It's kinda a weird but a couple of years ago I first began to notice that many people with disabilities, particularly those with spinal cord injury(SCI) spoke of the date of their injury as their second birthdate. Like I said I thought this was a little strange but I guess I too have began thinking about the incident which forever changed my life—I think, over all, for the best.

What do you call this date? Maybe a “crip-date” 'D-date' or even “C-Date? '”D” of course would stand for 'disability' date and C would be fore “Change” what ever you get the picture. For me that date ifs July 16, 1966, Saturday some time around three thirty in the afternoon. The day had been a typical Idaho July day, hot and dry. I was fifteen, I had my daytime drivers license and access to my brother Yamaha 80 cc motorcycle. I owned a perfectly good 55 cc Yamaha “step through” but much I chose to use my brother's bike because that bike was m,ore powerful, looked better and brother was a thousand of miles away in North Carolina. I had found I could turn the ignition with a metal finger nail file. This was also the first year I actually began working—working for someone other then my parents—which mean a lot. I had two regular lawn mowing jobs( which I used th cycle to buzz back and forth to) and I was two days into my first “real” job 20 + hours a week cooking chicken and everything else at a KFC in Boise Idaho.

The afternoon on my D-day. I had just mowed a lawn across town from my house and had sprinted home to change into my white clothes to cook chicken for the rest of the day. I was scheduled to start at 4:00 and work till close of operation. I was running late and did not take time to bathe or anything. My feet had been stained green from mowing the lawn in my barefeet—the feet were covered by fresh white socks., my favorite white tennis shoes ( my only tennis shoes and I really like them), my only pair of white levi's and white( old church shirt). I really liked the out fit because the white rally off set my tan or made the tan stand out. I really wasn't late for work but I was excited to get to the job my buddy Charley Ainge had got me. The job was new, working away from home on my own and really begin to start making my own money—no more asking, asking asking—boy was that thought process wrong.

I came up to the intersection of Boise Avenue and Broadway. I was in no hurry shift did not begin till 4:00 I still had thirty minutes...lots of time. I know I looked both ways before I pulled out onto Broadway heading North. I was hit by a South bound Senior driver exceeding the speed limit, the limit was 30 MPH. I was hit almost broad side throwing me back and striking my head on the windshield cracking my skull and bruising and pinching my spinal cord: instantly paralyzing me for the rest of my life.

The other day I was scanning some documents on to my hard drive and came across an article documenting my “D-Day”. I posted the article to my FB and have been at the responses I have gotten—you know “challenging” “brave” or bad the image made these folks feel for me, having lost so much. This was not the intent of the posting—I just did not have many other meaningful images from my adolescent life. I am OK and doing just fine.