Today, due to a commemoration at the Democratic National Convention, I was reminded that this day marks the twenty-fifth anniversary of the Americans With Disabilities Act, a bi-partisan bill signed into law by President George H.W. Bush. The ADA went a long ways toward correcting some of the issues that have affected people with disabilities in our country.
I was born with speech, hearing, and leg/foot conditions that caused me considerable distress while growing up in Lakewood. I was also left-handed, (remember those right-handed desks?) and had a rough time with numeric computation and handwriting, among other things. We came here to Lakewood when I was a young child, and from the 2nd grade through the 12th, I was virtually at war with some of the classes, a number of fellow students, and some of my teachers. If that sounds dramatic, let me assure you that it was.
In order to understand all of this, one would need to frame my remarks in the context of those times. Back then, a surprising number of people still thought that people with disabilities were inferior, or perhaps even sub-human! After all, the theory of "negative eugenics" (weeding out "inferior" people, whomever the elites of a country had determined those people to be) had been widespread just a few years before in many countries of the world, and unfortunately, still continues today in some places.
Others, even some church leaders, thought that disabilities were punishments from God. Plays, nursery rhymes, and motion pictures often portrayed people or types of animals, that were considered to be different and were therefore evil, and the effects of that thinking spilled into the cafeterias and school hallways. All too often, people with disabilities were shown no mercy when a grown-up's back was turned. I know, because I was on the receiving end of that, all too often.
Sometimes, the grown-ups would even contribute to such castigation. I remember a number of occasions when teachers visibly resented having to change their alphabetical seating chart to accommodate my being hearing-impaired. Sometimes those same cruel so-called educators would later call my parents, saying "Gary doesn't pay attention. He only hears what he wants to hear."
Fortunately, I had some very good teachers too, and it's no accident that my cum laude (honors) Political Science college degree came out of the interest that was inculcated into me by Art Mulling and Vic Silverman, two fantastic Lakewood Social Studies teachers. (Of course, I would be remiss if I did not mention my own band director dad, Bob Rice, and the high standards that he set for me in music!)
One of the cruelest things that can happen to a disabled person is when they come up against the "everyone HAS to do this activity" model. Whether in school gym class, church, or in youth organizations, being ostracized for being unable to do an activity became part and parcel to my own life, here in Lakewood. To a great extent, that still is a problem in our society.
Rebel? Of course I did, as did many others with disabilities. Fortunately for me, my own rebellion was limited. To this day, an astonishing percentage of those incarcerated in prisons have some sort of physical or learning disability. The pressure in our society to fit in or else is, if anything, greater than ever these days. Fortunately, with the ADA law, there is some ability for those of us who have disabilities to push back. Fortunately in my case, I had very supportive, confidence-building parents, and that made all the difference.
Like other communities, particularly after the ADA law passed, Lakewood became a much better place for people with disabilities, and it remains so today. We have had a wheelchair-bound councilman, a blind Math teacher, and I was one of the first pioneer secondary-level special needs educators in the State of Ohio; starting that career right here at Emerson School in Lakewood in the early 1970's.
It is so important to remember and honor this day, and those who helped make it possible to wipe away the unfair and irrational stigma of "disability" and instead, to recognize that there are no limits ever to what anyone, whether "disabled" or not, can achieve. A disability after all, is only a "difference".
Finally, consider this....my speech, hearing, numeric and feet troubles mattered not one little twit when I wrote all of those Lakewood Observer columns for you, and of course, played that banjo.
Back to the banjo...
