Wheelchair Innovation by Teens in Plainfield

Every once in a while, I get to write about something cool and fun and human. This is one of those times. 

According to the articles listed below, Stephen Scholl is a senior at a local Plainfield, Indiana high school. He participates in a recycling program that has been wildly successful at his school. In an article about his Life Skills class and classmates – a fellow student saw a picture of Stephen and a need he could fill. Tim Balz and companions got together to build Stephen a powered chair to replace his manual one. This would make many aspects of Stephen’s life easier, including collecting recycling.

This effort has grown well beyond both teens and their friends and family. I found this story through a link sent to me by D, here at the IndyStar.The comments are surprisingly civil for the Indy Star (as of my reading of them), but one should probably exercise caution anyway. Besides the local paper of record, this also received coverage from at least one local news station, WTHR.
This is also a good article, although the comments are a little more problematic as some of the commenters are unfamiliar with “people first language” and poorly defend the author’s use of the phrase “wheelchair bound.”

This has grown into Wheelchairs for Special Needs. If you go to the linked Facebook page you can get caught up on their current and past efforts, and find out where you can help. From the comments at the IndyStar article: “I received an e-mail back from Josh Duke, the author of this story. He said that if anyone is interested in donating to Freedom Chairs, they can contact Tim Balz directly at wheelchairsforspecialneeds@gmail.com “

From the Facebook page: “Great News! It turns out that we are [allowed] to accept donations. The only issue is that we cannot give tax deductions at this point in time. We will soon set up a method for you to be able to donate!”

Enjoy your day!

SmartAss Commentary: Cripple Queers Stay Home

Note: I never thought that I would write a somewhat positive take on a gun show and a very negative experience at a Pride event, well, ever. But here I am.

So, IndyPride was the weekend of June 11th, 2011. My family and I were excited to attend. We have friends all over the LGBT, Intersex and Queer spectrum. I am bisexual, and my girls – much to my own parental pride – feel free to decide who and what they are in their own time. So my husband, my boyfriend, my girls, and I loaded up to head downtown for the Indianapolis Pride festival.

Saturday was beautiful, but hot. There was no natural protection from the sun, but we were prepared.

Parking was a nightmare – many of the downtown spots were blocked off for the event, so we found zero available handicapped parking anywhere near the festival. So D dropped us off a couple of blocks away from the singular entrance. A grassy field needed to be crossed to reach the gate – there was no smoothed path, let alone paved walkway – to use to get in. Fortunately, the folks canvassing for a fund for college to help LGBT youth were at the gate, and I donated, still fairly optimistic about the upcoming experience.

The southern end of the park has a lot of paved walk ways, but few booths. Being near the fountain provided a cool breeze for the few moments it took to pass it. Our first nightmare began as we tried to cross the dividing street (blocked from auto traffic for the event). The people running Circle City Pride apparently decided that giving the bar tents 3 extra, mostly unused feet of space was more important than allowing people to use the city’s curb cuts. They blocked off all of them on all four corners at the ends of the street. One was left on the middle of the north side. I had a complete sense-of-humor failure as I rolled between blocked off curb cuts and eventually had enough, hit my hand breaks, and had a good cry behind my sunglasses (noticed only, I think, by my family).

The north end of the park is completely inaccessible. This made me angry not only for me and the other people at the event, but in general. This is the damn Veteran’s Memorial Plaza, dammit – how on earth are disabled veterans going to navigate this hill and stair infested park?


The festival did block off the far northern paved cross-over, making those of us trying to navigate the tents and booths travel over 4-6 times more ground to get around than the TAB attendees. I spent some time parked at the north east corner, and watched other people using wheelchairs along with parents with children in wagons or strollers curse their luck as they realized they were stuck.

Many of the displays were up small curbs and arranged on dirt paths. Again, this was almost entirely inaccessible unless you have an ATV chair. We eventually were able to find our way to the one booth run by a friend where we knew we could park and rest. Without that, we would have left almost immediately.

While I sat parked, mulling over the supposed message of inclusion of Pride Day and the associated events, my husband and youngest daughter were directed by the one friendly staff member we saw to talk to an organizer. The organizer had no care at all about the issue they brought to her and directed them to speak to a nearby city cop. This… officer, and yes, I have his name, found it appropriate to tell them to suck it up or talk to the military officer in charge of the park. The fucking hell?!?  He was rude, discriminatory, and dismissive. Thanks, Officer Friendly, for destroying my children’s first impression of dealing directly with a law enforcement representative. You are now their idea of what cops are like, in general. Ass.

Navigating in general was difficult, as most staff and patrons never bothered to look lower than eye level while traveling from place to place. Eventually I had no issue poking people with my cane while yelling “EXCUSE ME!” and running over the occasional toe. Maybe you will look for people shorter than your eye level next time, jerk.

So Indy Pride or Circle City Pride was a damn nightmare. Indy Pride was not inclusive. If you are a queer cripple, apparently you should stay in your closet. High on the Hill rocks, though, and was accommodating both at the booth and in their store. So, there was a positive note. That was,well, the only positive note.

SmartAss Commentary: Liberal Crip Goes to the Gun Show

The Indy 1500 has a terrible web page – there is very little you can do there but find out the dates of upcoming shows, sign up for a mailing list and $1 off $10 admission, and see some photos of previous shows. However, it is a decent show as far as I can tell. I had a decent time there. I want to talk about my own gun history, some of the social issues at the gun show, and the accessibility for people with disabilities.

I should probably spell a few things out here before we get started. I am a Second Amendment liberal. I believe in both state protection via police and sheriff departments and self defense. I find the arguments about the intent of the Second Amendment to be more semantic than practical. When the Bill of Rights was created, the gun was simply a tool of survival in early American culture, as in many others. Small, unfunded local defense militias depended on each member to have their own arms. They did, both for hunting and defense. So I find that if a person has a solid answer to the separation of militia and culture – that answer may well be their opinion on the matter rather than a historical fact.

I grew up around gun folks. My mom’s first husband (my adoptive dad or ADad*), her father and several of her brothers all served in the military. The first gun stories I heard were from ADad as he explained the AK scar he acquired in Vietnam. He was shot in the shoulder by a [enemy combatant – I will not use the word he used] and he returned fire, killing the man. My mother was very anti-gun. My grandfather and multiple uncles were enlisted military men. My husband was a military kid, and very comfortable with guns. My boyfriend grew up in a rural social network that was also very easy with firearms – his father was a police officer and is now a correctional officer.

I am intimidated by guns. I am also proficient in their use. I am not a pleasure shooter – you know, the folks that can relax by going to the range for an hour. I cannot get away from their purpose. When aiming at a target, all that is on my mind is why I would be doing this for real – to end the life of another living being. The moral weight and sadness of that is always on my mind if a gun is around. There is no pleasure for me in being able to put six forty-four caliber bullets in a three inch diameter circle.  I can, and do, shoot very well. I hope to never actually need to do so. I do have fun with AirSoft weapons, though – they shoot soft BB-type ammunition powered by gas or springs or batteries.

Now that you know some of my gun history, time for the gun show! (Do I kiss my wimpy biceps here? Probably not…)

Admission was $10, you received a $1 off coupon if you were on their mailing list. Security appeared heavy, but was actually very light. Police were all over the place, as security and patrons. Loaded weapons were not permitted, although we were simply asked if we had any. D had a pistol that needed the sights repaired, and he was directed by the ticket takers to a booth where his pistol was strategically fitted with plastic zip strips to prevent it from being useable. If a patron was found to be carrying a firearm without this treatment, the penalty was immediate ejection from the premises.

Recording devices were not allowed. Although that made writing this piece much more difficult, I followed the rule. Honestly, other than catching someone in the act and ejecting them, there seemed to be no other way of enforcing that rule in this day and age of cell phone cameras, PDAs, and micro cameras.

The building itself (a part of the Indiana State Fairgrounds) was perfectly accessible. Accessibility issues included florescent lights, no scent policy, lots of random noise (no, no gunfire, except on the soundtracks of some videos being shown), and no quiet areas. While some of the table-made aisles are more narrow than others they are still passable in my manual wheelchair… except when some jerk vendor decided they need to set out yet more product, and pushed out over the ends of their tables, or shoved their long gun cases 6-12 inches out into the walk way, or put up spinning displays that eat half of the available aisle space. Arg! 

TL;DR: the building and the planning covered some accessibility basics, but some of the vendors were terrible about it!

There were several areas where one could buy snacks and drinks. Two were permanent booths, and one was more of an open café - larger with displays and seating.

Not every person at the gun show is straight off of People of WalMart. Most folks are dressed in casual middle class or rural attire. The clear majority of attendants were white males. Attendants that appeared to be African American or women were not the majority, but were numerous enough to not be surprising - which may surprise some of you. Obviously disabled folks like me were numerous in chairs or scooters, and there were a comforting amount of cane-users.  A lot of families were in attendance. The vendors were overwhelmingly male, around middle-aged and white.

I have never been to a gun show that did not have some vendors peddling hate. I have spent entire gun shows feeling like I would get shot if I talked about my politics. I was really surprised at the small amount of hate on sale at this gun show. While one pro Nazi booth is too many, there was only one at the show. I saw maybe three booths with small collections of Nazi memorabilia. I sat and stared at the Nazi booth for a while, dumbfounded. This booth was shoved into a corner where it was easily avoided, we almost missed it. They had mouse pads, t-shirts, bumper stickers, jewelry and accessories.

There was a lot less First Nations appropriation than I expected from my previous experience. The generalized, white washed “Native American Aesthetic” is very popular among the survivalist, hunter, preparedness, and gun cultures. There was one booth that was using a dream catcher motif to raise money for disabled children to enjoy outdoor sports and experiences, I think.

Of course, there was a Tea Party presence, but far less than I had feared. One vendor had walls of vitriolic bumper stickers accusing President Obama of just about every thing you can imagine. Someone had passed around flyers I saw at several booths with showed a picture of the President and the First Lady saying “I’m with stupid.” There was one booth selling anti-UN pins, copies of the national and state constitutions with wild interpretations of them. I have copies of them, and may write about those booklets specifically at some point.

 

You have not really thought this stance through, have you?

(Picture description:  a small, round lapel pin or button showing the blue UN emblem, surrounded with a red circle and divided by a red line from upper right to lower left. The intended message is clearly "NO UN.")

As a liberal, all the hate, appropriation and ignorance made me feel threatened, angry, sad, and deeply uncomfortable. Parts of it were like walking back into the Bush administration, were disagreement was equated with treason and only violent, blind patriotism was an acceptable response to any slight at all. But it was much, much better than my previous experiences at gun shows. I do not think that some improvement is enough, to be sure. It does make me happy to see improvement though, and I want to encourage that improvement.

I did not patronize the hate-booths, and still felt fairly free to shop. I picked some targets for AirSoft practice, some great medical stuff (a brass mortar and pestle, glass bottles and tubes, and first aid supplies), two really well priced pieces of luggage, and some camping supplies. I did pick up some of the materials, including the more fantastic stuff to share with you. This included a flyer for an organization that is fighting for you to keep your right to .50 cartridges, an application for the Sons of Confederate Veterans (yes that is exactly what you think it is), the Indiana Citizens Volunteer Militia, advertisements for NRA courses and retreats, flyers for militaria shows, Indiana Gun Owners pamphlets, and material on the Oath Keepers…

*I have a total of three dads: my biological father, or BDad; my mother’s first husband who adopted me when I was five, ADad, and my mother’s second husband (now divorced), ExSDad (ex-step-dad). Also, my mother’s first husband remarried, so I also have a step-mom out there, SMom. Of the five, ExSDad and I have the best relationship, and he is the one I would call in an emergency.

To Violently Induce Empathy

I originally wrote this in May, 2010, when I felt particularly injured by people in my life that just were not getting it. I think that acknowledging when I feel like a bitter, embattled bad crip is important. While I was busy drawing analogies, I lost site of how violent this post really is, so you have been warned.

Originally posted elsewhere on May 7, 2010

I needed to get this out of my head.

Some days I am almost fine. I get up early, I get stuff done, maybe I go out, and maybe I fuck. These days are rare.

Some days I am incapable of almost anything. I stay in bed, or turn the couch into my bed, and veg out to news so I do not feel totally disconnected from everything. I do not fuck with anything on these days, nor do I appreciate getting fucked with by anyone. I can barely move, I can barely read, I have almost no recall and can barely follow a conversation. If I am actually trying to do something while like this, then I place a great amount of importance on whatever that may be, and even then I will probably screw it up.

Most days I am somewhere in-between and either blow all my spoons far too early, or end up doing very little "in case" I need my spoons later that day.

Only if I place a great deal of trust in you will I tell you what kind of day today is when you ask "How are you?” I am so tired of being shut down by people that ask how I am but do not really give a damn.

I "pass" most of the time. People do not know I am disabled unless I tell them. Yes, even with the cane -- this is weird to me. So when I go out with the wheelchair it is almost always a gimp circus. People think that since I do not look disabled (whatever the hell that is supposed to mean!), that I must be faking or something. Fates forbid I actually stand up out of my chair for any reason.

I am tired of being a "good cripple."

Don't touch my wheelchair without gaining my permission first. Do not imply it must be nice to "sit around" everywhere. Yes, I can make those jokes, and you can laugh when I do if you want to laugh. Do not explain to me how good I have it, or how bad you feel for me. Just like I do not get to appropriate the experiences of a person with Autism, you do not get to appropriate mine with lupus/SLE and chronic pain (and SI joint dysfunction, and compressed disks, and non-specific brain damage, and...). Do not lecture me about my behavior, my drugs, or my coping mechanisms. Do not excuse places that are not accessible to me, or accessible to the people that society has labeled the same as me.

Do not "congratulate" me when I am not in the chair. I know you mean well, but just stop it. I may be having a good day, or I may be someplace that simply would not accommodate what I actually need that day.

Do not tell me you know "how I feel" unless you really want to. While there would be no complete equivalent, I could give it my best effort...

I cannot fuck with your genes to make your body attack itself, but I can take a baseball bat to your chest, your lower spine, your SI joint. If it is a rainy day or the weather fronts are changing, I will just wail on every joint you have from your knuckles to your toes to your spine. I will wrap your head in batting so tight that the very thought of light in your eyes will make you cry. I will stuff your ears so that you can barely hear, and cannot make sense of the things you do hear -- only later to remove it all and subject you to such noise that you long for the stuffing. I will knock your legs out from under you when you try to walk, move everything so that it is just out of reach, and recite long numbers as you try to remember your address or someone's birthday or phone number.

I will alienate your friends and family, canceling important events without notice or apparent cause. If they will not come see you, then fuck them because that is the only way you will socialize most of the time. I will make you doubt yourself, the people around you, your ability to do or think a damn thing, and then make you feel bad for being angry about your situation. I may let you go out every once in a while, but I will fill that time with so much fear, doubt, and shame that you will wish you stayed home. Your doctors will become your only major contacts outside of your home, and even then I will not always let you go -- and only the really good ones will even listen to you, let alone believe you.

Whatever heaven you believe in help you if you dare shut me down and try to pretend everything is okay. I do not get to do that, so neither do you.

Most folks that will actually read this never have to worry about any of it. You are kind folks that express sympathy without pity, and accommodate without fanfare -- and as you can probably see, that means a lot to me. This just would not leave my head and I needed to rant.

Awkward Moments, 3

A close friend of mine and I went to an Obama campaign rally in Indianapolis. This was one of my first big events in my wheelchair and I was very nervous about it.

It was cold, and I was wearing a coat. Hoping to make things a little easier, I put the minimum amount of stuff I needed into my coat pockets. This was a terrible, bad, no good call!

We get to the event and park the car. By the time we are halfway across the state fairgrounds parking lot, I am thankful for the chair already.

We get to the entry lines, and we are shuffled over to the leftmost line, as they are handling those of us that cannot get through the regular security lines. When it gets to be my turn, I have about half my pockets emptied into my lap, and half left unfortunately to make people wait while I finish. My friend and the security staff are pretty gracious while I fumble through my stuff to put it on the scanner conveyer belt. One staffer asks me about my meditation beads and makes other conversation as I finish up. The staff has me lean up for a pat-down, and then everything is fine.

So, this one is more about me getting used to the chair than anything else. I recommend, if possible, that one of your first wheelchair outings not be at such a high security event!

Awkward Moment, 2

The other day I was in the hospital with some friends I was supporting, and since the day was long (what day in a hospital isn’t?), I spent it in my wheelchair.

I was at the corner of my friend’s bed, and pretty out of the way. A nurse came in to prep for a new patient in the room’s other bed, which is fine. She decided I was in her way, looks down at me, and says “I’m going to have to move you.” A nurse! I responded, “No, you are going to ask me to move and I will move.”

My friend saw it, even with all she was going through, and mentions it in the comments here.

Alright, I am occasionally known amongst my friends as having high expectations for other people… But I will be damned before I find it unreasonable to expect a medical professional in a hospital to know some damn wheelchair etiquette!

Would you tell an able-bodied person that you needed to move them? No. If you would not say it to a temporarily able-bodied person, then do not say it to a person in a wheelchair!

Edit: for grammar.

The SmartAss Guide to Wheelchair Etiquette

(Updated!)

Alright, this is going to consist of one solid concept and then variations on what to do with that concept. With the amount of faux paux, ignorance, and just straight up bad behavior I have seen myself, I feel like this is necessary. I do not believe that I should have to add a sarcasm warning to something with the words "smart ass" in the title, but there you go.

If you find yourself sputtering “But, but…” or getting angry or defensive – well, you will have to deal with that. There are guides out there that are more politic, nice, and cater to the discomfort that the able-bodied or temporarily able-bodied feel in these situations. I do not give a damn about that. You have been warned!

Main concept: a person in a wheelchair is just that – a person in a chair. Person. Chair. That is it. The corollary to that is this: do not do ridiculous shit. If you remember nothing else, remember this, and it should guide you well.

Editorial note: I often just say "wheelchair" as that is the scope of my experience. As far as I know, all this also applies to the users of scooters and power chairs. If I am mistaken, please let me know in the comments and I will happily make appropriate changes.

Now let’s talk about how that plays out in real life.