ARE TEMPORARY DISABILITIES THE SPICE OF LIFE?

Why temporary disabilities? Why can’t thrills and chills be the spice?

Because the disability part might be more than temporary if you’re not spicy enough.

Let’s say you fell down during a game of Swinging Statue.

It was a game when I was a kid where the big strong kid grabbed smaller kids by the arm and swung them.

The goal was to freeze in place upon landing, like a statue.

It was a sloping yard and the big kid had his little brother by the arm for a good swing.

Right out on the sidewalk curb.

That’s when the crying started and the dad came out.

“Where does it it hurt? Can you flap your arms like a bird? I think you’ve got a broken collar bone.”

In a world of temporary disabilities, sleeping with a broken collar bone is rough.

But, it’s not permanent.

2

Five years later a kid is walking to school. It’s football season and he’s the preseason quarterback on the sixth grade flag football team.

His favorite player is Roman Gabriel because he likes saying Roman Gabriel.

The kid playing the center position rode past on his nice bike and stopped to offer his quarterback a ride.

“But I get the seat.”

“It’s my bike, I get the seat.”

“I’m the quarterback.”

The center rode on the cross bar and the quarterback stood up on the pedals to go faster.

Problems started when the center accidentally swung his leg back into the spokes of the front tire.

The bike stopped with his leg tangled between the forks and tire rim.

From standing on the pedals for more speed, the quarterback went long, launching over the top and breaking his collar bone. Which ended football season and quarterbacking the team against mighty Hillcrest and Roosevelt.

Temporary disabilities of injuries with a theme are a concern. So is sleeping with a broken collar bone.

Spice Of Life

Some kids who have experienced temporary disabilities, which is every kid ever born according to my actuarial tables, become fearful young adults who mask their fear with a hardcore veneer.

Instead of rolling with things and working to get better, they take a different path.

They latch on to flawed personalities and movements that soothe the aches and pains of their haunted and taunted youth. The blame is strong.

“If I’d had a decent father I could have been somebody. The Trump kids had the best dad. Which way is the Capitol? We’re all meeting there.”

Bitter crowds are fed on the fuel of their embitterment by button pushing politicians stoking fear about losing their ‘way of life.’

Instead, they lose their grip.

Matching Temporary Disabilities

I know a man steeped in WWII history.

“Why do you watch the Hitler Channel so much?”

“It’s History Channel.”

“Yes it is, but why so many Hitler shows, and why you?”

“I’d call it a learning experience. Today we’ve got right wing marches for authoritarian leaders flexing their office muscle. What they fail to realize is their group would be part of a work gang in the regimes they admire so much.”

“What are you watching now?”

“Work gangs building the German freeway, the autobahn, with shovels, barefoot, and no shoes.”

“I’ve heard good things.”

“Have you heard that workers were conscripted through the compulsory Reich Labor Service?”

“I have not.”

“Did you know that during the war years, more and more prisoners and Jewish forced laborers were sent to work in autobahn construction because the regular workers were fighting in the war?”

“No, I didn’t. What’s the point here?”

“When I hear about crowds at Trump rallies I wonder of they understand compulsory conscription and forced labor.”

“I’m not sure I do.”

“Social unrest is a temporary disability, agreed?”

“Yes.”

“The normal process is working toward addressing and solving the problems that create social unrest.”

“Like a democracy voting for candidates with similar causes.”

“That’s the idea, instead or rounding people up and putting them in camps. You know, ‘camps.'”

“I don’t want to get rounded up.”

“No one does.”

“That’s why it’s important to watch for temporary disabilities.”