Wheelchair Bound Folks…..
Posted by Pete | Posted in News | Posted on 16-09-2016
1
I used to travel a lot via air…mostly in the southwest but I was in a lot of airports waiting for boarding. A person confined to a wheelchair once told me that when she was in a airport she became invisible. No one seemed to notice her and would avoid even eye contact. That stuck with me. So I made a point when in a boarding area with a person confined to a wheel chair with no one waiting with them just to say hello and ask if I could get them anything. I don’t think I was ever asked to do anything, but it did open up conversation and give them someone to visit with. Let me ask you to consider doing that…Speak to those people in stores, in wheel chairs trying to get stuff off shelves and such….It may not help them all that much but it will sure lift your own heart more than I can tell you…..I had a good conversation with a fellow in a wheel chair yesterday and he was in wonderful spirits and he made me feel lots better…..
a reprint from Pete Hester Facebook page one year ago and today….
Always speaking to everyone at an airport in wheelchairs sounds very noble, and it is; but the first time I went to Hawaii in 1998 with the Ballesteros Gang (18 of us), I was innocently standing in the airport waiting area waiting for our inter-island flight to Maui when this gentleman in a wheelchair asked me to please sit down (or move along) because you are making me nervous. It was the first time that I had been to Hawaii. I was probably nervous too. Needless to say, such a comment from a stranger, even if he was a WWII wounded warrior,wheelchair or not, did not give me a very good first impression of Hawaii. I have never had that to happen before or since. The shoe can fit both ways. This guy, wheelchair or not, wasn’t very courteous.