Oct 26, 2007
I got a call this evening from Gary. He said, “Would you come here and pick something up off the floor I dropped?” Funny guy. He is three-and-a-half hours away north of Atlanta. I told him only if the something was him and even then I would have to think very very hard about it. He said not to worry, if it’d actually been him on the floor, he would call his former graduate student Brad to help, seeing that Brad lived only five minutes away. I said that was good, because I really wouldn’t have come up there – I’d call 911 to get him first!
But actually, Gary is experiencing another turn of the wheel in independence.
He left yesterday for a college a bit north of Atlanta, where he’d been invited to give a talk to some graduate students. The drive, he said, wasn’t bad until he hit north of Atlanta. Evidently a lot of people were going to the mountains of north Georgia to view the changing of the color of the leaves that is happening this time of year, and perhaps also to some festival Gary heard was going on in the area. But, he made it fine – although once at the motel one of the employees ended up running and grabbing him to make sure he didn’t fall out of his chair! This is what happened: Gary checked into the motel, and he and an employee were going to the parking lot to get his suitcase out of the van. The parking lot sloped down rather steeply, and there was a bump at the bottom of the incline; Gary hadn’t noticed it when he’d gone uphill, so he wasn’t going particularly slowly while going downhill, and his wheels caught, his chair stopped dead, and he started to tip forward out of the chair. Gary doesn’t think he would’ve actually fallen out of the chair, but I am glad the other person was there to make sure of that!
The only other challenge he faced at the motel was he needed a lamp he could reach from the bed. This meant he had to move around some heavy antique furniture in order to drag a floor lamp bedside. Too bad the motel was so nicely furnished with antiques and didn’t have the modern cheapo lightweight furniture ;-) I’m sure he could’ve asked for help from the motel employees, but being the independent sort he managed himself.
He had to get up about an hour-an-a-half earlier than usual in order to get his routine done in time to make his talk. He said his talk (on independence and undecidability questions in topology and set theory) went well, the students seeming to enjoy it. He went out to eat with them at a Mexican restaurant for lunch, and went to the same restaurant that evening with Brad, who is the person who invited him up for the talk, now being on the faculty of the college. Brad’s wife, whose name I am sorry to admit I forget, also came, as well as his sixteen-month-old daughter. This little girl “visited” Gary soon after she was born, when Brad and his wife came to visit Gary at Shepherd.
Gary also spent some time in a little café across the street from his motel, and again experienced the problems of negotiating the hillier terrain of the area of that city (it is in the foothills of the Appalachians). Getting across the street involved going up a rather steep section of sidewalk. Gary was struggling with it, and a passerby offered to give him a push. Gary told the person he thought he could do it, but it turned out to be too difficult, so he ended up accepting the push. When he told me this, I was reminded that just this afternoon I had caught the last few minutes of a segment on Georgia Public radio that was about the accessibility of Savannah, Georgia to those in wheelchairs. The person they were interviewing said he’d lived in that city his entire life, and that he was pleased that in recent years the situation had improved – though there was still much room for improvement. He said, for instance, a lot of curb cuts were useless, being too steep for those in wheelchairs to negotiate. But he’s seen progress. He said in years past he would try to go out with his family to shop or eat or whatever, but they would end up splitting up because he couldn’t get around to all the places they could. He mentioned how nice it was to be able to pretty much go anywhere he wanted now, just like the able-bodied (or whatever the politically correct word is there that I should use) take for granted. I know Gary can relate to the satisfaction of being able to get around by himself.
He will be driving back tomorrow, making this his first two-night stay alone. I am very proud of him.
I got a call this evening from Gary. He said, “Would you come here and pick something up off the floor I dropped?” Funny guy. He is three-and-a-half hours away north of Atlanta. I told him only if the something was him and even then I would have to think very very hard about it. He said not to worry, if it’d actually been him on the floor, he would call his former graduate student Brad to help, seeing that Brad lived only five minutes away. I said that was good, because I really wouldn’t have come up there – I’d call 911 to get him first!
But actually, Gary is experiencing another turn of the wheel in independence.
He left yesterday for a college a bit north of Atlanta, where he’d been invited to give a talk to some graduate students. The drive, he said, wasn’t bad until he hit north of Atlanta. Evidently a lot of people were going to the mountains of north Georgia to view the changing of the color of the leaves that is happening this time of year, and perhaps also to some festival Gary heard was going on in the area. But, he made it fine – although once at the motel one of the employees ended up running and grabbing him to make sure he didn’t fall out of his chair! This is what happened: Gary checked into the motel, and he and an employee were going to the parking lot to get his suitcase out of the van. The parking lot sloped down rather steeply, and there was a bump at the bottom of the incline; Gary hadn’t noticed it when he’d gone uphill, so he wasn’t going particularly slowly while going downhill, and his wheels caught, his chair stopped dead, and he started to tip forward out of the chair. Gary doesn’t think he would’ve actually fallen out of the chair, but I am glad the other person was there to make sure of that!
The only other challenge he faced at the motel was he needed a lamp he could reach from the bed. This meant he had to move around some heavy antique furniture in order to drag a floor lamp bedside. Too bad the motel was so nicely furnished with antiques and didn’t have the modern cheapo lightweight furniture ;-) I’m sure he could’ve asked for help from the motel employees, but being the independent sort he managed himself.
He had to get up about an hour-an-a-half earlier than usual in order to get his routine done in time to make his talk. He said his talk (on independence and undecidability questions in topology and set theory) went well, the students seeming to enjoy it. He went out to eat with them at a Mexican restaurant for lunch, and went to the same restaurant that evening with Brad, who is the person who invited him up for the talk, now being on the faculty of the college. Brad’s wife, whose name I am sorry to admit I forget, also came, as well as his sixteen-month-old daughter. This little girl “visited” Gary soon after she was born, when Brad and his wife came to visit Gary at Shepherd.
Gary also spent some time in a little café across the street from his motel, and again experienced the problems of negotiating the hillier terrain of the area of that city (it is in the foothills of the Appalachians). Getting across the street involved going up a rather steep section of sidewalk. Gary was struggling with it, and a passerby offered to give him a push. Gary told the person he thought he could do it, but it turned out to be too difficult, so he ended up accepting the push. When he told me this, I was reminded that just this afternoon I had caught the last few minutes of a segment on Georgia Public radio that was about the accessibility of Savannah, Georgia to those in wheelchairs. The person they were interviewing said he’d lived in that city his entire life, and that he was pleased that in recent years the situation had improved – though there was still much room for improvement. He said, for instance, a lot of curb cuts were useless, being too steep for those in wheelchairs to negotiate. But he’s seen progress. He said in years past he would try to go out with his family to shop or eat or whatever, but they would end up splitting up because he couldn’t get around to all the places they could. He mentioned how nice it was to be able to pretty much go anywhere he wanted now, just like the able-bodied (or whatever the politically correct word is there that I should use) take for granted. I know Gary can relate to the satisfaction of being able to get around by himself.
He will be driving back tomorrow, making this his first two-night stay alone. I am very proud of him.
posted by Peg Daniels at 8:28 PM
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