"Talking Wheelchair Blues"

[Kanary]

As the day ends, my thoughts keep going back to this song I heard many years ago, and really liked. It's by Fred Small, on his album, "The Heart Of The Apaloosa". I think you'll enjoy the last line of the lyrics. :)

Talking Wheelchair Blues
I went for a jog in the city air
I met a woman in a wheelchair
I said "I'm sorry to see you're handicapped."
She says "What makes you think a thing like that?"
And she looks at me real steady
And she says, "You want to drag?"

So she starts to roll and I start to run
And she beat the pants off my aching buns
You know going uphill I'd hit my stride
But coming down she'd sail on by!
When I finally caught up with her
She says "Not bad for somebody ablebodied.
You know, with adequate care and supervision
You could be taught simple tasks.
So how about something to eat?"
I said that'd suit me fine
"We're near a favorite place of mine."

So we mosied on over there
But the only way in was up a flight of stairs.
"Gee, I never noticed that," says I.
"No problem," the maitre d' replies.
"There's a service elevator around the back."
So we made it upstairs on the elevator
With the garbage, flies, and last week's potatoes
I said "I'd like a table for my friend and me."
He says "I'll try to find one out of the way."
Then he whispers, "Uh, is she gonna be sick,
I mean, pee on the floor or throw some kind of fit?"
I said "No, I don't think so,
I think she once had polio.
But that was twenty years ago.
You see, the fact of the matter is,
If the truth be told…………
,
She can't walk.
So he points to a table, she wheels her chair
Some people look down and others stare
And a mother grabs her little girl
Says "Keep away, honey, that woman's ill."
We felt right welcome.

Then a fella walks up and starts to babble
About the devil and the holy bible
Says "Woman, though marked with flesh's sin,
Pray to Jesus, you'll walk again!"
Then the waiter says "What can I get for you?"
I said "I'll have your best imported brew."
And he says "What about her?"
I say "Who?" He says "Her."
"Oh, you mean my friend here."
He says "Yeah." I say "What about her?"
"Well, what does she want?"
"Well, why don't you ask her?"
Then he apologizes.
Says he never waited on a cripple before.
We immediately nominated him for Secretary of the Interior.

Well, she talked to the manager when we were through
She says "There're some things you could do
To make it easier for folks in wheelchairs."
He says "Oh, it's not necessary.
Handicapped never come here anyway."

Well, I said goodnight to my newfound friend
I said, "I'm beginning to understand
A little bit of how it feels
To roll through life on a set of wheels."
She says "Don't feel sorry, don't feel sad,
I take the good along with the bad
I was arrested once at a protest demo
And the police had to let me go.
See, we were protesting the fact
That public buildings weren't wheelchair accessible.
Turned out the jail was the same way.

Anyway, I look at it this way--
In fifty years you'll be in worse shape than I am now.
See, we're all the same, this human race.
Some of us are called disabled. And the rest--
Well, the rest of you are just temporarily able-bodied."

Fred Small, "The Heart Of The Apaloosa"

[Sugarbleus]

1. FANTASTIC!!

Never heard this one before. I'm saving it for hubby and friends. Hubby IS in a wheelchair and I can testify to the struggle it's been for many years, just to get inside any establishment.

Rules for disabled access have changed much...but not enough. Still a way to go.

I remember trying to get into a restaurant with hubby and his chair..we too had to go through the back alley past debris and enter the establishment waaaaay in the rear. I struggles to get he and his chair over humps and hurdles once inside. I was young. I was embarrassed. Today, I'm older and I don't take this kind of thing lying down.

GREAT POST! :hi:

[Kanary]

2. Glad you like it! Maybe...... get the recording for hubby

for Christmas....... Fred Small's rendition of it is fun to listen to. :)

Doncha just *love* that last line? I've thought of that so many times in the last month or so...... too many people sitting pretty, and not realizing it could be *them*...... and I don't mean only handicapped or not... I mean, poor, old, sick, etc etc etc.

We've lost the ability to walk in another person's shoes.

:cry:

Kanary

[Sugarbleus]

6. You've hit the nail on the head Kanary!

And yes, the last lines of those lyrics are VERY poignant...too true. I love that!

Off to bed with me now. Time to rest these aching bones. Be well, my friend. Hopefully, I'll catch you tomorrow. :D

Peace~~~ SB

[DemBones DemBones]

3. Great lyrics.

Thanks for posting. Consciousness raising is a good thing. :hug:

[Kanary]

4. Sometimes, rather than walking in another's shoes, we need to roll in

their tracks.

:hi:

Kanary

[Sugarbleus]

5. Consciousness raising is a good thing<-----It is isn't it

:hi: :hug:

[DemBones DemBones]

7. Now, if you had put "Christopher Reeve" in your header,

you might have gotten some attention.

As it is, it's just the disability choir here. Why am I NOT surprised?

Sometimes I wonder about DU.

Other times, I'm sure.

[Pastiche423]

8. Why wonder?

After wheeling through life for well over a decade, I know the feeling well. Some people just don't know what to say because the subject is foreign to them. Others are afraid. It's a mortality check thing. Anyone can become disabled for life in seconds.

As to any establishment that is not accessible, they do not get my business. They also do not get business from many of the members of the activist groups I belong to. Having heard me ask a time or two if a venue is accessible, they have become aware.

Luckily, in the small town I moved to four years ago, a quadriplegic went along w/the streets/sidewalks planning committee to teach them about curbcuts. The accessibility here is far better than in the largest city in the state I moved from, which is in the South.

Btw, in the disabled community, we call able-bodied people TABS.

[mr blur]

13. We call them "Walky-Talkies"

Over here in the UK the Government has just made a ruling that any business which is open to the public must make provisions that disabled people can have the same access as the Walky Talkies. Doesn't seem to have made much differences round here, though. I'm thinking of getting together a group of fellow wheelchair users and doing a tour of high street stores, especially the ones we can't get into. Maybe take a photographer. Tell the local paper.

[Kanary]

9. I appreciate your observation.

It's very discouraging. :cry:

I'm afraid the compassion for others has pretty much died, and that includes "activists".

It doesn't bode well for the future, and that's putting it mildly.

:mad:

Kanary

[DemBones DemBones]

10. Compassion is a limited resource, apparently.

I suppose we should be encouraged that everyone was so upset by the death of Christopher Reeve, but it seemed to me that it was mainly an excuse to say that if Bush* had approved unlimited stem cell research Reeve would have walked and be alive today. That's an extremely unrealistic view and it also illustrates the celebrity-driven (and therefore very limited) awareness of disabilities. ("OMG, Michael J. Fox has Parkinson's disease, we must have stem cell research to save him!")

[Kanary]

11. right again. I tried to say something about making it larger than

Reeve, but ............. I was viewed as just being "critical".

There's something very wrong here.

Kanary, who doesn't count, either....
edited to say: I appreciate that celebrities are going public with their own misfortunes. I'm sure at times that isn't easy to do. BUT... they should NOT be the focus, they are there to bring *awareness* to an issue that affects many others.

[skygazer]

12. Those are great lyrics

I've always been so amazed at how rude people can be to those they perceive as "different". The part that really struck me was when the waiter asked "What about her?" People do that all the time - as if the person were not even there! How utterly offensive!

Thanks for posting this. I've never even heard of Fred Small - guess I'm going to have to check him out!