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1/12/97
COMMENTARY: Wheelchair bound, my nights on the town
By BRIAN DICKINSON
BEFORE THE DECEMBER just past has vanished in a fog of brittle balsam needles and stupefying credit card bills, I want to chronicle my nights out that month. They numbered three, which for me is a social life of giddy dimensions.
Even for a healthy fellow, any of these outings would qualify as a special occasion. For me, always needing a ventilator and wheelchair, each amounted to a small triumph over obstacles and apathy.
One obstacle, the basic problem of my simply getting around, was resolved in November when our family acquired a shiny Plymouth Voyager minivan that had been modified to accept a wheelchair passenger in safety and comfort.
This is an ingenious vehicle, and the job of loading me aboard proved to be simplicity itself. The standard passenger-side bucket seat is unhitched and hoisted out. A side ramp unfolds. The van body obligingly lowers itself a few inches, allowing easy access, and one of our three sons (how great it is to have strong and willing sons!) rolls me inside. My wheelchair rolls into the space that the passenger seat otherwise occupies, is latched snugly down - and we're off! I have the best view of anyone.
So much for scene-setting. The first of my December outings was to Boston for a performance of "Messiah" by the Handel and Haydn Society. We heard that this outfit had done the oratorio every year since 1818, and so felt that they would know the notes fairly well.
On a clear, nippy evening, we set forth, with this correspondent "riding shotgun," as we once called the passenger-side occupant of any car's front seat. I looked on the unrolling highway with a certain wonder, for I had not ventured out of Rhode Island in more than two years.
Our Boston run was anything but relaxed, however. We had been slow getting away, and were still in Providence when we realized that the concert would begin in 45 minutes. Our van's driver, never one to shirk a challenge, pushed down hard on the gas and sent us hurtling along through the icy night.
By roaring and shimmying up Route 95 at nearly the speed of light, we managed to roll up to Symphony Hall with a few minutes to spare. Then: Ach! The van's ramp refuses to deploy. Our crew pushes and tugs to no effect. I try not to notice that most concertgoers have worked their way inside. Suddenly, the ramp decides to behave. Ramp descends. Van body eases down. I am wheeled out into a bracing wind. Within seconds I am inside the hall, rolling briskly past the ticket-takers, up a ramp and so to our seats on a side aisle, just as the music begins.
The H&HS, as expected, delivers a fine rendition of "Messiah." I am placed so as to hear and see perfectly. What I had not realized was how many soft, quiet passages Handel had written into his score. My portable ventilator, while not exactly noisy, does produce a rhythmic whoosh every few seconds. The sound suggests a racehorse exhaling after a fast turn around the track. On this particular evening, the ventilator chooses to exhale just as the soprano finishes a solo. Utter silence; then my vent gives forth with a WHOOSH! that I imagine can be heard in the upper balcony. In this I am probably wrong, but this does not keep me from cringing a bit in embarrassment.
With only another whoosh or two to break into Handel's silences, the concert concludes in a most satisfactory fashion. They wheel me out through the cheery departing throng, and again onto the wind-whipped sidewalk of Huntington Avenue. My nurse Jane King, who has tended me carefully throughout the concert, pronounces the outing a success. I concur, even though the van's ramp again balks for several minutes at being lowered. We all feel the winter's bite before the ramp decides to behave, and we can pile in and head for home
For the second December excursion, to Boston for a performance of The Nutcracker, our family vowed to heed lessons learned on the first outing. We turned off the vent's alarm, which had beeped annoyingly in Symphony Hall, and we set out with ample time to spare. We reached the Wang Center in good season, pulled the van to the curb and, amid heavy traffic, prepared to lower the ramp.
Several Boston cops, seeing what we were about, considerately halted traffic while I and my rolling equipment were wheeled down the ramp, into the street and around to a cut in the curb. (There's nothing like being disabled to make one appreciate the effort and money spent to make American public spaces accessible to all, and nothing more impressive about Boston cops than the way they gave us a welcome assist that evening.)
We met friends, proceeded to our box seats and settled in. This was getting to be old hat. We felt like pros. The house lights dimmed, the familiar Tchaikovsky overture began, and I had a feeling of the warmest thanks for the efforts of my family and others who had given me such a holiday treat. In the four years since my Lou Gehrig's disease upended our lives, their devotion has made all the difference.
As the Nutcracker fantasy unfolded, I sat spellbound, and realized that I was seeing the performance as through the eyes of a child. Somehow I had never managed to see The Nutcracker before that evening, and so found the glorious staging of this Boston Ballet production especially spellbinding.
Its effect on me was quite magical. I was transported away from the here and now, back to a 19th Century dream world where all things were possible. My sense of wonder was all the greater because I had been a shut-in for three years, and in a sense was glimpsing this kind of color and spectacle with newly opened eyes, as though just released from a long prison term and blinking in the sunlight.
My third expedition, closer to home but no less compelling, was on New Year's Eve to gape at the fireworks in downtown Providence. I had never managed to take in these First Night festivities, and was full of anticipation.
By this evening, we had the van-loading routine mastered. We drove up to the Biltmore Plaza hotel, where Barbara, ever thoughtful, had taken a room, and unloaded me with practiced efficiency. Upstairs, we found that our room gave quite a satisfactory view of things. We broke out refreshments and, as midnight neared, pressed close to the windows. The fireworks display, more than most I'd seen, was brilliant, vivid and robust. For an entire evening, as had been true on our Boston excursions, the fact that I was paralyzed and voiceless no longer mattered. I was on the town.
Brian Dickinson is the Journal-Bulletin's editorial columnist.
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