GOOD DADS give good advice.
Mine did. Mostly it came in the form of observation.
One day he announced, "Cops don't give tickets to guys in wheelchairs."
Conversation stopped. My mother winced. My father had a way of approaching life that sometimes unsettled the controlled tack she favored.
The story unfolded.
My father, a former Auburn resident then living in Federal Way, had been sidelined by a neuromuscular disease. Forced to retire in his early 50s, he also eventually was forced to rely on wheelchairs first, one he could push himself, the next, a battery-powered one.
The fact that he could no longer drive didn't keep him from getting places. On that particular day, he'd been headed down the shoulder of state Route 99.
Vehicles parked on the shoulder obstructed his path. When traffic cleared, Dad scooted into the roadway and went around.
At which point, a cop in a patrol car flashed his police lights, pulled Dad over and delivered a stern lecture about safety. "What are you going to do, arrest me?" my father asked.
The cop was right, of course, but so was Dad. A traffic lane is no place for a wheelchair. But when you're in a wheelchair, options are limited.
Last month I wrote about the problems an 80-year-old disabled woman from Kent who is on oxygen and uses a scooter ran into using ACCESS, King County's transportation service for the disabled.
The column prompted an outpouring of e-mails and phone calls from ACCESS users. Some pointed out the vital service ACCESS provides. A number praised ACCESS drivers, but criticized the dispatching system. Others shared complaints about long rides and late pickups, but said they fear losing ACCESS service if they say anything.
One caller who was not an ACCESS rider left neither his name nor phone number.
"People miss buses all the time," he griped. "Big deal."
I have the luxury of being able to run to catch a bus or get to another stop. Others, such
as my late Dad, aren't so fortunate.
Which is why an e-mail that came from Katherine Bursett got my attention. Bursett, who is 46, was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis 20 years ago. In May, she fell and broke a leg, an injury that required surgery to implant a titanium rod.
Last month, she was back to work at her job with the city of Seattle, using an electric-powered scooter and ACCESS to get to and from her Green Lake-area home.
One day the driver asked her to meet him on a street with a steep incline in downtown Seattle. Because of the incline, he had problems lowering the lift to get her into the bus. The incline was so steep that her scooter tipped over when she got on board. Unable to stand, she scooted on her bottom to a seat.
The driver is no longer working for ACCESS. But that's little consolation for Bursett, who now forgoes ACCESS and uses regular Metro buses. Frequently the buses are so full they have to pass her by because there's no room for her scooter.
"An able-bodied person could get on that bus and stand," she says. "I don't have that option."
Recently, an elderly man using a cane got on the bus. Nobody offered him a seat. When the bus turned a corner, he fell, landing on Bursett.
"He didn't hurt me, but he was humiliated," she says.
Of the caller who thought concerns about the challenges the disabled face using public transportation are overblown, she says: "I think he doesn't know what the hell he's talking about. If you ever have any more knuckleheads who don't think it's a valid concern, give them my number. I'll tell them what it's like."
That old adage about walking a mile in somebody's shoes doesn't apply here.
A new adage about spending a day in someone's wheelchair just might.
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