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arkallen

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Mar 8, 2009
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268
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Other
Diagnosis
05/2009
Country
AU
State
VIC
City
Wodonga
I caught the bus today, and I got busted by the bus driver!

I'm not used to getting into trouble; in fact it's a little odd just how rare it is for me to earn anyone's displeasure. My crime was to hail the bus between stops; something which I now appreciate is verboten, but which in my innocence I had actually thought was quite, well ... innocent! Apparently not.

The encounter made me think. It was a taste of life on the other side. As I say, I hardly ever hear a cross word from anyone (... anyone other than the six women in my immediate family, obviously). In part this is because I am male: I'm fairly convinced that the women of our world reserve their choicest invective for one another. Blokes don't do that! And I suspect I am also protected from people’s worst manners simply by a quirk of height. At 6' 7" I seem to command a wholly unearned esteem from the general populace.

Had I been able bodied and upstanding, I doubt very much that I would have been busted by the bus driver. But seated in my wheel chair in the wrong spot I was evidently putting him out, and so he put me down. I realised again how substantial the divisions in our world are; but this time I was not merely a spectator to injustice: I was the victim – minor though this episode surely was.

The world pays respect to ability; we call it ‘respectability’. Our great athletes, our gifted musicians, our most eloquent speakers: all of them earn our respect and are rewarded for their skill. Movie stars and rock gods are fawned on by adoring multitudes. It’s natural enough, and to honor achievement is a grand thing. The problem is that we occasionally do the opposite, and disrespect disability.

There was, however, a darker dimension to my bus driver’s displeasure. He also treated me as just another passenger on his bus! Public busses are a new world to me, they are a window on a different way of life; and, dare I say it, on a different strata of life as well. The bus crowd is ... unusual. Most folks on the bus are there because they don’t own a car. There are lots of single mums: young and harried, worn-out toddlers in hand, struggling with battered and overloaded prams. There are school leavers (I wonder why they left?) with angular haircuts and glazed, impersonal eyes. There are young men with piercings that make you wince, and girls with tattoos of things that shouldn’t exist. There are plenty of odd bods – like me – subsisting on one sort of pension or another. And the bus driver (can you believe this?) had the hide to lump me in with all of them! Imagine! He addressed me the same way he spoke to the rest of his truck load of captive humankind. Bemused, I watched him practice his technique on others who unwittingly earned his ire.

If it’s natural to respect ability, could it be unnatural to respect disability? The despots of history have certainly thought that way. Sometimes when hope flees in the dark of night I’m tempted to believe that ‘survival of the fittest’ really is the ultimate truth; that the race is always to the swift. “On the contrary, those parts of the body that seem to be weaker are indispensable, and the parts that we think are less honorable we treat with special honor (1 Corinthians 12:22-23). Thankfully our corner of the world is remarkable in the way it respects those less-able. The very fact that B3 and I can get on every bus in our city amazes me. The huge team of dedicated, inspiring people who share with us in the care of our nine year old daughter is testimony to the fact that men and women are capable of great distinction.

Maybe my bus driver friend was just having a bad day? I’ve painted him in a bad light, I know. And as much as I would like to protest, I can’t: because I am far from innocent. You have already seen my hypocrisy: for some reason I don’t feel I should be on the bus! I tell myself I don’t belong on board. In my mind's eye I am as superior toward my bus peers as the bus driver was toward me, and my attitude betrays my pride.

I didn’t choose to be on the bus any more than my travelling companions did. But there we all are, none the less! Life is a strange and unpredictable journey that requires much patience and grace. A Man well acquainted with its ups and downs said simply, "Love one another".


Rejoice!





_____________________________________________







A post script...

A good friend passed away suddenly this week. We were once neighbours, farming a couple of miles apart when our children were young, and through the years I have been privileged to share in many of their joys and some of their trials. I was touched deeply to learn that in recent months she had often read this page, and that somehow my thoughts had moved hers. What a profound privilege it is to share life, and to share life’s truths with one another.
 
What a heartfelt post - I think your comments apply around the world. We in Houston Texas have always had an affinity for our independence and our cars - Houston -and Texas - is big and spread out, although probably not as much so as your neck of the woods :) I had conversations with my husband, Marty,about his forays into public transportation. We have something here called MetroLift - which is smaller buses or contracted cabs that are equipped with wheelchair lift. You schedule a day ahead and they will pick you up and take you to your destination -then pick you up when you're ready and take you home. On Marty's first experience w/ this - the driver was totally lost & stopped to ask direction 3 times and still couldn't figure out where she was going - and would not listen to Marty, whoby the way was still working as the traffic reporter on the radio and who basically invented traffic reporting in Houston back in 1977-and knows the city streets like nobody else. Marty said he thought she wouldn't listen to him because he was in a powerchair. Amazing that people are the same the world over.
 
I really enjoyed your post. To this day I cringe remembering the outcome when I naively asked the bus driver for change. Exact change for the bus? Who knew?
 
It really is a different world from this wheelchair (or bulbar, or take your pick of dis-ability). Your insight is always thought provoking and very honest, Roderick.

Mary, how hard that must be for Marty. To be a true expert, yet excluded from the explanation... and I cannot believe I've used three "ex-s" in such a short sentence. Weird.

Lydia, I'm not used to buses either, but remember trains very well. I'm smiling... I think a wheelchair on a train would be very hazardous.
 
Roderick,
Your eloquent, thoughtful words are indeed thought provoking. Thank you for sharing with us the world through your eyes.
Peace,
 
Well Anne,
The wheel chair & train combination gets put to the test today as I'm going to try an get to Melbourne, 300 or so km away. I'm quite excited actually, I love the freedom the power chair provides - even though the chair itself sometimes chills me to the core!
 
What a great post. I have experienced many of those same feelings since transitioning into the WC. I love your term, respect-ability. I used to be very able indeed, in many spheres of life, very respected. It is a strange feeling now to see how people react to me. It doesn't usually bother me though. Rather, I feel sort of like a secret agent, I am undercover: there is more to me than you know.

The first time I rode the bus, I knew about the exact change, and waited with my 85 cents clutched in my good hand. Finally it came, and I gingerly maneuvered my PWC into place. I'd only had it a few weeks and wasn't very good with it. As I went past the change box I dropped my handful of money in, figuring it would sort it out. But after getting me tied in, the bus driver went up front and announced that I was 10 cents short. Now I was sure I'd put in the right amount, I had checked and checked while waiting. I guess the coin box wasn't that good at taking a handful of sweaty coins all at once.

I had another dime, for my return trip, but my hands aren't so good at digging deep into my pockets. I struggled for a minute and then a guy spoke up. Here, I've got it, he said, and put a quarter in for me. I thanked him sincerely, but I could tell that from my voice they saw me as brain damaged, which I am in a way, and needing help. I could have paid him back but that wouldn't be right, he deserved to feel good about his kindness. But I refrained from my plan, which had been to pull out my iPad and read on the trip. It wouldn't be right for me to be playing with my $500 toy when I had just received 25 cents of charity.

Tricky waters to navigate, this change in our relationship to human society.
 
Hal you are too funny. I laughed at the brain damaged part. Yeah everyone should have the slow brain you have my friend.lol.. Definitely one of the smartest guys in the room you are. I had to laugh about the 500 dollar toy, felt the same way the other day when a similar situation happened to me. A friend of mine once told me that we should never take away a chance for someone to do and be good.
 
"There's more to me than you think" - I like that immage Hal, and the way you describe our need to negotiate our changing relationship. How scary is it when you first have to drive the chair down the aisle of the bus with all those 'normal' people looking on!
 
So well written..going to share this with my hubby. I wish every able bodied person could read this! Really puts things in perspective..
 
Thank you and God bless you for the light you shine - it is bright and eye opening.
 
Roderick, it is pleasure reading your blogs / threads you have a wonderful way with words and great outlook on life.

Jim
 
Roderick I've been very lucky so far, all of my bus drivers, train attendants have been very courteous/helpful, I've very conscious of how I impact the drivers time while they tie me in on the bus as it pertains to their keeping up with the route schedule. Maybe I'm just lucky so far.
 
Hey Roderick as a bus driver let me say we are not all like that but we can have bad days.
I tend to get a little pevish at rush hour idiots, but my wife tells me I could teach Budda about maintaining inner calm. I find humor can go a lot further and still get the message across. A favorit to get people to stop grumbling about how there is no room, is to say "come aboard, just like jello there is allways room for more". There allways is. We are given the responsability of a lot of peoples safty and sometimes it can get to you. Don't give up on public transit still the safest way to get about.
Ashley
 
Hello Ashley,

I am a great fan of public transport. Ive just done a great trip by bus and train down to Melbourne, and almost every day Im looking for some opportunity to get out on the busses! I havnt had such independance in months, and I am really amazed by the provision our community makes for wheelchairs. I'm afraid that I painted the poor old bus driver in a too-negative light, and I do think it was just a bad day for him. Ive since met him a couple more times, and once he even gave me my fair back because he felt he had kept me waiting too long, "This is for your patience" he said!

Good to meet you Ashley, and I hope you are doing well.
 
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