How do we measure up?
The sound you hear is me dragging my soap box to the front of my consciousness.
I, as so many are, am agonizing about the state of affairs that we find our nation in, when we have become polarized over so many issues, when friends have stopped being friends based on who one voted for in the last election.
But this is not about that.
I am not smart enough to even begin a discussion about how we have lost our way.
Well, maybe this is relevant.
This is about handicapped parking. My sister was handicapped. With severe psoriatic arthritis and a serious liver ailment, Kathleen had great difficulty walking.
She could drive, but once she got to her destination, she had to navigate with a walker and even the walker exhausted her if she had to travel far from her car to a store, event, church, etc. She needed to be able to park close to these places and she had the appropriate signage to allow her to do so.
I was with her one day when she attempted to go to the grocery store. Although there were several parking spaces designated for the vehicles of handicapped persons, there were none open.
Of those that did exist, a few had cars parked that did not display the required signage.
She was angry, but there was little that she could do about it. We drove around for 10 minutes or so and returned to find a space.
She told me that this was an everyday occurrence. Sometimes her timing was bad and she never found an open space. This was her punishment for being sick.
She wondered what karma would befall those who stole the handicapped person’s right to use those spaces. I do too.
Last week I observed a rather entitled young woman park in one of the two handicapped spaces in front of Nojaims.
I, who now has to sport a cane, was walking from my car passed the holding area for carts. She saw me, shrugged and said, “I’ll only be a minute.”
Really?
Now I handn’t intended to use either of these spaces. My disability is not all that awful and I can get to the door of the store with relative ease, but there are many others who do need that space and her entitled young woman statement about her needs tells me that someone isn’t teaching anything about following the law or the golden rule.
My semi-evil mind ran through a bunch of things that I thought might “teach her the lessons that she hasn’t learned.”
Things like pulling my car in behind hers and telling her, “I’ll only be a few minutes…you see I walk more slowly that you do,” but, I did have people teaching me these lessons and so all I did was…nothing…except fume about it for a day or two and now, write this column.
There are some among us who truly believe that each of us is totally responsible for his or her own fate. I am not one of them.
I acknowledge that any successes I have had were because of those in my life who have helped me develop skills or put me in a position that allowed me to succeed.
Failures…mostly my fault, but not always. If you have several hours I can elaborate on that last statement.
That young woman is an icon of the “me first, “the sun doesn’t rise until I get up,” “I got mine. You get yours,” way of thinking.
These consider special protection for any a violation of their rights. I wonder where in the 10 Commandments those thoughts fall?
Now, with my cane and my limited mobility, I am more acutely aware of the barriers that many handicapped people face.
I do have one of those tags hanging from my rear-view mirror that allows me to park in a handicapped space. I use it when I need to.
I have also noted that it is clearly marked TEMPORARY….which I fervently hope is prophetic of my future mobility.
OK, so I will make a statement about our contemporary society and its strange need to one’s own beliefs.
A community works together for the benefit of everyone, taking into account as Jim Walsh once said, “In our competitive society, some can’t compete.”
A society is measured by how it treats the vulnerable, the marginalized.
How do we measure up when we accommodate the needs of those with handicapping conditions?
If I get out my tape measure, some of us have fallen short in this.
