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(This blog tells my family's story. To see more, click "blog" at the top of this webpage.) I transferred to the Coop clothing department from textbooks. Everyone I worked with was under-employed and many had more than one college degree. That set the stage for interesting philosophy and political debates while we folded and refolded endless Harvard sweatshirts for big displays. I had friends at the Coop, but no close friends. Everyone Beth and I met had a story. Harvard students stood out in one way or another in addition to strong academics. With the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) down the street, a freshman joke claimed that MIT students were smart but Harvard students were interesting. Cambridge was nothing if not interesting. I grew up near Cleveland in Lorain, Ohio, the International City. Many cultures had settled in Lorain, along with some of my ancestors, drawn by the jobs at the steel mill and shipyards. Cambridge beat Lorain in diversity hands down. My co-workers hailed from India, Germany, Iran, Russia, Kenya, Ireland, Puerto Rico, Jamaica, and more. For the first time in my life, I numbered among the distinct minority as a white American. One morning, I walked back to my apartment from my job in the Quad and drove the car to the grocery store and laundromat before my shift at the Coop. Running short on time, I parked on the outskirts of Harvard Square. When my shift ended at 9 p.m., the car wasn't there. I blamed the misleading parking signs and called the police to find out where it had been towed. Not recognizing the address, I walked to the taxi line on Mass Ave. My taxi driver weaved through many dark streets as the fare ticked up to over twenty-five dollars. At the lot, I also paid the towing charge and received a hefty parking ticket. Finally behind the wheel in Beth’s blue car, I looked at a city map to figure out how to get back. I found the lot within walking distance of the Square, only a short distance northeast. Or a brief drive. I knew parking tickets translated to big bucks for the city of Cambridge, but I hadn’t realized the boon for taxi drivers as well, when they drove the long, long way to the tow lot. In the news, Christopher Reeve’s death hit me unexpectedly hard. He had been quadriplegic, a diagnosis Beth shared. A pressure sore on his back became infected and strong antibiotics no longer worked for him after nine years of frequent health issues with a high spinal cord injury. John and I carried the Reeve Foundation's Superman tags and supported the nonprofit’s research and resources. The message of hope on the tags said, “Go Forward.” We mourned Reeve’s passing, a grim reminder of the risks of quadriplegia. . . . And I bought more antibiotic cream to treat the leg and foot abrasions Beth acquired from swimming. Next: A Boston Thanksgiving! 
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(This blog tells my family's story. To see more, click "blog" at the top of this webpage.) The autumn months turned into a strange and lonely time for me. Every morning, I woke up early in a cramped apartment and made oatmeal. I hiked the half hour to my personal care assistant job, rain or shine. I memorized the routine and my role in it. I tried to avoid impatient reminders from the upperclass student if I paused too long. After my morning job, I had about four hours free. Anything Beth needed as she started her freshman year of college was my priority. I helped her pick up medical supplies in the mailroom. I took her wheelchair to get the bearings replaced, while she used an old back-up chair. I bought snacks for her or groceries for me, or carried my dirty clothes to a laundromat. (She still wouldn't let me do her laundry.) I usually stayed in Harvard Square in-between my jobs. I drank tea, read, and wrote, alone with a constant tension headache. Nothing made it completely go away, but many things aggravated it. My goal was to keep it at a lower level and avoid pain spikes. At 2 pm, I started second shift at the Harvard Coop. The crowds in the textbook department thinned out as the semester progressed, so my hours dropped to seven a day, five days a week. I stocked shelves and sent emails about ordered books. One evening, I recognized Wallace Shawn who played Vizzini in the classic, The Princess Bride. The movie had played more than a few times during popcorn parties at our home in Ohio. I also chatted with actress Sharon Stone. Coop employees often talked about frequent celebrity sightings. During my break, I sat outside in nice weather to eat my peanut butter sandwich, people watching and listening to talented street musicians. I eavesdropped on tourist conversations and made a game out of guessing the languages they spoke. This carried over to my work hours at the Coop, where I sometimes asked customers where they were from. At 9 p.m., I joined the line waiting to punch out before I trekked past Beth’s dorm to my apartment, a half an hour walk. I called John, Ben, Maria, Beth, or my parents on my walk home. I carried pepper spray and a whistle. Alone on dark Cambridge streets, I felt surprisingly safe with plenty of people all around. Each night, I poured a bowl of cereal or heated up a can of soup before showering and sleeping, with the notable exception of Friday evenings. To usher in the weekend, I stopped at CVS after work to buy a pint of Ben and Jerry's frozen yogurt, either half-baked or cherry garcia. A difficult decision. I always had good intentions of not eating it all at once. ;-) Next: A Big City Scam!  (This blog tells my family's story. To see more, click "blog" at the top of this webpage.) After the first weeks of practices, the head coach asked Beth to swim with the college team twice a week (up from once a week), plus two practices one-on-one with the assistant coach. With lane space an issue during team practices, Beth learned to stay to one side in the lane, shared with a teammate who passed her often. In Blodgett's public locker room, Beth removed her seat cushion and backpack before showering in her wheelchair (and soaking the wheel bearings) after every practice. I offered to buy a plastic shower chair for the locker room. Instead, she decided to ask the coach for one, but put it off. Always reluctant to ask for anything special. When the wheel bearings needed to be replaced, the wheels stopped moving freely, catching and sticking. I drove her wheelchair regularly to a repair shop in the next town to the west, Belmont, where they replaced the expensive bearings. The challenges for Beth of removing a wet swimsuit, showering, and dressing in her chair very slowly became slightly easier. At first, when she had class soon after practice, she wore sweatpants instead of her usual jeans. One weekday evening, Beth joined the Harvard team on an excursion to a Boston club to support two teammates in a burrito-eating contest. She heard a joke with an element of truth: The main reason to swim on a college team? To eat anything they wanted! ;-) The T stop closest to the club had no elevator, meaning Beth stayed on the subway and rode past it to the next stop, then backtracked several blocks. Two swimmers walked the extra distance with her. At the club, Harvard football players carried her up a flight of steps. The two girls in the contest ended up in second place at the end of a late evening. On the way back, Beth joined the group at the closest, inaccessible T stop and the football players carried her on the steps. Stretched thin, Beth joined the other swimmers only hours later for an early morning practice, commiserating over their exhaustion and sharing plans for naps. Next: My strange new Cambridge life . . .   (This blog tells my family's story. To see more, click "blog" at the top of this webpage.)
Beth’s first semester of Harvard classes required more reading than was humanly possible for anyone needing sleep. She wanted to read every word, an insurmountable challenge. Like some of the other freshmen, she had doubts that she belonged at Harvard. College swamped her and she needed extra time to take care of herself. By herself. Swim training also required extended blocks of time. Beth called the shuttle operator to schedule rides to and from Blodgett pool, located south of the main campus over the Charles River. She wheeled a long stretch across Harvard Yard from her dorm to get to the shuttle, which dropped her off in the street above the pool. She learned to weave back and forth down the hill to the entrance to cut her speed and maintain control. Getting back up the hill? Always a slow challenge. On lucky days, another student going the same way would give her a boost. As fall began, Beth practiced once a week with the Harvard Women's Swimming and Diving team as team manager, plus a supervised practice another day with the assistant coach. With the addition of more pool time on her own with workouts from Peggy. At first, she compromised with three practices a week instead of her goal of five, to free time for homework. The swimmers on the team made Beth feel welcome. At one practice, the coach asked her strong college swimmers to complete laps without using their legs. Surprisingly difficult for even one lap. And harder still, using fists instead of open hands that could cup the water. With gradually increasing upper body strength, Beth swam hour and a half practices with modified drills and breaks at the walls. She thought of the frequent muscle soreness in her arms and shoulders as a reward for a good workout the day before. Next: What’s the main reason to swim on a college team? |
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