Peter PingerelliCLASSROOM GRAVITY"Adapt or perish, now as ever, is Nature's inexorable imperative." The slamming backdoor sent vibrations through the wall. "Dad, why did you agree to talk to my class for career day?" Angela's voice boomed through the hallway. "Your teacher called and asked," I said as she stormed into my home office. "Nobody cares about what scientists do." "My friends hate science —and math," she explained as her eyes were almost squinted shut. "You'll just embarrass me, and someone will ask —why you're in a wheelchair." "It's OK," I replied. "I've had a lot of practice answering that question." "So you don't think your classmates will find my job interesting?" "I'm sure they'll make fun of you. You don't get it at all. Some of my friends are really mean." "I'll handle it," I answered firmly. And, she knew my mind was made up. "Don't say anything about me, and don't ask my class stupid science questions," she replied now rolling her eyes upward. "People aren't interested in why the sky looks blue." "Just let them believe diamonds are made of sparkles, glitter and glue," she said and darted into her room." I guess it was a combination of science's uncool status, ordinary peer pressures some kids experience with older parents and the image of my neuromuscular distortions that triggered her disapproval. Maybe she was attempting to protect herself and me from the ultimate eighth grader question, "how can people in wheelchairs have kids?" Further attempts to explore the swirl of emotions in her prefrontal teenage cortex would be too complex right now. Her distress about my visit to her class sent me back to past classroom lessons. *** I heard he was the toughest ninth grade math teacher. "Welcome to Algebra 102. Please quickly take a seat. I'm Mr. Hubel." Hubel's classroom was plain, uncluttered. A bare cork bulletin board, dull almond walls and streaked windows overlooking an overgrown courtyard. His shimmering baldhead, greying goatee, baritone voice and disheveled necktie became our only focal point. My first week of high school was nerve-racking; but time faded this apprehension as Hubel began to transform this ordinary classroom. A dusty chalk canvas stimulated minds as he described how algebra helps us discover answers. Factoring, expanding, combining, adding and subtracting "like" terms was just a roadway to algebra's possibilities. He had an ability to lead our class beyond solving equations and into interesting math applications. Mr. Hubel made math exciting and practical; he was a fantastic teacher, and taught us to let math simulate our creativity, and not the fear brought about by a textbook's daunting explanations. But, high school also became a new crucible that scorched my self-image, and this classroom created a painful memory. Spurts of height and puberty were complicating my ability to stand from a chair. My feelings of self-worth —gravity and "physical weakness" were pushing me down. A friend assisted me with this challenge. "Thank you Paul," I said, as his arm gave me a boost from my desk. But, in that moment, I was caught off-guard. "So who helps you get off the toilet?" Randy broadcasted to the class. My weakness was instantaneously amplified by those words. Randy decided that everyone should view me as helpless. All teenagers are vulnerable to words to challenge their self-worth. Embarrassed, I couldn't reply as the laughter pushed me into the hallway. I'm couldn't easily escape those words as new pronouncements scraped me. "It's impractical for you to participate in marching band," a teacher advised. "Dance for us swivel hips," a classmate joked. "It's not really cool to hangout with you," a classmate explained. "How can you think she would like you?" a friend clarified how I should set my expectations. My freshman year hadn't gone well. What I needed was a cure, a way to refill my drained reservoir of confidence. I had heard some years later Randy became a preacher. Maybe Scriptures taught him not to be such an asshole. *** It was six-fifteen AM when Drath's station wagon pulled into my family's driveway. "Ready to build some strength and self-confidence today?" He asked as I stepped in. "Thank you for letting me workout with the team. My doctor said it would help me keep walking longer, but I know I'll be able to improve." Mr. Drath, my tenth grade history teacher and Fitzgerald High School's "legendary" football coach, suggested I try his method to defy my challenge with gravity. "Pingerelli, interested in building some strength?" he asked as I was leaving the lunchroom one day. He taught Greek and Roman history and was an artful educator, enthusiastically capturing our attention using props, metaphors and Shakespearian prose to introduce ancient Greece and Rome. His tactics were memorable. "It's going, going, gone," he bellowed, to introduce Homer's Odyssey. Or, transporting us to Rome's past, reciting Mark Anthony's oration as we walked into his classroom.
Come I to speak in Caesar's funeral. But, the most memorable quote for me, "a workout is a great way to start your day," as it became my routine all thought-out high school. As I stepped into the musky weight room as the varsity team worked out, easily bench-pressing two hundred-fifty pounds or more. "Peter is going to train with us," the coach announced. "First you'll need to stretch your hamstrings and Achilles," he instructed. The steel weights rang, my quadriceps burning as I let the leg press smack down. Twenty, then forty pounds I lifted. Yes, progress! For a while, I thought workouts would fix my problem. I was certain nature would reward all my hard work. I reasoned since the cause of my muscle weakness wasn't actually understood, this solution was simple, lifting weights makes you stronger. "Keep up the workouts and maybe what you want most, will happen," a friend wrote in my yearbook. But time just kept stealing strength; my change was inevitable. But still, I believed, as my weight room classmates, gravity's impact might be delayed. In my senior yearbook Drath wrote, "Don't change your love of life and don't stop working out." Every morning for the next four years, my daily workouts recruited new strengths. I learned to maintain focus, perseverance and commitment. Another teacher had inspired me; I was better equipped to deal with the master plan gravity had waiting. *** I half-heartedly told my wife we shouldn't go. Former classmates would see me as I existed in the past, lacking confidence, weak —physically awkward. Those adolescent recollections were deep scratches; a fifteen-year high school reunion wouldn't change perceptions about my disability or me. But, maybe listening to a few bullshit success stories might soothe old scars. My accomplishments were real; I would now revel to them. I rode my Amigo scooter into the hall, standing and walking no longer an option. "Peter, you look great," she exclaimed. "Do you remember me?" "Ah, you're…" "Gloria," as the rum and coke in her hand splashed my cheek while wrapping her arms around my shoulder. I was almost knocked off my scooter. My wife lost her heels in order to rebalance both of us. "I heard about your Ph.D. and job in La Jolla. Nice to see some of us got the fuck out of Warren Michigan." "I knew you would do well," she continued. "I remember you liked all that science stuff." "So aren't you going to introduce me to your wife?" "Yes, this is Beverly. We met at Wayne State." "Well, Beverly, I need to tell you how your husband ruined my senior year." "I'd like to hear this story'?" "I was just trying to get his attention when I tripped him walking into class," she explained. "But, his friends made me feel like shit." "They couldn't believe that I tripped someone like him, on purpose." "But, he didn't defend me; and, he never got it! I just wanted him to notice, to ask me out." I told Beverly on the way home that I didn't believe her, I barely remembered who she was or that she tripped me. "She was a bitch." *** "Angela, did your class say anything about my career day talk yesterday?" "Some of my friends liked it," she said. They even thought you were funny. But, please don't volunteer for this stuff when I go to high school. You're not going to turn us into geeks." "So you weren't embarrassed?" "Not really." "And, I didn't get any wheelchair questions." "You don't get it dad," she exclaimed. "I didn't want you talking to my class. School is for friends and teachers, not parents. We told our teacher not to use parents for career days. You were the only one that showed up." "And after school, I still had to hear how sad it was that you're in a wheelchair." "What did you say?" "Nothing. Some people are just stupid." *** My interactions with classroom gravity have matured as the paralysis continued its creep. Maybe someday this will not be spinal muscular atrophy's guaranteed fate. But, I'm wearying scientist saying, "Finding the disease's cause is the most important step towards an eventual cure." Sometimes finding the cause means there is no cure, at least in my lifetime. Yes, it's OK to accept and adapt. As I started preparing to teach my online class, the pressure of my arm propped against the desk began sending my brain signals of pain. I struggled to pivot for relief, but my arm slipped. I was disconnected, no longer able to reach my magic mouse. "Kayla, can you assist me?" I called out to my oldest daughter doing her homework at the kitchen counter. "Give me a minute," she replied. My patience faded. "Kayla!" "Let me finish this stupid math problem." I was so familiar with that tone. She wasn't my slave. What would I ask for next? She didn't like being interrupted as much as I didn't want to ask for help. Easy prey for gravity now, I waited to be rescued, reconnected. I sat wondering why I kept all these fucking artifacts in my office. Decades of books packed into shelves; stacks of periodicals strewn on the floor. I'd never clutch their words, pictures or diagrams again. My past of bending, turning and rearranging this assortment was over. I do miss the comfort of lifting and gripping Bradbury, Clarke, Feynman and Sagan the old fashioned way, remembering how my waves of motion, once so smooth, propelled their thoughts into scenes. These conventions will soon be passé anyway, but I enjoyed those tactile senses of grasping and learning. Nature's audacity was unrelenting as it marched to distort my normal life. I had to find new ways to lift and push thoughts into their place, no longer able to slide my pen to transfer thoughts to words, too sluggish and ineffective to tap fingers against my keyboard. I continued to adapt, fortunate to live in a time when technology was conforming to my changing state. Streaming zeros and ones would now lift me onto the stage, to create, compete, lead and fail. The sweetness of binary honey is liberating me from gravity's clutch. So I'll drag a capacitive stylus across a display until I can't; slide my fingertips against a mouse's surface to access the next page. And, my computer faithfully awaited my voice to digitize the next new thought. Indeed, my technological toolbox is quintessential for me now. I required one less slave. "What do you need Dad?" "Can you reposition my right hand?" "When does your biopsychology class start?" "In ten minutes. And, please put my headset on, my Adobe Connect classroom awaits?" Finally - reconnected to my virtual realm, empowered to expand my life and conceal my pains that I once lived in classrooms filled with gravity.
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