Gimps in the Gutter

One thing that anyone who is in a wheelchair can count on -- whether you're in that chair due to a broken leg or because of a disability -- you're going to end up dumped out on the ground at some point. An uneven curb, rocks, too steep a hill, even other people - all of these things can be your nemesis. But hopefully, those inevitable spills will make for a funny story a little later on...barring any concussions.

Most of Kevin's earlier, heavy duty wheelchairs had pieces in the rear at the bottom of the frame that you could use when you pushed him to make the chair pop a wheelie so you could get it over a small step or curb. Those chairs were solid back then (seriously I think one was iron), so for a teen-aged sister, it was a good place to hop on and catch a ride.

The street that Kevin and I grew up on was a pretty quiet little street, maybe 15 or so houses on it, with very little through traffic. Kevin had a friend that lived a few blocks from us, so sometimes I would walk over to pick him up and bring him home. It was a slight uphill walk from Michelle's back to our house, but once we hit our corner, there was just the slightest grade in the sidewalk running from East to West, so I'd hop on the back of Kev's chair to ride past the last five or six houses to our place.

And I was good, I'd get on the back stops, and lean over Kevin's shoulders and use the wheelchair brakes to keep us from picking up too much speed as we rolled down the street. Okay, maybe once or twice we dumped out on the lawn to stop, but for the most part, we'd get down the street unscathed.

Now once a year we had a hometown "Monrovia Days" parade for the city anniversary. It was about a 5-block walk down to Foothill Blvd from our house. One year I was in the parade, so I had to be there early, and everyone else came down to the route later. Well, by the time I had marched in the parade and gotten back to find my family, what do I find had happened? My mother, when walking with Kevin down to the parade route, had tried to ride on the back of Kevin's chair like I did. What she didn't take into account was the steepness of the hill, and she couldn't stop in time when they got to the curb and they wiped out in the street! They were both fine, just a few scrapes, and they just sat in the street howling with laughter, while other older Monrovia residents walked by clucking about the mother who dumped her crippled little boy out of his wheelchair into the gutter. Kevin still gets the giggles when he remembers that day.

My cousin Linda had a similar experience (actually she's the one who I have to thank for this post idea). Kevin was maybe 15 or 16 and he got a shiny, new, red racing wheelchair that was really lightweight. From what I remember it was a little low-slung and a tad hard to steer when you were pushing it. Linda wrote: "He and I walked down to the Mann’s theater from my apartment, and I tipped him over. We sat there with him on his side and cars driving by...no one stopping to help us, probably because we were laughing so hard. And the kicker is he told everyone that I put the first scratch on his new red wheelchair."

Now I can't ride on Kevin's chairs because they're too lightweight, or they have "wheelie bars" in the back to keep the chair from tipping backwards, so there's nowhere to stand anymore, but I can still see the view on our old street from the back of Kev's chair as we would ride down the sidewalk laughing and hoping we wouldn't crash and burn.