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Message |
| Posted By: |
Uncle Tantra |
| Date: |
18-Oct-2003-22:01:03 |
| Subject: |
Défiparade ...or... Why I Live In Paris |
Years ago, when I lived in Back Bay, I wandered out of my house one morning to find my neighborhood completely transformed, in preparation for the Boston Marathon. I made a mental note of the preparations and went out later that afternoon to watch it.
Having arrived at the finish line a couple of hours too early, what I found was not the end of the marathon itself, but the end of the wheelchair race that preceded it. The handicapped racers left the starting point of the race before the runners for many reasons, not the least of which is that they, although being confined to wheelchairs, managed to cover the 26 miles of the course in far less time than the runners. Therefore, in the minds of the politically-correct Bostoners who sponsored the race, they would be well out of the way before the "real" race took place. Having learned this from fellow bystanders, I stood with them and waited for the first of the wheelchair racers to cross the finish line.
Finally, one fellow did, greeted by polite but subdued applause. This was only a "handicapped" athlete, after all. Then, along with the other sports fans, I stood and waited for the rest of the field to follow.
And I waited, and waited, and waited.
Finally, literally twenty minutes after the winner, another series of wheelchair athletes followed and, over the next hour, the rest of the participants in the race. Then there was a polite interval of an hour or so, and the runners began to appear. I stayed for a while, but after a few minutes I tired of the spectacle and went home, still thinking of the guy I had seen who crossed the finish line first in his wheelchair.
The next morning I went out for coffee and bought all the morning papers, hoping to learn who he was. I read every paper, in vain. Not one even mentioned the wheelchair race.
Now I ask you to ponder this.
This fellow crossed the finish line TWENTY MINUTES before his nearest competitor.
Think what the newspapers would have done if this had happened in the Boston Marathon itself. It would have been the sporting news of the century. The winner of the "real" race that year beat his closest competitor to the finish line by a matter of seconds. The guy in the wheelchair race beat his closest competitor, over the same distance, by TWENTY MINUTES. This is a feat of athletic excellence unlike any I have ever seen or heard of in my entire life.
But did it get covered? Did it make the news? Did anyone in America give a shit?
Yesterday morning, out walking the dogs on the Champ de Mars, the delightfully empty park area surrounding the Eiffel Tower, I noticed some tents at the southeast end of the park, near the École Militaire. Luring the dogs in that direction with a well-thrown tennis ball, I found that the tents were the least of the new additions to the landscape. Workmen had obviously been busy through the night constructing a festival-sized stage, filled with massive sound equipment and video screens. Obviously, some kind of concert was being planned.
Cool, thought I. I made a mental note of it. That night, since the ladyfriend I would have preferred to be spending the evening with was in front of a movie camera elsewhere in the city, I wandered back to the Champ de Mars to find out what was up.
What was up was an event called Défiparade. It's a full-day celebration for those *en situation de handicap*, paid for by the French government, in conjunction with several French companies. The crowning event of the day was a concert on the stage I had seen being prepared earlier in the day performed by, and for, handicapped people.
The scene, to an American, was somewhat surreal. The audience, in the thousands, was composed pretty much equally of people in wheelchairs and "walkies" like myself. On stage most of the performers were in wheelchairs. The whole event was translated in sign language for the deaf.
And everyone was dancing.
Everyone onstage, everyone in the audience, everyone in wheelchairs, all of them dancing. The audience area in front of the stage was composed of thousands of smiles, thousands of beings radiating joy and, for one evening, free of any distinctions between "walkies" and "wheelies." It was just humans, moving to the same music, celebrating the same life, uncaring of the circumstances it had imposed upon them.
Have you ever seen thousands of people in wheelchairs dancing? It's quite a sight. I highly recommend it.
The next morning, I went out for coffee and bought the morning papers and found that coverage of the event was on the front page of each of them. Go figure.
Why do I live in Paris?
Well, duh.
As an American, I know that my tax dollars would be spent, basically, to kill people. That is just what America *does*.
Here in France, they spend their tax dollars to celebrate life, and to remind their citizens that life is spectacular and wonderful and worth living and worth celebrating and worth dancing to, whether one is dancing on two sound legs or on wheels.
Vive le différence.
For the rest of my life, whenever I hear the word "handicapped," I will now know who and what it refers to.
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