(Hollow Earth Radio will be broadcasting audio of Mindie Lind’s interview with Hockenberry at hollowearthradio.org on Sunday, November 9, from 4 to 6 p.m. John Hockenberry reads at Town Hall on Tuesday, November 11, at 7:30 p.m. Tickets are $15.)
When you’re born without legs, you tend to get a lot of folks offering up advice on the other gimps you should meet—“This guy has no legs, too, you gotta look him up”—and I usually dig hearing about what other cripps are doing with themselves. Growing up I really had no idea. What color wheelchairs were they using? How did they make pants make sense? Am I doing this right? Are they nice to people who ask, “Hey, you need help?” Or are they usually a dick like I am?
Finding out about other cripps has been a lot like learning about distant cousins spread all over the world; obviously we are related but very rarely have I felt like I was looking in a mirror. As a preteen reading Bop and Seventeen magazine and crushing on Kurt Cobain and Brad Renfro, I’d skim the articles my mom suggested I read (for instance, about a woman who has no arms, paints with her feet, is approximately a million years older than I am, and is super duper Christian), and I’d think, neat enough, but they were definitely not idol material. I was discovering wheelies and boys and weed and music and my ability to set the tone in a conversation, especially if my wheelchair had a bunch of cool stickers on it…