Special Olympics -- wheelchair racing

One of the more skilled workers at the clock company in Maryland was a young man named Doug. Doug was born with a congenital deformity similar to Achondroplasia Genetic Disorder.  His torso and head were normal, however both arms and both legs were seriously misshapen and much shorter than average.  Doug had leg braces and crutches, but most of the time he used a wheelchair to get around.  Doug was in charge of our repair department and though crippled was able to perform amazing feats when working with delicate clock mechanisms.


When Bud returned to work just a few hours after the accident in which he almost lost his toe, he was for the most part also wheelchair bound.  It was only a matter of minutes before Bud and Doug were side-by-side at the starting line.  Bud was bigger and stronger, but Doug had years of experience in wheelchair operation.  Of course, none of the management team was aware of the little sideshow about to take place down the middle of the factory.  Once we found out, we thought we put a stop to the foolishness, but Bud and Doug still raced against each other at every opportunity.  Sometimes they were caught and reprimanded, but most times they got away with their shenanigans.  Fortunately, no one was injured (participants or spectators) and no clocks mysteriously needed to be resanded and/or refinished.  Thankfully, Bud was only in a wheelchair for a few weeks so the Olympics were soon over.


On Valentine's Day in 1978, Bud showed up at my front door on crutches and carrying what had to have been a three pound bag of pistachio nuts.  In 1978 the majority of pistachios came from Iran and for some reason were dyed red.  That meant your fingers always turned red when eating them, sorta like eating Cheetos (something else I could eat by the wheelbarrow full) and having your fingers turn orange.  Though I had never discussed my love of all things nutty with Bud, he thought the red color covered the holiday and HE loves pistachios.  I was surprised and thrilled by his romanticism.  To this day he never forgets Valentine's Day. 


A few days later (it couldn't have been very long, I still had some of the nuts left to take with me) I took a trip on Amtrak to visit my sister Cindy, who was at that time living near Tampa, Florida.  Cindy got the same Gypsy gene most of the rest of us got.  Cathy and Glenn seem to be the exceptions, yet Cindy and Cathy are genetically identical.  Really makes one wonder.  Cindy has lived in Florida, Texas and Colorado as an adult.  When she moves, she really moves.  Anyway, I was off on Amtrak to Florida.  I had never ridden on a train before.  I did not get a sleeper, though the trip would take some 18 hours, because I am cheap thrifty.   I also only learn lessons the hard way.  To my horror, and I certainly hope this is one thing that has changed in train travel, I discovered the toilets emptied directly onto the track.  After that little piece of information (I used to walk along the tracks when I was a kid --- eww), I refused to eliminate anything from my body.  That meant I couldn't consume anything either.  Then, to make my abhorrence of trains complete, on the return trip the train hit a car that was stalled on the tracks.  There was no one in the car when the train hit it at about 80 miles an hour, but I saw pieces of sheet metal flying past my window as the brakes were screeching in an attempt to avoid the inevitable.  The accident, of course, delayed the return trip by several hours while the local police conducted an inquiry and reports were filed.  The visit with Cindy was spectacular, but me riding on trains is a mishap to be avoided at all costs. Anyway, while riding the rails I had plenty of time to think about my relationship with Bud.  It did not seem possible to me, but I had a sneaky suspicion I was actually falling for the guy.  I explained to myself all the reasons there was no future in a relationship with him -- he was much younger, we worked together, he had long hair, I was terrified, he was inexperienced, and anything else I could think of or make up to discourage taking the next step.  Yet, when I got off the train in Baltimore and he was standing there waiting (without crutches), my heart nearly exploded and I knew I was a goner.


Bud soon moved in with me .  Now this was beyond bending the no fraternization rule, so I made it perfectly clear we would have no demonstrations of affection anywhere near the workplace.  Bud took me to a Sha-Na-Na concert, and unfortunately the secretary / receptionist (we had replaced dear old Donna) was at that same concert -- oops.  In April, I was hospitalized for what was supposed to be minor surgery but turned into a major mess (my reproductive system was constructed of spare parts and put together with a staple gun and glue).  Bud brought me a handpicked bouquet of spring flowers and a stuffed animal.  Again I was amazed at how romantic this guy is.  Though I was supposed to take it easy to allow the surgery to heal properly, a week later Bud and I were trekking around fields and over fences, following the Maryland Hunt Club race.  Not only did this little excursion cause serious problems with healing (and later adhesions requiring additional surgery), but we were captured on film and broadcast on the evening news for all the world to see.  And too much of the world did see us, including the men who owned the management company that employed me.  Not just oops, but holy shit we screwed up bad!


The following Monday, the president of the management firm called me in to tell me he was aware of my extracurricular activities.  He said it was company policy to immediately terminate both parties, but he felt my skills were too valuable to lose and, therefore, only Bud would be terminated.  I, however, was strictly prohibited from discussing the impending doom with Bud, and the nitwit actually went so far as to demand Bud move from my apartment posthaste and insisted I have the locks changed on my doors.  Who did he think he was?  However, after a moment's reflection, I could see no purpose in both of us being unemployed at the same time, so I decided on a ruse to make this jerk think he was getting his way.  While in his presence, I called my apartment complex manager and asked that the locks be changed.  Then I meekly went back to my job and hoped the subject would be dropped.  It was.  He thought I had caved.  That night when we got home from work, I told Bud he was going to be fired the next day.  This is the only time in my entire working history I divulged information I had specifically been forbidden to communicate.  I didn't feel good about it, but I felt it had to be done.  At first Bud was livid.  He wanted to go in and protest that he was being singled out when there were others (specifically Tim and his current honey) who were also breaking the prohibition.  After some time I finally convinced him it would do no one any good to have both of us without income, and it would put a serious crimp in his friendship with Tim if he were to insist on spreading the blame.  The president of the management firm was too cowardly to fire Bud himself, so he sent poor Frank in to do the job.  He did not even have the decency to explain to Frank why he was firing Bud, but I filled in the details for him later that day.  Bud did NOT move out, but as he was no longer employed at the clock company it was no longer forbidden to fraternize.  We both got new keys to the new lock on the apartment door.  Frank and Tim took Bud out for drinks and told him how sorry they were about the way things turned out and offered to help in any way they could.  Bud, to this day, has not gotten over his hatred of the man who had him fired.  Interestingly, not too many years later that same man was arrested, tried and found guilty of the premeditated murder of his wife.  As you can imagine, he was an extremely controlling tyrant and apparently she had decided to leave him.  It seems he couldn't let her do that, so he beat her to within an inch of her life and then set the house on fire and left her to burn, or so the story goes.   He went to jail for several years, but managed to get out on a technicality.  You can read about him here and make your own conclusion:  Wayne Carr.  I know what my vote would be.


Bud found another job, then another.  At the first job he worked in a hot, sweltering rubber plant and lost weight at an unbelievable pace.  He looked good, but felt exhausted constantly.  The second job put him back in a supervisory position in an insulated glass factory.  Plus, he worked only a four day week.  My mother had been in the hospital in Atlanta at the same time I was in the hospital in Maryland.  She never came out.  Her heart bypass surgery went horribly wrong.  Though she remained in a coma for months, she finally passed in July.  Another interesting little tidbit, I was born 18 days before my mother turned 30; she died 18 days before I turned 30.  I will forever be grateful I had Bud to help me through that horrendous time.  I stuck around at the clock company for several months, but never got over my resentment of the things that had happened.   I was also suffering extreme periods of depression over the loss of my mother.  Finally, one day I just walked in to Frank and said "I can't do this anymore.  I'm bustin' my ass 14 or 16 hours a day for something I no longer believe in.  I quit."


Next time, our version of Three's Company -- Carla and Bud and Tim share a townhouse.