Handicapped

Jim Gatacre of San Clemente once dreamed about having a scuba-diving school where handicapped people--amputees, the blind and quadriplegics--could learn the joys of the sport. "In the beginning, people weren't accepting the idea and were saying that paraplegics can't dive," said Gatacre, who became handicapped in a freak accident. He proved them wrong.

A lawsuit alleging that the new press box and luxury suites at the Rose Bowl are inaccessible to the handicapped, and therefore violate federal laws, has been filed in federal district court in Los Angeles by a former Olympic athlete. Century City attorney Stanley Fleishman said that Kirk Kilgour, a member of the 1972 U.S. Olympic volleyball team, who became a quadriplegic in a 1976 training injury, is asking that entrances to the boxes and press box be reconstructed to make them accessible.

Alex Weisberg, a 72-year-old disabled man, says he is waging his fight with the City of Los Angeles strictly on principle. And, as of Wednesday, he appeared to be winning his lonely battle over handicapped parking. Weisberg, a retired dentist who suffers from acute arthritis, has had a hard time walking for any distance since he had his left knee replaced a few years ago. Last February, he was issued a placard for his car designating his handicapped status.

A 26-year old woman, attractive and educated, checks herself into a hospital psychiatric unit announcing her wish to commit suicide. She reports that she has undergone two years of devastating emotional crises: the death of a brother, serious financial distress, withdrawal from graduate school because of discrimination, pregnancy and miscarriage and, most recently, the breakup of her marriage. She also has a serious physical disability, which she says is the reason she wants to die.

Aug. 31, 1985. It's a warm summer day in Reading, Pa., cooled by a gentle breeze; the kind every couple hopes for on their wedding day. In a Catholic Church, smiling guests are filing down the long, carpeted aisle as powerful organ music fills the sanctuary. Promptly at 2:30, Wayne Nervik appears at the altar. He looks particularly dashing in his three-piece brown suit; one hardly notices the thick bifocals obscuring his blinking eyes. Then, the wedding march.

Ted Williams could hit a 90-mph fastball. Big deal. Williams had 20/15 vision. Rick Boggs once got a bat on a hanging curveball. Big deal? You bet! Rick's got 0/0 vision. Last time I looked, Shaquille O'Neal was, like, a 40% free-thrower. Shame on him. Rick Boggs once made seven of 10 from the line. Maybe all those guys waving white balloons behind the basket bother O'Neal. They wouldn't bother Rick Boggs. He can't see 'em. In fact, he can't even see the backboard.

Brice Cary Dickenson loved to read and write ghost stories. Several times a week, the 21-year-old man, who was physically handicapped, walked to the library to read. Dickenson left his grandparents' home in Norwalk about 3 p.m. last Wednesday, apparently to return a book. About 90 minutes later his body was found stuffed head-first into a wall trash container in a restroom of the Santa Fe Springs Public Library.

Kim Young-bae spends his days with his nose inches from the pavement. The only things lower are the cigarette butts and the sewer grates. Lying on his stomach, he uses his knuckles and elbows to drag himself along, his torso resting atop a padded cart. He wraps his useless legs, long ago withered by polio, in a swath of black rubber inner-tubing that gives him the appearance of being half-seal and half-man.

The Santa Ana City Council and the Kiwanis Club are teaming up on a marvelous project that will develop a special playground facility for handicapped youngsters at Thornton Park on Segerstrom Avenue. A trip to most playgrounds for handicapped youngsters can be a frustrating experience, when swings, basketball courts and merry-go-rounds are inaccessible. The new 3-acre facility will offer two basketball courts with hoops that adjust, a playground, special trails to the park's lake and a camping area with bathrooms accessible to the handicapped.

It's not particularly surprising when powerful comedy is extracted from the darker side of the human experience--talented comics can often get crowds laughing affirmatively at all manner of tragedy and misfortune. It is, however, a bit surprising to hear a crowd laughing uproariously at cerebral palsy jokes. For comic Chris Fonseca, 32, that laughter is the sweetest of rewards.