This is the primary problem for the physically disabled and one of the major problems focused upon by The Americans With Disabilities Act of 1960. This problem hampered Esther all her life.

Esther became afflicted by polio at age 10 1/2 months, leaving her with a paralyzed left leg and a deformed left foot. Esther could only swing her left leg from the hip or shift it about by a leg-garter. When I first met Esther, she walked with a simple cane.

But in the summer of 1952, in the fourth year of our marriage, Esther's good leg was broken by falling inside a cross-town NYC bus, going west on 23rd St. The driver didn't give her time to find a seat, then walked her back to our building on a broken leg. I carried her to a taxi and into the hospital.

Fortunately, the cracked sections didn't separate, so her surgeon used a clever procedure he'd developed in the Air Force during WWII. Using the swelling as a caste, he daily packed her leg with ice so the swelling reduced gradually. When the swelling was gone, the break was healed without having to put on a caste. (Esther said once that, as a teenager, when a caste was removed, the change was so great that she fainted.) She recovered from this and accessibility was not a major problem. Esther bore her first pregnancy on a cane, as well as the care of baby Tim. Similarly, at first, for the second child, Chris.

This changed with the break of her paralyzed leg in 1958, when Tim had just turned 4 and Chris was 10 1/2 months. Esther was in traction 7 months and never fully recovered from this. But she still managed to get about on the cane and accessibility was a problem, but not what it became later.

In 1966 Esther broke her paralyzed left leg again and her wheelchair condition complicated our trip from Puerto Rico (where we taught) to Idlewild Airport (later renamed "Kennedy"), on our way to our summer home in Vermont. We had to take a prop plane from Laguardia Airport to Vermont, but there was a taxi strike. The boys took bags and our large dog ahead, while I wheeled Esther along the grassed median between traffic lanes. But we encountered a wire fence barrier. Somehow, I picked up Esther and held her with one arm while I folded up the wheelchair with the other and lifted it over the fence, then unfolded it and climbed over the fence with Esther and put her back in the chair to continue our trek. (This was before we both got "so dignified".)

Even after convalescence, Esther had to use Australian crutches for short distances. During my sabbatical in NYC, she could not swing her left leg high enough to board a bus to go to the Church where she worked as a secretary, but had to go by taxi.

In Maine, 1967-71, Esther worked in an office and studied for her Master's Degree in Comparative Literature. The buildings had no elevators. I'd help her go up, on crutches, one or two flights of stairs, then bring up her wheelchair. But on the day she completed the Oral Test for her degree, she fell at home and sustained the break described in the newspaper article showing her with her degree. From this time on, Esther was bound to a wheelchair and accessibility became a major problem, since buildings and walks at that time, despite the 1960 Act, did not have the needed ramps, eventually constructed.

Everywhere we found many steps into buildings, especially into churches. One of Esther's good friends, Kathy Foreman, is paraplegic from polio. In a study, Kathy discovered that, in the 1980's, churches were among the most inaccessible to wheelchairs. Hearing about her survey, one minister wrote an indignant letter to Kathy saying that disabled people should stay home so that the people in the churches could pray for them. Esther couldn't understand this. But I reminded her of the famous case of "The Gipper" of Notre Dame. (Ronald Reagan played this role in the movie.) The famous Notre Dame football coach, Knute Rockne exhorted his team to victory by shouting, "Win this one for The Gipper!" So, as I explained to Esther, many ministers wished to use stay-at-home disabled persons to obtain more support for their churches.

Do you know who provoked more accessibility? Wheelchair-bound Vietnam veterans! In the late 70's I read many newspaper stories about one of them. Paralyzed from the waist down, yet he had powerful arms and shoulders and he carried a sledge hammer fastened to the side of his chair. In DC, when he came to a curb that should have had a curbcut but didn't, this vet swung his sledge hammer and made a curbcut.

Of course, this veteran was called into court. But he carried with him a copy of the City Council Ordinance requiring curbcuts. The judge would say, "So you saved the City the initial cost of preparing for a ramp? Case dismissed." Then, the judge would call the policeman aside to say (according to the reporter), "I don't ever want to see this man called into my court again!"

In 1977, Esther was employed by the National Park Service and became an expert on accessibility in the parks (restrooms, etc.) and places for which the Park Service had some responsibility. She knew the regulations perfectly and went out many times a year to test the conditions. Her experience made me aware of the "double-dealing" of so many engineers. The facilities were not tested by a truly wheelchair-bound person, but by an engineer temporarily sitting in one. The usual result was that the facilities were inadequate or even dangerous for a disabled person -- so had to be done over again. Then, executives and politicians would make phony complaints about the costs.

One example concerned the Eisenhower Pavilion in front of the National Theater in DC. Because the Park Service had partial jurisdiction in this, Esther was asked to inspect the big ramp there. I went with her. She told the engineer that the ramp was too steep. But, standing at the bottom of it, he rejected her complaint. So, Esther said, "Ok, here I come!" She went wheeling down and knocked the engineer back into a trash can. Esther smiled, "I'm glad you were there. I might have landed in the trash can, instead." The engineer growled, "Who the hell asked her to come here?"

As another example, Esther attended a farewell dinner for a Park employee given at Ft. Myers in DC. I drove her there. I pulled her up many steps into the bottom floor, only to dicover that the dinner was on the third floor -- but no elevator! So Esther was put into the dumb waiter and pulled up to the third floor. Later, she returned to the first floor by dumb waiter.

(The famous violinist, Itzak Perlman -- who had polio as a child, and gets about on crutches -- said in a PBS interview that he'd been up and down in dumb waiters all over the world.)

Early in the 1980's, to visit son Tim near Chicago, Esther had to be lifted into a United Airline plane by the top of a fork lift. Later, conditions were better. But she always had to be wheeled into and out of the plane in an "aisle-chair", a very narrow wheelchair handled by a steward. This meant that we had long delays in service.

Also, in the early 80's, we became members of an Alexandria (VA) Presbyterian Church, where, as usual, we sang in the choir. But the choir sang in the choir loft where the organ was placed. This was up 15 or more steep steps, with risers not wide enough to rest stably on. I pulled her up those steps so many times, and slowly eased her down them. The men in the choir always disappeared on these occasions. One Sunday, noticing how my hands trembled in easing her down the steps, Esther said we'd have to quit the choir, because she feared for both of us.

Because Esther so well knew the regulations about curbcuts and ramps, we often discovered that many were not made according to those regulations, making it difficult for the disabled persons, rather than helping them. This included the ones around the three condominum buldings where we live. Esther was consulted by the manager on this, but the engineer did as he pleased.

One of these improper ramps resulted in Esther again breaking her leg. The ramp was at the shopping mall a block from our condominium. Esther then had a motor scooter without speed controls, only a hand brake. Without "gasing" it, she nevertheless went down the ramp too fast and turned over in front of a car. Fortunately, the car stopped in time. A friendly bystander picked her up and put her back on her scooter. But we found later than her leg had been broken.

Earlier, Esther had broken a leg, at work, because of another type of barrier: a doorsill at the door of the rest room. It would prevent perhaps an inch of water from flowing into the hall, but any real water break or overflow in the rest room would become greater, rendering the doorsill ineffective. However, it provided a hazard for a wheelchair occupant. Each time she went to the bathroom, Esther had to use her hands vigorously to speed up the chair so she could kick the door open and simultaneously overide the doorsill. One afternoon, a passerby got in the way as Esther was wheeling forward causing her to check her onslaught upon door-and-doorsill, so hitting the doorsill overturned the chair, and her leg was broken.

The same kind of problem rendered the curbcuts and ramps hazardous. A small dip is placed at the bottom of the ramp to funnel off an inch of water. But (speaking as a former weatherman) a good rain would create a higher stream which could wet the shoes of nonwheelchair persons. So this dip is a minor convenience for able-bodied persons, but a real hazard for wheelchair occupants.

Another accessibility problem arose due to lights off or a power outage. In the early 80's Esther worked on the 3rd floor of the National Capital Region (Park Service) Building. Some one got on an economy kick and turned off all lights on the third and second floors at 6 PM. If I got there late from my job, Esther would have to scoot downstairs, one step at a time, on her bottom.

And in power outages, the elevators would not run in our condo building. So Esther slid upstairs on her bottom many times, while I brought the wheelchair.

(In another file, "Gottago!", at this Website, I describe the problems involving accessibility of restrooms, even at our HMO.)

We moved to our Alexandria condo building in January, 1979, and immediately encountered accessibility problems. I parked in a "handicapped" space back of the building and wheeled Esther up the wooden ramp built for transporting loads. But, on July 4, 1979, returning from church, after a rain, I slipped on the ramp, dumping Esther from her wheelchair, breaking her leg.

So I began parking on the other side, with a single crude gravel-in-tar ramp onto the walk. Only a wheelchair occupant with powerful arms could have pushed up it or eased down. Also, the six steps at side of the building, into the lobby, were so narrow that you could not rest the wheels on them, but had to keep pushing ahead. Later, a good ramp was put in there with nearby curbcuts of the type described above. But some tenants were so annoyed at this as to circulate petitions against these constructions.

In our condo unit, many aids to accessibility were installed.

The kitchen is an inch below the dining room, for that same drainage reason cited above. This minor "defense" would force Esther to ease her wheelchair down into the kitchen, then work hard to get back up. Our son Chris used strips of carpeting to make a ramp between the rooms which has lasted for 22 years.

I installed a slanted mirror under a cabinet over the stove so Esther could see the tops of pans on the burners. I installed a fluorescent lamp over the kitchen sink and found a special connection which allowed Esther to turn it on and off from the front of the sink. The storage shelves for cans and such were placed low for Esther's convenience.

In the bedroom, I had a trapeze installed of the type used in hospitals, and moveable barriers on Esther's side of the bed. Moveable holders clipped onto her chair for cups, medicine, and such.

In the bathroom, the stool has an elevated fixture and handholds around it. Across from the stool is a strong bar fixed in the wall. For years there was a handhold fastened on the side of the bathtub. In the last year of Esther's life, I got the idea of a pole of the type used in subway cars. By phoning here and there, Chris located one in Texas. It was delivered and installed between ceiling and floor. But, soon after, Esther's cervical stenosis began to render so numb the hand she must grab the pole with that she could not use it. She was bedridden the last two years of her life, dependent on bedpans and foodtrays.

We were able to get a "handicapped" license plate more than 20 years ago. But, so often, we were blocked from a "handicapped space" by an able-bodied driver without such a plate. Over all these years, I've never seen one of these guys get ticketed. Another problem is that, in a heavy snowfall, the snowplows indiscriminately bury the "handicapped" spaces with snow from the streets.

You've heard the quip, "You had to be there!" The Corollary of this is, "You have to be one!"