Pam and I were on a road trip around the big island in Hawaii about 20 years ago and discovered a U.S. national park along our route.
Looking forward to a leisurely trek through the park, we turned into the parking lot, found a disability parking spot and began to unload my mobility scooter from our car’s trunk.
Just then, a park ranger abruptly came up to us and announced, “You can’t use that here. The paths are too steep.”
I was puzzled because my scooter was powerful and self breaking and never encountered that ban before – especially in a national park.
We did visit the tourist shop under his watchful eye and finally decided to leave and continue our road trip – surprised by the ban.
After all, we had driven up Pikes Peak in Colorado a couple of years before and tooled around with my scooter at the very top with no problem. But, yes, it was flat at the very top.
* When have you had the opportunity to make personal peace with a new limitation?
Several times here at the Pillars I’ve heard some loving person say, “I miss [husband/wife]” when they are not grieving a death, but rather the radical changes dementia, a stroke or any of the sundry “whips and scorn of time” have beset a loved one. Here’s a song I heard some years back that has stuck in my mind and heart ever since, “His Left Side.”
Pam and I were on a road trip around the big island in Hawaii about 20 years ago and discovered a U.S. national park along our route.
Looking forward to a leisurely trek through the park, we turned into the parking lot, found a disability parking spot and began to unload my mobility scooter from our car’s trunk.
Just then, a park ranger abruptly came up to us and announced, “You can’t use that here. The paths are too steep.”
I was puzzled because my scooter was powerful and self breaking and never encountered that ban before – especially in a national park.
We did visit the tourist shop under his watchful eye and finally decided to leave and continue our road trip – surprised by the ban.
After all, we had driven up Pikes Peak in Colorado a couple of years before and tooled around with my scooter at the very top with no problem. But, yes, it was flat at the very top.
* When have you had the opportunity to make personal peace with a new limitation?
Several times here at the Pillars I’ve heard some loving person say, “I miss [husband/wife]” when they are not grieving a death, but rather the radical changes dementia, a stroke or any of the sundry “whips and scorn of time” have beset a loved one. Here’s a song I heard some years back that has stuck in my mind and heart ever since, “His Left Side.”
https://www.reverbnation.com/claudianygaard/song/11593626-his-left-side
His Left Side
By Claudia Nygaard
He said “I’m coming’ home soon”
With the light in his cataract eyes
Once I get over this stroke
That messed up my left side
When your mama passed away
Thought I wanted to die
But now I’m ready to come back home
As soon as I can use my left side
He said “Those twenty acres
We could plant some corn.
I want to get it in early
Before the sheep are shorn.
And maybe I’ll buy a pony
Teach my brand new son to ride
There’s a lot I’d like to do
As soon as I can use my left side
He’s going home again
Where the sky’s so blue
It seems like it won’t end
He’s going home again
Where smell of new-mown hay
Is hanging in the wind
And the first thing that he’ll do
Is watch the sun rise from the porch
The second thing he’ll do
Is saddle up that quarter horse
….and he’ll ride…
Ride and ride
As soon as he can use
His left side