Discrimination

It is still Friday at this point, so I can legitimately call this the “Friday Letter.” Merry Christmas everybody, and Happy New Year.

Discrimination

In 1958, when I was 16, I was awarded an American Red Cross scholarship to attend a week-long qualifying school for Water Safety Instructor certification.

The Red Cross bought me a train ticket and paid the registration fee for the “WSI” course at Southern Illinois University, Little Grassy Lake Campus near Carbondale.

The Red Cross did this because at Carbondale, persons could attend a simultaneous course to learn methods of teaching swimming to the handicapped. I had written a plea for a scholarship specifically to learn how to teach the handicapped.

About noon on the final day, I was called to the administrator’s office and told that I had failed to qualify. Because I was physically unable to perform the sidestroke to Red Cross specifications, I was to be sent home uncertified.

As my train wasn’t to leave until late the following day, I returned to the camp tent, lay down on the cot, and cried like a baby. I did not sleep that night, I just wept. But God did give me a plan.

The next day, I went back to the administrator’s office and asked for an audience. I tearfully told him that my inability to perform the sidestroke did not mean that I couldn’t teach the sidestroke.

He relented, I was certified after all, and I spent the next several summers working at swimming pools as a lifeguard and swimming instructor – specializing in teaching the handicapped. There was even a story, with pictures, in The Denver Post about me and some of the persons I taught.

My lesson from this, although I didn’t have it clearly in mind at the time, is that sometimes authority must be challenged.

The wrong friends

In 1961, when I was a freshman at the University of Wyoming, I brought two friends with me for a weekend visit at the home of my parents.

So far as I knew at the time, we spent Saturday and part of Sunday in a friendly and hospitable situation. My two friends said Mom and Dad were really nice people, and that the food and the accommodations were of good quality. We had fun. We laughed.

A few weeks later, I returned alone for another visit with Mom and Dad. Immediately upon my arrival, I knew I was in for trouble because I got called into Dad’s Office.

Mother spoke. “We are concerned about your choice of friends at school,” she said. What? Whatever could be wrong with Norman Kagie and Lewis Schmits?

“They are both handicapped,” Mother answered. True. Norman suffered from Cerebral Palsy. Lewis, like myself, was a survivor of Poliomyelitis.

Angered and hurt, I pressed for more detail. “If you think Norman and Lewis aren’t good as friends, what do you think of me?” I asked.

Dad took over, giving me what he thought was an answer. “We just want you to have friends who are normal.”

I returned to Laramie that night, declining to spend the planned Saturday night and Sunday with my parents. I didn’t miss the point that I wasn’t “normal.” And neither were my friends.

Tommy takes a fall

In the spring of 1960, the public address system at Brighton High School came on, and my name was among those students who had been summoned to the office.

This wasn’t unusual for me, because occasionally something I’d been up to would have been discovered. Or someone would have told on me. Something was wrong, anyway.

This time was different. I was referred to the office of Vice Principal “Gus” Gustafson, who had a pleasant surprise for me. He thought.

There was a scholarship available for a handicapped student at BHS. I could use this scholarship to help pay my way to the U of W. I’d already decided on UW, so it would help.

Of course with a big fat chunk of pride and youthful arrogance in my way, I turned that scholarship offer down flat. “I’m not that handicapped,” I retorted. “Give it to somebody who really needs it.”

Gus was abashed, but he agreed. I told him thanks for thinking of me. I turned to leave, but when I stepped into the doorway, my heel slipped on a bright green lilac leaf that had found its way onto the slick tile floor.

Down I went, a big 110-pound stack of embarrassment and humility. Gus didn’t ask me if I wanted to reconsider the scholarship. I let it ride.

I rationalized later that “anybody” could have slipped on a lilac leaf. “Anybody” could fall, handicapped or not. Hmm.

The permit incident

Soon after I returned from Idaho to life in Colorado, I went to my doctor and had him fill out the form to qualify me for a handicapped parking permit.

When the permit came, I began using it. One fine day I parked my motorcycle in one of the handicapped-only places at the Brighton Wal-Mart.

I was getting my cane off the bike and starting to head toward the store when the city bus that carries disabled persons came along and parked in the adjacent space.

The bus driver got out and before she began unloading her passengers came over to me and gave me a real personal upbraiding which I will never forget.

Referring to the motorcycle, she said “That shore don’t look like a wheel chair to me.”

I said well yes it is rather like a wheel chair: it has two big wheels and it hauls a crippled guy around.

“Guy who rides a motorcycle ain’t crippled,” she said. I turned and hobbled my way into the store. Obviously, I haven’t forgotten that incident.

Normal little Tommy

Just before Christmas, 1950, the Elks Clubs of Colorado put on a holiday party for “special” children.

A kind man in a beautiful brand-new black Lincoln Town Car picked me up in Fort Lupton and drove me to Greeley. The party was at the Elks Club, a building next to the Weld County Courthouse, which has since been torn down.

There was candy, there were presents to be opened, there was confetti and paper streamers, sugar cookies decorated like Santa Claus and stars. Santa himself made an appearance. There was even a picture later in the Fort Lupton Press.

Though the Elks had tried to do a good thing, I didn’t have a very good time. Mom and Dad had been telling me repeatedly how I was “normal” despite the fact that I’d had polio.

So why then had they sent me to a party where no other guest was “normal?”

Attending the party were Down Syndrome kids, Cerebral Palsy kids, Cystic Fybrosis kids, Leukemia kids, other Polio kids. You get the picture.

Chapter 13, 2008

I’m somewhat hesitant to write this next part. It has to do with a “no-no” in the newspaper business, a sensible precaution against writing in the present tense about something that hasn’t happened yet.

The worst example I can think of happened to my colleague Larry. He and his wife had “wanted a baby” for the several years of their marriage, but it hadn’t happened.

Suddenly one day The Wife reported her pregnancy to Larry, and he began to write a weekly newspaper column about the process.

Long story short: After many, many weeks of bubbly, happy reports, came the fateful day. The baby was stillborn.

Gulp

Regardless of that anecdotal wisdom, here I go, plunging forward even though the baby might be born dead.

My Catholic friends will understand best, and perhaps my skill as a writer can bring the rest of you along.

I have been in a “state of discernment” for many months, trying to decide whether to take the long road through to the Diaconate, to become after four years of intensive study a Deacon in the Roman Catholic Church.

Laura and I have been to the orientation session, and we’ve consulted with the proper authorities, and we’ve filled out the necessary application. We’re well aware that the Church has its own “discernment” responsibility regarding us.

We now have a letter back from a Church authority which says, in essence, that I am not smart enough nor physically fit enough for the Diaconate. Because I had polio.

Really. He really wrote that down. I have his signature on paper to prove it.

So pray for me. For us. I will of course fly right into the face of Church authority. You know me.

Be assured, I know there may be real reasons I can’t, or shouldn’t, become a Deacon. If there are real reasons, I will find them out, despite the wrongful official resistance. My prayer is that my effort isn’t born dead.

I wouldn’t be “normal” if I didn’t object.

Word of the week: Obstructionist. Anyone who obstructs progress, especially a member of a legislative group who hinders the passage of legislation by various technical maneuvers.

Next week’s word: Barnacle.

Gripes? Complaints? Whines? or Comments? Adoration? Puppy love? Reciprocal rant? Feel free to express yourself in the comment section!

(Editor/wife's note: We were late returning from a funeral last week - and I didn't get this posted until today - Jan. 2! I think Tom may not fire me this time - I'll try not to let it happen again :-)