What Ira wanted was to be able to go out with the guys and shoot baskets. The friend added. Mitchell to his own court group. When it comes to social isolation, a widespread curse of the late 20 th Century, few individuals are hit harder than people with disabilities, about 15 percent of the nation's population, who often feel cut off from the rest of the society by an invisible curtain. There was none of that Sunday at the fest at Evanston's lakefront Elliott Park.
Friendships can be mutually beneficial.
Though government and social service programs may meet certain needs at specific times, they fail to supply to supply one overwhelming desire of the human spirit-for the support and solace of an ongoing circle of friends. Or to include them in lunch plans. You can learn a lot. That, in fact, is what happened in 1988 when Hughes, then a student at the University of Kansas, found himself in his fraternity house lobby, talking to a person with severe disabilities who was waiting for his exercise trainer, a frat house resident. Instead of fleeing, Hughes stuck around, discovering they had similar musical interests, notably in singer James Taylor.