My van was an old one that didn't have a ramp...I just took two old motorcycle ramps to exit from the back door. I was always afraid of falling. So I asked (one of my aides) if she had the ramps lined up and she says, "Yep, yep, don't worry." I started back and all of a sudden one of my wheels went out of the van and I'm tumbling over backwards into this huge puddle. I landed on my back. The water was up to my earlobes. I'm laying there and she's running around screaming, "I've killed him, I've killed him!" Meanwhile, this car drives up and stops about ten feet from me, and I see this little tiny head peeking up over the steering wheel, this little old lady. She drives by slowly and looks at me like I was going to bite her.

I was in the MUB one day, at the ice cream place, and there was a bunch of high school students who were trying out for band, I think. All these kids, really active and fooling around. The one in back of me had some kind of flute. Now I have trouble with my hands holding a container, I need to use both hands. My friend hands it over to me and I said "Now hold it until I get my hands around it," and this person behind me takes this flute and lets this ungodly sound right in my ear. I go into this spasm where my hands go together with force. Everything in the container lifted right up, a blob right over my head with a big scoop of ice cream in the middle of it. Ice cream just started coming down my face, into my lap, in my ears, and down the back of my neck. I looked up and everyone who was really social before was very, very quiet, looking away.

(The art professor) heard I couldn't use my hands very well...so what was a quad doing taking an art class? Even though I don't have voluntary movement in my fingers I still paint with just a brush or a pen in between my fingers. The class was being held upstairs in Paul Creative Arts Center, but the professor said that he wasn't going to move the class, he wouldn't even talk to the department head about it. So I called (President Haaland) and told him what the problem was. Five minutes later he called me back and said, "You'll be in the class next time it meets...it's being moved downstairs..."

...the professor told the class that everyone would have to bring the easels back upstairs and next class go upstairs and bring them back down and that's the way it would be for the whole semester. Well, didn't I feel like a heel. After awhile he started talking to me and started giving me advice. He noticed I could draw. I got a B+, and he said I would have gotten a grade (higher) but my last drawing I hadn't had time to put legs on my table. He got to be friends with me. In fact, he grew to love the room because the lighting was great. They made the room into a studio. I think they should name it after me now.