Gary,
and Billy too,
My parents and I went to Europe in 1974 after I graduated High School. We
spent 3 months in Europe, during which time I got to observe the way
different countries took care of their citizens with disabilities. I was most
impressed by Sweden, followed by Denmark, and Norway. They had wonderful
accessibility, and I saw elderly people treated with much dignity. The
museums were all wonderfully accessible.  Then we went to France and Italy,
and things changed for the worse.

The heartbreak came when my parents and I were at the Louvre in Paris,
France. I was still able to walk a bit at that time, so whenever there came a
few steps inside the Louvre I would get out of my chair, and  daddy  would
bump the chair down the stairs for me. When we left the museum, we saw a
French couple, having to carry their beautiful young daughter with CP up the
steps in her wheelchair, as she couldn't walk at all. Our eyes met and I
tried to smile, and then my thought to her was; Enjoy the museum Marie, life
is hard sometimes. She smiled back at me. In the car I cried for her and
others like her in France. Then we went to Italy, specifically to Florence
and the area where you have to walk  on high boards during high tide. Scary,
when that board is only as wide as your wheelchair! In Italy I was approached
by several men who told me I was beautiful, and they wanted to take me home
to their mothers!  LOL... I was both scared and flattered. Then we went to
Greece, which is beautiful, and from Greece we went on a boat to Israel.  We
had to stop on one of Greece's Islands for a bomb threat. It was a hoax, and
we got to the port in Haifa safely.

We lived 4 months in Haifa, which is a beautiful city. I tried to enroll in
Hebrew classes, but was turned down by several because the teachers did not
want to deal with me. We finally found one for Americans and Canadians. I had
a wonderful teacher and by the end of the 4 months everybody was sad to see
me go. It was even harder to get into a class in Jerusalem, people are / were
very narrow minded. But I did finally get into one class, and I had to get on
a bus to get there.  Many times I was treated by bus drivers as a mentally
incompetent person... And never mind that a great number of former Israeli
soldiers are in chairs, the museums are just not open to crips.

These soldiers and others with disabilities  get free  cars and an allowance
for gas, but it was not enough, so they staged a protest and my mother
happened to be on a tour bus and saw the whole thing unfold. She spoke Hebrew
fluently, and talked to some of them. Even though the tour guides were trying
to get my Mom out of the area, she stayed on, until the lovely police came
and turned fire hoses on these men in wheelchairs and canes. Yes, it was
lovely, just lovely. NOT! We saw the whole thing on the news, and thought it
represented in a nutshell how Israeli people see people with disabilities.

My exposure to others with disabilities was minimal. I met a few through
their parents because they knew my parents friends. I also went to my old
junior high homeroom teacher's new school and talked to him.
Even in schools for handicapped kids the kids are segregated by disability! I
was aghast at this!   The two disabled kids I met -- one had been adopted by
a friend of my folks, and she took in another when both were in casts from
surgery on their legs. The boy, had been attending a regular school, but his
brother had to pull him and his typewriter in a wagon each day to the school.
The girl, the lady rescued from an institution when a doctor had discovered
that she was not retarded but instead had an IQ of 156!  Her mother hadn't
known what to do with a disabled child so she dumped Oar at an institution.

Israel is about 20 years behind the US in terms of crippling attitudes. I
don't think much has changed, but I could be wrong.

mag

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