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Topic: Ableism (5)
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Listen to Ned’s story as you read it (below).
Ned’s living room had a particular glow, the kind that made a person look healthier than he felt.
At 87, he had arranged light the way other men arranged furniture. A lamp by the recliner. Another lamp aimed at the side table. A bright bulb in a clip-on fixture that could turn a page into a small stage.
Ned called it his cockpit: the chair at the center of it all, surrounded by equipment. He was the captain.
On the side table sat a handheld magnifier with a worn handle, a stack of large-print books, and a bookmark that was really a thin strip of cardboard he had cut from a cereal box because it was stiff enough to find by touch.
It all worked. It had worked for years. It was the quiet, comforting system that kept Ned reading, paying bills, finding the right number on a thermostat without asking anyone to come over.
The cost was the chair.
Ned watched Dean, 24, his grandson, come in one night with a paper sack of takeout and the restrained confidence of a young man who believed he could solve a problem without insulting the one who had lived with it the longest.
They ate at the kitchen table. Ned told Dean about the latest novel he was reading, speaking about the detective as if he were a mutual acquaintance.
When the containers were empty, Dean cleared his throat the way he did before asking permission.
“I brought something,” he said. “It’s a better magnifier. And it talks.”
Ned leaned back. He knew that tone. The tone of a person who had watched a video and now believed he had discovered fire.
Dean opened an app and pointed the camera at a page from Ned’s book. The words on the screen enlarged cleanly, and when Dean tapped a button, a calm voice began reading.
Ned tried to park his face into neutral, but his fingers tightened on the edge of the table. He had spent decades learning how to manage in public. He had learned how to ask for help without sounding needy, and how to decline help without sounding proud. Technology that talked out loud felt like a spotlight.
Dean lowered the volume until the voice became a private murmur.
“It can do headphones,” Dean said. “Or it can just show the text bigger. It’s whatever you want.”
Ned cleared his throat. “I want it to stop acting like it’s in charge.”
Dean nodded, unoffended. “Fair.”
Then Dean reached into his backpack and pulled out something that looked like ordinary glasses, except slightly thicker at the frame, as if the glasses had a secret.
“These,” Dean said, “are the next step.”
Ned stared. He did not reach for them. “I am not wearing a science project on my face.”
“They look normal,” Dean said. Dean waited in the quiet, as if time was part of the gift. Ned recognized it. His grandson had dignity.
“Let’s try them once,” Dean finally said. “At the pharmacy. You always need something there anyway.”
Ned did not admit that he had postponed his last trip because the label on his prescription bottle had changed, and he did not want to stand at the counter asking for a second explanation while strangers listened.
Instead, he stood and picked up his cane.
“Fine,” he said. “But if I look like a man who requires a crew, you’re buying me ice cream afterward.”
At the corner pharmacy just a half block away, Dean guided him to a quieter aisle and put the glasses into Ned’s hands. The frame felt sturdy, not fragile. Ned slid them on, and Dean showed him a simple voice command.
“Describe,” Dean said quietly.
A pause. Then the glasses spoke into Ned’s ear at a low volume.
“Aisle with cold remedies. Shelves contain boxes and bottles. A sign above reads …”
Ned held still. He turned his head slightly left, then right, and the description shifted with him as if the room were being translated into something he could hold.
They moved toward the counter to pick up his prescription. Behind the pharmacist, a promotional sign stood upright, advertising a new brand name that sounded like someone had tried to name a medication and a space shuttle at the same time.
The glasses attempted to read it.
It did not pronounce it correctly. It did not come close.
Ned’s laugh escaped before he could stop it. It was a full laugh, the kind he rarely made in public.
The pharmacist looked up, startled.
Ned leaned slightly toward the counter and said, “Don’t worry. I’ve heard worse from humans.”
Dean covered his mouth, but his shoulders shook.
The pharmacist smiled with relief and amusement.
Back in the living room, he looked at the cockpit chair and its careful ring of light. He did not hate it. It had kept him steady for years. But for the first time in a long time, he noticed something else.
The chair had been a solution that came with walls.
He picked up his magnifier and set it in the drawer of the side table, not as a rejection, but as a quiet retirement.
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Age: Our greatest asset!
Jim Hasse, ABC, GCDF retired, author of “52 Shades of Growing Together”
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Between 1999 and 2011, I had a full-time job in Manhattan, but I only spent a couple days at my employer’s office in New York City during those 12 years.
I telecommuted the entire time with my supervisor and up to five fellow creators across the U.S., using Messenger (before Zoom) from my home in Madison, WI.
Nine years later, the pandemic hit us, Zoom became essential and working from home was suddenly acceptable.
That shift was particularly significant because getting to and from work has always been a major obstacle for those of us with disabilities seeking to navigate mainstream employment.
* What new bit of technology has improved your everyday living?