The Ignorant Side of Macy’s Holiday Holidazzle

Almost two years ago now I wrote this post in this blog’s Annoying/Aggravating/Interesting Access Picture of the Week series featuring the picture below of an elevator button at the downtown Minneapolis Macy’s store labeled “For Handicap Use Only Middle Car Call.” At the time I posted the picture to make two observations: 1) to point out that the use of the word “handicap” was somewhere between poor word choice and offensive to people with disabilities (using handicapped, disability, or accessible would be much more PC) and 2) to question the chances of able-bodied folks actually deferring priority use of the elevator to people with disabilities as is intended.

My initial inclination to the latter was that no they wouldn’t because I’ve seen too many instances over the years where in busy stores like Macy’s every man for himself mentalities often butt ahead of proper etiquette. Even when it comes to matters of disability access and accessibility. And especially during the hustle and bustle of the holiday season. Being a wheelchair user I am of the opinion that I should get priority to any parking spot or ramp or elevator that I need to use over anybody that can walk, every single time, in any circumstance. Period. But unfortunately that is not the case fairly often.

But interestingly enough I got a first-hand answer to the notion above with this specific  elevator two days ago when I went to the downtown Minneapolis Macy’s 8th Floor Holiday Display with my parents and my girlfriend. As we approached the bank of elevators I could see that there was already a buildup of people waiting for the next elevator to open up. It was mostly couples, families, and people with child strollers. The people with strollers had a much more genuine reason to use the elevators but the rest could have easily used the escalators that were nearby instead. Having used this bank of elevators about a dozen times over the past few years to use the Macy’s skyway to go to legal conferences in the adjacent City Center I positioned myself right by the elevator in the picture above. But as each elevator door opened nobody got off, nobody made room, nobody paid attention to the disability label on that cart. In fact, people were so impatient to get upstairs to the 8th floor display that they started getting on the elevators to go down one floor just so that they could already be on it when it went up again.

But the most ignorant and interesting part of the story occurred as we were on our way out. After we went through the 8th floor display we went down to the lower level to the café to maybe hunt up a snack. As we were going through the same busy elevator ordeal as before on our way back up to the first floor I again positioned myself near the disability specific elevator cart. To my right was an impatient woman with a baby stroller who was standing right by the sign above and would push the button every time a full cart came down and went back up again. The first elevator cart with enough room for me, my wheelchair, my parents, and girlfriend to fit in we jumped on. As the door closed my girlfriend said that she felt like punching a woman. I asked why and her reason was that apparently the woman by the elevator button said in a real snotty tone something like, “Try waiting in line next time” to us as we got on the elevator.

So to be clear, the very able-bodied woman who was standing right by the sign that designated the elevator for disability use only, who was in fact pushing the button on that sign herself, and watched a person in a wheelchair get on the elevator ahead of her had the audacity to gripe about us allegedly cutting in line for the elevator. That is holiday holidazzle ignorance at it’s finest, folks. Had I heard her say that I would have backed right out again, whether I got separated from my family and girlfriend or not, and chewed that lady out to set her straight. You know, in the true holiday spirit of accessibility advocacy.

Recalling My Very Wild and Unusual Attorney Swear In Ceremony

In every lifetime there are those moments or events where you just want everything to go perfectly as planned. These typically include things like graduation day, a first date with someone you’re crazy about, your marriage proposal, your wedding day, a job interview, a public speaking event, etc. For me, getting sworn in as an attorney was one of those big deal life events where I hoped things would fall right into place. Three years ago today, on December 11, 2007, I was sworn in as a licensed Minnesota attorney in front of the Minnesota Supreme Court. It was a proud day for both me and my family. Not only was it the culmination of four tough years of law school and the passing of the bar exam, but a pretty cool legal right of passage to boot.

But unfortunately having it all go off without a hitch wasn’t in the cards that day. Far from it as it were. Because when you live my lifestyle inexplicable and unexpected things related to my spinal cord injury and/or wheelchair tend to spring up at the most inopportune times. Thus December 11, 2007 became “one of those days” at the worst time possible.

The ceremony was scheduled to begin sharply at 3 pm in the main courtroom of the Minnesota Supreme Court building, which was pretty iconic stuff. I was actually supposed arrive at least fifteen minutes early to sign the requisite paperwork and get situated. The first mistake that I made was having my family drive past the court building in St. Paul to meet me at my apartment in Minneapolis first. I needed help with my suit and tie and they hit traffic, so we didn’t end up parking by the courthouse until 2:45 when I was already supposed to be inside. As a result, I was feeling really rushed.

On top of that I had never been to the Minnesota Supreme Court building before so I didn’t know where I was going or where the front entrance was. When you use a wheelchair and the overall accessibility of a building is in question a trick of the trade is to follow the blue wheelchair access/disability signs. Almost all of the time those signs lead the way to the wheelchair accessible entrance. So as I was hauling ass down the sidewalk of what turned out to be the side of the building I saw a disability access sign that pointed to a certain entrance. “This must be it,” I thought. As I approached it and hit the automatic door button nothing happened. We grabbed the handle to pull the door open and it was locked. Next to the door was one of those talk boxes with a red button. So I pushed the button, someone answered, and I said that I used a wheelchair and needed to get in but the door was locked. They buzzed me in. At the least, it was an annoyance that I could have done without on my way into the building.

Now at that point it didn’t make much sense that that was how I would have to enter the building to get to my ceremony. Why would I have to use a small side entrance that had its door locked during the middle of the day? But again, I was in a rush and I was going on past experience and instinct. After all, in the preceding eleven years of using a wheelchair (at that point) I’d already jumped through way crazier hoops just to enter buildings, and with that court building being a bit older it certainly wasn’t out of the realm of possibility that I needed to take an equally roundabout route. So I proceeded.

What made even less sense though was when I got inside the door and immediately found myself at the top of a staircase. “What the f---?” I thought to myself. I looked to my right and there was a wooden closet looking door with the disability access symbol on it so I opened it up to fund a metal dumbwaiter style elevator-lift big enough to fit one wheelchair. It was exactly like the kind I had to use in my university bookstore to get to the lower floor where the books actually were. I can’t begin to explain how hard it was trying to catch the eye of some college cuties when I had to get in a metal box that very obnoxiously went ZZZZZZZZGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHH for a good thirty seconds before it reached the bottom, and vice versa. Very embarrassing.

Now at this point I definitely should have just turned around, gone back out the door I had just come through, and gone down the sidewalk again because there was no way that was the accessible entrance that would take me to the main courtroom of the Minnesota Supreme Court. And as it turns out it wasn’t. But fueled by the fact that I was running late and without giving it a second thought I launched myself into the “elevator,” closed the door behind me, and pressed the down button.

It was pretty much the instant that I hit the button that I had a “I probably shouldn’t be doing this” bad feeling, and sure enough the lift went down about four inches and crapped out. I hit the down button again, nothing. I hit the up button, nothing. Tried them both again, nothing. The emergency button didn’t work either. Great. Already late for what was arguably the biggest event of my life up until that point and I was stuck in some crappy elevator lift I should have known better to not even use in the first place.

Meanwhile, my family was on the floor below waiting for me to come down. Finally, my mom yells out something like, “Are you coming down or what?” I told her I was stuck. I think the response that came back was to try hitting the down button again. I yelled back that I was stuck stuck, as in no buttons worked and I couldn’t move. As everyone came back to the top to see the situation first hand I heard a lady walk in behind me and ask what was going on. My mom told her that I was stuck in the lift. Then she replied, “Oh that thing hasn’t worked for years” and went on her way. well for crying out loud, had ANYBODY thought about posting an “out of order’ sign or something? Unbelievable.

So my now brother-in-law went off to find some maintenance guy to help us and my dad went to let somebody in charge know that I was going to be a little late to the ceremony and to see if they could maybe hold things up for me given the unique circumstances. The longer I was stuck the more pissed off I got. Of all days to get stuck in a broken elevator lift was the one and only day that I would become an official lawyer. What were the odds?

After not too long a wait, albeit by the same token way longer than I’d hoped, the maintenance guy finally showed up. He reiterated that the lift had been broken for quite while. Thanks a pant load for the non-forewarning man! Since he couldn’t get it working again the only solution was to try and pull me out. I couldn’t back out because four inches is too high a threshold to wheel over going either frontwards or backwards with my chair. Also making it no small feat was the fact that my body weight plus my chair weight tops out at around 400 lbs. But between the two of them they were able to lift my back end high enough so I could control my back wheels to help get me back on level ground. Every fiber of my being wanted to bitch him out for not posting some sort of out of order sign, especially since his reaction to me more than implied that it was my fault for getting stuck in the first place, but more than anything I was just relieved to get out and I had to really get moving to get inside.

Down the sidewalk we went again. I got to the corner, hung a left, went about twenty more yards and, duh, there was the main entrance. My dad assured me that they were holding things up for me so that put me at ease a little bit, but my face was red from frustration, my shirt and tie were a little crooked, and in general I felt out of sorts. After I took a moment to straighten out and collect myself in what felt like the longest elevator ride up one floor in history I was finally outside the courtroom entrance.

As I rolled in the doors half embarrassed for being late and half relieved to finally have made it I found myself on the observation level of the courtroom while all the other soon-to-be attorneys attending the ceremony were down on the courtroom floor level. To get down there you had to go through a small swinging door and down a few stairs. So as it turned out although I finally made to the courtroom I still hadn’t actually made it. As all eyes were on me wondering what I was going to do next a courtroom shepherd asked me if I wanted to go down there to join the group. Relieved to finally be in the room but frustrated that the saga continued I said, “That’s ok.” But she assured me that it was just as easy as taking a ramp down the outside of the courtroom to get down there.

So I followed her to the left side of the courtroom where she held open a door for me, told me to go to the bottom of the ramp, and that she would go around and open it up for me. Then I sat there facing the closed door for who knows how long until I heard the door behind me open up again and a voice say, “I’m sorry, that’s not the right way, we actually have to go around to the other side.” Because there wasn’t enough room to turn my chair around I had to back all the way out instead.

As I followed her to the other side it started to feel like I was in the middle of one of those funny ha ha room to room chase sequences like you see on “Scooby Doo” or other similarly replicated comedy montages. By the time I popped out at the bottom of the ramp and entered the courtroom floor the Justice charged with swearing us in was in the middle of his “This is a time-honored profession…” speech. So I was already embarrassed interrupting things, especially with a loud puttering power wheelchair that makes a clickety clack noise whenever it goes in and out of gear. All the other new attorneys were sitting along the outer rim of the courtroom floor and the only spot available was on my end (thankfully) between a lady who pulled her chair over to clear me some room and the courtroom’s witness box. But in order to get myself into position I had to roll through a very tight space between the witness box and a brass bottomed flag stand, and as I squeezed through it my brand new rubber wheelchair tires let out a very loud and mortifying SSQQUUEEKK as they rubbed against the brass, which was essentially the cherry on top of an overall sundae of suck.

Once again I tried to collect myself as coolly and quickly as possible and tried to enjoy the rest of the ceremony as much as I could by putting all of the BS I had just gone through behind me. Obviously, it was a cool thing to be a part of and when I raised my hand and finally got sworn in as a real licensed Minnesota attorney it felt awesome.

After the ceremony everyone lined up to shake the Justice’s hand, chat with him, and get a picture. After everything that I had just been through I was pretty much ready to get the hell out of there and go to dinner, because I don’t remember desperately wanting a drink more at any point in my life. But my parents kind of insisted that we wait around and so we could get a picture with the Justice as well because it could be a something that I would regret not doing someday.

I’m glad I did too because I was last in line so I got some pretty unique one on one time with him. He was actually the Justice that came and spoke in my Criminal Procedure class the fall semester before. That night in class he pretended to punch me in the face while he lead a mini “What is justice?” lecture so I certainly didn’t forget him. When I reminded him of all that he claimed to have recognized me when I rolled into the courtroom. The thing I really thought was cool about him was that he got down on one knee so that he was more on my level to chat with me and take some pictures.

Then the unexpected occurred. With me that day were my parents, my sister, my now brother-in-law (aka my brolaw), and my baby nephew who was eight months old at the time. At some point in true father/grandfather’s pride fashion my dad mentioned to the Justice that my nephew had my name for his middle name. So after that the Justice kept referring to my nephew as “little Shawn.” Then out of nowhere he said, “You know what would make a great picture? If you took little Shawn up above and set him on the court bench.” So my sister and brolaw took my nephew around and sat him down on that Justice’s spot on the supreme court bench and we took a few pictures. Being a Minnesota law historian he then declared that my nephew was the first baby in the history of the Minnesota Supreme Court to sit on the bench. It was pretty awesome. And as it turned out it ended up being a pretty unique and fitting postscript to the whole crazy event.

So as much as I try to plan ahead and play all the angles to prevent wild things from happening, a lot of times the unexpected still wins out and it can be downright tumultuous like it was in this case. But in the end all that matters is that I survived the crappy elevator fiasco, I made it inside for the ceremony better late than never, I still became an officially licensed Minnesota attorney, and in the process we made a little bit of Minnesota Supreme Court history as well. And ultimately, I have a much better story to tell because of it. It also goes without saying that I might not ever be able to look at my attorney’s license card or see the words “Minnesota Supreme Court” and not think about that day.

RIP Christopher Reeve: My Personal Encounter with the Man Himself (From the Archives)

Yesterday marked the six year anniversary of Christopher Reeve’s passing. To pay tribute I thought that I would repost what I wrote last year about his impact, the day that I met him, etc., and to continue that practice in future years. The only thing that I will add here at the forefront is that within sixteen hours or so of making that post live I got an email from Christopher Reeve’s daughter, which was obviously a great surprise. I won’t get into the details in order to preserve what was a private, special exchange, but in short she thanked me for writing the post, for keeping her dad’s memory alive, that my intuition about him was correct that day, and for respectfully giving him the moment of privacy that you’ll read about further below. The Christopher & Dana Reeve Foundation and fellow Reeve supporters were my target audience with that post, so it was quite shocking to be contacted directly by a member of the Reeve family, let alone so soon after posting it. But I’m glad that it had such a positive impact, and I still consider that the highlight of my writing “career.” You can read the Reeve Foundation post commemorating the sixth anniversary of his passing here or see how people are sharing their thoughts on the subject here. Check out my archived post below:

Today marks the five year anniversary of Christopher Reeve's passing, and I couldn’t let it pass by me without sharing a few words about that. In short, his death was a highly unfortunate event at the time, and its saddening impact remains so to this day. I still remember that day quite vividly in fact. When I first caught word that he had died everything in my life stopped briefly. I was a month and a half into my second year of law school, and needless to say my studies took a dive for the rest of the day. In its stead I hit the web and read everything about his passing that I could. That followed with a period of extended quiet reflection. I found the way he died (suffering a cardiac arrest that was preceded by a skin pressure wound that caused a systemic infection) very sobering because it’s something that’s an issue for all people with SCI. Thankfully pressure sores and skin breakdowns have never been a problem with me – presumably a result of my being careful with all the body parts I can’t feel and my surprisingly tough skin – but what put things into perspective was the realization about how things could go south pretty drastically if it were to ever occur.

Once the initial shock wore off my thoughts on the matter went into two different directions. First, and I briefly echoed this in my Derrick Thomas post, I was deeply saddened to lose an “SCI brother.” Living with paralysis stemming from a spinal cord injury has become a pretty common disability type these days but that group as a whole is still quite a minority as compared to everyday, able-bodied society as a whole. So to that regard I’ve always felt like I’ve shared membership in a club of sorts to others who live with SCI. Thus I always felt a fairly strong connection to Christopher Reeve. And not just that, but he was the president and CEO of our unique club.

That said, secondly, and maybe selfishly, my thoughts then immediately went to fear for the future of SCI research and fundraising. People in my position, who have lived this lifestyle for years and years, are not just going to wake up on some given morning to discover that all of our physical faculties have returned on their own. We rely quite exclusively on the discovery of the elusive cure for paralysis to get most, and possibly all of it back. With Reeve’s passing, the discovery of said cure and other related things that improve the lives of people living with SCI suddenly felt iffy because our greatest champion for the cause had fallen. Reeve was almost hands down the face of our disability, thanks in large part to his popular global icon status as SUPERMAN. Without his unfortunate accident, and the publicity that ensued, SCI issues would not have been thrust into the public sphere to the immediate and vast nature that they did. Moreover, his journey in the aftermath, his positive attitude, and his decree that it was not a matter of if, but when he realized his dream of walking again brought a ton of awareness and activism about SCI in a short period of time that I’m guessing would not equal where we would be fourteen years later today without him.

Thus right away I was highly concerned that all of the great progress that was being made in that area while he was still alive would slow down significantly after his death, or worse: stall out completely. But the Christopher & Dana Reeve Foundation has continued to do great things in his wake, and with Marc Buoniconti being on the cover of Sports Illustrated a few months ago representing The Miami Project to Cure Paralysis and all of their great work, I think that the fight for a cure for paralysis has been able to maintain itself as an important public issue that requires much more progress to fulfill its ultimate goal.

My own personal account of Christopher Reeve dates back to the fall of 1996 when I met him briefly in Denver, CO. Somewhere around early November Reeve was in Denver for a major public speaking engagement at the downtown convention center. At the time I was still out in Denver for an eight week extensive inpatient spinal cord injury rehab stint at Craig Hospital, arguably the finest facility in the country (if not the world) for such a thing. While he was in town he stayed in a room about six doors down from mine in the East Building at Craig, which is essentially the residence wing. All the rooms in that part of the facility were set up like single living accessible apartments with a private bathroom, a mini fridge, an office-type area, and a living room area with a pullout couch bed for family members to sleep on. Most of the Craig patients that roomed in the residence side of the facility were in their final transition period before getting discharged from rehab, which for me meant that at the time I was in my last two to three weeks before going back home.

It was no surprise that Reeve stayed at Craig while he was in town. First of all, the room where he stayed was easily the most accessible lodging in the city, not to mention completely private from the public. Second, the word on the street leading up to his visit was that immediately after his injury Reeve wanted to come out to Denver to do his SCI rehab at Craig, because of the great national reputation it has, but they didn’t have any patient openings to accommodate him at the time. I’m not sure if that’s actually true but if it is then in a roundabout way he finally got his chance to stay there and see the facility first-hand.

The morning after he arrived he held a city-wide press conference in the media room at Craig (fun fact: I used to watch my Packer games on their 72 inch big screen TV). I don’t remember if I missed the presser because I wasn’t up yet or because I was in the middle of my morning therapy sessions, but my dad went down and took some pictures (I’ll have to scan and post later). Sometime afterwards my dad came back to my room and mentioned that a bunch of other patients had congregated a few doors down from Reeve’s if I wanted to go try and meet the man himself. I’ve never been one to resort to rubbernecking but considering I would probably never have such an opportunity ever again I ventured down the hall to join the other half dozen or so nonetheless.

After a brief moment Reeve appeared from his room and came down to us. He used a sip and puff mechanism to drive his wheelchair and as soon as he stopped and moved his mouth away from the sip/puff thing he said “Hey, everybody” in a quiet, friendly voice. The group responded with a collective ‘hey’ back. Then he asked what we were doing there at Craig, kind of focusing his attention on one lady in particular to start things off. She was a paraplegic who was discharged less than two weeks after I arrived at Craig. If my memory serves it was her second time at Craig due to a re-injury. I remember also that she was very loud, brash, and kind of speedy aggressive with her wheelchair, but not necessarily in a negative way. She belonged to a click of sorts with a handful of other patients who had been in rehab together for quite the same amount of time. Whenever I saw them hanging out in the halls I felt like a high school freshman steering clear of the cool upper classmen group all over again. It should be noted that in true circle of life fashion (my nephew’s really been into the LION KING lately so I had to throw in that reference) about four weeks after she was gone I found myself involved with a similar click of my own. And in my rehab discharge roundtable with my parents and rehab team my physical therapist (an ex-Navy SEAL of 26 years) mentioned that a handful of his other rehab patients had started requesting a fast manual wheelchair like mine, assuming that the chair was the reason for the speed I was exhibiting, not me making it go fast.

Anyway, when he essentially asked her what she was there for she very quickly replied, “To see you.” Then he said, “Well are you here for therapy as well?” And then she said back, “Nope, I just came to see you.” I don’t recall the details of any other specific conversation exchanges he had with the group but I do remember that he didn’t stay and chat with us for long. I remember thinking at the time, and still feel the same to this day, that it was unfortunate that of any person in the group that he opened up his brief friendly dialogue with it was with the one person who was no longer affiliated with the facility and had only visited that day just to get a close up look at him.

My immediate impression of the whole exchange at the time, and an opinion I still strongly share to this day, is that I think he just wanted to shoot the breeze with us about our therapies and our thoughts on getting a chance to do rehab at such a fine facility. Kind of a “we’ve all gone through this” note comparison session. That theory carries extra weight if it’s in fact true that his admission request was turned away. So as far as that goes, I always felt like he just wanted to pick our brains about getting to do something that he never got the chance to do. That’s why I think it’s too bad that most of his native chit chat time was taken up with someone who couldn’t read between the lines. I feel like at least she could have told him that she was a former patient and not just a crazy fan. Had he engaged me instead I would have said that I was a c-7 quad, had a diving accident, was from Wisconsin, came there for more aggressive therapy, it was hard as hell to be away from my family and friends but it was a necessary move that I didn’t regret, talked up the quality of the joint, and asked where he rehabbed and what his thoughts were about it. I guess I should have raised my hand or something.

That afternoon I got the chance to go to the convention center and see him speak. In fact, most of the hospital staff and patients got the afternoon off from therapy to do so as well. For me it was a very liberating round-trip because unlike most everyone else who got bused downtown, I got a separate day pass to go by myself with my parents. One of the smart things my parents did was have our Chevy Blazer driven out to Denver so they had a vehicle to get around. It was only a small handful of times that I got to leave completely untethered from the facility. So it was kind of a big deal at the time to be able to drive down there by ourselves.

Because we were on our own schedule, we got to head downtown after most everyone else had already left. As fate had it, on our way to the elevator we crossed paths with Reeve and his crew of people, who were also getting ready to load up on the elevator. They were right by the elevator doors so we waited politely behind this decorative wall divider thing so that they could get on the elevator first. But someone in his entourage saw us and and waived us past because they weren’t quite ready. As I was just about to break into view of him I heard him say “A little more to the right” which based on my own experience I assumed meant that their holdup was because he needed a body adjustment in his chair. Thus even though I passed by him within less than six feet between us I didn’t look over in his direction to respect his privacy. In retrospect I probably should have glanced over and given him a quick hello or a friendly nod, but at the time I felt pretty strongly about keeping the blinders on because I knew how frustrating it was to have people stare at you while you were getting some private adjustment.

So my one close encounter with Christopher Reeve didn’t quite have the bang for the buck, and was more like a fly by, but at the time it was a really great moment for me and my parents. And I always like getting the chance to share the story. But overall, the thing that I will always take away from that day and that chance meeting is that when you strip it all away – the Superman thing, the social popularity, the global icon status, the face of our disability – he was just one of us: a guy who sustained an unfortunate, life altering spinal cord injury, became a quadriplegic, and was just trying to continue on with his life as best as he could. And yes maybe that included waiving a few people onto the elevator ahead of him because he needed help getting a few small adjustments to make him feel more comfortable and presentable.

Keeping with the spirit of this anniversary, here’s a couple of related links I wanted to share. The first is an article written by the CEO of the Christopher & Dane Reeve Foundation about how the best way to honor his legacy is to find a cure for paralysis. Clearly, I concur with that notion. The second is the Reeve Foundation forum page where people have been posting their thoughts about the five year anniversary of Reeve’s passing and sharing stories about how he touched their lives.

So in closing I say rest in peace, good sir. It was great getting the brief chance to meet you once upon a time in Denver.

New Experiences

I decided to start a new blog segment called New Experiences, which is essentially going to be shorthand for new experiences in my personal accessibility related adventures. To kick things off I had two such noteworthy new experiences this past Friday. The first experience was that I rode a Minneapolis city bus for the first time, which was an interesting set of events. I was a part of a nonprofit leadership training group that was touring a few downtown Minneapolis nonprofits. I knew ahead of time that the plan was for us to ride buses together as a group, so I was equal parts nervous and intrigued. I considered driving myself instead but playing downtown parking ramp round robin wasn't a better option when it came down to it. Of my biggest concerns were if I would have enough room to move my wheelchair around inside the bus and if there would be enough open space to sit inside (i.e. if the bus was full or another wheelchair user was already sitting in the designated accessible seating area).

When the bus arrived and it was my turn to get on, the bus driver lowered the front end of the bus and a ramp flipped out the same way that one would open a book and flatten it out on the table. Turning the corner inside from ramp to bus aisle was tight, as was the small area for me to turn around and face front wards again, but it worked out just fine. (Side note: had I been in my new, bigger wheelchair I would not have had enough room, however.) Then the bus driver connected a few safety cables on the floor to my chair "just in case." And we were off. The only uncomfortable thing was that every time the bus driver hit the gas and sped up from a stopped position it made me and my chair rock back a little. So I grabbed onto the flipped up seat bench next to me to brace myself for a little extra feeling of security. It was an interesting little learning experience overall, but that's not to say that I'm going to run right out there and do it again unless I need to. I prefer the comfort of driving my van much more.

At the second nonprofit location I needed to ride an elevator up to the fifth floor. Normally that's barely worth a mention but it was highly notable in this case because it was the smallest elevator I've ever seen in my life. The pic below might not do it justice but the elevator cart barely fit me and my chair plus another person. If I sat right in the middle and stuck out my elbows I might have almost been able to touch both side walls. I've been in my fair share of elevators in the past thirteen plus years and feel like I've seen them all at this point, but I thought that one was quite remarkable. Definitely a new experience, and maybe the most fun I've ever had riding an elevator on account of it's uniqueness. In fact, it was so intimate in there once the door closed on us that I joked that I had to remember to bring a date back to that building someday.

One Man's Annoying/Aggravating/Interesting Access Picture of the Week

I saw this sign on a bank of elevators at the downtown Minneapolis Macy's. If you can't make it out it says "FOR HANDICAP USE ONLY" and it referred to the middle elevator car in a row of four. On its face it was a nice gesture but it sort of made me snicker cynically for two reasons: 1) the chances that able-bodied people always deferred to people with disabilities as the sign intends, and 2) the use of the word "handicap" was poor word choice. As I've mentioned on this blog before, words like "handicap" (in its singular form) and "the disabled" to describe people with disabilities has become very un-PC and even outright offensive. Using the word "accessible" would be the best option here. In fact, I'm a little surprised that nobody (e.g. the HR department) in one of the biggest and most shopped stores in the world looked closely at this sign and put 2 and 2 together in this regard. It might be time that someone brings it to their attention. And I would gladly be that person if need be.

How I even got to this bank of elevators is an interesting little story as well. I had to go to downtown Minneapolis for a meeting, which meant parking in a ramp and traveling through the skyway system to get to my destination. That said, the rule of thumb for me in that situation is to park on the second level, or park and make my way to the second level so that it's a quick trip to the skyway. The ramp I used didn't have skyway access though. So I had to go to the street level inside an adjacent building instead and I followed the signs for skyway access. The problem with that was it lead me to a set of escalators with no elevators in sight. Mystified, I asked a security guard how I could get to the skyway. He told me that I had to go into Macy's, go through the women's shoe department, hang a left by women's perfume, and the elevators that would take me to the second floor would be right there. Alrighty then. Made perfect sense. Unfortunately, having to take more convoluted paths like this because it's the only accessible route available is pretty common place when you use a wheelchair, and can often be quite frustrating. But I've been though much worse by comparison to this scenario, and I'm sure even the worst will get trumped some day. Alternative accessible routes gone bad will have very much to do with my next post as well.

Observations from Camp Randall: UW v. Michigan 11/14/09

Last Saturday's game against Michigan (a 45-24 throttling of the Wolverines) was the Badger's final home game of the season, and just like that another Fall of good times, not to mention interesting adventures going to and from my seats on game days, comes to a close. I will be taking a trip down to Madison to see the Hockey Classic at Camp Randall in February, but I won't be sitting in my stadium seats again until Fall 2010. The season always seems so long at the onset, but then when I leave the stadium for the very last time near Thanksgiving I always wonder how it seemed to pass by so quickly. Sigh. Onto the final 2009 installment of Observation from Camp Randall:

Observation #1: The tailgate is in full swing. I took my good buddy Ryan. My rehab nurse from 1996, who I've stayed in contact with over the years, was in town for the game and her and her husband had just stopped by. Another good buddy and fellow Badger superfan John, who I hadn't seen in over a year, had just stopped by. Cold beverages and friendly conversation was in high gear. Then out of the blue a gentleman in his mid-sixties butts in, explains that he and his sick wife, who he points out is sitting across the street on a bus stop bench taking a rest, are on the way into the game, and he was wondering if he couldn't score a few beers from us if we had any to spare. As he started to pull out his wallet to pay for them we all did a collective "Huh?" Ryan grabbed one, told him it would be no cost, and that since his wife was sick she probably didn't need one herself. He thanked us, muttered something about if we ever stopped by his station that we were good in his book, then disappeared. Only outside Camp Randall Stadium on a Badger football game day would something like that happen. And that in such an atmosphere your only true reaction is to just shrug and carry on with the tailgate action.

Observation #2: I took the picture below to further take people along my path into the stadium and up the elevator. In a previous post I took a picture of the line out the door and noted that the room with the elevator was up to the right. This is that room. The elevator is to the left below that TV. One person in a wheelchair was in front of me at this point.

Observation #3: The guy to the right in the picture below is the guy who manned the elevator all season long. I call him "The Captain" because he always wore that silly looking captain-esque hat. As I was snapping this pic an able-bodied couple behind me asked The Captain which elevator level they get off on to get to their seats. There's always a bit of confusion about that because nothing inside or outside the elevator clearly marks which seat sections coincide with what elevator level. Heck, it took me until this season to know with confidence that I was going to Section 5. Anyway, the following exchange occurred:

Able-bodied guy: What level do these seats go to?

The Captain: What section?

Able-bodied guy: WC.

The Captain: WC? Yeah, that's the wheelchair section, Level 5.

Able-bodied guy: Thanks.

Apparently, it was lost on everyone but me that the able-bodied couple who planned to sit in the wheelchair section but didn't use a wheelchair probably didn't need to ride on the elevator. That was pretty much a succinct anecdotal summation on the way the whole elevator thing went this year: seemingly everyone was allowed to use the elevator despite it technically being reserved for patrons with disabilities. That said, as far as I'm concerned The Captain needs to get himself a Tennille, a piano keyboard, and change professions because he was not very good at properly managing an elevator designed to give priority to people with disabilities. I still shake my head about when he told me there was no more room on the cart for a wheelchair earlier in the season. Hello?

Observation #4: This guy. That's all that needs to be said I think. He was wearing a head to toe plaid leisure suit and matching corduroy hat. To a Badger football game. Fantastic. He stood next to me for the better part of the third quarter and finally I just couldn't help but snap a pic because I was so blown away by his threads: easily the craziest looking outfit (student section aside) that I've ever seen anyone wear to a game in eleven years of having season tickets. And I live in a state where people wear blaze orange hunting garb to the stadium when it gets cold out.

Occasional access and frequent elevator woes aside, it was still another fine season of Wisconsin Badger football at Camp Randall Stadium this year. Lot's of awesome football was played, lot's of big team wins, and lot's of fun was had. I already can't wait until the first game next year!

RIP Christopher Reeve: My Personal Encounter with the Man Himself

Today marks the five year anniversary of Christopher Reeve's passing, and I couldn’t let it pass by me without sharing a few words about that. In short, his death was a highly unfortunate event at the time, and its saddening impact remains so to this day. I still remember that day quite vividly in fact. When I first caught word that he had died everything in my life stopped briefly. I was a month and a half into my second year of law school, and needless to say my studies took a dive for the rest of the day. In its stead I hit the web and read everything about his passing that I could. That followed with a period of extended quiet reflection. I found the way he died (suffering a cardiac arrest that was preceded by a skin pressure wound that caused a systemic infection) very sobering because it’s something that’s an issue for all people with SCI. Thankfully pressure sores and skin breakdowns have never been a problem with me – presumably a result of my being careful with all the body parts I can’t feel and my surprisingly tough skin – but what put things into perspective was the realization about how things could go south pretty drastically if it were to ever occur.

Once the initial shock wore off my thoughts on the matter went into two different directions. First, and I briefly echoed this in my Derrick Thomas post, I was deeply saddened to lose an “SCI brother.” Living with paralysis stemming from a spinal cord injury has become a pretty common disability type these days but that group as a whole is still quite a minority as compared to everyday, able-bodied society as a whole. So to that regard I’ve always felt like I’ve shared membership in a club of sorts to others who live with SCI. Thus I always felt a fairly strong connection to Christopher Reeve. And not just that, but he was the president and CEO of our unique club.

That said, secondly, and maybe selfishly, my thoughts then immediately went to fear for the future of SCI research and fundraising. People in my position, who have lived this lifestyle for years and years, are not just going to wake up on some given morning to discover that all of our physical faculties have returned on their own. We rely quite exclusively on the discovery of the elusive cure for paralysis to get most, and possibly all of it back. With Reeve’s passing, the discovery of said cure and other related things that improve the lives of people living with SCI suddenly felt iffy because our greatest champion for the cause had fallen. Reeve was almost hands down the face of our disability, thanks in large part to his popular global icon status as SUPERMAN. Without his unfortunate accident, and the publicity that ensued, SCI issues would not have been thrust into the public sphere to the immediate and vast nature that they did. Moreover, his journey in the aftermath, his positive attitude, and his decree that it was not a matter of if, but when he realized his dream of walking again brought a ton of awareness and activism about SCI in a short period of time that I’m guessing would not equal where we would be fourteen years later today without him.

Thus right away I was highly concerned that all of the great progress that was being made in that area while he was still alive would slow down significantly after his death, or worse: stall out completely. But the Christopher & Dana Reeve Foundation has continued to do great things in his wake, and with Marc Buoniconti being on the cover of Sports Illustrated a few months ago representing The Miami Project to Cure Paralysis and all of their great work, I think that the fight for a cure for paralysis has been able to maintain itself as an important public issue that requires much more progress to fulfill its ultimate goal.

My own personal account of Christopher Reeve dates back to the fall of 1996 when I met him briefly in Denver, CO. Somewhere around early November Reeve was in Denver for a major public speaking engagement at the downtown convention center. At the time I was still out in Denver for an eight week extensive inpatient spinal cord injury rehab stint at Craig Hospital, arguably the finest facility in the country (if not the world) for such a thing. While he was in town he stayed in a room about six doors down from mine in the East Building at Craig, which is essentially the residence wing. All the rooms in that part of the facility were set up like single living accessible apartments with a private bathroom, a mini fridge, an office-type area, and a living room area with a pullout couch bed for family members to sleep on. Most of the Craig patients that roomed in the residence side of the facility were in their final transition period before getting discharged from rehab, which for me meant that at the time I was in my last two to three weeks before going back home.

It was no surprise that Reeve stayed at Craig while he was in town. First of all, the room where he stayed was easily the most accessible lodging in the city, not to mention completely private from the public. Second, the word on the street leading up to his visit was that immediately after his injury Reeve wanted to come out to Denver to do his SCI rehab at Craig, because of the great national reputation it has, but they didn’t have any patient openings to accommodate him at the time. I’m not sure if that’s actually true but if it is then in a roundabout way he finally got his chance to stay there and see the facility first-hand.

The morning after he arrived he held a city-wide press conference in the media room at Craig (fun fact: I used to watch my Packer games on their 72 inch big screen TV). I don’t remember if I missed the presser because I wasn’t up yet or because I was in the middle of my morning therapy sessions, but my dad went down and took some pictures (I’ll have to scan and post later). Sometime afterwards my dad came back to my room and mentioned that a bunch of other patients had congregated a few doors down from Reeve’s if I wanted to go try and meet the man himself. I’ve never been one to resort to rubbernecking but considering I would probably never have such an opportunity ever again I ventured down the hall to join the other half dozen or so nonetheless.

After a brief moment Reeve appeared from his room and came down to us. He used a sip and puff mechanism to drive his wheelchair and as soon as he stopped and moved his mouth away from the sip/puff thing he said “Hey, everybody” in a quiet, friendly voice. The group responded with a collective ‘hey’ back. Then he asked what we were doing there at Craig, kind of focusing his attention on one lady in particular to start things off. She was a paraplegic who was discharged less than two weeks after I arrived at Craig. If my memory serves it was her second time at Craig due to a re-injury. I remember also that she was very loud, brash, and kind of speedy aggressive with her wheelchair, but not necessarily in a negative way. She belonged to a click of sorts with a handful of other patients who had been in rehab together for quite the same amount of time. Whenever I saw them hanging out in the halls I felt like a high school freshman steering clear of the cool upper classmen group all over again. It should be noted that in true circle of life fashion (my nephew’s really been into the LION KING lately so I had to throw in that reference) about four weeks after she was gone I found myself involved with a similar click of my own. And in my rehab discharge roundtable with my parents and rehab team my physical therapist (an ex-Navy SEAL of 26 years) mentioned that a handful of his other rehab patients had started requesting a fast manual wheelchair like mine, assuming that the chair was the reason for the speed I was exhibiting, not me making it go fast.

Anyway, when he essentially asked her what she was there for she very quickly replied, “To see you.” Then he said, “Well are you here for therapy as well?” And then she said back, “Nope, I just came to see you.” I don’t recall the details of any other specific conversation exchanges he had with the group but I do remember that he didn’t stay and chat with us for long. I remember thinking at the time, and still feel the same to this day, that it was unfortunate that of any person in the group that he opened up his brief friendly dialogue with it was with the one person who was no longer affiliated with the facility and had only visited that day just to get a close up look at him.

My immediate impression of the whole exchange at the time, and an opinion I still strongly share to this day, is that I think he just wanted to shoot the breeze with us about our therapies and our thoughts on getting a chance to do rehab at such a fine facility. Kind of a “we’ve all gone through this” note comparison session. That theory carries extra weight if it’s in fact true that his admission request was turned away. So as far as that goes, I always felt like he just wanted to pick our brains about getting to do something that he never got the chance to do. That’s why I think it’s too bad that most of his native chit chat time was taken up with someone who couldn’t read between the lines. I feel like at least she could have told him that she was a former patient and not just a crazy fan. Had he engaged me instead I would have said that I was a c-7 quad, had a diving accident, was from Wisconsin, came there for more aggressive therapy, it was hard as hell to be away from my family and friends but it was a necessary move that I didn’t regret, talked up the quality of the joint, and asked where he rehabbed and what his thoughts were about it. I guess I should have raised my hand or something.

That afternoon I got the chance to go to the convention center and see him speak. In fact, most of the hospital staff and patients got the afternoon off from therapy to do so as well. For me it was a very liberating roundtrip because unlike most everyone else who got bused downtown, I got a separate day pass to go by myself with my parents. One of the smart things my parents did was have our Chevy Blazer driven out to Denver so they had a vehicle to get around. It was only a small handful of times that I got to leave completely untethered from the facility. So it was kind of a big deal at the time to be able to drive down there by ourselves.

Because we were on our own schedule, we got to head downtown after most everyone else had already left. As fate had it, on our way to the elevator we crossed paths with Reeve and his crew of people, who were also getting ready to load up on the elevator. They were right by the elevator doors so we waited politely behind this decorative wall divider thing so that they could get on the elevator first. But someone in his entourage saw us and and waived us past because they weren’t quite ready. As I was just about to break into view of him I heard him say “A little more to the right” which based on my own experience I assumed meant that their holdup was because he needed a body adjustment in his chair. Thus even though I passed by him within less than six feet between us I didn’t look over in his direction to respect his privacy. In retrospect I probably should have glanced over and given him a quick hello or a friendly nod, but at the time I felt pretty strongly about keeping the blinders on because I knew how frustrating it was to have people stare at you while you were getting some private adjustment.

So my one close encounter with Christopher Reeve didn’t quite have the bang for the buck, and was more like a fly by, but at the time it was a really great moment for me and my parents. And I always like getting the chance to share the story. But overall, the thing that I will always take away from that day and that chance meeting is that when you strip it all away – the Superman thing, the social popularity, the global icon status, the face of our disability – he was just one of us: a guy who sustained an unfortunate, life altering spinal cord injury, became a quadriplegic, and was just trying to continue on with his life as best as he could. And yes maybe that included waiving a few people onto the elevator ahead of him because he needed help getting a few small adjustments to make him feel more comfortable and presentable.

Keeping with the spirit of this anniversary, here’s a couple of related links I wanted to share. The first is an article written by the CEO of the Christopher & Dane Reeve Foundation about how the best way to honor his legacy is to find a cure for paralysis. Clearly, I concur with that notion. The second is the Reeve Foundation forum page where people have been posting their thoughts about the five year anniversary of Reeve’s passing and sharing stories about how he touched their lives.

So in closing I say rest in peace, good sir. It was great getting the brief chance to meet you once upon a time in Denver.

Observations from Camp Randall: UW v. Michigan State 9/26/09

All in all a pretty stellar Badger game day on Saturday. It started with me getting the chance to take my brother-in-law Ryan to his first ever Badger game at Camp Randall Stadium. I always love seeing how in awe first timers are of the whole home Badger game day experience. Then it ultimately ended with a real solid win against Michigan State, 38-30 (what the final score doesn't reveal is that it was practically a blow out). Here are my observations in between:

Observation #1: The line for the elevator was fairly long once again. See the picture just below for my view from the back of the line. The main room for the elevator is up and around the corner to the right, just in front of the person wearing the red jacket.

As I was taking this picture on my phone I overheard this gentleman behind me say: “Jeez, is the line for the elevator always this long?” I muttered to my brother-in-law, “Yeah because too many people like you try and use it instead of taking the ramps or stairs like you should.”

Observation #2: The elevator itself is pretty spacious so by the time the it got back down to the bottom level everybody in front of me was able to pile in. But it was full by the time it was my turn to get on so I was the cutoff, which lead to this interesting exchange with the elevator attendant:

Him: “Sorry, no more room for wheelchairs on this trip.”
Me, looking in to see not one person in a wheelchair or with a notable disability: “Yeah, I see that.”

Everything that was wrong with his statement was completely lost on him and everyone else already on the elevator. Again, it’s become an ‘every man for himself’ mentality with that elevator so of course no one bothered to offer to give up their spot for me and wait for the next trip. I couldn’t get my phone up quickly enough to snap a pic of the full able-bodied cart before the door closed, but while I was thinking about that missed opportunity my brolaw sent me this text: “Wasted elevator trip not one person who actually need the elevator.” Indeed.

Observation #3: When the elevator came back down I was the first one to get on. So I went to the back and spun around quickly so that I didn’t have to face the back wall the whole ride up. Then another guy in a chair came on and followed suit right in front of me. But when he backed up he came back so far that he started to smash my foot. Since I couldn’t back up any more I gave my knee a quick slap from the outside to move my foot over a bit to unjam my toes without making a scene. I only point this out because I always have much more awareness about how close me and my chair are to others. I'm over-sensitive to it in fact. So that was intriguing.

Then as the elevator door was closing there was a call from the first floor attendant: “Hold the door, we have a few more walking people that can fit.” Again, a statement lost on just about everyone else involved. And on to the elevator came a couple and their 18 month old child.

Observation #4: Somewhere in the second or third quarter of the game I overheard the following exchange between two stadium concession guys. They were leaning on the pillar in the picture below, which is directly to my left about three feet (people lean there to watch the game all the time and the security guy assigned to our section is usually much more focused on chit chatting with passersby than telling the lingerers to find their seats):

Guy 1: “So we’ve got 72 buns but only 15 more hotdogs left. So my question to you is this: can we get some more meat?”
Guy 2: “Absolutely, absolutely.”
Then they walked away, easily making for the most obscure conversation I’ve ever paid witness to at the stadium.

Observation #5: My brolaw and I stuck around for most of the Fifth Quarter since it was his first time seeing such a thing. So when we got to the elevator we had it all to ourselves at first because there was no one else waiting, which has become a rare occurence. After I pushed the button I looked up and noticed, possibly for the first time, a sign on the wall just above it that read: 'Please reserve the use of this elevator for our patrons with disabilities.' As Ryan and I both commented on the sign that same couple with their young child got in line for the ride down again. So much for reserving for people with disabilities.

I rode down at the back of the elevator cart next to a young couple. Behind me there was a combination of a slow door close and more people trying to pile on. Presumably annoyed by the waiting period the girl said to her boyfriend, “Maybe we should have just taken the stairs.” He said, “Yeah.” Yeah, indeed. Then he said, “But the stairs smell like garbage.” Hmm, so is that that why nobody seems to take the stairs around here?

Regardless, as we were leaving the stadium I decided that I needed to figure out what University of Wisconsin official I could get in contact with to get this whole situation fixed before I go to the next game. Through its clearly posted signage the stadium itself has put people on notice that the elevator should be used primarily for people with disabilities. Yet over the last two seasons it’s become obvious both that too many fans without disabilities are frequently using the elevator and also that elevator staff members are doing a very poor job making sure that people with disabilities should always get near exclusive priority use. The fact that a wheelchair user like myself routinely gets bumped for a cart full of able-bodied folks, and that I often risk missing the start of the game because of it, has become a total farce. Enough is enough.

Observations from Camp Randall: UW v. Fresno State 9/12/09

Other than the usual BS I encounter battling the masses of 80,000+ to and from the stadium I don’t have any Camp Randall observations to report this week that have to do with instances of accessible and disability dichotomies. I think that last week was unusual, even based on previous years of experiences, because I encountered so many in the same day. But going into a slightly different direction I am happy to share what was arguably the strangest encounter I’ve ever had leaving the stadium in eleven years of having season tickets.

To quickly set the stage, by the time the game hit the middle of the 4th quarter I started to get pretty hot, which meant that a cold drink was the best quick fix. But with only five minutes or so left in the game the kids that sell drinks had quit running around, and it’s not worth paying the $4 for a Coke at that point anyway. Ditto for the $4 water bottles of water they sell (ridiculous, don’t even get me started). Additionally, there are no water bubblers on my seat level and I sure as hell wasn’t about to go stick my mouth under a bathroom faucet that 1000’s of other fans had used all day. So I decided to just wait it out until we got back to my van. At that time it looked like we would be pulling out a tightly fought victory in mere minutes.

Well that had to be the day that we couldn’t close it out, Fresno state tied the game late, and on to overtime we went. By the time the team won in thrilling fashion after two full overtime periods about a half hour later I was in desperate need of a cool breeze and a chilled beverage. Because there was another big line for the elevator we just decided to take the ramps down instead. As I mentioned previously, I'm at a stage in my life where it’s worth waiting in line for the elevator to reduce wear and tear on my wheelchair. But on hot days like Saturday even waiting in line for more than a couple minutes gets me agitated because of the extra body heat floating around a closed area. Kind of makes my heat issues worse. At least when you take the ramps you often get a strong cross breeze, which was a welcome thing at that moment.

Of course that decision was proven to be a loser when we got caught in the crowd one ramp level down. The breeze was still welcome but the foot by foot slow trotting got frustrating because it gets hard on my chair – it’s either a lot of clicking in and out of gear or barely rolling which I assume gets hard on the drivetrain.

One ramp turn downward and I noticed another gentleman in a wheelchair coming down behind me on the ramp level just above. We exchanged a polite head nod, not unlike how my dad salutes fellow Harley dudes when he’s on his motorcycle. Behind him I noticed a woman in her mid 30’s on a blue scooter and thought nothing else of it. But with each ramp level we went down I noticed that she kept getting closer and closer. About halfway down she was a dozen and a half feet behind me on the same level, aggressively weaving her way through the throngs of people. Now I was trying to execute the same strategy, albeit much more politely, except I was stuck behind a group of senior citizens and was much more focused on not getting hit by the seat cushions they were swinging with each step.

The next thing I knew she was pretty close behind me. Another turn to the next ramp down and she was right on my hip. Barely worth giving a second thought to at first. Then it got weird. At the time I was towards the middle of the aisle but she started forcing me to the inside toward the wall so she had enough room to pass me on the outside. I tried to stay true to my current line but we almost banged wheels so I had to turn it in slightly to avoid collision. And so this went for a little while. Ridiculous. Not sure why passing me was so imperative. Proper etiquette in that situation typically dictates that you wait your turn. Instead she turned it into some wheelchair/scooter version of NASCAR. Which incidentally I can’t decide if it would be the kind of über lame sport you’d only see at 3am on ESPN2 after World’s Strongest Man or a YouTube nation ratings blitzkrieg. I'm inclined to lean toward the latter.

Anyway, we damn near trade paint for about a hundred more feet until she makes another series of aggressive moves and shoots her way past me and through the crowd in front of us. By the time I popped out at the bottom of the ramps I saw her across the way rolling full tilt, weaving through traffic, and cutting people off.

Bigger picture what this whole scenario did was further exacerbate this unspoken rivalry I feel like I’ve always had with scooter people. And my main premise for that rivalry can best be illustrated with a question/answer that I might have seen on my high school ACT exam: wheelchair is to permanent mode of disability mobility, as scooter is to mostly temporary mode of disability mobility.

Now that is not to insinuate that all scooter users have temporary disabilities because many folks do rely on scooters for their primary mobility purposes. But what I am saying is that in the vast, vast majority of instances where I have seen people in scooters they have pretty substantial use of their legs and can even walk certain distances without their scooter (e.g. a lady in my building used her scooter and mostly effortless walking ability interchangeably). People that have significant, permanent, physical disabilities that effect their every day all day ability to walk and move around are going to be seen using a wheelchair for their mobility device because wheelchairs have custom accessories (e.g. seat cushions, backrests, individual foot rests) designed to maintain all day support and body integrity. Most scooters I’ve seen come with a standard foam seat like you see on the captain’s chair on a pontoon boat, a flat floor surface for the feet, and steering handles. Everything about it screams ‘temporary ride.’

Now I have over thirteen years worth of experience in the disability world and thus a much more sophisticated eye when it comes to spotting the intricacies of other disabilities. So I could quickly assess that this particular scooter woman appeared to be mostly able-bodied due to the fact that she had full hand function and because one of her feet was casually cocked up on the right front of her scooter (i.e. she could move her legs). But I would venture to say that if your average person with no experience with disabilities whatsoever looked at me in my wheelchair and then another person in a scooter right next to me they would probably see that we both were sitting, we both weren’t walking, and we both were riding four wheeled mobility devices and they would no doubt just surmise that we both have the “same thing going on” disability-wise.

So when I see what under a pretty objective set circumstances appears to be a mostly able-bodied person on a scooter, coming from the wheelchair section, weaving people aggressively down the ramp, rudely saying ‘excuse me’ (she wasn’t but I’ve seen plenty of people do that before), forcing me inside so she can pass me, running full tilt with lots of people around, cutting people off, etc. and catching looks from “average” people that range from an eyebrow raise to an angry ‘what the heck?’ it always bothers me because I feel like she’s giving those of us with significant, permanent disabilities a bit of a bad wrap as well without being “qualified” to do so.

For the record, I do not subscribe to the tenets of this wheelchair-scooter rivalry alone. And according to a fellow quadriplegic blogger I follow occasionally I'm even involved in a quadriplegic-paraplegic rivalry I was previously unaware of (in short, they can grasp stuff with their hands, we cant; they can fully care for themselves, we can’t; we’re lazy because most of us use power chairs, they push themselves with manual chairs; etc.). But the bottom line is that as long as the “scooter chicks” of the world want to get all DAYS OF THUNDER on me as I leave the hallowed halls of Camp Randall Stadium, my place of personal catharsis and sanctitude, then the rivalry will continue to reign supreme!

Observations from Camp Randall: UW v. Northern Illinois 9/5/09

If this blog were a late night talk show then this would be the part where I would say "And now we're introducing a new segment." This one being called "Observations from Camp Randall," wherein I briefly delve into the funny, interesting, aggravating, etc. things that I encounter as I make my way to and from my seats at the stadium on Badger football game days.

Observation #1: As I was rolling down one stretch of sidewalk on my way to the stadium before the game I passed a few college students sitting on the brick steps in front of their house. As I went by I overheard one drunken guy say to the girl next to him “Should that guy get a ticket for driving on the sidewalk?” Regardless of whether he was being cleverly inquisitive or ignorantly intoxicated, that was one of the funniest wheelchair-motorized vehicle lines I’ve ever heard. Good stuff.

Observations #2 and #3: First a little background. Since the completion of the stadium renovations a few years ago Camp Randall now has an elevator that takes patrons to all seating levels. But as nice and convenient as it is for me to have the means to avoid taking the multi-level spiral style ramps, one of the most frustrating things about every game day experience is waiting for the elevator to take me up to the 72nd row where my seats are (they’re awesome, by the way). It’s not just that there is a wait, it’s that the more people that have discovered the elevator each year, the more people that use it. And I would say that on average roughly 80% of the folks that I wait in line with are able-bodied and appear perfectly capable of walking up either a few flights of stairs or said ramps. It’s also clear to me that the stadium personnel tend to do no disability screening to assure that only the people that truly need it use it, as intended.

The other aggravating thing about it is how entitled many of these people get to using the elevator, even seeing themselves as equal to its use to mine. Thus no one ever lets people with wheelchairs or others who deserve “priority” usage go to the front of the line, as should be proper elevator etiquette. So more often than not I end up waiting for the second or third cart load to go up to my section. In many past instances, if me and a buddy are running behind, and the elevator line is too long, we’ve just taken the ramps. But starting last year I decided that my chair was too old to keep chugging up the ramps, so a little extra waiting time is worth less abuse on my wheels.

All that said, observation #2 is that while waiting in the hallway outside the room that houses the elevator (approximately 30 people in front of me) I overheard a completely able-bodied man in his 40’s chatting with another able-bodied person barely a senior citizen say: “Well we may have to wait a bit, but at least it’s better than walking up the ramps.” Ok sir a) if you’re perfectly capable of walking up the ramps then you and your crew of four shouldn’t be snaking a ride in the elevator when people with physical disabilities are also in line, and b) the next time you make such a triumphant declaration stop, think, look around, notice the gentleman in the wheelchair five feet behind you (i.e. this guy), and keep your mouth shut. For me elevator use is a necessity, not a privilege.

On the way down after the game my friend Jason and I turned the corner on the way back to the elevator just in time to see an embittered woman in her 50’s, wearing earmuff style radio headphones and holding a cane, say to the (cute) stadium courtesy staffer just in front of us: “Can you do anything about getting this elevator up here faster?!” Right, like stadium personnel have some magic ability to make elevators appear much faster. (She is no doubt one of those people that think pushing the elevator buttons multiple times makes the cart arrive faster as well.) I love able-bodied people that get annoyed when the elevator is slow. Again, if you can walk and you’re tired of waiting then take the stairs or ramp and get out of my way.

Of course, within seconds the elevator doors opened. My friend and I were the last two to get in the cart, with grumpy lady sandwiched next to us. On the ground floor Jason got out first, then it was my turn—at least it should have been but she tried to take a small step out at the same time I started backing up, then she stopped. I noticed that she was wearing open-toed leather sandals so as I started backing up I said “Watch your toes” which is something I typically say to people as a humorous warning. The vast majority of the time I do that I get a smile out of folks but when I looked up to meet her gaze she was fuming. Apparently she thought that she was supposed to get out before me—even though there was no room to do so. First she was mad at the supposedly slow elevator, then because the guy in the wheelchair supposedly blocked her exit. Maybe she was a Northern Illinois fan.

Lastly, observation #4: As we traveled up the sidewalk towards my parking spot people going the opposite direction were entering the sidewalk between concrete barriers. When you’re in my position you just have to find the openings and weave between the people. As I passed the last concrete barrier I saw a middle-aged couple ready to step out onto the sidewalk. The wife stepped in front of me first but the timing was off for the husband’s effort. Nonetheless he tried to shoot the gap and took a half step, so I quickly stopped, then he stopped, then he resigned a bit, then I just kept going. And as I passed him he looked at me with visible frustration, as if I got in his way, or he was bothered to have to give way. To the contrary, sir.

People in wheelchairs experience this kind of exchange all the time in busy public settings. It seems like able-bodied folks, especially those trying to keep pace with their group, always think that they can do a quick step in front of me even though there’s not enough time or room. I don't get it. Just wait one second and go around! Because it’s not just the mini panic of someone crashing into my chair or onto my lap, but the fact that I have to come to such an abrupt stop, then start again to regain the lost momentum. It was much worse when I used my manual chair because stopping so abruptly and using the full force of my arms to restart my intended path took their physical toll. So to the gentleman frustrated that he couldn’t shoot the gap: I had the right of way.

But hot damn do I love going to Badger games regardless! The Badgers won 28-20, by the way.