Remembering Yesterday

Yesterday, I had a meeting downtown Salt Lake over at the developmental disabilities Council office which as most of you is where I finished my state career. Barbara Toomer a long time advocate and reactionary Salt Lake and I were at the Council office to videotape our comments regarding the impact the American disabilities act has had on Utah and specifically Salt Lake. We were doing this for the local transit authority and what they wanted was pre-ADA post ADA differences essentially a piece patting themselves on the back for the amount of transit the ported people with disabilities over the last 30 years. Initially, the authority me wanted to know if I would do the piece, and they wanted me to do the piece at a panel discussion Tuesday morning American Public Transportation Association( A P Tick select all A) .

APTA is the professional association of transit providers across the country. Whenever started out as a transit coordinator for independent living, these guys were the bad guys. These are the people or agencies we went up against on a regular basis to try to get accessible public transportation i.e. public buses wheelchair folks to get on as well as trains and planes. Adapt( American Disabled for Accessible Transportation) was our program. Adapt took great pleasure in scheduling their meetings at the same time APTA did theirs often closing down the hall meeting by taking over the building the meeting to be held. I was not on the national bandwagon but that part in local events particularly when APTA had their meeting in Salt Lake.

They wanted a panel discussion to be between 8 o'clock and 12 on Tuesday the 23^rd. I was interested in participating on the path my felt they were other folks is qualified if not more than I the on in one of those folks was Barbara Toomer. However I just usually finishing getting dressed at zero 800 when they talk to Barbara for staff does not even come in till 1030 so that would not do. Ergo, the solution is to produce a video that can be played in that time spot. I kind of insisted the transit authority give Barbara chance to be part of this discussion. I believe That no one in Salt Lake County Hasspent more time in Bringing about accessible transportation than Barbara Toomer. Barbara was an advocate exclamation! Barbara did all of her advocacy work out of commitment and belief she was doing the right thing. My knowledge Barbara has never paid one cent for all of her advocacy efforts. I on the other hand was paid to be at these functions, do what I had to do to bring about accessible public transit. I thought of myself as a gunslinger, as a ringer, someone good at bringing change. That's how I saw this piece of history. In the have really good documentation that supports this vision. I probably would have done the same work voluntarily but luckily that was not the case. I did the work, I loved the the work And best of all I got paid for work I loved.

I Had had a rough night previous to the meeting I still felt loose bowel wise but I went to the meeting and hope for the best. I got there early enough spend some time with Frank, a good friend and person who took over my office after I left. We had a good discussion. Frank works in cycles in earlier everyday which allows him to leave on Friday afternoon have an extended weekend. Frank left and I was alone in my old office having waves of nostalgia. The room was quiet an neat nothing like the room I left.