Passed Out in a Pink Mercedes: In Memoriam of my Father

When I think of Dad, the smell of beer immediately fills my senses – I don’t think he ever didn’t smell of it. My mother often said that the reason Dad drank was namely due to my disability – but, even as a very young child, I could hardly believe that, even as much as I took the blame to heart.

In fact, somewhere along the line, my father told me stories of stealing liquor and cigars as a nine-year-old from his mother’s restaurant, getting a buzz going with his friends in a cave they dug by some railroad tracks in Oakland, California – it must have been the 1950s. By the time he met my mother in the ‘60s – he was sixteen or seventeen – he’d given up school, took to riding a motorcycle, and loaded catering trucks to get by. Soon, he was drafted to Viet Nam, where he took seemingly hundreds of pictures of himself and his buddies hanging around his base. As a child looking at the pictures, I always thought Viet Nam looked as hot and dangerous as it sounded in my school history books, as he was always pictured in a sweaty T-shirt, with a machine gun in one hand, and a beer in the other.

After Dad returned from the war, my brother and I were born, me just eleven months after my brother – and with cerebral palsy.

I truly don’t have any recollection of how Dad reacted to my disability beyond my mother’s recollection. All I knew was that like from the photos from the war, Dad always smelled of sweat and beer when he picked me up from my wheelchair to move me about. Other than that, he didn’t have much to do with me.

Among my few memories that I have of my dad from when I was a child was coming home from school one day in the third grade, finding Dad in our driveway, passed out in a convertible pink Mercedes, a car I’d never seen. There he snored, head cocked back over the seat, still holding on to the steering wheel as if driving, passed out cold in the pink Mercedes, its passenger seat full of empty bear cans and a Playboy magazine. I later learned that his boss – Dad worked as a grounds keeper for a wealthy couple – asked him to get the car washed, but somewhere he took a wrong turn, having a few beers, ending up passed out in our driveway, soon to be fired.

Dad was inevitably a well-worn drunk, unemployed, gambling, fighting with Mom, waking us up at night with drunken ramblings about the house. And, then he split, moving out of state, leaving us barely getting by on public housing and food-bank blocks of cheese and powdered milk for a time.

Once my mother remarried, Dad either called to tell us that he couldn’t see us because it was our mother’s choice to shut him out of our life, or he would promise to come see us on a certain day, at a certain time, and not show up, leaving my brother and me waiting by the window. I suppose that between the ages of eight and eighteen, I may have only seen him six or eight times, not even at my birthdays or high-school graduation.

One Christmas, though, for reasons I’ve never understood, when I was around eleven, my brother and I spent with him, and he barrowed money from us to buy our Christmas presents the day before, never to pay us back. We did have fun that holiday, turning the clocks ahead a few hours, waking him from a drunken stupor, tricking him that it was time to open presents hours before the agreed time.

It’s these few stories that have helped me come to terms with my father over the years, where if nothing else, Dad was consistent in his dysfunction. He even sobered up for a while in the mid ‘90s, and I tried to have a relationship with him, even writing about it in a book; but, it predictably wasn’t to last – not his sobriety, not our relationship.

When my brother called late one night this past April, explaining that Dad was found paralyzed on the floor of the camping trailer he lived in up in the Sierra Nevadas, I wasn’t surprised. And, when the tests came back from the intensive care unit that all my Dad’s organs were failing, that he had only days to live at best, unable to communicate, I wasn’t surprised at that, either. Yet, I was surprised when my brother found a letter addressed to us in our father’s safe-deposit box.

Dear Steve and Mark,

If you’re reading this, I’m probably dead. Just so you know, my girlfriend Georgette gets my Jeep. You can get rid of my other stuff or whatever.

Dad

My brother and I had to laugh – if nothing else, again, Dad was consistent till the end, not coming through with the words sons need to hear.

Ultimately, I have no ill regards toward Dad, having resolved any remaining feelings of rejection and abandonment through being the best father I can now be, as my brother has also done, where our daughters know what it’s like to sit down and do their homework with their fathers, never to smell beer or be left waiting by a window.

Surely, it’s somewhat ere now that my father’s gone. After all, even when estranged, there was some comfort in knowing that he was somewhere on Earth, with some possibility of meeting up again some day. But, it never was, and never will be – a real relationship with my father, that is – and I’m accepting of that.

My hope is that wherever my father is now, he’s smiling in a convertible pink Mercedes, with a twelve-pack of beer and a Playboy.

I Gotta Go

When it gets to be after midnight like tonight, and my wife complains that I’m working too late again, I tell her, “Baby, I was born into this – you signed on for the ride, knowing what you were getting yourself into. If my habits haven’t changed over the last fifteen years, they’re not going to now.”

Technically, I am busier than ever these days – admittedly working later every night of the week – but it doesn’t seem any different to me, where I’ve always worked on something late into the night, starting in college, then keeping it going with writing over the years. I guess I forever see myself as the kid in the mail room, who reckons that working harder and later inevitably pays off.

And, it has. Presently, my career has three aspects – my role in the corporate world as a wheelchair product manager; my role in customer service via my consumer-based web site, WheelchairJunkie.com; and, my role as a writer. The fortunate aspect is that all three roles overlap, with all aspects inspiring each other, a balance of sorts that keeps everything fresh and energized. But, the downside is time, where at least a 9-hour day in my literal office is a given, followed by hours at home addressing customer service that never ends, with emails and message board posts that truly never stop, all needing infinite time. Then, there’s the writing, which is creatively easy to come by, but takes time – several hours per night to do it right.

So, with so much going on – not to mention, my daughter, house, and all of the duties that go with everyday living – it’s tough to pack it all into an 18-hour day. But, I do – that is, with an extremely regimented schedule.

Between 7:00am and 10:00pm, it’s go, go, go – as non-stop as possible, a whirlwind of wheelchairs, emails, phone calls, meetings, and more emails, with dinner and family time tucked in during the evening. But, once it hits around 10:00pm, rather than winding down, I’m usually winding up – it’s time to start writing.

By 11:00pm, I’m in my groove, the midst of my “writer’s grift,” as I call it. By midnight, I’m all wound up, on a writer’s roll, with music blaring, words like these flowing onto the page with relative ease. And, this is when my wife shows up on queue. “I don’t have a problem with you staying up so late writing,” my wife says, wearing a Victoria’s Secret nightgown, hair in her face from just getting up from bed. “But, do you have to blare bad music?”

“That’s not bad music – that’s Black Flag,” I say, turning up the volume, banging my head in the air with the 80s’ punk rock version of “Louie Louie.”

She leans down, pulls a plug out of the wall, silencing the music in an instant. “Take up something quiet to do while you’re writing late at night – like chain smoking,” she says, walking back to bed.

“But, it’s ‘Louie Louie’…,” I say, struggling to pick up the plug off of the floor, eager to get back on my writer’s grift.

On The Dotted Line

I must have said it five times throughout the day at work today: “Just sign and date my name on it, please.” The other five times – meeting attendance sheets, management sign-offs, an expense report – needed no instruction, as those around me know not to be shy about using their steady hands to sign for my not-so-steady hand.

My disagreement with my own John Hancock goes way back. As a preschooler with cerebral palsy, it was evident that penmanship wasn’t going to be my best subject as I went through school. Heck, at the age of five, I couldn’t stay within the lines of a coloring book, let alone write “Mark” on those brown, lined sheets of dusty-smelling paper that students have used for over a century to practice writing their name over and over again – one life-size name per page was the closest I came.

But, as I grew up, I kept at it, and somewhere around the age of twenty, I had at least enough coordination to sign a check or a greeting card – though never both on the same day, as neither my body nor I had such patience, nor did I wish to include checks with greeting cards.

Before buying my first car and house, I bought an inked stamp of my signature. Actually, it wasn’t even my signature, but it did stamp, “Mark E. Smith.” I reckoned that if a stamp was entirely consistent in stamping whatever was printed on it, then I might as well put the best darn penmanship I could find on it – which was my mom’s.

As it turned out, if a pen required more dexterity than I had, so did that darn ink stamp. My trying to stamp it on the right line of a check or document was like playing pin the tale on the donkey – I had khaki pants for years with my name stamped on the knee from the signing of buying my first house.

Once I became an author, people wished signed books – and I did well with that. Books have a large, blank page in the front, void of structured lines, proving an ideal target for me to hit with a Sharpie. Of course, there was always that one woman in line at book signings, asking for an inscription to “Alexandria Protrocktov,” to which I’d explain that I wasn’t skilled with my “A”s or “O”s, or any other letter, really.

Nowadays, while I have to sign more items than ever, I almost never do. Sure, my signature appears on dozens of documents each week with my approval, but you’d be hard pressed to find my actual signature. My wife signs my name on most of our personal documents; whomever I’m with – family, friends, my English Bulldog – signs for Visa check card purchases; and, at work my employees and coworkers sign my name followed by their initials all day long.

The fact is, I can’t physically write, for all intents and purposes, but everyone else can – and how convenient that is for me.

Of course, some day I’ll find myself in court, starring at Exhibit A, with the plaintiff’s attorney asking, “Mr. Smith, is this your signature?”

And, I’ll be able to look him in the eyes, with sincerity, and reply, “Can you please clarify what you mean by my signature.”

Those In Glass Houses Shouldn’t Drive Backward

I’m at the Corning Museum of Glass in New York with my family – my daughter, sister, brother-in-law, and nephew. I’m not a big museum fan – not enough excitement for me – but I try to expose my daughter to as much culture as possible, including art, and glass is an approachable medium for a 10-year-old, I suppose.

If you don’t recognize the name, Corning, you have likely used the company’s products. Corning touts itself as the world’s leader in specialty glass and ceramics, producing cutting-edge optics used in the aerospace and semiconductor industries. But, you probably know Corning for its casserole dishes that your mother used, a kitchen must-have for decades. Heck, my mother rarely baked, and even she had set of Corning Wear.

So, it turns out that Corning has been located in the quant, up-state New York town of Corning since 1868, and as a result, the town is built around the company, including the company-sponsored Museum of Glass. And, this is where we are this Saturday, following the self-guided tour through a four-story building that’s remarkably modern, with mood-lit paths, lined with floor-to-ceiling display cases of two-thousand-year-old glass artifacts that sparkling like flowing streams from a distance, drawing you on a winding route through the museum.

Even though it’s a Saturday, at the beginning of summer, there’s almost no one here – just us as we follow the twists and turns of the display halls. And, I’m all wound up. I’ve been working nonstop lately, and was planning on working straight through this weekend on three articles due next week, but my daughter and sister talked me into this day trip – so, I’m feeling like I’m off the hook, paroled for a day, horsing around in a glass museum.

Now, I admit that horsing around in a glass museum is surely a poor idea – undoubtedly as bad as it sounds. But, I’m a mature father, and a wheelchair professional, so the fact that my power wheelchair is turned up to its highest speed, set to 100% acceleration, and I’m making my family both chuckle and chastise me by my zipping ahead and cranking crazy-fast turns in the glass-lined aisles isn’t nearly as obnoxious or dangerous as it might seem. I’m a pro, and I certainly wouldn’t risk smashing up Corning’s truly priceless collection of glass.

But, now I’m driving backward, in front of my family, keeping pace with them, all without looking over my shoulder to see exactly where I’m going. However, as a pro, I know that I’m in the center of the aisle, which winds through the building, so as long as I stay centered between the displays via my peripheral vision, I can drive backward all day without looking.

“You’re such a dork,” my sister says, smiling, pushing her son’s stroller.

“I bet you can’t walk backward with your stroller like this,” I tease, increasing my speed.

“Har, har, har – Dork,” my sister says, laughing.

“See, I’m such a pro, I don’t even need a powerchair that drives forward,” I say, cruising along in reverse, without a hitch.

“There’s a pole behind you,” my brother-in-law says, walking beside my sister.

“Then maybe I should speed up,” I say, giving a sarcastic smile, knowing that my brother-in-law is being a wise guy, trying to trick me into turning around to look.

BANG! – my chair comes to a slamming halt, like a train just rear-ended me, knocking me completely out of position.

“…Told ya there was a pole,” my brother-in-law says, walking past me without a care.

“I thought you were joking!” I say, straightening myself in my seat, pulling away from the pole, driving in the right direction.

“Let that be a lesson to you,” I tell my daughter.

“Never play in a museum?” my daughter asks, walking beside me.

“No,” I say. “Never back a powerchair into a poll – it hurts.”

Frolicking

In the design and manufacturing of wheelchairs, there is the terminology, “intended use,” meaning the typical ways in which a wheelchair is commonly used and operated. One word, however, that’s not on any intended use outline that I’ve ever seen is, “frolicking” – but, based on what unabashed consumers have shared with me over the years, maybe it should be.

Now, I should clarify that when I use the term “frolicking,” it’s a euphemism for… well… frolicking, if you catch my drift. With this in mind, why both men and women have felt comfortable discussing such a delicate topic with me remains a tad of a mystery? Maybe it’s because folks know I’m a wheelchair user, or maybe it’s because folks feel comfortable with me from reading my writing over the years, knowing me as a friend. But, for whatever reason, folks have no qualms toward asking me whether they can “frolic” in their new wheelchairs.

Interestingly, the approaches people take toward the subject vary from gingerly to blunt. Most ease into the question, inquiring if the seat fully reclines, that the arms completely remove, then ask about the weight capacity, wondering if the wheelchair can support two people? Other consumers skip the chase, simply asking, “Can we do it in my chair, or will the chair break?”

My professional answer is always the same: “I must recommend against exceeding the weight capacity of your wheelchair.”

However, my real answer is, I have no idea whether one can “frolic” in a wheelchair – I’m a middle-aged, long-married man, where the closest I come to “frolicking” in my own wheelchair on a good day is a kiss on the lips from my English bulldog, Rosie.

Mysterious Ways

The older I get, the more inclined I am to lie about my disability. No, I don’t lie about having a disability – I can’t hide my powerchair or profound condition. I simply lie about why I have a disability.

Now, the fact is, I just don’t get the opportunity to discuss my disability with many acquaintances these days. We live in an enlightened time, so strangers aren’t too fixated on my disability, and most people who I deal with personally and professionally already know that I have cerebral palsy based on what they’ve read and heard about me, so I just don’t get the chance to talk about my disability with strangers as much as one might expect.

As a result, when an acquaintance inquires about my disability, I’m compelled to take full advantage of the moment, sensationally exploiting his curiosity for my own enjoyment – I just can’t pass on the opportunity. I’m instinctively compelled to draw the person in close, looking him in the eyes, in confidence, with vulnerability, sharing a tale of my disability that’s unforgettable.

“When I was a young boy, my father was a religious man,” I explain. “One day, he asked, ‘Mark, do you believe in the good Lord?’”

“Yes, Father,” I replied.

“If you believe in the Lord, stand up and raise your hands to the Lord!“ he shouted.

With great faith, I stood up, raising my hands to the Lord – and, at that moment, the wind blew me right out of our convertible moving at highway speed….

As I pause and stare stone-faced at the person, I can see the wheels in his head spinning, horrified by what I’ve shared, while wondering if he heard me right?

Sometimes, I’ll smile and wink, confessing that it’s an old line from a joke that I picked up somewhere and warped it into my own use.

Other times, I simply share my father’s belief that the Lord works in mysterious ways.

Letting Go Of The Wheelchair

I wish I had the universal answer, the one that applies to all – but, I don’t. Yet, it doesn’t keep me from knowing at least one answer.

For me, acceptance of my wheelchair as a “wheelchair” was always a given, where I always viewed it as a tool of liberation. Nevertheless, I’ve also understood how others can view the physicality of their wheelchair as an object of limitation and resentment in their lives – especially those newly injured – where the literal seat, wheels, and frame are a visual reality of unwanted change and anguish.

Fortunately, most people with disabilities evolve into an understanding and acceptance that a wheelchair is ultimately a tool of mobility – it helps us live more active, independent, satisfying lives, regardless of disability. Yet, some people never grow to such emotional acceptance, holding on to resenting their wheelchairs with every ounce of will, as tightly as they can grip an armrest, refusing to move toward acceptance of having to use a wheelchair under any circumstance.

In my roles over the years, I’ve worked with a host of those with disabilities who simply won’t accept any wheelchair. No, the situation is never as dramatic as one refusing to use his or her wheelchair, telling others to get it out of sight, like a scene from a movie. Rather, the mode is that no wheelchair is ever good enough, that no one can ever do enough to satisfy their mobility needs, that there is simply always something lacking in their wheelchairs – and the frustration indefinitely builds in their lives.

On the surface, there’s some validity to the perspective that a wheelchair is never good enough, never up to the standards expected, never capable of allowing a meaningful, unrestricted life. After all, if you compare a wheelchair to full mobility on your own two legs, it will never prove comfortable enough, maneuverable enough, efficient enough, outdoors enough, or reliable enough – that is, it will always prove frustrating, no matter the technology, no matter how well a provider serves you. But, is that a wheelchair’s fault?

Of course not. With all of their technical advancements, wheelchairs are still wheelchairs, with practical limitations. Wheelchairs can take us farther, faster, but they’re still a seat, with wheels rolling on the ground, and certainly can’t replace one’s fully-functioning legs – and if one intentionally or subconsciously holds a wheelchair to such an impossible expectation as completely compensating for one’s inability to walk, dissatisfaction absolutely endures.

When I encounter users who are on their third brand of wheelchair in as many years, having exhausted a handful of providers, I follow the customer’s-always-right approach to the best of my professionalism and continue the path to resolve whatever technical issues I can – but I strive not to stop there, adding in a dose of understanding and lessons learned.

Disability is complex, with limitations that no one wants, and a wheelchair is the most concrete representation of that. My cerebral palsy is within me – it’s intangible that I can’t see or touch beneath my skin. But, my wheelchair is an unmistakable object. When I roll up to stairs, my wheelchair hits them, not my cerebral palsy; when I get stuck in deep snow, it’s my wheels spinning that are the cause, not my cerebral palsy; and, when my mobility is limited in any way, it’s due to my wheelchair, not my cerebral palsy. Why wouldn’t I – or, anyone – resent a wheelchair till the end?

Because such thinking places a wheelchair in the wrong order of life’s equation, that’s why. It is true that having to rely on a wheelchair for mobility prevents you from doing 1,001 tasks that you could do if you didn’t have a disability – and some of those tasks may have been your most beloved, passionate pursuits.

Yet, the fact is, as a result of your wheelchair, there are 8,999 tasks and goals that you can pursue despite disability, and when you shift your focus from the 1,001 shortcoming of using wheelchair to the 8,999 possibilities in your life, the world opens up, and frustrations disappear.

When I’ve shared this belief with frustrated wheelchair users over the years, some have had miraculous turnarounds in their mobility, where all of their wheelchair issues went away, and they’ve followed up with me a year or more later noting what they’ve subsequently achieved in life. Still, others moved on to other wheelchairs and providers, adding my assistance to their pile of frustrations, refusing to ever accept the limitations of using any wheelchair in life, placing the weight of more anguish directly on their wheelchairs than any one model could ever hold.

No, I don’t have a universal answer to the complex emotions that some project toward their wheelchairs, but I do have an answer: If you focus less on the inherent limitations of a “wheelchair,” and concentrate more on fully living as you are, it will empower your life. A wheelchair in itself can’t evolve – but you can.

Recommending The Shoes We Wear

If a woman walked up to you in the mall and asked, “I’m shopping for shoes today, and wonder what style you recommend?” how would you answer?

Would you look down at your own shoes on your feet, and tell her to go buy them – especially if you’re wearing men’s boots, or flip-flops, or orthopedic shoes?

Of course not. In fact, before providing a recommendation, the logical person would ask, “What do you need the shoes for – work, dress, recreation, comfort?”

How is it, then, that a wheelchair user can look down at his or her wheelchair model and unequivocally recommend it to another wheelchair user without knowing anything about the person? After all, isn’t a wheelchair keyed to every intimate detail of our individual lives, far more than a pair of shoes, from our body types, to our extents of disability, to our environments, to our transportation, to our careers – to literally hundreds of nuances that vary from one individual to the next?

Absolutely. Yet, it’s interesting how quickly wheelchair users whole-heartedly recommend their personal wheelchair models to another user without knowing anything about the person, especially online. In fact, the chances are that you may have seen posts on the WheelchairJunkie.com message board and others, where someone simply posts, “I’m a mother of 3 needing a powerchair. What kind should I get?” And, people reply by unquestionably advising purchasing the specific powerchairs that they use as individuals.

Now, certainly people are striving to be entirely helpful in their replies, and that’s appreciated by all. Nevertheless, as with recommending shoes, there has to be a more complete, accurate way to help others toward selecting appropriate mobility technology, other than simply pointing to your own wheelchair, right?

And, there is – where the key to more helpful and accurate assistance toward others is in addressing wheelchairs not only as objects, but also within the context of how wheelchairs apply to our individual lives. In this way, a wheelchair isn’t viewed as a universal product, but as highly-tailored device, where each wheelchair model must be assessed in parallel with a user’s very individual needs.

Based on my career roles, people seek my advice daily on wheelchair purchases, and the first conscious effort I make when working with any consumer is to initially rule out my own 33 years of wheelchair use – the considerations have to be entirely about the person’s mobility, not mine. Toward my ultimate suggestions, I want to know about one’s physical condition, past, present, and future; I want to know about one’s living environments; I want to know one’s forms of transportation; I want to know what recreations one enjoys; and, I want to know as much as I can learn about someone within a conversation. As a whole, I want to know the context of ones mobility – the roles it must serve in one’s life – before I mention any category or model of wheelchair for consideration. It’s only by knowing such personal aspects of one’s life that I can truly surmise which type and configuration of wheelchair might meet their needs.

Surely, not every user is an expert on wheelchairs, and may not know what’s available beyond his or her own wheelchair model, not knowing of any others to recommend. However, explaining how one’s wheelchair model serves one’s own needs, through very specific examples, also proves far more helpful to other users than simply recommending a wheelchair because it’s the only one personally known – that is, rather than saying, “I have XYZ wheelchair, and it’s great,” try sharing, “I have XYZ wheelchair, which fits really well in my small apartment and on the bus,” which is constructive feedback.

The next time someone asks you for advice on wheelchair selection, I encourage you to avoid immediately looking toward your own wheelchair, but instead look forward to the person your striving to help, and make an effort to understand their fullest needs before suggesting a particular product, then apply your own experience and knowledge of wheelchair models to suggest which might work best for the individual’s needs. After all, we each of us walk in different shoes – and wheelchairs.

Sounds Of Success

The White Stripes are a cutting-edge band that creates some of the most complex, loud rock-and-roll music that you’ll ever hear, filling stadiums with bigger-than-life sounds – and, it all comes from only two people, playing a guitar and a set of drums. “Because we’re so limited, we have to be creative in what we craft,” says Jack White, guitarist, lead singer, and song writer.

Disability experience can prove a lot like playing in a two-man band, trying to compete with bands of more members and instruments. At what point, though, as the White Stripes prove, do limitations breed inspiration and success, on levels where one finds a way to turn seeming restrictions into liberation, where a lone musician can rival the power of an orchestra?

In many ways, limitations encourage focus, and focus is what’s needed to achieve success – all of which often takes place within the realm of living with disability. You’ll encounter those with disabilities who have experienced tremendous hardships, yet have achieved tremendous success in many areas of life. Indeed, it’s a seeming contradiction that hardship and tragedy – facets of many disabilities – allow or foster success, just as with two musicians filling a stadium with sounds that can only come from multi-piece bands. And, yet, time and time again, limitations – disability and otherwise – provide the focus needed to achieve success.

When Richard Pryor recently died, his widow said that Pryor’s multiple sclerosis brought clarity and comfort to his life that he’d never known, where disability encouraged him to look at himself and others with a new perspective, one stemming from understanding rather than angst. And, limitations have such an affect on many, where they’re often encouraged to see what they may have previously overlooked or ignored. Limitations, in fact, narrow one’s field in a way that clarity and focus are all but demanded, where one inherently maximizes potentials. In Pryor’s case, his focus was more demanded by circumstance than idealism, where he was always running, chasing drugs, chasing women, trying to flee his demons. However, once he literally couldn’t run anymore as a result of multiple sclerosis, he had to focus on himself and those within his family – his physical limitations created emotional focus and growth. In this way, Pryor achieved greater success as a husband and father under the limitations of his disability than previously without, proving that limitations can inherently empower.

If limitations can inherently empower, then even more remarkable success is achievable through consciously knowing how limitations can foster success. In working with many wheelchair users over the years, I’ve witness countless specialty control needs, where a user must only use a single body part and movement – a finger, foot, or tongue – to control his or her powerchair, where with focus, creativity, and tenacity, expansive mobility is achieved. The same conscious effort that goes into maximizing physical abilities – working with constraints to achieve success – applies to so many aspects of life. If a stock broker, for example, applies the same creativity, tenacity, and foresight to maintaining portfolios as one does in addressing one’s disability – identifying potentials amidst limitations – he’s bound to succeed. The key to success in all aspects of life, then, is to consciously focus on the sole areas of opportunity that you have at any given moment, and work them to fullest potentials. If your disability relates to your legs, what can you achieve with your upper body and education? If stocks as a whole are tanking, where is a sector of potential growth to enhance your portfolio? If your relationship isn’t fulfilling, in what steps can you identify that will improve it? There are ingredients to life, ones that are never constant or equal – and, it’s in assessing the ingredients in your life at any point, recognizing what can be created, that breeds resiliency and success – it’s where single instruments are played to fullest potentials.

For the New Year, all of us – disabled or not – have the chance to view our limitations as opportunities, where we can fully assess the potentials that we have, thriving and empowering our roles. You may have a few less instruments in your band than others, but play them with more skill, talent, and creativity than most others – and you will fill stadiums with the sounds of your success.

Frankie’s Sticks, Man

If you saw me now, you’d think that I time-warped back to 1983.

Getting here wasn’t as hard as one might think. The fact is, a powerchair is my best friend in crowds, where it works almost as well as a snowplow, ushering people out of my way. Maybe even drunks at a rock concert have empathy for a guy seated in a wheelchair among a standing-only crowd, or maybe the look in my eyes – that I’m not stopping for anyone, that my 300-pound powerchair could break toes and ankles – appeals to their common sense; but, for whatever reason, I can always work my way through the most obnoxious of crowds.

And, that’s what my buddy, Dave, and I did tonight, making our way to the front row, center stage of this concert.

Now, this isn’t a big concert venue, but a club room, where there’s nothing between the audience and the band. The stage, in fact, is barely over a foot-and-a-half high, and I’m right against it, looking up at the lead singer of Quiet Riot, who’s still decked in purple spandex, a bad wig, and gaudy jewelry after twenty-five years without a hit, looking like this gig is at least fifteen years past his fitness level, as judged by his pouring sweat and labored dance movements.

At some point, a guy warned us that the flashback-frenzied crowd might surge forward, pressing us against the stage. However, with my reinforced-steel legrests touching the stage, and my push canes protruding behind me, ready to impale the crowd, no one’s pushing me anywhere.

Indeed, my game plan is working. See, in 2007, there’s nothing less cool than going to the concert of a hair band from the ’80s, whose members and fans are frozen in time, unable to see that a 1979 Trans Am isn’t the chic magnet that it once was. Yet, in 2007, there’s nothing more entertaining than going to the concert of a hair band from the ’80s, whose members and fans are frozen in time, where the skinny guy to my left – mullet, graying beard, skin-tight T-shirt, bandannas tied together as a belt – is playing air guitar and drums like he’s part of the band, and the 40-something mom to my right, with teased-up hair, hasn’t stop jumping up and down with her fist in the air since the band started playing two hours ago. Of course, the woman directly behind me – a seemingly over-erogenous DMV clerk – keeps leaning over me, trying to grab the lead singer’s crotch, and even he gives her disgusted looks, pulling away each time she gets lucky.

“In ’92, I talked to Frankie, the drummer!” Mr. Mullet yells in my ear. “Dude, I live for these shows.”

And, I believe him. But, I can’t stop laughing long enough to get as excited as he is. Sure, it’s terrific that this is a highlight in the lives of those around me. But, how any 40-year-old can think that playing air guitar at hair band concert, decades past the era, is cool, is beyond me. Maybe I’m turning old and boring, but in my circles, being able to trade stocks on your PDA while you’re vacationing on a beach in the Bahamas is cool; popping a cassette tape into the dash of your Gremlin on the way to the Quiet Riot concert is uncool.

“Dude, no one’s ever come close to their genius!” Mr. Mullet yells to me.

“Dude, do you live with your mom?” I yell back.

“Yeah, but I’m moving in with my girl!” he replies, pointing to the middle aged, pear-shaped woman next to him, poured into her black velvet top and faded jeans, screaming every cheesy lyric.

I look over my shoulder, to Dave, who’s notably out of place, wearing a fatherly sweater and slacks, unable to change since someone offered us free, last-minute tickets at work late in the day, and he’s chuckling at the whole scene, too. I look back to the stage, and read the song list taped to the floor, noting that the band is playing the last song on the list – and, I’m glad, as it must be close to midnight, and two hours of being stuck in the worst of 1983 is plenty for me.

The drummer just hit the last few beats, and the singer is thanking the crowd. I’m looking around, seeing if the packed crowd is going to immediately rush for the exits, but now I see that the crowd is freaking out again. It’s the drummer coming toward me, and everyone’s reaching toward him. He kneels down, and hands me his drum sticks, but due to my poor coordination, I can’t grab them, so he gingerly sets them on my lap.

“Thanks, man!” I yell, giving him the thumbs up sign.

Mr. Mullet to my left, and Teased-Hair Tammi to my right, look simultaneously elated and disappointed by my score, and I feel guilty, instinctively thinking that I should give the sticks away to the crowd. After all, I’m here in mockery, with no regard for Quiet Riot as musical icons, thinking that the whole scene is a Saturday Night Live skit that I rolled into. Yet, those around me have seemingly invested their entire lives in this band and scene, presumably passing on any sort of cultural growth over the last twenty-five years – that is, their receiving concert drum sticks from the drummer of Quiet Riot might be like getting blessed by the Pope, a forever link to hair band immortality. But, then, here I am, a sucker-bet, all but guaranteed to get the sticks, with the well-meaning drummer likely thinking that I, as guy in a wheelchair, have had it rough in life, that it’s probably my last wish to be in the front row of a Quiet Riot concert, that receiving the drum sticks will be a golden gift. Is it my fault that I’m a tough racket to beat at a hair band concert when it comes to societal projections of sympathy toward those with disabilities?

“I’ve waited my whole life for this,” I yell to Mr. Mullet.

“Right on,” he replies, patting me on the back. “Now, you’ve got Frankie’s sticks, man!”

I turn to Dave, and he leans toward me. “How much do you think these will sell for on Ebay?” I ask.

Dave laughs, and adds, “This whole thing is just wrong.”