The Derby City Chapter of the National Spinal Cord Injury Association Network- Serving Kentuckiana.
Message From the President
Dear Members & Friends-
We won't have a speaker this month, but we will show a video and pizza and drinks will be provided.
So please come on out and spend a little time with your fellow members talking about what is important to us and how we may improve the chapter.
Next month's meeting will be held at Frazier Rehab, 4th floor dining room. Social hour: 6:30; speaker at 7:00 p.m. Refreshments provided.
- David Allgood
DON'T GET MAD, GET ELECTED (From New Mobility)
When it comes to making public buildings accessible,Robert Denhardt didn't get mad, he got elected. “Since I live with Disability, I saw the problems firsthand and...we have to make sure people have access to public buildings,” says Denhardt, a Republican who was a member of the Representative Town Meeting of Branford, Conn., for 16 years and selectman of the town for the past 2 years.
Denhardt, 69, was diagnosed with MS over 25 years ago and has used a wheelchair for close to 16 of those years, just about the same time period he has served in public office. “It's amazing, the wheelchair hasn't really created a problem,” he says. “People just accept it, and they try to help me very cautiously.”
He's chair of the town's access committee and is proud of the committee's success rate; “We study new buildings to make sure they're going to be accessible and we have existing buildings put in access provisions.” That's no easy chore since some buildings, like the town hall, were built in the 1800's. “Fortunately we were renovating town hall just when I got elected,” he says. “I'd say that now 95 percent of our public buildings are accessible. It hasn't been easy, but it's something we've worked on.
The following is from New Mobility, May 2004 - ed
THE FEEL-GOOD HIT OF THE SUMMER! By Douglas Lathrop
Am I the only person in all of gimpdom who has never tried his hand at motivational speaking? It sure does feel that way sometimes. I must know of at least two dozen people who do it regularly, in some cases pulling in a thousand bucks or more per appearance - in cash, so as not to jeopardize their SSI payments - just for putting on a suit and spending an hour at a Ramada Inn telling Kiwanis clubs or middle-management training seminars what they want to hear: that life is a big, juicy apple ripe for the plucking, and that nothing can keep you away from the tree if you have enough drive and the right attitude. Thank you, and God bless, and enjoy your rubber chicken.
To get in on the action is definitely tempting. Easy money always is. My problem though, is that I'd suck at it. Either I'd be too cynical to believe my own bullshit, or not cynical enough to lie shamelessly to a roomful of people - even if that's exactly what they're paying me to do. I'd give a convincing performance at first, but after one or two or seven cocktails I'd be sobbing into the microphone over the ever-deepening sinkhole my life has become. Or I'd go all Doug the angry Dwarf on them and rant about how they were all pathetic wastes of oxygen who'll be the first ones against the wall when the Revolution comes. It might make for a successful comedy act - particularly once the book and DVD hit the cult circuit - but motivational speaking? Not so much.
