I will share with you a story that you might find amusing. I hope I haven't told you this already. Do you recall that I told you when I was the Dean of Students at the State University of NY at Farmingdale I ran a regional seminar on dealing with students with disabilities? One of the things I don't believe that I mentioned was that I had my entire staff, including myself, run around campus in wheel chairs for the better part of the day. Besides learning about the difficulties about operating the chair in all kinds of terrain, elevators, doors, etc (need I tell you), the most important thing we learned was how we felt about the people looking at us. I found myself wanting to tell people that I was just involved in an experiment and I really wasn't wheel chair bound. It was a very sobering experience and gave me a small window in to how better to relate to those in wheel chairs. For example, I also try to look people in their eye, smile (if appropriate) and recognize them as human beings who happen to be in a chair. We have so much to learn.

One of our speakers at my conference was a college Dean who had, I think, Cerebral Palsy. I offered him a cup of coffee. He laughed and said that he was taking medication and that the last thing he needed was caffeine.