San Francisco

Feeling rather overwhelmed by a cold as I write this.  Woke up Sunday in Austin with a sore throat and by Monday in San Francisco it was an irritating cough and now it’s a full blown runny nose, cough etc.  Been taking cold remedy every 3 hours but I think I got started too late for best effect.  Tonight I saw a Chinese reflexology shop at fisherman’s wharf and spontaneously decided that’s just what I needed to fix me up.  Sat through a half hour foot work out and it was nice when it stopped.  “Drink Ginger in hot water and tomorrow you will feel better” promised the man so I am obligingly putting my faith in all things Chinese to get me better asap.

So I survived another encounter with American airlines – this time $65 poorer because they insisted that my Qantas round the world air ticket did not include any baggage and I must pay for my checked luggage.  Three days earlier this was not their policy but who knows this stuff – I’m sure they make it up as they go along.  I spent more than 30 minutes at the check in counter while they muddled their way through the contortions of my ticket and I took my revenge by refusing to pay cash and making them go through further rigmaroles to process my Australian debit card.  I didn’t see why I should make it easy for them to take money from me that I didn’t think I needed to pay and besides I wanted evidence of this silliness.

Delayed in Dallas for two and a half hours waiting for fog to lift in SF so I attempted to watch the NFL game on the television.  I don’t know why as it was incredibly stop start and consequently really boring.  I did see a new twist on the Lycra marathon though (my affectionate reference to Stella’s annual end of year ballet concert) which this time involved beefed up blokes in the shiny skin-tight textile.

So arrived early evening into SF, which didn’t seem to matter as it looked as if it had been a dreary wet day.  Hotel Vertigo is the perfect cheap and cheerful pad.  Great kooky décor, clean and smart with no frills and under $150 a night.  Front desk staff friendly and as usual no tea and coffee facilities in the room but I’m used to that now and I have my trusty water boiler.

Monday the sun came out and although there was a wintry chill in the air it was a beautiful day and locals were in short sleeves.  I headed off to Berkeley to the University of California where arguably disability rights started in this country when Ed Roberts was enrolled (of course they go back further than that but it’s a handy story).  I had ordered some archival material from the Bancroft library where they have a substantial collection of interest to disability historians like me.  The place is like Fort Knox and security measures are intense.  I was able to view a couple of pieces of video that might be useful but couldn’t copy anything even for draft use, which was frustrating.  Also I was hoping to see the 60 minutes story on Ed Roberts but it turned out to be a transcript not a video – such are the mysteries of libraries and if I were a librarian I probably would have picked that one – but I’m not.

The most interesting thing of all was a box of files relating to Ed Roberts (the so called father of the independent living movement) that I spent time browsing somewhat aimlessly through.  My vision of Ed was from a widely circulated picture of him released upon his death in 1995.   The picture is of a smiling middle-aged man slightly reclining in his wheelchair with a breathing tube in his mouth.  Aside from the paraphernalia of his disability he looks like any ordinary cheerful middle-aged bloke.  People talk of his charisma and he was obviously a gifted and much loved leader but I didn’t really get that from anything I’d read about him until I went through the box.  It was such an interesting experience to immerse myself and try to get to know the man.

What I found were photos of Ed with his son Lee and photos of him as a much younger and actually rather good looking man.  As a younger many I could see how attractive he was and the sparkle that was still in the eye of the older man seemed somehow naughtier in the younger Ed.

Then I read a story written by one of his attendants who wrote about going into the Ed zone when he worked with him.  He talked about travelling with Ed and how Ed liked nice hotels.  He said that for hotels, accessible rooms mean big bathrooms and the rooms themselves were not necessarily big enough for Ed to move around in his wheelchair.  Ed used a bed-pan not the bathroom and the size of the room was more important than the bathroom amenities.  So Ed would get his attendants to go up and inspect the room before he went in.  He quipped to one hotel receptionist “I shit in the bed I don’t care about the size of the bathroom.”  This and a couple of other funny, rather earthy stories suddenly made me see that Ed was funny and frank and I felt like I knew him so much better – and I liked him a lot.

My day getting to know Ed was tinged with sadness however because the previous night on arriving in San Francisco I received news that Anne McDonald had died rather suddenly on Friday night.  Anne’s story became an important part of our own disability rights history when she went to the Supreme Court to win the right to be released from an institution back in 1979.  Last year I recorded a small celebratory lunch that she held at her home where she lived with Rosemary and Chris.  The lunch was to celebrate 30 years since her win in the Supreme Court and 30 years of freedom she enjoyed living with Rosemary and Chris.  Anne and Rosemary wrote her story into a best selling book and also an acclaimed Australian Film “Annie’s Coming Out” which is one of Stella’s favourite films.  I had hoped to include Anne in this film I am making now.  I have met her several times over the past couple of years and I know she will be greatly missed by those she was close too and by the rest of us who knew her a little and were touched by her humour and her story.

When I came home from my day at Berkeley with the box of Ed I was super excited to find that 3 crucial interviews have fallen into place for Thursday  - actually now I have 4 – Joan Leon (co-founder of the World Institute on Disability plus plus plus), Zona Roberts (mother of Ed), Susan O’ Hara (with an interest in accessibility in France among other things) and Hale Zukas (one of Ed’s contemporaries who works at WID).

But first today I interviewed Mary Lou Breslin who is a key figure in disability law and gave me some wonderful material including a great description of the distinction between Human rights and civil rights (might be obvious to the rest of you but I was having trouble getting my head around it), and a really nice observation from the American point of view of the differences between the UK social model thinking and the American social model approach – similar but different.  You’ll have to watch the movie and I know these are plot twists where you’re desperate to know how it all works out – Yeah!

Missing Judy Heumann in Washington I thought was a real blow to this film but now that I’m here I know that I have enough of the other key people to make it valid plus my own selection of the less obvious but I believe important and interesting people who really make this movement unique.

The next 2 days are pretty full with appointments and things to do so this afternoon I took myself out to buy some videotape as I’m worried I’ll run out (4 tapes left and I probably need 5 or 6).  After that I caught a tram down Market street to Castro Street, walked along to Haight Street and along through the hippie precinct that is so famously San Francisco.  I must say that San Francisco has a noticeably larger population of weirdos and homeless people than any other place I’ve been to on this trip.  On the noisy crowded bus on the way home I had a man next to me giving deep and meaningful (and slightly boring) counselling to a friend on his phone while a rowdy bunch of black teens newly excited by their gayness shrieked and squealed at their phones and each other “I hate your bored ass bitch too” (said with affection if you can imagine it), was one classic line shouted into the phone.  Honestly it was like they were talking another language.  Unintelligible and over the top.

So, apologies for another instalment with probably way too much detail.  Only a week until I get home and stop this ranting about the minutiae of my days.

UC Berkeley - very pretty campus

Haight Ashbury district

Bizarre view from torturous Chinese foot massage