Advertiser Editorial Page Editor
Sometime in coming weeks, I expect to shed the crutches that have helped me move about since I smashed my right knee in an auto accident in Fiji last year.
It will be a happy day because the total experience has not really been fun. Still there are moments, even little compensations, which I shall look back upon.
First off, I’ll have to shed what I call the helpless woman complex. For not only do people do things for those with crutches (bring coffee, give you special seats, etc.) you come to expect such things.
At first when little old ladies and I came to a door at the same time, I was surprised that they held it to let me pass. Now I glare at them until they do.
On a recent Mainland trip, the airlines let me board first and gave me special consideration in seating. From now on I plan to bring crutches every time I fly.
(Still that’s nothing compared to what Pan Am did when I left Fiji: they put me in a wheel chair and hoisted me up to the plane door with a fork-lift. There two huge Fijians swung me and the chair across an awesome three-foot space to two other smiling chaps who put me aboard. Believe me, it was the most exciting part of the flight.)
Handbags for Men?
Yes, one does get a bit womanish in this situation. Because the crutches occupy my hands, I have found it convenient to carry papers, medicines, etc., in a Pan Am flight bag. The contents are increasing, and it worries me that I have become so attached to “my handbag.”
It bothers others, too: Gardiner Jones of The Advertiser used to drive me around a bit, opening the car door, carrying my bag, and providing the other aids to which I have become accustomed. But he had to give it up because it was giving him a servant complex.
Naturally the helplessness extends into the home. What can a fellow like me do in the chill darkness of 5:30 a.m. when I hear the trucks grinding up the street but elbow my wife awake and say, “Dear, you forgot to put out the rubbish last night – again.” One feels like a cad until he snuggles down into the warm sheets and drifts back to sleep.
It’s not all easy, however. For example, just carrying the heavy mail or a newspaper with hands occupied can be a problem until you learn to jam it down into the split portion of the crutch until it holds.
Liquids require other adjustments. Outside at a party you have an advantage. You have a legitimate reason for staying within arm’s reach of the bar, or you can expect fast service if you are seated. People like to bring you drinks; it is good for their soul, if not your liver.
Being at home and hand-less in moving about is another thing. I have been going to write Heloise how I found light plastic cups ideal for carrying water or other needed liquids from room to room; you grasp the rim firmly in your teeth and crutch along carefully.
Beer-Break Technique
Beer in bottles or cans takes another technique. I found it best to open them by the refrigerator, drink a bit, then put the bottle into my back pocket and get back to the TV set or reading chair. (Tucking a bottle under the waist of a lava-lava is not recommended; the cold is not only a howling shock, but you can end up as I did – naked, wet, and with a floor to clean if the lava-lava comes undone.)
One warning to the men: you would think that being immobilized in a cast is the perfect excuse to avoid wifely wrath as you settle down for a long afternoon of watching football on TV. It might seem almost worth breaking a leg to get such dispensation. Alas, it doesn’t work that way.
The first quarter OF THE FIRST GAME, YET, was hardly over before the usual tender solicitation was replaced with the old curt disdain-“how can you waste half a day on such a thing when you could be reading a book or writing a great novel.” And when she remembers that most games in Hawaii are replayed tapes where you already know the score, the intolerance toward sport and us old football fans reaches new heights.
So you can’t have everything in the way of crutch-and cast comfort. But these are small crises of helplessness compared to the time we ran out of gas in the middle of Kalanianaole Highway at rush hour.
There we sat, traffic whizzing and screeching by, my wife at the wheel, me also up front with both cast and crutches hidden from view.
“The only thing to do dear,” I said, coolly appraising the situation, “is for you to get out and start pushing. Then someone will stop and help.”
I got all kinds of dirty looks sitting there as my wife strained away in the hot sunshine. But I took it like a man kept shouting, “broken leg!” Finally a couple of fellows stopped to help her push. I resolved that next time I would think to wave my crutches; then it wouldn’t be so embarrassing.
The second breakdown came at Niu Valley in the morning rush. Again the car stopped in the middle of a busy street. This time right behind us was Buck Buchwach of The Advertiser-eager to help but because of a heart attack a couple years ago, under doctor’s orders not to do things like pushing cars.
The problem was solved with Buck and me giving advice and my wife pushing our car to the curb with the aid of a dragooned passing high school lad. As we abandoned my wife and broken car, Buck remarked, “We are probably the two most useless fellows in the world to get into that kind of situation.”
The Passive Life
And so it goes, not all fun as you can see. I have had to forego such joys as running to get the boy’s kites in the air, or trotting behind for support as they learn to ride bikes; I watch and shout advice while my wife runs. Moreover, our yardman is now a necessity, and it doesn’t give quite the feeling of guilty pleasure as when he was a luxury.
You must get used to a rather passive life. Where I used to go jogging or swimming at the Y before work, I now go to Kaiser Hospital. There on the cool mornings of late, I enjoy sitting with my legs in the whirlpool bath, reading The Advertiser, and letting pretty therapists bend and stretch my leg.
Soon with luck I shall graduate from crutches to cane.
This is more than just progress, in my view. It is a whole new phase. For crutches have an invalid image about them. Few women seem attracted to a man with crutches, for example.
But a cane? That’s something a bit more dashing. (And I think my doctor, Gabriel Ma suspects the inherent dangers for me because he is very cautious about my graduation to a cane.)
One needs to work on his limp to get the right touch. And the cane itself is important. Or rather the canes, since one would seem to need a variety.
A couple of Irish friends, Ed Sheehan and Kay Ahearn, have already provided me with gnarled thorn walking sticks from the old country. It would seem everybody in Ireland used a cane, even St. Patrick.
I doubt if I shall need a cane with a dagger in it, as you used to see in the old movies. But I once knew ac CIA agent in Laos who carried a hollow cane with a special container inside to carry brandy. I am writing to cane companies for catalogs.
Walter Mitty Dreams
As important as anything is the story of how one was injured. Let’s face it; a head-on collision with a bus is just not very romantic, even if it was in Fiji.
I intend to phase out these facts as the memory of others fails. There are all sorts of better story possibilities about: “A dangerous skiing race hi the New Zealand alps”… “Busting a wild bronco on the Australian outback”… “Secret mission. Plane crashed on a lonely reef”… “Caught sailing between Samoa and Tonga by a hurricane. Feverish days in an open boat. Despite the smashed leg, I set the course and handled the helm.”
Someday I’ll start believing the story myself, Walter Mitty style. I can picture the scene now. There I am abed dreaming, casually leaning on my cane telling a breathless and breathtaking blonde how I was wounded in some romantic-sounding action. I am interrupted by a nudge in my ribs. It is the chill predawn, Tuesday or Friday. It is my wife, and she says; “You forgot to put the rubbish out last night. Get going. And take that phony cane with you, if it makes you feel better.”
The Honolulu Advertiser
Tues., March 18, 1969.
