Ugh.  You're all reminding me of the time I was walking down the street in
my old home town of North Hollywood, Calif. as a kid when this sweet, sweet
dumpling of an old lady stopped me.  She was in a flowery dress, with a
flowery hat and a Bible clutched in her hands, with a white handbag hanging
in the crook of her arm.

"You are SO special." She boomed into my face.

I gaped at her. "Huh?"

"You are SO special!  The Lord must have seen something in you to make you
SO special."

"I-" I sputtered.

"Oh YES. The world is so beautiful, the sky is SO blue, the sun is shining,
the birds are singing, the Lord love everyone, even YOU."

By this time I was edging away.  "Ah... Ma'am..."

And I got out of there as fast as I could...!

She still haunts me in my nightmares.
----- Original Message -----
From: "Rayna Lamb" <[log in to unmask]>
To: <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Sunday, January 20, 2002 12:25 AM
Subject: Re: David Ring


> On Sat, Jan 19, 2002 at 11:32:43PM -0500, Betty B wrote:
>     In a message dated 1/19/2002 2:04:51 PM Eastern Standard Time,
>     [log in to unmask] writes:
>
>
>     > Topics
>     > Disabilities, Inspiration [ick, ick, ICK!], Motivation, Overcoming
>     > Adversity, Overcoming Adversity [this appeared twice on the
website -
>     > an interesting mistake, and I'll refrain from ranting about my
>     > distaste for this phrase, and the way it is *always* attached to
>     > PWD's], Perserverance [remarks as above]
>     >
>     > His bio further down refers to the theme of his life as being
"Triumph
>     > Over Odds"........
>     >
>     Not as much inspiration as draw, I suspect.  I'd love to know the
demographic
>     picture of his average audience.
>
>
> Oh, you know who they are Betty.  They're the complete strangers who
> come up to you in the street and tell you that they think (and the
> jury is still out on THAT one...) you/we are so brave, such an
> inspiration for being out in the world, that if they were in our
> situation they would kill themselves (promise???  pretty please with
> sugar on top!), the ones who think they have the right to ask what's
> wrong with you even if they don't know you from a bar of soap (had
> that TWICE in fifteen minutes the other day, at an editing workshop I
> attended, one of the people was the owner of the house where the
> w/shop was being held, and I'd just struggled up a dozen aesthetically
> pleasing but otherwise awful steps, and the house was REAAAAALLLY
> obscenelly posh, just huge and fancy and very intimidating - the wife
> is a doctor and the husband is an orthopaedic surgeon with a tax
> problem - wifie is the one with the *tact* problem).  The ones that
> think we are sooooooo brave for overcoming our difficulties
> (difficulties that shouldn't even BE there in the first f*******
> place).
>
> Bet you this guy is raking in the audiences (and the cash), the public
> looooove to have their predjudices confirmed.
>
> Rayna