It was a hot day in August, 1975. A bunch of us backpackers in an unaffiliated youth hostel in Athens, a big Dutch guy got on my case - President Ford had taken action about some boat in another country, as I recall. “It makes me mad,” he tells me. It was hot and muggy and I blew up at him: “I. Am. Not. My. Country!,” I said. “Calm down!” he ordered. “I WILL NOT CALM DOWN,” I yelled. It felt very satisfying.
Unexpectedly, the Empire types - the Limeys, the Aussies, the Kiwis, the Canucks - seemed to respect that. Maybe they’d never seen a person with a cleft palate defend himself before.
Certainly most of the time we don’t. A year or so back, on the Rapid Transit from downtown to Linden, there was a scrawny middle-aged woman in a wheelchair. I relaxed the Basic Rule - Don’t make eye contact with the crazies. Before long she’d produced a dollar bottle of gin and was trying to get passengers to help her open it.
When she came to me I smiled and shook my head regretfully (I’m a former employee of the bus company), and she starts this verbal abuse: “You are weak. YOU ARE WEAK.” We’re right up behind the bus driver, he must be hearing. I considered standing up for disability rights - when we don’t it just encourages the pervasive abuse of our society - but let it go.
Maybe there’ll be a right time …
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