People with handicaps deserve some sympathy
I have a friend has been struggling with Multiple Sclerosis for a number of years. She is a retired teacher and will not let the crippling disease crimp her style.
I have gone with her to numerous events and I have been surprised at how unsympathetic some people can be.
I am writing this so people will understand that while a debilitating disease affects the handicapped, they have a right to be out and about without being subjected to rudeness.
Once we went to a center in Philadelphia with an underground parking garage. I was driving and the attendant was adamant that we could not park there, despite the handicapped sticker that was dangling on the mirror. I asked him if I could just go in the lot to drop her off. He refused to allow me to go past the bottom of the hilly incline that allows people to enter the underground parking garage.
I was forced to leave a friend, who with two canes was attempting to walk and skirt a line of passing cars. My sister Gerry accompanied her and was aghast that the cars never stopped for our friend Barbara. I could not understand how the attendant could have been so callous and never even offered to try to stop the flow of cars, so she could at least get inside.
Our friend is now using a walker and this month we went to New York on a Starr Bus Tour to see a Broadway show. The driver of the bus mistakenly forgot to place her walker in the storage area.
We arrived on the bus at 8 a.m. and it was shortly before 9:30 in Hamilton, N.J., when the driver announced my friend’s walker was not aboard.
The bus driver, at first was willing to go back. But that suggestion was met with screams from the other passengers who stated: “No … We have reservations for lunch.” Barbara told the driver she had no way of even getting out of the vehicle without her walker.
I wasn’t sure if going back was the right solution but I knew we still had time to right the wrong. The bus was scheduled to arrive about 11 a.m. so there still was plenty of time. Traffic had also been sparse on that Saturday morning in June.
Barbara deserved as much consideration as the others. She hadn’t done a thing to cause the delay and I couldn’t understand the loud annoyance of some of the other passengers.
The driver left the bus and after a delay, he returned and agreed to continue driving to New York. He said the tour bus company would pay for a new walker for her that he would purchase once we reached our destination.
Barbara was still worried. But the driver’s solution seemed to calm the other reservation-hungry passengers. I feared they were on the verge of mutiny.
We arrived in New York shortly before 11 a.m. and the other passengers disembarked. We stayed on the bus and were driven around Broadway trying to find a store that handled walkers.
The driver in his attempt to purchase a replacement walker had to park the bus on a side street. The driver said he could face a hefty fine and we all hoped that if a policeman arrived he’d be considerate of our plight.
When the new walker was purchased and brought back to the bus, we saw it was tightly-wrapped in a compact cardboard box. When it was opened, some of the parts fell to the floor. As a packet of screws and a small wheel drifted down the bus stairs, panic set in. However, the bus driver and us – mostly my sister, who held the directions — were able to assemble the walker.
The driver did his best to make up for what had happened. And it all worked out as it usually does. The walker was assembled by noon so we had time to walk to a nearby restaurant. We had lunch and saw “Finding Neverland” – which for a while I thought we had definitely found and were living in.
Barb’s own walker was eventually retrieved. And she handled everything with aplomb despite the mix up.
I only wished that some people would know, as I have seen, that the handicapped are not responsible for their ailments. They also have rights and “reservations.” And all they need is a little patience and they will handle the rest.