Or that I need to take whatever anyone offers me and best be grateful.

Like moving through life on legs instead of wheels somehow gave them the right.

Which is all such crap.

28

Ohh, Honey …

Talking with—well, to—Mom at Holy Cross left me with more questions than answers, which probably shouldn’t feel surprising. I wish more than anything that I could just text Ale and tell her everything. But I don’t even have it in me to try right now.

So, after arguing with myself whether it would be weird—and then deciding I don’t care—later on Monday night, I send a message to AK_SalmonGranny. She might be the only person I know—sort of—who could actually get all the thoughts clogging my brain.

At least I hope so.

HalfpipeEmms: Hi. Not to be weird, but did you know how the chair thing was going to go down?

AK_SalmonGranny: There are no weird questions, dearie. There are, however, recipients of questions who can be a bit slow on the uptake …

HalfpipeEmms:?

AK_SalmonGranny: Been filleting halibut since 6am over here. Hard on the old brain cells after a few hours. On the old hands, too. Tell me what you mean. Small words.

HalfpipeEmms: Oh. Gotcha. I like fishing, too. I meant about my school raising money for my new wheelchair. You said hadn’t I been doing fine on my own. I didn’t get it at first, but I think I do now.

AK_SalmonGranny: Ah.

HalfpipeEmms:?

AK_SalmonGranny: Well.

HalfpipeEmms: Sorry is this weird that I’m asking u?

AK_SalmonGranny: Not at all.

HalfpipeEmms:???

AK_SalmonGranny: Okay, serious talk. I knew because people are people. For better or worse.

HalfpipeEmms: Did you have to have an aide at school when you were a kid? Or special ed?

AK_SalmonGranny: Interesting name, isn’t it? Never could figure out what was so “special” about just giving every kid what they needed at school.

I’d never thought of it that way before.

AK_SalmonGranny: But to answer your question, no. Wasn’t always a wheeled wonder, me. You?

HalfpipeEmms: Yep. Since forever.

AK_SalmonGranny: I see. Well, even if I had been, things used to be quite different on that front.

HalfpipeEmms: What do you mean?

AK_SalmonGranny: 504 Sit-In.

Does she mean 504 like my school plan? When I ask, her reply is super fast.

AK_SalmonGranny: Yes. The very same. I was there, in fact. Interesting times.

HalfpipeEmms: I’m confused.

AK_SalmonGranny: You should probably look it up. You young folks are good at that, right?

HalfpipeEmms: Okay

AK_SalmonGranny: No rush, I’ll be here. Halibut’s already in the oven.

I look it up.

What I find out shocks the heck out of me.

Those 504 plans I review with Ms. Hernandez every year—the ones that go on and on about my “reasonable and necessary accommodations” and always seem so boring and annoying? They weren’t even a thing a few decades ago.

Not only that—if I’m reading right—less than fifty years ago, people who used wheels didn’t necessarily go to school at all. At least not public school. Schools didn’t have to let them in. Or give them any accommodations. That’s what the 504 protests were all about.