This entry was written by a dear friend of mine.  Sean P. Dineen. I have known him for five years now.  He not only is a professor at Kean University, as an adjunct teacher, but he is a fellow C.P.er.  Please welcome him kindly.

As a historian, and amateur writer, it gives me a sort of dry amusement to find incongruities in the record of our daily and national lives.   Since, my dear and beloved friend, Ms. Karen Lynn has allowed me the honor of sharing her public sound board, this holiday afternoon, I thought I’d dust off a few.

There is greater physical accessibility in South Africa, than the United States for wheelchair users, and it’s been so for forty years, in spite of apartheid.   The most democratic nation on earth, drags its feet in bringing our community into national life, while the nation most reviled over the past half century, shows the lead.   Making the country accessible was the brainchild of Prime Minister Hendrick Verwoerd, the public symbol of Afrikaner Basskaap (domination).   He simply, summoned 12 of the country’s top businesspeople and told them, the accessibility problem was to be solved in a month.  He told them that they could have any government help they needed, and if they failed they would be shot.

Too direct? perhaps, but the job got done.      Without advocating, bullying, I sometimes wish for a little of that sort of dedication on our government leaders, in both parties.    The assumption is too often, that the focus must be on medical treatments, rehab, and that certainly has its place, but as Karen has told you, and as I can tell you, the real struggle is in taking our place in the larger world.    This is what society sometimes is uncomfortable with.   It’s easy to give money to a telethon, yet it’s not so easy to understand the subtly of what most of us deal with.

I am a doctoral student, moving heaven and earth to get this degree, obtain full time employment, and financial independence. Although, the experts have no help for me.  The agencies, believe I can do it entirely alone, or that this goal of mine, despite $90000 spent, and nine semesters as an adjunct, is unreachable.   They would rather spent time at a conference in the Fiji Islands.

This degree is my one path, and yet they do not see! That’s another irony.  They who use all the right words, and smile, do nothing! And the people who one would think know little and care less are cheering me on.   All of you, my friends, have desire to do something in your own way.   May God Grant you, and I to get that chance to stand metaphorically in the sunlight, and bask in all we are to become.