Sunday, February 13, 2000
Book aids adjustment to life with disability
BY DEBORAH KENDRICK
The Cincinnati Enquirer
John Hockenberry says he's not much of a role model, but he hasn't met Dave Wilkinson.
When Mr. Hockenberry's book comes up in table conversation, Mr. Wilkinson, a 32-year-old Virginia computing professional who is blind, is enthusiastic. “His book taught me how to live my life as a person with a disability.”
Heady praise, and now that Mr. Hockenberry is working on a sequel to Moving Violations: Wheelchairs, War Zones, and Other Declarations of Independence, it is an excellent time to remind readers, with or without disabilities, of this underpublicized gem.
John Hockenberry was 19 when he injured his spine in a life-threatening car crash and immediately crossed the line from “walking person” to “paraplegic who uses a wheelchair.” No one could argue that the transition has impeded his progress as a journalist, husband, father or human being in any way.
Great stories, with humor
Moving Violations chronicles Mr. Hockenberry's life from rehabilitation hospital, where he learned to be a paraplegic, through the first 15 years of his journalism career.
In the hospital, he learned how to enter the next phase of his life from the perspective of a wheelchair user — not just the basics of pushing his own chair and transferring from it to a toilet, car or donkey's back. He also learned about realities like using carotenes and the possibilities of what he calls “crip sex.”
When he began freelance reporting for National Public Radio's Morning Edition, he launched a career that would win him two Peabody Awards, book contracts, experiences (at home and in Third World countries) that, as he says, “no other person in the universe has had,” and enormous personal satisfaction.
Some great stories
But Moving Violations is no tedious lining of events. It reads like a novel, filled with great stories, real people, humor and moments of profound insight.
After being accepted into a NASA “Journalists in Space” program (that never got off the ground), Mr. Hockenberry spends a hilarious night under the bed of his erstwhile girlfriend and her new lover.
Yes, he confirmed recently, the story was absolutely true.
“That was an era when I was discovering the grace I could have with my wheelchair,” he said. “I was running in marathons and in great shape” and getting under the bed (and pulling the folded wheelchair after him) seemed the only way not to ruin her date.”
On a more somber note, he writes of his awakening, as a newly disabled person, that there had always been a parallel civilization of disabled people, and that it was thriving. He recalls how his own parents taught him in childhood to look away from disabled people, rather than to follow the child instinct to ask and learn.
As foreign correspondent for NPR, he discovered that he often got the best story because of his wheelchair rather than in spite of it, and sometimes forged human connections with refugees and starving children that were probably in large measure due to his being a paraplegic.
Doing what he wants
Now the proud father of 17-month-old twin daughters, he is focused on producing his stories for Dateline, writing a novel, and doing the sequel to Moving Violations.
While he speaks to groups, advocating for people with disabilities, and is involved with a new Internet enterprise to bring disabled people fully into the every-community of shopping, dating and seeking employment, he wants mostly to do what he wants to do and leave the role modeling to others.
Still, John Hockenberry is a model for others, with or without disabilities. His wheelchair is like a character in Moving Violations, and Mr. Hockenberry's example is one of living life to the fullest, confronting fear head on and never hesitating to laugh — even at yourself.
Cincinnati writer Deborah Kendrick is a nationally recognized advocate for people with disabilities. Write her at The Cincinnati Enquirer, Tempo, 312 Elm St., Cincinnati 45202. E-mail:dkendrick@enquirer.com.
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