B. C. E. takes on new meaning

Les was a chef before he was born. He helped with a BAADS Thanksgiving some years ago as a gesture of kindness, and found that -- as he remarked to a friend helping out yesterday -- "boy, these disabled people sure can cook!"

I laughed out loud, losing several points for coolness -- but I regained them later with my Drunken Sweet Potatoes.

A weighty label like "disabled" sweeps everything before it. Literally, everything... before it. Most of us had full lives before we got a crippling illness or injury; we all have full lives now, even when much of that fullness has to do with how much harder simple things are.

But everything we did, or were, _before_ or _besides_ being [whatever] is still with us. Abled-bodied people rarely seem to think of that themselves: the term "disabled" makes our able-ness seem surprising.

Back in the late 1980's, the socially-preferred term was moving from "disabled" to "handicapped". This explanation from a kindly woman explained why: "It's not correct to say I'm dis-abled, because I'm _able_ to do many different things. But I have to deal with added burdens to get the same things done that a normal person does, so I'm _handicapped_."

Horses carry extra weight in a race, golfers get extra points on their score, and racers get penalties added to their times to handicap them. Though life isn't a sport I entered with any thought of competition (and that's where the analogy falls down), it's true that I do carry a burden which makes it harder to complete the same tasks that anyone does.

But I can still cook one heck of a pan of Drunken Sweet Potatoes. Not everyone is, ahem, able to do that.

I'm definitely handicapped. I'm not sure I'm disabled. I can still write, and often remain coherent through a whole paragraph. That's an ability!

B. C. E. -- in my case, that means Before Crippling Event -- I could play the flute pretty well, too. I can't even hold the darn thing for more than a few seconds, now; the handicap there is too great to overcome.

Sadly, it's still true that -- whatever we call it -- this is a nasty, harsh reality which everyone handles poorly sooner or later; the terms will continue to revolve as we try to keep from getting too stuck in our collective thinking.

As the next decade turns, I expect the terminology to change again. And then again a decade after that. And again and again, as people age and grow and try to loosen up their thinking. Rock on, I say! -- We could all use a little more change.