Connie’s Encounter with a Common Bond
Universal But Hidden Dimension?
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The student ran up to Connie with a shrill scream and grabbed her hair with both fists. His screeching stopped, but his grip remained tight on the thick, black hair she’d meticulously styled that morning.
In 1991, her hair was vital to her self-image, and this was one of the most demeaning acts anyone could perpetrate.
Connie, perched in her mobility scooter, felt the boy mangle her morning’s creation, an abrupt interruption to the long-range planning committee’s quick tour of Silver Springs Elementary School. She stewed: Was there no respect for community leaders among today’s grade-school students?
The boy hovered, invading her space and putting her in an awkward, embarrassing situation. She could feel the resolve in his fingers — he wasn’t going to let go.
Without moving her head, Connie glanced at the school principal, a slender, shy woman who stood nearby in pathetic shock. The principal was leading the committee’s tour of the new, gem-like school facility. Connie’s group was evaluating the district’s school facilities, and she was trying to prove herself to the superintendent and the committee.
The boy’s fists relaxed, and Connie slowly hunched over the tiller of her scooter. But then he grabbed tighter. The watch on her wrist ticked off long seconds — five... six... seven...
“Why did he have to pick me as his bonding partner?” Connie lamented to herself. True, she had no background in education, but she was a businesswoman who understood strategic planning. Despite lifelong cerebral palsy, which made her speech slow, she possessed normal intelligence and brought diversity to the committee.
But Connie also felt out of touch. She hadn’t been in a school room for 25 years. Since when did high schools have patrol people? Why did you need to pass through a scanner to leave the library? And she didn’t know about the TMR (Trainable Mentally Retarded) classes. Wasn’t that a degrading term?
Fifteen... sixteen... seventeen... Her watch ticked on. Connie kept waiting for the student’s teacher, but she didn’t know where the teacher was. Connie had been the last to enter the TMR room after the principal motioned her in. As the student pulled her hair, a soft purr of delight came from his throat.
Somehow, Connie understood his delight. It was what she’d always wanted to do to the class brat in third grade but never had the courage or sanity to do.
She glanced up at the district’s superintendent of schools, who stood ten feet away, motionless and expressionless. No one knew what to do.
Finally, Connie’s “companion” let go, and his teacher promptly escorted him back to his desk. The committee, apparently not adept at adjusting to short-term situations, quickly followed Connie as she reversed her scooter and backed out of the room.Fifteen... sixteen... seventeen... Her watch ticked on. Connie kept waiting for the student’s teacher, but she didn’t know where the teacher was. Connie had been the last to enter the TMR room after the principal motioned her in. As the student pulled her hair, a soft purr of delight came from his throat.
Somehow, Connie understood his delight. It was what she’d always wanted to do to the class brat in third grade but never had the courage or sanity to do.
She glanced up at the district’s superintendent of schools, who stood ten feet away, motionless and expressionless. No one knew what to do.
Finally, Connie’s “companion” let go, and his teacher promptly escorted him back to his desk. The committee, apparently not adept at adjusting to short-term situations, quickly followed Connie as she reversed her scooter and backed out of the room.
“Quite a welcome,” the superintendent whispered to Connie after the principal silently closed the door. Connie giggled in agreement, relieved to have escaped without a hassle.
“That’s Steve,” the assistant superintendent explained as the group moved down the hall. “He just joined the TMR class this week. He’s still under observation.”
Steering her scooter, Connie ran her left hand through her hair. Two spikes, stiff with hairspray, stuck straight up on both sides of her head. She rubbed them down, but they snapped right back up — a constant reminder. As the group entered the gym, she combed them down, but they flopped up again, like two rabbit ears.
Were the other committee members, in their politically correct silence, thinking, “Birds of a feather flock together?” Connie had spent years asserting herself as an individual, not automatically bonded with everyone else who had a disability.
Why did Steve pick Connie? Was it her blue suit or pink blouse? Was it her battery-driven scooter, which intrigued students? Maybe, she surmised then, it was because he was eye-level with her. Did the contortions in her face as she tried to deal calmly with the situation mirror his own view of the world?
Or, as Connie wonders some 30 years later with a re-evaluation of the incident, is there some kind of universal, common bond we do not yet fully understand? Is there a fundamental kinship we all have as human beings but rarely acknowledge or completely tap?
Louis L’Amour wrote: “We accept the fact that there may be other worlds in space, but might there not be other worlds here? Other worlds, in other dimensions, coexistent with this?”
Connie suspects that may be part of the answer.
At any rate, Connie’s takeaway tip from her story is this: Reach out to connect with the common bonds which tie together individuals in all humankind.
Here’s to mature-adult living!
Jim Hasse, ABC, GCDF retired, author of “52 Shades of Graying”
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I once heard a Black political commentator say that White folks and Black folks in America live in different worlds with very different understandings of our history. In Connie's story, what comes to mind for me is how we mostly-abled folks live, to some degree, in a reality different from folks challenged by cerebral palsy and other impediments to mobility and speech. Connie's takeaway tip is right on: "Reach out to connect with the common bonds which tie together individuals in all humankind." First we have to realize that there ARE other worlds, other realities, other histories that we have to make an effort to see and understand. Among all those differences are, indeed, many commonalities.
I was 26 years old when we had our first moon landing. Now I’m 81 and a little under-whelmed about what we have accomplished since then.
I’m looking forward to the next moon landing scheduled for the next year or two because it may again redirect us away from the myopia our technology breakthroughs always seem to foster. That’s what happened after the first moon landing in 1969. We saw Earth. It was round. It had no dividing lines. And we were vulnerable.
So, looking 50 years into the future, my younger self in 1969 pictured all the progress we could make on social issues.
But then came cell phones, social media, virtual reality and GPS. Instead of bringing us together, they separated us into our own little worlds. Maybe that’s why I still treasure world maps and colorful globes.
Cyberspace and virtual reality. And now artificial intelligence. Maybe someday we’ll discover other such dimensions that will show our Native American friends are not too fair off. People – and everything around us – may be connected in some way we do not yet understand. When and if that happens, our current divisions could look pretty foolish.
* How has your perception of reality changed now that you’re a mature adult?