On Not Eating Dust Too
July 1997
Each evening I take off the braces that stabilize my knees and ride Cousin Minnie Pearl around the house. She is a reflection of part of my philosophy on life with post-polio syndrome.
Before I get into this any deeper, I’d better explain what I’m talking about.
Last summer Gutless Wonder died. He was a dinosaur Amigo scooter that was given to me to use indoors. Before GW all I had was Babe the Blue Ox, a rugged Fortress scooter which works great on my adventures through woods and over hill and dale, but is clumsy indoors. Gutless Wonder was ugly and pokey, but he did corner well. When he showed signs of imminent demise, I called Steve-the-scooter-man and asked him if he had a used scooter that would fill the bill for me indoors. He brought one for me to try out. It worked fine, but was uglier than Gutless Wonder, if that is possible. I mean yuk! Black and gray, it seemed to intone, “Basic mobility device.” It is that, but there is no reason why it had to be ugly about it. I’d had enough of that with Gutless Wonder. I told Steve I’d take this new used scooter if he could de-uglify it. “It’s got to say, ‘Happy! Fun!’ when I look at it,” I explained. If it could be reupholstered in a pattern with pink in it, and if Steve would paint everything paintable hot pink, I’d buy her. “She’s going to be Cousin Minnie Pearl,” I said. This was a new kind of request for Steve, but he really got into it -- eventually even getting her pink battery straps. Is she ever spiffy! She not only gets me around, but she also does it with style!
Not needing scooters as much as I did before my treatments at Futures Unlimited, Inc., I’m walking a lot now, using two aluminum underarm crutches. I had them cut off just below the handles on one side. This makes them lighter and also counter-balances them so they swing forward almost on their own. It’s fine that they work well, but they’ve got to be more than utilitarian. I went to two bicycle shops and bought some colorful handle-bar tape and wrapped them. The long side of each is marbled red and black, and the short side is marbled blue, purple and white. Wild! Neither shop had enough of one pattern to do the whole job. But the effect is just what I wanted -- for now. They’ll probably be a different color and pattern by the time you read this. They are crutches, sure, and help me get where I want to go. But must they do it in standard aluminum? Not mine! I want them to do it with pizzazz.
Are you catching on to the philosophy I mentioned earlier? It was best said recently by a logging-truck driver. Hundreds of trees in our pine forest up the hill from the house were damaged during last November’s Ice Storm. They had to be cleaned up, so we hired some loggers. The best way for them to get up there was to make a road on the edge of the barley field that skirts my yard. While the loggers were working I didn’t dare open windows on the side of the house from which the prevailing wind blows. Every time a truck drove by, dust rolled in, thick clouds of it. But one day a driver/folk-philosopher stopped to talk. He asked, if he could turn sharply enough by the mailbox, could he use the driveway on the other side of the house? He was concerned about all the dust blowing in on me. “Bad enough being crippled,” he said, “without having to eat dust, too.”
Don’t you just love it?! Now, there is a guy who doesn’t call a spade a “weed extraction device.” Political correctness somehow left him in the dust, so to speak, and let his big heart shine through with no artificiality. How refreshing!
Yes, indeed, call me physically challenged if you like (while you’re at it, also try “linearly challenged” in place of “short”), but I’m tired of the politically correct stuff. I’m not trying to hide the plain truth. I need a scooter at night when my braces are off and I need crutches during the day when my braces are on. But I’m not going to use ugly depressing ones. I’m going to have fun, using what has style and pizzazz. As the man said, “Bad enough being crippled without having to eat dust, too.”
