Struck Dumb

"Sess la vee!" (Barney Fife)

Has the word dumb been struck from the allowable in these earnest times? I ask because I’m increasingly struck dumb by current events as we used to call them, but I don’t want to be struck out. I guess. I was once openly rebuked on Facehooker when I used the word lame and then completely excised from her “company,” and ever since I’m just — well — cautious. The original meaning of the word dumb was speechless, but it also meant stupid and unintelligent. Because people were just dumb back then, particularly when it came to disability, the two were linked; hence, my reluctance, my prevarication about using it.

I don’t know. Lately, when things happen that render me speechless — like the fact that our legislators are having to legislate whether or not birth control should be legal, or Josh Hawley the senator from Missouri (where abortion is illegal, as is divorce if you’re pregnant) who pumped his fist in support at the crowd of freaks preparing to storm the U.S. Capitol and then is seen running for his life (seemingly) from those same freaks, or people persist in buying big-ass cars that guzzle gas while Yosemite burns — I am comforted by just thinking the word dumb. I’m not even into histrionics anymore. I’m just speechless, shaking my head and thinking That is just so dumb.

To be honest, when I say dumb, I mean both speechless and stupid, but not stupid because of speechless. Does that make sense?

I don’t know why I’m telling you this. Maybe because I wanted to tell you the story of this security guard outside the fish joint I went to today with Maria and Sophie. We’d gone to a beach in Long Beach that has recently put up these fabulous accessible paths. That’s the photo you see above. It was such a pleasure to make our way across this huge expanse of sand easily. We saw and spoke to a number of wheelchair users, and everyone agreed that while grateful, we also wished the accessibility extended to the actual water’s edge. As it was, when we reached the end of the blue path, we had to re-group. What this means in Sophie-world is that we took her out of the wheelchair and walked/carried her to a free spot on the sand. I spread a towel there and positioned Maria’s and my chairs and then returned to the blue path to get Sophie’s wheelchair which I then had to drag, backwards, through the dunes. I could never have done this by myself like I did in the olden days when, honestly, I really was a superwoman, but that’s another story entirely. We enjoyed sitting in the sun, Sophie was pulled like a magnet toward the water, and then it was time to pack up and do the reverse. Walk her over the sand in stages. Drag the wheelchair backwards through the sand, put her in the chair and then return to get the rest of the beach stuff. Our path back on the blue carpet was easy, though, and man, I’m grateful for ease.

Sheesh and anyway. Sess la vie! as the great Barney Fife says.

Back to the fish joint. We drove around the bend from the beach to this fish joint that I’ve been to a number of times with Carl. It’s right on the docks or wharf and is rustic, to say the least. You have a view of some boats and the sun glinting on the water, but it’s literally across from a bunch of containers — those huge ones that are unloaded from the Long Beach port. The restaurant is a dive, I guess, although they do have a little fresh fish market and the simple food they prepare is delicious. They cater to local fishermen and families, most of whom today were Latino. Maria speaks Spanish fluently and was able to communicate with our neighbors, but I was speechless and felt dumb not knowing Spanish. It really is just dumb that I live in this beautiful place where so many beautiful people speak Spanish and English, but I only speak English. I digress, dear Reader. We had to wait outside for a few minutes as they were only letting in four people at a time due to The Virus. That’s what the security guard called it. I don’t know why they had a security guard positioned outside the place, but I noticed he was armed with a stick. I didn’t see a gun, and he was pretty comfortable sitting on a folding chair. In other words, as I stood waiting, I wondered what sort of security he’d provide in the event he was needed. Such were my musings. He also stared quite a bit at Sophie in her wheelchair and finally asked, “Is she all right?” I said, “Yes, she’s fine.” He kept staring and then started rambling on about people in Mexico bringing their children over the border who were like her. I’m a cheerful conversationalist and nearly always friendly, but my eyes were glazing over and I began mumbling through my mask, and he repeated himself, and somewhere in his circumlocutions, I heard mongoloids and then I just sort of shut down, maintaining a flat stare behind my enormous blue sunglasses. I was struck dumb by what I’m going to call the security guard’s general dumbness. A general dumbness that seems to pervade nearly every aspect of our country. Because this country is just plain dumb.

Oh, and Sophie’s dumb, but she’s not dumb.