A poem I found I wish to post

let me explain a bit first!!

Lately I have been heavily involved and getting interested in different disability Sports!!! well within that circle of friends is apparently a creative person involved in what is known as handcycling and he passed away today.. A great loss for those within handcycling sport So I went searching today for disability related poems and here is one I would like to share in honor of today's loss



Barbara Crooker
SIMILE

My autistic son showed me his paper
from remedial English; he was supposed
to fill in the blanks: Cool as a _________.
Smooth as a ________. Neat as a _____.

He came up with: angry as a teakettle,
and when I asked, "Why? "said, "Because
it was boiling mad." Of course,
it was marked wrong, one more red mark
in his life's long test.

When I called from Virginia to ask him
what he did last weekend,
he said, "We bought Italian salad dressing."

Last fall, we went to a Broadway play;
what he liked the most
were traffic lights and Don't Walk signs.

Oh, my little pork chop, my sweet potato, my tender tot.
You have made me pay attention to the world's smallest
minutia. My pea-shaped heart, red as a stop sign,
swells, fills with the helium of tenderness, thinks it might burst.

*Previously published in Borderlands: The Texas Poetry Review and in Line Dance (2008)

Barbara Crooker is the author of three books of poetry, Radiance, which won the Word Press First Book Award and was a finalist for The Paterson Poetry Prize, Line Dance, which won the Paterson Award for Literary Excellence, and More (C&R Press, 2010) She is the recipient of three Pennsylvania Council on the Arts Fellowships in Literature, the 2003 Thomas Merton Poetry of the Sacred Award, the 2004 WB Yeats Society Prize, and the 2006 Rosebud Ekphrastic Poetry Award.

House cat chases off Aligator must see this video

The WheelinJazz Come to Town

I had the chance to meet and mingle with members of the WheelinJazz Team this weekend!!
the WheelinJazz are NBA Level Wheelchair Basketball Team that has ties to the Utah Jazz!! See because I am on the Disability Committee through city council I took part in helping the Southern Utah University here put on Disability Week! They had a number of Activities which included a table with different Challenges!! Stacking Cups.. reading through a Eye Mask that only had a pin sized hole on one side... Tracing the image of a star while looking at a mirror and staying inside a pair of lines shaped like the star then writing your name at the bottom of the star.. with ear plugs listen to instructions then carry out those instructions.. Taking a Wheelchair into a bathroom and bringing back a paper towel with no help!!

Screening of a Documentary Film titled Including Samuel (which I really enjoyed)) a class on campus had students put together a group verbal report about the history of the ADA rules and present to the class and the public was invited to come to these classes and listen.. so you can imagine the room was rather full on those days!!


there were panel discussions

1. about the hard of hearing and death
2. about the different community resources for the disabled
A. Vocational Rehab
B Southwest mental health services
C. Turn Community Services (where I live))
D. the university has their own student counciling services!!

and almost every day there was the Wheelchair basketball tournament and the only thing we told the students is at the final game there was a surprise for the winner!!!

and the surprise was the WheelinJazz came down from Salt Lake City to play the champion.. the wheelinjazz gave the other team a 10 point advantage even before the game started and they also decided to play the runner up too!!

THEN I was invited to Eat Dinner with them later that night!!

There is a website if you are able to donate anything

Thank you for donating to The Hull Foundation, Neuroworx, and the Junior Wheelin' Jazz. Our athletes are truly grateful for your generous gift. Without the thoughtful donations of individuals like yourself, our programs would cease to exist. Our annual budgetary needs consist of equipment (e.g. a sports wheelchair costs over $2,000), training facilities, and travel expenses. Rest assured that every dollar donated goes directly to our program.