A few days ago, I got in the mail a large envelope from the Maryland Department of Transportation. With bated breath I nervously ripped open the envelop. Yes, yes! Just what I had hoped for with great anticipation—a handicapped parking placard that you hang on your rearview mirror! At last!
A few years ago, I had begged my doctors at Kaiser to sign a form saying I needed a handicapped sticker. I failed twice. One commented that anyone who could walk three or four miles a day, which I shamefully admit that I exaggerated –did not need handicapped parking. I should have kept my mouth shut. The other doctor shrugged and reluctantly said he would sign something but never got back to me with the form. That was then. What I would give to be able to walk three miles now without using a “prosthetic device,” but that is no longer the case; and when I made my desperate pitch this time, the third doctor shrugged his shoulders, agreed and signed the form. A couple of days later when I mistakenly left the form sitting on a table on our patio, it got soaked in the rain so that you could hardly read it. I painfully tried to make the form readable, marked up the doctor’s smudged signature so you could read it, and mailed it in, figuring it would probably get rejected because it was borderline unreadable. I was resigned to having to go through it all again. But no! They accepted it and I have my sticker!
I think they checked my age and concluded that that explained everything.
Do you realize what this means? This means I no longer will have to worry about finding a parking space close to where I want to go. Well, maybe not always, but I have been noticing that handicapped reserved parking is usually available in shopping centers and on the street in commercial areas. In fact, I have parked in these coveted spaces, placard-less, illegally a couple of times myself—one as recently as two days ago—but now I am free at last, free at last to park in a convenient handicapped parking spot. I could probably sell the placard for a fortune, but no, besides being illegal, it would be stupid. I am so excited about it that I now refuse to park in any unmarked space.
So yes, there are some advantages to being old. People will take pity on you at least some of the time, and most of the time–well, maybe not all that much– you are treated with respect, even in the United States. On several occasions starting a few years ago, on several of my so called “power walks” –when I was about five years younger but still hardly a spring chick–I was greeted by a middle aged man—African American in my case every time—who would grin and exclaim, “How you doing young fella? Way to go! Keep it up!” I don’t know why but I found these gestures sincere, genuine, and rather touching. It was a great way to show respect for old age.
And, of course, now on the few times I use a crowded Metro car, a younger person will usually pop up immediately. I used to shrug and say something like “Thanks, but I do not mind standing.” Not anymore. In fact, I realize now I should have gratefully accepted the other initiatives to encourage such gestures.
Which raises the basic question: are we human beings fundamentally good creatures or fundamentally bad? I think you could make a strong case either way. Think of the terrible things that we have done and continue to do to our fellow humans. Every society on Earth has its share of violent crimes, domestic violence, sexual and psychological abuse, and plain old nastiness to other people. And how do you explain atrocities that happened in places like Nazi Germany, the gulags, slavery in the U.S., and the Chinese Cultural Revolution? Or for that matter, Donald J Trump and many of his MAGA or tech bro billionaire supporters? At the same time, there are all kinds of examples of courageous humans opposing terrible actions and making sacrifices every day all over the world. These happen even when it means danger to themselves or self-sacrifice. Most religious have embraced the better side of human nature and promoted kindness as in “love your neighbor as yourself.”
The answer, of course, is that we humans have both sides, the good and the bad, but more on why that is in another post. For me, I am off right now to find my first legal handicapped parking space somewhere even though I do not intend to get out of the car….