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1. LETTERS TO EDITOR
2. Angels Never Say Hello!
3. Effective Resources
   1. WAPD Kenya Chapter (New)
   2. Disabled Traveler
   3. WAPD Maldives Chapter (New!)
4. Humor
5. WAPD TEXAS bragging again!

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It is a personal and serious obligation to cast a vote for your political choices in the USA elections. As a citizen it validates your right to exercise the powers granted by the constitution and its amendments. Do not fail yourself. VOTE!

LETTERS TO THE EDITOR are published to assist the questions, alerts and ideas of the writer. Please respond directly to them with your suggestions or areas of knowledge. It is all about: "People Helping People!"

Dear Editor,

I am a 32 year old disabled man living in North San Diego County. My car was hit by a drunk driver in 8/90. I received a brain injury and am a partial quad. I can feel everything and move everything, but I shake too much to do things for myself. I need friends badly. I would like to meet a nice woman and marry and have children. Can you offer any real suggestions? Is there any way to find people in my area? I do not drive, but I have a van and an attendant who can take me around.

Paul
mailto:beve@primenet.com

Dear Editor,

My name is Itamar from Israel and I'm looking for sites which deal with the subject: Rehabilitation of amputee above the knee. I also look for places which are expert on design and product of prosthetics above the knee. I be happy if you'll help me.

Regards

Itamar
mailto:brand@eng.tau.ac.il

Dear Editor,

My name is Ludmila. I decided to write this letter you because I found myself in the hopeless situation.

I'll give account of all one after another: all my life (I'm 34 years old) I did my utmost to acquire knowledge and be of use to my state, my people, but now my knowledge, my talent and me are necessary neither my country nor the president. The point is that I'm an invalid, I was born in an engineer's family, was born with the trauma, I can't walk for many years. I was taken to the best professors of the USSR by my parents, but in vain too and therefore I was operated in 1973. We were promised that I would walk to school, but and in this time the fate turned away me.

Staying as the invalid in 1974 I went to the general secondary school in the city Odessa and in 1984 I finished it with the gold medal. After finishing my school in 1985 I had entered the University of Odessa and now I'm a teacher of English, but an ailment is an ailment. It my problem! In 1999 I wanted undergo a cure in the hospital of Ukraine, I asked the president to help me to become healthy and give money for my treatment, but he refused me. I'll thank you very much if you pay much attention to my letter. All my life I have a dream I would like to finish the courses of English in America to promote my professional standard. I know it is difficult to realize my dream, perhaps I may be in need for it a few years, but I'll patient. I'm sure you won't refuse to help me and my dream will come true. I'm sorry but my letter is a shout of my soul. I ask you to help me to become the fine citizen of USA. I'm sure I'll make efforts, my knowledge and talent to become the useful person for your state. I want to be come the useful person for country, government and people of that country in which I'll live so as the IS. I'm looking forward to hearing from you soon otherwise I haven't hope in my future life.

With my hand on my heart

My address

Ludmila Zheliasko
Zelenaya street 6-113
Odessa 65 092
Ukraine
Yours Ludmila.
mailto:ulik@mail.od.ua

Dear Editor,

We are trying to purchase a barrier free home and need financing. it is for a 63 year old man on social security disability from a 4 way bypass and a 60 year old female on social security disability from a stroke. if you have any ideas (other than the VA) please let us know

bev vadnais
mailto:ab32180@yahoo.com

Dear Editor,

We are a school for autistic students in Massachusetts. A Parent of one of the student candidates in Idaho has a serious problem in getting legal help in obtaining funding from the school district. She said she tried any lawyers, not only education lawyer, she can thinks of or listed in directory, to ask representation, without success. We are wondering if you know any group or association or attorney in Idaho area who could give support to the parent and the autistic child. If you have any idea, please let us know and we will be happy to forward such information to them.

Thank you very much in advance.

Reiko Takikawa
mailto:takikawa@bostonhigashi.org

My grandma told me about angels. She said they come knocking at the door of our hearts, trying to deliver a message to us. I saw them in my mind's eye with a big mail sack slung between their wings and a post office cap set jauntily on their head. I wondered if the stamps on their letters said "Heaven Express." "No use waiting for the angel to open your door," Grandma explained. "You see, there is only one door handle on the door of your heart. Only one bolt. They are on the inside. Your side. You must listen for the angel, throw open the lock and open up that door!"

I loved the story and asked her again and again to tell me, "What does the angel do then?" "The angel never says 'hello' You reach out and take the message, and the angel gives you your instructions: 'Arise and go forth!' then the angel flies away. It is your responsibility to take action."

However, there was one time when the knocking stopped. It happened when my daughter, Lilly, was badly hurt in an accident. She was riding on the back of a forklift her father rented to move some hay for our horses. Lilly and two of the neighbor children begged him to let them ride on the forklift when he took it back to the rental place. Going down a little hill, the steering gear broke. Her father almost pulled his arms out of their sockets trying to hold the big rig on the road before it turned over. The little neighbor girl broke her arm. Lilly's father was knocked unconscious. Lilly was pinned underneath, with the huge weight of the rig on her left hand. Gasoline spilled out, burning her legs and hip.

The neighbor boy was unhurt and kept his wits. He ran out and stopped traffic. We rushed Lilly to Orthopedic Hospital in Los Angles where they began a long series of operations, each time amputating more of her hand as gangrene ate more away. Lilly had just started piano lessons.

Because I am a writer, I had looked forward with great anticipation to her taking typing lessons the next year. During this time I often drove off by myself to cry, not wanting others to see me. I couldn't stop. I found I did not have the concentration to read anything. No angels knocked. There was a heavy silence in my heart. I kept thinking of all the things Lilly would never do because of this terrible accident.

When we took her back to the hospital for the sixth operation, my spirit was very low. I kept thinking over and over, "She will never type! Never type. Never type." We set her bag down in the hospital room and suddenly turned around because a young teenage girl in the next bed said to us in a commanding voice: "I've been waiting for you! You go down the hall right now, third room on the left! There is a boy there who was hurt in a motorcycle accident. You go down there and lift up his spirit, right now!" She had the voice of a field marshal. We immediately obeyed her. We talked to the boy and encouraged him, and then came back to Lilly's hospital room.

For the first time I noticed that this unusual girl was bent way over. "Who are you?" I asked. "My name is Tony Daniels," she grinned. "I go to the handicapped high school. This time the doctors are going to make me a whole inch taller! You see, I had polio. I have had many operations."

She had the charisma and strength of a General Schwartzkopf. I couldn't help the words that came flying out of my mouth. I gasped, "But you aren't handicapped!"

"Oh, yes, you are right," she replied, looking sideways at me. "They teach us down at our school that we are never handicapped as long as we can help someone else. Now, if you met my schoolmate who teaches the typing class, you might think she is handicapped because she was born with no arms and no legs. But she helps all of us by teaching us typing, with a wand between her teeth."

Ka bang! Suddenly I heard it - the clanging noise of pounding and kicking and yelling at the door of my heart! I ran out of the room and down the corridor to find a pay phone. I asked the operator for the giant of the 1960's typing world - IBM! In my haste I didn't stop to consider I was just getting the number for some small a local sales office. I was arising, and going through that opening door!

I asked for the Manager, I wanted to go straight to the top! I told him my little girl had lost nearly all of her left hand, and if they had one hand touch-typing charts. He paused a long moment, "Well now, this is very odd. I'd never heard of such a thing until a few days ago. Someone sent me a one-handed typing manual, it's right here on my desk. Let's see, it has charts for the right hand, or the left hand. Let me send it to you as my gift.

It wasn't until very recently we realized how rare these one hand typing manuals are, and what a miracle it was for him to have it on his desk the day I called.

When we were finally able to take Lilly back to school, I took the one-hand typing charts with me. I asked the school principal if Lilly could take typing, even though she was too young. He told me I could ask the typing teacher if I wanted to, perhaps the teacher would volunteer his time at lunch, "After all, she certainly can't be allowed to slow down the entire class and we certainly can't pay him for his time." My heart sank.

But the typing teacher, Mr. Fredrigill, was wonderful. He just smiled at us and said, "We will find a way. We'll just learn one hand touch typing together." I have since heard of so many unwilling to take on a child with a challenge. On the first day of class, he sat down with Lilly 30 minutes before the others came in. That was all it took, she continued on with the class.

Soon she was touch-typing all of her homework. Her English teacher scolded her; "Your mother is typing your homework. Don't let her baby you, Lilly. You have a good right hand. You can write out your own homework." "Oh, no sir." She smiled at him I'm up to 30 words a minute with my touch-typing." The teacher sat down suddenly. Then he said slowly, "Being able to type has always been my dream." He was a polio victim. His right arm hung helplessly by his side.

"Come to the typing room, during lunch time. I'll teach you!" It was after the first lunchtime lesson that she came home and said, "Mama, Tony Daniels was right. I'm not handicapped anymore - I am helping someone else." Today, Lilly is the author of six internationally acclaimed books, helping a great many people. She has taught all of our office staff to use our Apple computers with our mouse pad on the left side, because that is where she makes hers fly around with what remains of her hand. We are all handicapped in comparison to her computer and typing skills!

She has now created her own "One Hand Typing and Keyboarding Manual: With Personal Motivational Messages From Others Who Have Overcome!" because she still will tell you, that you are not handicapped, when you can help someone else. (http://www.aboutonehandtyping.com)

Shush. Listen! Do you hear the knocking? Throw the bolt! Open the door! Angels never say "hello." Their greeting is always "Arise and go forth!"

by Dottie Walters, © 2000

WAPD Kenya Chapter (New!)
http://www.net2000ke.com/kdds/

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Passengers on a small commuter plane are waiting for the flight to leave. They're getting a little impatient, but the airport staff has assured them that the pilots will be there soon, and the flight can take off immediately after that. The entrance opens, and two men walk up the aisle, dressed in pilots' uniforms--both are wearing dark glasses, one is using a seeing-eye dog, and the other is tapping his way up the aisle with a white cane.

Nervous laughter spreads through the cabin; but the men enter the cockpit, the door closes, and the engines start up. The passengers begin glancing nervously around, searching for some sign that this is just a little practical joke. None is forthcoming. The plane moves faster and faster down the runway, and people at the windows realize that they're headed straight for the water at the edge of the airport territory. As it begins to look as though the plane will never take off, that it will plow into the water, panicked screams fill the cabin -- but at that moment, the plane lifts smoothly into the air. The passengers relax and laugh a little sheepishly, and soon they have all retreated into their magazines, secure in the knowledge that the plane is in good hands.

Up in the cockpit, the copilot turns to the pilot and says, "You know, Bob, one of these days, they're going to scream too late, and we're all gonna die.

Wouldn't you know it, Texas is famous for bragging about bigger and better and by golly they sure are leading in the development of WAPD chapters! California; New England States; Florida and several other state groups are setting out to challenge the development efforts of the big "T" website: http://www.wapd.org/chapters/texas/

PLUS... A secure intranet office with departments, projects, bulletin boards and complete communications mediums for all of the chapter members, is located in virtually every state in the USA but, so far, Texas has more on-line members.

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