She taught me how to use a loom, throw pots on a child-sized wheel, and make stuff out of wood. She always wore tailored slacks and Oxford button-down shirts, and a gold pinkie ring. I turned out to be very good with my hands. We were an independent bunch, us crippled kids. I used to push my friend Donna Ferri to the bathroom and help her, and all the while we'd be talking or laughing or maybe having an argument, which was often because we were both stubborn.
All crippled kids learn that.
Once you get the wheelchair almost halfway into the stall, you have to make sure the brakes are on. So then what you do is lift up each of Donna Ferri's legs carefully, one at a time, and slide the metal locks into place on either side of teach knee and make sure they are really tight. The braces crippled kids wore in those days weighed as much as the kid sometimes. If you're laughing or having a fight, you have to stop for a while and concentrate on this next thing because it's tricky. If you're laughing too hard, which we were always doing, you were liable to fall and bust something.