I write on my 75th birthday.
In June 1967 I volunteered for the summer at Human Resources Center Day Camp, now The Viscardi Center, as a lifeguard/camp counselor. I do not have a disability. I met people with disabilities my own age. As we aged, we became not just summer acquaintances, but lifelong friends, colleagues, and supporters.
That summer I was sixteen. I met Paul Hearne, who was seventeen, had osteogenesis imperfecta (also known as brittle bone disease) and was the amateur radio counselor. Paul was funny, hadn’t gone to school until he was thirteen years old— graduating from Henry Viscardi School, was very interested in girls and had a driver’s license. We stayed friendly through high school, college and law school and, with a little help from Sen. Jacob Javits and Congressman Mario Biaggi, opened an accessible legal services corporation poverty law office in Manhattan.
The three summers I spent at the camp on Long Island made me into a disability rights lawyer and directed the rest of my life. Henry Viscardi’s influence on me (he was my father-in-law for years) and his influence on thousands of others is so profound and so broad it cannot be estimated. When I was a teenager I understood only part of his message though – that people with disabilities can do a day’s work for a day’s pay. I witnessed it every day. But it was really Paul, not Hank, who taught me the most about people with disabilities, perhaps because we were contemporaries.
It was Paul who pointed out how the majority of the disabled kids he went to high school with were not working because they needed Medicaid and had to be poor to get it. It was traveling with Paul that showed me that without accessible transit New Yorkers were destined to remain poor forever; that people with disabilities want everything that people without disabilities want but always must settle for less and that their families want everything for them too, and most importantly that the capacity to love and be loved is undiminished by diagnoses. It was Paul who taught me that there was humor in everything, including disability. I learned a lot about needs, and a lot about needed rights, from Paul.
Once, Paul, who used a wheelchair, told me he could get an operation, or a series of them, and, after the insertion of rods in his back and legs, he might be able to walk. I said, “Hey, that’s great.” He dismissed the idea and when I seemed surprised, he said, “Do you think everyone with a disability wants to be just like you? You’ve got a lot to learn. Today, when I roll into your office I shake your hand, we sit across the desk and my disability disappears as we discuss who’s a jerk and who’s not.” He might not have said “jerk,” exactly. “If I could walk, I’d always be small, use crutches, and be slow. It’s not who I choose to be.”
I was involved in the efforts to make transit accessible because I was a counselor at a camp. I was involved in drafting the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) because of my teenage summer job. I’ve met presidents and worked with governors, elected officials and industry leaders on rights and access issues because I had my Senior Life Saving certificate and volunteered. I’ve been all over the world discussing ADA, appointed by Bill Clinton to the U.S. Access Board, and have had the pleasure of working with and for the most noble and tenacious advocates and community members.
After carrying Paul and or his chair up or down stairs countless numbers of times I knew firsthand that the inaccessibility of the built environment was so overwhelming that it would take generations to overcome, but that it was necessary if people with disabilities and aging baby boomers were to be active community members. After being told one too many times, “Don’t put him there,” as Paul propelled his chair into a restaurant, I knew attitudes as well as the built environment needed to change and that the law could be used to accomplish both.
Paul died at 48 years old. We worked together to found the American Association of People with Disabilities (AAPD) and on getting the ADA passed. When we were young lawyers he said, “You take transportation, I’ll take employment.” And we did.
I remember that Hank once said that the scene in the movie “The Best Years of Our Lives,” in which World War II veteran Harold Russell reluctantly reveals his artificial limbs and stumps to the girl he came home to, did as much for people with disabilities in one scene than legislation and litigation ever could. The lovers embraced and disability was understood by millions around the globe.
It has been my privilege to have been involved in this movement all these years.
Opinions expressed are solely those of the writer(s) and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of Able News at The Viscardi Center and/or The Viscardi Center.