"Rewriting the Myths, Redefining the Realities"
by Freddy Bosco
Late of a Sunday night, just getting off work, I stopped in a 24-hour grocery store for a little purchase. I had ridden the bus down Broadway while others drove. I have taken myself out of the ranks of drivers: too spaced out, too poor for a car because disability doesn’t pay like that. I had the attitude going on.
The clerk who waited on me seemed to be bending over. I waited for him to straighten up. He didn’t. His back was bent, evidently from birth. Then I noticed it. His right arm was missing below the elbow. He did his best to help me. I felt like helping him but realized how much it meant to him to do things for himself.
I had been in a hurry when I came in the store. At the point that I caught sight of another’s handicap, however, I suddenly found that I had all the time in the world. I may be deficient in a couple areas, but I have not been left completely out of the game; no on has who has life, breath to breathe, blood to pump through their veins.
I thought of a publisher I know who puts out a magazine without the benefit of sight. And I get things written for him even though my thought patterns send psychiatrists into fits of astonishment. Maybe they reach for a bottle after they get home from listening to me and my colleagues. That, too, is a handicap. Everyone pays a price for existing on the material plane. There is always a cost, always a compensation.
copyright 2002 A&H Publishing Corporation