A few months before I passed my Novice exam, I was listening to some
guys around Mississippi on 75 meters. As they began telling each other
what they had been doing that day, one of them said: "Well, I spent
the day sitting on the floor with my wheel chair torn apart putting a
new set of wheel bearings in it. Then he added, "That's the third set
this year!"
Someone asked what was happening to them, and he said: "It's like I
told the folks at the factory. Just because I can't walk doesn't mean
I don't enjoy planting my garden and playing in the dirt.
Of course this drew a good laugh from the others in the QSO. After
things settled down a bit, a relatively new ham said to him, "I didn't
know you were in a wheel chair."
My soon to be friend then told the new comer that he had arthritis,
and had been in a wheel chair for 20 years. What he said next has
stayed with me ever since.
"I won't knowingly run over anybody with it, but I don't back down
from talking about it when it needs to come up in natural conversation
such as when John asked what I had been doing today."
I was fourteen years old when I heard that conversation. Within a
year, I had met this gentleman, both on the air and in person.
About 14 years later, while talking with him at a hamfest, that story
flashed through my mind. I had never mentioned it to him before, but
that day I told him how his statement had made a big impression on me.
His wife was with him, and they both thanked me for telling him.
I will never know why I chose that day to tell him that story, but I
will always be thankful I did. I didn't know it then, of course, but
that was the last time I would ever talk with him.
About two months later, my friend R. B., WA5OHQ, died from a blood
clot following surgery.
He is still a legend among those of us who were blessed to know him.
Mike Duke, K5XU
American Council of Blind Radio Amateurs
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