went tearing around the neighborhood. Soon, Pedro was chasing cats and retrieving sticks. He was even able to use the fire hydrant on his own, whereas before, he always fell over without someone to lean against.

But Pedro was no dim bulb. No sir-ee. He was well aware that his family had been forced to move out of their custom Dogloo A-frame into a cardboard box. And mom was stretching the daily meal of Science Diet by adding sawdust. This was because his family had to scale back on costs because of what they paid for his Canine Wheel-X 9000.

So, Pedro began collecting up the – how can we say this politely? – “end products” of his digestive process. Day after day he saved them and after he had a huge pile, put it all into a paper bag. He put it on a little trailer and hauled it very, very far – all the way across town to the home of the company president of his family’s health insurance provider. On the president’s doorstep, when no one was looking, Pedro dumped the heavy paper sack onto the stoop. He lit the sack with a match and then knocked on the door by kicking it.

Then -- because he had the right wheelchair that accommodated his needs -- he was able to run like hell. Once across the street, Pedro watched as the door opened, a man came out and began stomping out the flaming bag. Then the man examined his own shoes and cursed a blue streak.

It was a long trip back home, but Pedro ran briskly, his little tail wagging the whole way.

THE END.