My people

This is the travel post I never completed in time for the last Disability Carnival over at Planet of the Blind. Lots of great posts over there.

The summer of 1998 I attended the Society for Disability Studies conference in Oakland, California. It was my first and only time traveling by air without any non-paid assistance from start to finish -- that is, I lugged my own suitcase out to the scooter-accessible van that took me to the airport and lugged it back into my apartment three days later without relying on friends to get me to and from the airport as I had usually done before.

That may not be a big deal for most people, but I was entrusting my scooter -- my only means of personal movement -- to the ordeal of airplane travel, and gambling on it being there for me in an unfamiliar city I was spending the weekend in. Alone.

If anything was broken in transit, I had absolutely no backup plan, and given the regularity with which wheelchair users' power chairs are damaged by the airlines I was taking quite a risk. I'd decided the risk was better than staying home. Additionally, I was counting on a scheduled accessible van to meet me at the airport, and for everything to be in order at the hotel.

This isn't the long story of mishaps you might expect it to be.

I arrived early in Oakland and the van driver found me easily. As he loaded my bag and, well, me into the van, he chatted about how busy he had been in the past few days. He was aware that I was visiting for some sort of disability event. He said, "I've been driving your people around all week."

My people. Disabled folks.

It was an excellent welcome to town.