As a result of a divorce, my daughter grew up with her mother in Walnut Creek, CA, while I lived 25 miles from there. When she was a Junior at Las Lomas High in her city, I attended her school's Open House, part of which was to show off a brand new, two story classroom building. Since 3 of Amanda's classes were on the 2nd floor, I rolled to the brand spankin' new elevator only to find it was off. I asked a maintenence man if he could turn it on, but the principal, he said, had ordered him to leave it off lest it be misused.

Somewhat upset, I made my way to the Principal, Pat Lickliss's office in another building. As he stood in the backgroud, the school secretary (I forget her name, but am quite sure she would have melted had I tossed a little water on her), advised me that the elevator would remain off and that I could come back after scheduling conferences with my kid's teachers!

I found this incredulous. I questioned her about it and she said "we only built it because the State made us. We don't have THOSE kinds of people at Las Lomas." I almost came over the counter after her and the Principal - Mr. Lickiss refused to even speak to me about it. But each time I go out and about in Walnut Creek I remember those words:

"We don't have THOSE kinds of people here..."

I've worked in Walnut Creek for 8 years now. I get out almost daily to get some exercise, go for a roll around the neighborhood or just to put in a few lunchtime miles. A year ago, as they worked a fender - bender accident across from a large hospital, two Walnut Creek motorcycle officers parked their massive bikes on the sidewalk, blocking it. One of the officers waved me to go around the accident in the STREET! This would have placed me into oncoming traffic around a blind corner in which fender benders are common. I refused, and ended up pushing his bike almost on its side to get by. We had words, but it didn't go any farther. I called the Watch Commander at Walnut Creek PD - I'm still waiting for a response. After all, in Walnut Creek they don't have THOSE kinds of people....

Flash to last Friday, which is what brought all these memories back. I took my lunch to roll down to a local outdoors shop, Sports Basement, which I thoroughly enjoy. Crossing the very first street I found that city engineers, as in San Francisco and many other cities, created almost useless ramps for street crossings. Most were sloped at the right angle, but as you get to the street a 1" - 2" upwards jerk is required or the small front wheels on my chair get stuck and I get launched. This engineering feat was almost universal as I rolled across some of the city's most used streets. I'm quite sure they failed to consider that anyone except bicyclists would be using these ramps, because...

they just don't have people like me in Walnut Creek. Nope, no sirree.

Add to the they've placed the buttons for activating the crossing signs mostly off limits to anyone who can't negotiate a concrete island or a dirt encirclement with a grade on it in a wheelchair. Not a problem in Walnut Creek, you see, because they don't have people like that there....

To be fair, a lot of cities and towns take such short cuts in their civil engineering. Not a single city in the Bay Area has a wheelchair bound consultant for these matters, although they DO hire consultants.

What galls me about Walnut Creek's civic arrogance is just how pervasive it is in even the most traveled commercial neighborhoods. At the local Safeway, a large food chain store, they had one of their trucks block all available disabled parking spots, and refused to move it to the unloading area. Walnut Creek police refused to respond, the dispatcher stating they had no jurisdiction (although the signs indicated they would write tickets based on a Calif. Vehicle Code violation if an unauthorized party parked in the handicap spaces).

But it apparently isn't a problem, because (all together now!) Walnut Creek doesn't have THIOSE kinds of people there. I guess I'll be doing no more shopping in wonderful, suburban Walnut Creek. I'll simply take my money elsewhere, to places where even I can get by on my good looks and shiny wheelchair....  

Radio talk show muffin head Michael Weiner, AKA Michael Savage sunk to a new low, even for him as he lambasted autistic kids and their parents during an on - air rant last week. His version was, as usual, short of facts but long on appeal to his target audience - pissed off middle class, barely educated individuals who, instead of looking for ways to repair things, seek only to feed their anger. Usually, the rants have targeted ethnic groups or political opposites. This is the first time he's taken on autistic people.

I'm disabled, as some of you know quite well. It doesn't take much to cause Mr. Weiner to spout off at just about anyone. But in his zeal to blame someone for America's woes, why has he never performed the most obvious method? Try looking in the mirror, Mr. Weiner. As you continually seek to find new ways to polarize entire groups of people, and make headlines doing it, you bring to mind the propoganda machines of pre - WWII Germany, in which institutionalized hatred of entire segments of people brought forth disastrous results. One might think we'd be a little more enlightened these days, eh?

Without getting too deep, here's what I propose. I'm not among those asking for your removal from the airwaves. But I have choices too. Mr. Weiner has a powerful soapbox from which to spew because he has big money sponsors supporting him. It's easy to listen for awhile and hear who the sponsors are, or just take a look at the many websites who name the sponsors with hopes good people will simply avoid buying from them.

He has a right to speak his mind, as do we all. Let him. But it won't be on my dime. I'll take my money as far from any of his sponsors as I can. Maybe he feels there's no harm in hating autistic kids and scoffing at the effort their parents take on to help them as they age. Maybe that's OK to him....

But, Mr. Weiner, it's one thing to pick on kids who can't help themselves or answer your complaints. I sit here in my wheelchair and offer this challenge to you - I'll come to your studio and we'll arm wrestle, make it a contest. You pick which arm (I'm left handed, so you might think you'll gain an advantage by picking right), and if you lose, you pick up your toys and go home. Leave the airwaves. For good.

Meanwhile, even though I used to buy stuff one of your major sponsors produces, I will do so no more. I want to hear from you, Mr. Weiner. I'm sure you're tough enough to take on a 53 year old in a wheelchair. Let's see you put your money where your mouth is, instead of blowing hatred from every oriface each time you're on the air.

You have a problem with that? Let me know. You know where to find me, and if you don't thousands of good people do. Hope to hear from you, Mr. Weiner. 

<cough!cough!>

Gina and I are sitting in one of our favorite road stops, The Olive Pit in Corning, CA. I'm an olive freak....and I can get enough of every imaginable type that I might just move in one day. Too bad Olive Pit isn't publicly traded on the NYSE.

We started a bit later than anticipated, knowing we would face smoke, fires and grueling fuel costs. But Lava Beds Nat'l Monument has called to us for years - one hiker (me) and a caver (Gina), and we both expect to be in our elements.

Smoke is as thick as fog here off of I - 5. The fire near Paradise is just a short distance, and has devoured tens of thousands of acres in the process. It's been burning since June 21st, when lightning storms lit up the north and central state. We DID see several CalFire trucks going south in a relaxed mode; hope that means they have a handle on this Butte County fire and are on to redeployment. Where's the Governor up here, anyway?

After some home made peanut brittle and a coffee for each (well some sorta chocolate-nut, non-fat, no crap [whip] thing for Gina), we'll be back on the road. We still have a long way just to the Hwy 97 turnoff; it'll be a long day but once we pass Castle Crags just past Lake Shasta we'll be good. I'm crossing my fingers for the smoke to clear at least by Redding.

I'll check in again soon. Be good, y'all!

4wheelbob

This headline wouldn't be news in more normal times. But we've been dry here in sunny Livermore, dry and hot. While it's nice to go downtown and watch the unsuspecting tourists burst into flames as they walk in the superheated sunlight, Gina and I thought we might find a more suitable climate at 10,000 feet, just over Sonora Pass.

It had already begun to warm at home when we hit the road yesterday. We each remarked that traffic seems to have diminished during the gas price gouge we're enduring, but we motored on in my Corolla. Passing through theshimmering heat waves in Oakdale, then Sonora, we noticed a slight cooling once we made it to Pinecrest. We'd planned for a pleasant lunch and walk through the wildflowers above Sonora Pass, as this is prime wildflower season way up there.

Closing in on Sonora Pass we noted the shadows of quickly gathering clouds overhead. I turned my "lightning indicator" (the car's AM radio) on and listened to the incessant crackling and static of electricity flowing through the air. Thunder boomed above the granite walls above 8,000 feet, and we stopped to take a look at the awesome display of flowers. Everything was still green here, long after we flatlanders have had to watch our hills turn dry as bleached bones.

We pulled up beneath a Doug fir at the St. Mary's Pass trailhead, just west of Sonora Pass. I know this trail well - it gets me to 11,459' Sonora Peak, a difficult hike for an old fart in a wheelchair but one I enjoy doing at least once each year. The bonus? Wildflowers blooming into August!

The flora didn't disappoint. If you're within driving distance, get thee up there within the next couple of weeks - the color display is as broad and exciting as that of a rainbow. We hiked up about a mile toward the peak when the thunder got too close. It was still dry, but we took no chances and headed back to the safety of the car. It was good timing, too...

As soon as we started on our sandwiches, it started in - those huge summer raindrops characteristic of a Sierra T - storm. We watched the thermometer drop from 65 to 51 as the rain turned to hail. The road had become a river, water flowing as freeely as it didi down the creek paths. I'd pull over to watch, and noted the higher peaks were taking on a light but noticable layer of new snow! We were both quite excited.

We ran across 3 through hikers on the PCT and offered to drive them to resupply, but they had just gotten fresh vittles from a backpacker who'd completed his weekend at Leavitt Meadows. So we took their garbage off their hands instead. Two of them were from upstate New York, the third from Vancouver, B.C. All were pleasant and appeared to be having the times of their lives, which is as it should be. I left them with some contact info should they have difficulties while on trail anywhere up to the Oregon border.

we slowly drove back toward more civilized (BOO! HISS!) locales. I just wanted to soak in the fresh sage aroma, the fir and pine fragrance and watch for animals. What a nice day. Hmmm....maybe we'll have a few hours tomorrow......

Over the last three weeks, I've had a couple of occasions to meet with people in the weekday heart of The City, the Financial District.

Let's take a look at San Francisco politicians. From the Mayor to the Board of Supervisors, and to State and Federal offices, it's easy to make political hay in SF. Run the City with a very progressive attitude, unless someone disagrees with you. If they happen to enjoy an idealogy that doesn't jibe with yours, simply get on a TV station's news and decry their point of view, dismiss it in its entirety rather than open a dialogue based on the many, many points of view represented by the local constituency.

My personal bitch was this - I dodged cabs and cars going way too fast on Pine, Sutter, Post and especially Montgomery Streets. It seems the ultra motivated Board of Supervisors or the Mayor don't mind placing wheelchair cutaways at street crossings which require anyone in a chair to have to dodge oncoming traffic because the cutaways don't always parallel the direction of traffic.

Geez, and I wondered how it seems so many wheelbound pedestrians get plowed under buses, trucks or oncoming traffic. As one who is rarely fearful of speaking his mind, I had several letters (12, in fact) for a cabbie who came within inches of running me down - all because this socially conscious City hasn't really done much more to help itself than pick up on the "flavor of the month" topic and beat it into the ground.

These cutaways are so deadly I'm considering a suit against the City demanding, for my safety and their insurance carrier's peace of mind, full ADA compliance with sidewalk cutaways at street crossings. If they haven't already directly killed a disabled pedestrian, they will...or, in my case, it will cause great physical harm to the next cabbie or meter maid who fails to provide the right of way I am entitled to as a pedestrian.

I'm also a little concerned this hasn't been an issue raised by the tens of thousands of people who work in the Financial District every day. Maybe they feel that because SF is such a politically active municipality, if they can't get a proper cutaway built it must be due to some Republican President's personal vendetta. There's a funny kind of discourse at most SF political press conferences, the kind that's exasperating because nothing is being done by The City to fix anything, but they can spend days of heated exchanges considering the plight of Tibet. It would seem funny if it weren't simply insane.

So - Gavin, I'd like to meet with you. Maybe we can take a lunchtime stroll down Montgomery and you can caunt the expletives I direct at unyielding drivers.Who knows? If you're lucky, maybe a Muni bus will hit me because your cutaways put me right in its path with nowhere to go.

Too bad...with all the BS that comes out of the Mayor and Board of Supervisors every day, you'd think someone would touch on this issue just through a random process of topical elimination. And woe to me if Carole Migden's driving down the street! Carole, next time you drive home from Sacramento - please, TAKE THE BUS!