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Jim LaBelle
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This episode is very different than others. Jim LaBelle, this episode's featured guest, passed away recently. I wish, hope and pray that our conversation gives tribute to Jim's contributions and advocacy. Thank you and farewell Jim.
Host Ken Volante
"There are certain individuals that go under the radar their entire lives despite being one of the most resilient people in the room, and that is without question Jim LaBelle. A father, world traveler, lawyer, disability advocate and professor, Jim’s story isn’t well known to many, but we hope to change that. A quadriplegic since 1969 and passing on April 21st, 2024, he was paralyzed for nearly 55 years and showed a life can be well lived in spite of paralysis."
Spinalpedia Blog
"For over fifty years, I have been pushing my chair. I graduated from law school and passed the bar exam in three states. My travels took me to twenty-three countries. My story is not an inspirational anecdote; it's about finding love, losing love, grief, joy, and single parenthood.
Don't call me 'bound' or 'confined' to my wheelchair. My chair gives me freedom.
A wheelchair user today has more rights than one did fifty years ago. Yet there are still many obstacles in finding housing, transportation, employment, and medical care.
I am not trying to be a role model, just a possibility. There are obstacles, and people may not always treat you properly, but there is progress."
Jim LaBelle
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Transcript
Podcast Introduction
00:00:01
Speaker
You are listening to something rather than nothing. Creator and host Ken Volante. Editor and producer Peter Bauer.
Guest Introduction: James LaBelle
00:00:17
Speaker
This is Ken Vellante with the Something Rather Than Nothing podcast and I'm very, very pleased to have James LaBelle, Jim, author of Wheelchair Bound Question Mark Memoir. And just wanted to welcome you to the Something Rather Than Nothing podcast, Jim. Yeah, I'm glad to be here. I originally saw your podcast because you did
00:00:45
Speaker
talk with Elizabeth Copeland. Elizabeth Copeland is a mom of a friend of my son so they went to elementary school together so then I saw that and I contacted you and whether you'd be interested in
00:01:03
Speaker
looking at my book or not. And you said, yes, you want to take a look at it. Yeah, absolutely. It's so exciting to hear a connection to Elizabeth and it was such a pleasure to chat with her.
Themes in 'Wheelchair Bound? Memoir'
00:01:19
Speaker
Yeah.
00:01:22
Speaker
So, Jim, tell us, I mean, I was thinking about before coming out to the show here and I was like, I got to have a better question. I was like, tell us about your life because I just read your memoir. And I just want to say off the bat, I deeply appreciated and enjoyed reading your story.
00:01:50
Speaker
and also to hear just to hear about
00:01:58
Speaker
your life and questions of mobility and access and you go into law school and travel.
Life-Changing Incident at Age 18
00:02:08
Speaker
Can you tell the listeners about your story, the accident and just kind of what the theme is of your book? Yeah, start a little bit at the
00:02:24
Speaker
the beginning of the change anyhow. I was 18 years old. I'd been out of high school for a year.
00:02:36
Speaker
The Labor Day weekend was just over. I was living in Minnesota. That's where I grew up. That's where I went to high school. I was working night shifts, 11 at night till 7 in the morning. I had a 650 BSA. I put a new set of handlebars on it and I decided, well, I check out what they feel like and drove out to my friend Dave's who lived about 30 miles away.
00:03:05
Speaker
We ended up driving around in his car picking up a couple of girls that he knew. We went to this lake, County Park, Lake Independence near the towns of Loretto Maple Plain in Minnesota. The water was real shallow. We were waiting around. We didn't have swimsuits, but we just rolled up our pants or whatever, splashing around in the water.
00:03:30
Speaker
There was a dock there. We weren't actually in the park. We were at a private property resort that was right next to the park. And I was up on the dock and pretty much ever since I can remember, my parents have had a lake cabin. That's just something people, a lot of people in Minnesota do. And I dove off that dock, you know, ever since I could remember and the water was shallow and I knew this water was shallow. So I just took a run and I dove off the end of that dock.
00:04:00
Speaker
And the first thing I remember is floating face down in the water and I wasn't able to twist my body or twist my head. I could see the sky. I could see sky. Um, but I couldn't twist my head around enough to get air. And I'm just, you know, struggling, obviously, you know, trying to get some air and you know, I have these,
00:04:31
Speaker
Real clear memories of the visions for many years. I mean, a lot of this I wrote down and you know, now I remember it because I've read the book and we're in the process of making it an audible book. And I listened to it so many times in the last two weeks, I practically have the thing memorized. So, you know, I have this little visions of
00:04:52
Speaker
me sitting in a fighter jet, you know, I kind of always wanted to be a pilot, you know, and I'm flying around in the clouds in this, you know, single seat fighter jet. And then I also see myself just walking in the snow. And then I know I have this conversation with God and then I pass out. Then I'm just, then I'm just gone, you know, I'm lack of oxygen passed out.
00:05:21
Speaker
The next thing I remember, I'm laying on the beach. My friend Dave and the two girls were looking at me and talking. And I'm like looking up at the sky and it's just this, you know, same sky that I saw when I was underwater, but it's so clear and blue and, you know, white clouds and, you know, everything just felt
00:05:45
Speaker
actually really, really good. I mean, I didn't hurt at all. I had no pain. Then there's this sheriff standing over me, looking at me, asking me like, what's wrong? What's wrong with you? I have no idea what's wrong with me. I must have said I needed an ambulance. They called an ambulance and they hauled me away in the ambulance.
00:06:11
Speaker
I have actually no memory of anything about that ambulance ride. I've talked to Dave and I think he told me one of the girls rode along in the ambulance, but I don't even remember that now. So then I was in the hospital and I was told I broke my neck at the fifth and sixth cervical and I'm a quadriplegic. I mean, I can move my arms. I can raise my arms. I can push a wheelchair.
00:06:41
Speaker
Um, but I'm a quadriplegic because I have limited use of all four
Writing and Publishing the Memoir
00:06:46
Speaker
limbs. That's, you know, the quad that's, so I have some of the muscles in my arms, but not all of the muscles in my arms. And that's, you know, from there on that was September 2nd, 1969. And we'll be coming around what? 55 years this coming September. Yeah. Wow.
00:07:08
Speaker
So the book kind of looks and ends pretty much at 50 years. And that was kind of my goal, to get the book done and make it through 50 years. And now I'm going to be five years past that. Wow.
00:07:30
Speaker
Yeah, there's so much there. I wanted to ask you about, well, I wanna tell you in reading your memoir and that structure. I'm really glad to get feedback from people. I still question the book. Most of my feedback is from people I know. I've gotten feedback. I started the Instagram account
00:08:00
Speaker
funny actually on almost the day of my accident I just figured you know I was that's kind of a long story there too I tried getting a publisher to do the book I thought my hook might be the University of Minnesota press because I've got such connections there and we talked back and forth quite a bit but ultimately they decided the book wasn't educational enough and then I just figured
00:08:25
Speaker
I'm never going to get this book published unless I just go the self-publishing route. And that also has many, many avenues and it took me a while to figure out what direction I was going with that. But one of my law school classmates has ALS and he did a book and I contacted him and got more information and, you know, ended up going the self-publishing route, which I'm happy with.
00:08:54
Speaker
Yeah. Well, it's on. What about the audible bit right there? How did that? That's something you're able to do on your own, too. There's it's I think it's called ACX. It will be. It will be on Amazon, Apple and then just audible itself, but Amazon actually owns audible. I just discovered Amazon owns everything, basically, I guess.
00:09:21
Speaker
So, I mean, I didn't go with KDP, Amazon self-publishing. There's just different reasons why that can be, you know, a really good choice. And a lot of people, I went with a company called IngramSpark and a lot of people will do both KDP and IngramSpark. I just decided I'm just going to do one of them. So yeah.
00:09:46
Speaker
Well, and it's great. Yeah, where I was going, I guess now, I just remembered, was like, I like, yeah, getting feedback from people that don't know me and feedback from people that have spinal cord injuries, but then also people that don't have spinal cord injury to, you know, see whether people think the book, how much effort do I want to put in marketing this
Impact of the Memoir
00:10:12
Speaker
thing? I guess is the question I still have in my head, you know?
00:10:15
Speaker
Yeah, well, I mean, I could speak for me. You know, one of the things for me is, you know, just as a reader in reading the memoirs, like, we all have our ways that we come at the world, right? And I think
00:10:31
Speaker
the way that in reading your memoirs that for me, the university campus, where you're going to move to? Is something on the first floor? Is there any ability to access this? How long does it take to get between my classes? Like it really changes as a reader, really changes the whole topography of like,
00:10:59
Speaker
of getting around and moving around in your travel adventures, right? I think it's reasonable to say. And then in other countries, my brain was really engaged on all that and thinking about those things.
00:11:16
Speaker
I'm a labor union rep in my day job. I'm an advocate. I do advocacy. I very much think about these things. For me, on the learning bit that you got, but I learned a lot about- I purposely tried to make it. That was one of my goals when I was writing it, to make it be educational.
00:11:42
Speaker
You know, so that's why I was a little disappointed. University of Minnesota Press said it's not educational, but, you know, I think it's an educational book. Yeah. I mean, the memoir, well, I mean, what's a proper way to read? For me, a proper way with the memoirs that you're obviously going to with the first person narration, the reader is going to engage with you and how you're trying to navigate through things. And like I said, the basic topography of how to live is such a big
00:12:12
Speaker
You know, we go through your trials and how to get around. So for me, like I said, I've been listening to it because basically I auditioned a number of people, picked out the person I liked their voice best.
00:12:29
Speaker
I'm doing it where he just gets a royalty on the sales of books, so I'm not putting any cash up front on this, so it's not costing me anything to do the Audible book. If you're a person who thinks they're going to be selling many, many books, you may be more beneficial to just pay the person who's hourly rate up front and do that, but I'd rather just not have more money invested in this book.
Audiobooks and Accessibility
00:12:51
Speaker
If we sell some good, if we don't, I don't have to worry about it.
00:12:57
Speaker
I have gotten response, especially from people with injuries similar to mine, at least three people saying, you know, we don't read books anymore because it's...
00:13:07
Speaker
It's just a pain because you've got to hold the book open, keep it open, and we just listen to books. It's surprising, even both of my caregivers who are adult age women, they like audible books. Maybe there's a much bigger market for audible books than I'm aware of.
00:13:30
Speaker
Oh, Jim, you know, I listened to a lot of audiobooks and Audible. And, you know, working and doing this podcast, there's a stronger connection, at least over the last few years, to the spoken word.
00:13:53
Speaker
There's just another way to access and people really love it. I was excited. I'm like me individually, I was excited because I even like to read and then also listen to an audio version as well. Yeah, people have told me that also. I remember back when you used to get books and they'd be on cassettes. Yeah. If you did a whole box with six cassettes in it, it would be a book.
00:14:19
Speaker
I still got some of those. I did until I just gave them to Goodwill. And then I bought them at Goodwill. But my problem is, I almost always just doze off or whatever when I'm listening to it. Now it's probably easier to go back and find your spot, but back then it would be a nuisance to go back and figure out.
00:14:42
Speaker
where you goes off and how you're you know get back to the point where you remember hearing it and um but yeah but it has been it's it's really an experience you know listening to um
00:14:59
Speaker
Cody is the name of the man who's doing the audible. Listening to Cody read my book, hearing somebody else read my words too. I don't know what I was expecting, but I was surprised at hearing it. It actually makes me emotional, hearing parts of it. I know what is in the book. Also going through the editing process, I hired an editor and
00:15:29
Speaker
You know, that's a long process, but it definitely, I don't.
00:15:34
Speaker
Anybody who writes a book really needs to get an editor because without it, she just made such good suggestions. She still tries to keep it your voice, your words, but just steers you on the right path and makes little suggestions like, I don't know where we are anymore. Maybe you should just put in like, this is a year later than the last time you're talking. I lost track of what timeline we're on, simple little things like that.
00:16:03
Speaker
Yeah, I wanted to ask you about, I wanted to ask you an art question and I'm going to ask it differently. I was thrilled about all your adventures around the world and the different places you've gone to.
00:16:26
Speaker
I was just wondering, I got an art program, so it's definitely just the curiosity around it.
Experiences in Europe
00:16:34
Speaker
What was your experience when you could contact art around the world and were you able to access it or what was inspiring of a particular location that you've been around the world when it comes to art? Yeah.
00:16:55
Speaker
you know, certainly you're going to see a lot of things that you're not going to see at home. Um, but you know, and myself, I'm not, you know, I, I look back on it now and I, you know, I wonder why we even did some of those things like, you know, my friend Mark and I, he was just up here last week and you know, what made us think at whatever 20 some years old,
00:17:17
Speaker
that we're just going to fly off to Europe and start looking around and seeing things. You talk about art. I went to the Louvre in Paris and I got to see the Mona Lisa, roll up along the hallways and see all of these famous things that you've read about and you've seen pictures.
00:17:41
Speaker
Part of me was somewhat disappointed because you've seen it and you're just expecting so much, but it's just a painting. I'm here and I'm seeing these statues and these paintings and these things that you've just read about and just to be there. The same thing in those European cities, whether it's Madrid or
00:18:07
Speaker
Paris or Amsterdam, just the architecture, the buildings, the windows and the doors. Everything is just so much older and so unique.
00:18:21
Speaker
I played around a little with photography and you try and get some images of a stained glass window that you just thought was great. Your picture comes back and you like it, but it's just not the same as being there. I think in the book I even mentioned that I was going through photos and looking at things and I realized I'm looking at this one photo and
00:18:51
Speaker
It looks like the exact same photo that I saw a few days ago when I was looking at photos and we went back and got an older album. I've got these two photos of Notre Dame and you can take them and put them side by side.
00:19:05
Speaker
at least five years, maybe more than that apart. They look like the identical picture. I must have just really found some accessible spot on the other side of the river that was flat. I just like that particular view because it just seems so uncanny to me that I've got these two photos multiple years apart and they're framed almost identical. The way the picture is centered, the way everything about it.
00:19:36
Speaker
about the experience right in the book and creating your memoir. Right, writing.
Journey to Writing a Memoir
00:19:50
Speaker
I have a lot of different stories. I've always told stories. There's so many different people I've met on this whole adventure.
00:20:02
Speaker
50 plus years of using a wheelchair, and I need people to help me. I'm not going to exist. I might exist, but I'm not going to have a good life unless I'm willing to ask people to help me do certain things. I need help to live, so I've got to interact with a lot of different people.
00:20:24
Speaker
So I end up with unusual different stories, especially the whole Europe thing of just going there and thinking we're going to do it. This is long before there were people with podcasts and travel agencies and telling you what's going to be accessible and what's not accessible. We just went there.
00:20:46
Speaker
tried to figure it out. Luckily, we were young enough and my friend Mark was strong enough that he could actually pick me up and carry me onto a bus or carry me onto a train if necessary. We tried to avoid that, but there were times it just had to be done. I would tell stories and then over the years, people are saying,
00:21:11
Speaker
You should really write a book. I mean, I heard that so many times for 25, 30 years or something. I didn't want to write a book. I didn't want to tell those people that writes a book about their life because it's difficult. I mean, yeah, you're talking about writing, but I think it's really difficult to write a story about your own life
00:21:36
Speaker
without making like you're saying, you know, I'm something special or I'm, you know, look at me or, you know, in a way bragging or, you know, something like that. Yeah, I know what you mean. You know, and it's just, so I never really wanted to write the book, but
00:21:59
Speaker
Then also I knew, and I say this in the book, the very one year after I was hurt, someone gave me Jill Kinmont. She was a famous skier and she had an injury very similar to mine, but her injury occurred, I believe in like the middle fifties. And then because she was a famous skier, a book got written about her.
00:22:24
Speaker
And I believe that book came out just a few years before I was injured. And someone gave me a copy of that book. And I read it.
00:22:37
Speaker
It just stayed in my mind. It kind of helped me that she had this real problem. She wanted to go to school. She wanted to be a teacher. The University of California school system at that time wouldn't let her into the teacher's program because they said, you know, nobody's going to hire a teacher in a wheelchair. So why waste one of our spots on you? They said, if you get any school district that says they will hire you, we'll let you in the program.
00:23:03
Speaker
It was one of the Los Angeles, California schools. She lived in Eastern California in the mountains, and she got one of the schools on an Indian reservation to say they'd hire her. The UC system let her into the program, and she graduated.
00:23:24
Speaker
But you know, just that whole kind of struggle that she's got an injury like mine, but she's gone to college and she's lived a good number of years and she seems like she's having a good time at it. So, you know, maybe if I can tell a story like that and
00:23:41
Speaker
You know, I'm not trying to say like, you know, be like me and do what I did, but kind of just there are possibilities out there. And, you know, there are things you can do and just, you know, figure out what you want to do for yourself. But, you know, it's, uh, so happen disability gets portrayed as this.
00:24:05
Speaker
you know, really bad thing. I mean, you think of disability and you think that it's this terrible thing. It's the end of your life or it's, you know, the movies even that I talk about in the book, it's, you know, it's portrayed as a death sentence, you know, but there's a lot of things you can do. So, you know, just don't look at it as that, you know,
00:24:33
Speaker
that death sentence that it's this tragic, terrible thing. I'm sorry to interrupt. Go ahead. I guess I sent you the link, but last summer I wrote this opinion piece that I felt really good about it. I got it published in the Minnesota Daily and I've had other things here and there, but I just like that one.
00:25:00
Speaker
I wasn't even aware that there was, I mean, there's so many of these things. I think yesterday was International Wheelchair Day or something. I'd never even heard of that. So I think July, if I remember right now from the opinion I wrote, July is Disability Pride Month. It comes after Gay Pride Month. And I just never thought of it that way, but I read a few things and it just, so I wrote that and I,
00:25:29
Speaker
It's just when I think about it, yeah, people don't talk about disability and pride together that much, but I'm part of this group and we're recognized as, there's different laws that categorize us as a group. And I'm proud to be in that group. I'm one member of that group.
00:25:54
Speaker
I wanted to, about, and it's such a difficult question, but I'm very interested in, you know, you mentioned 50 years of,
00:26:03
Speaker
pushing on the book and you said more towards 55 years right now. For me, the way my mind is tilted is towards advocacy and how society is changing. Can you give how you feel about where we are now in 2024?
Accessibility Progress Since the ADA
00:26:28
Speaker
Just a sense of
00:26:30
Speaker
improvements or frustrations that you have after this amount of time? There's both. Believe me, there's a lot of both. There's improvements, there's frustrations. I started at the University of Minnesota in 1973 and it's just coincidence that that same year in 1973, they passed Vocational Rehabilitation Act of 1973.
00:26:57
Speaker
which was basically a precursor to the Americans with Disabilities Act, but it only applied to any institution that received federal funds. So any institution that received federal funds was required to make
00:27:10
Speaker
their program accessible to people with disabilities. It was interpreted to include all the schools and universities. It eventually was interpreted to also include private schools. I'm just making one up now, but we'll just pick out Stanford to pick on those guys. We're a private school, we don't have to follow that rule.
00:27:40
Speaker
But many of their students received federal student aid through federal programs and the courts interpreted, no, you private schools, you got to follow the same rules. So basically, all the schools have to make their programs accessible to people with disabilities. So that happens in 1973. But then the ADA, I'm not even, I should know this in my head, but I don't remember.
00:28:11
Speaker
It's been around at least 30 years. That basically says that all public accommodations, all transportation, public places have to be made accessible. But there's nobody out there enforcing that. The only way it's enforced is by people that take on a private lawsuit. I give lots of examples in the book that
00:28:36
Speaker
Well, just this week I was making an appointment to get a CT scan and my local clinic is not able to lift me onto the CT table. So I have to bring my son and one of my caregivers with to lift me onto the CT table or take the ferry over
00:28:57
Speaker
They can do it if I take the ferry over to Seattle, but that's a much longer day, bigger job, and it's just easier for me to get two people to lift me. To me, that's probably clearly a violation of the ADA, and I set it all up and was going to sue them, but it takes a lot of time, energy, and sometimes you just don't feel like doing it. I know their defense is going to be that
00:29:24
Speaker
You can get it. You just got to come downtown. We've got it available. But I mean, I'm not sure that would actually work because I know there have been lawsuits against clinics. And that's, that's not an unusual thing. A person in a chair goes and the doctor says, no, we can't lift you. We don't have any way to get you onto the table. And I mean, that's just gonna, you know, how long's the ADA been around? And that stuff still happens, you know, pretty regular. Yeah. And, but I mean, it's a lot better and there's a recourse and you see a lot more, I mean,
00:29:54
Speaker
Seattle, I'm sure Portland, all the big cities, they've got wheelchair taxis that you can just call and they're getting more dependable. I use them somewhat regularly. So I don't have to drive over to Seattle, I just roll onto the boat and then have the taxi pick me up at the dock and run me up to the hospital so I don't have to drive in the city.
00:30:21
Speaker
So there's improvement, but there's a long way to go. And then there's still just attitude. And there's still society. And there's still a lot of people with disabilities have nice jobs. They go to work every day.
00:30:49
Speaker
Everything is okay, but from statistics, there's a lot of people that aren't employed, they're not able to find employment, or they're just not healthy enough to go to work every day. It's hard to manage your health conditions and go to work every day. And so you need some kind of assistance to pay for your caregivers.
00:31:11
Speaker
And that usually requires you to be on Medicaid. Right now, Medicaid only allows you to have, I'm not sure, it used to be $1,800 in savings. It may have gone up a little bit, but it's still pretty low. And there's just been this advocacy this last summer to, let's raise that amount. So a couple thousand dollars might not even be enough to get your car fixed nowadays. So if you don't have any savings, you don't have any backup.
00:31:41
Speaker
you're stuck. So there's, you know, one of the person that I've messaged with a few times from Instagram is a man who has an injury similar to mine, but he lives in England, you know, so you've got very different systems in European countries. I mean, they've still got their problems, but
00:32:06
Speaker
You know, you're going to have different financial support is my understanding.
00:32:12
Speaker
I wanted to ask you, Jim, about what I would view to be a complicated relationship with the law.
Reflections on a Law Career
00:32:22
Speaker
I believe your license to practice law in three states went through law school. I knew I was never going back, so I let two of them just fade away. I didn't pay my dues. I'm technically right now only an inactive member of the California Bar.
00:32:42
Speaker
I, that's what I officially am. Yeah, yeah. Well, I mean, in asking about is incoming through in your memoir, obviously, a significant accomplishment. But for you, it seems to feel like
00:33:00
Speaker
It wasn't always the right fit of what you wanted to do each day. You had the skills, but it wasn't what you wanted to do each day. I'm sure that happens to plenty of people. Someone right on our street here, their son went through law school, graduated from law school, passed the Washington bar.
00:33:24
Speaker
after a couple of years just decided he didn't like doing that. It just wasn't for him. And I think now he's like coding or doing something with computers. But I don't know. I'm not saying I don't like all of the things about practicing law. There were things that I enjoyed and there were...
00:33:51
Speaker
You know, it's just nothing, it's not something that I just had this big desire to, you know, like, man, I'm going to be an attorney. I want to be an attorney. I want to be a lawyer. This is something I've always thought about. I mean, I'll tell my son and he says, you know, nobody does this. I just went to law school for something to do. You know, I just, and
00:34:18
Speaker
Part of me too, you've got a disability and people look at you differently. And there's a point in time where you just feel like you've got to do something to show them that, you know, I can do this. It's you've got to be this overachiever. You've got to be better than, you know, average or you've got to, you've got to do something like that. So, I mean,
00:34:47
Speaker
I wanted to go to law school, so it would open some doors for me. People told me you don't necessarily have to practice law just because you've got a law degree, there's other things you can do with a law degree. And so I went there and I started it and I finished, you know, so. Yeah, congratulations. And I've done it and it's okay, but it's,
00:35:14
Speaker
It's not something that I feel I have to do with my life. Obviously now I haven't done it in probably 30 years or more. There's very little chance I will ever do much with it again, but it helps me understand things. It definitely helped me be able to manage a lot of materials and understand reading. A lot of it's even just helped me with my daily life. I say that in the book too because
00:35:43
Speaker
to get to where I am over 50 years, I never had any money. Both of my parents had high school degrees and we lived just fine, but I don't come from a background of having money and I've scrimped and saved a lot. I've lived in federally subsidized housing for a lot of years.
00:36:11
Speaker
played by Medicaid rules so I could have money to pay for the people that assist me. You know, a lot of different government programs, a lot of social security disability. And I had this big program with them and a fight with them for years and years to get them to help me buy a van. And then they changed their mind and they didn't want to pay for it anymore. So.
00:36:38
Speaker
And just understanding, going back to work, when you are on social security disability, it's complicated. And you've got to follow a lot of rules, or you're going to get in trouble and have big overpayments, and then people get in trouble with that too.
00:36:53
Speaker
Yeah, it's to navigate that all. I want to ask a big profound question, also ask some more details related to the book and people
Finding Purpose Despite Disability
00:37:03
Speaker
finding it, but I have to ask you the titular question of the show is why is there something rather than nothing? Yeah. I mean, you know, it's taken me a long time just to remember the name of your podcast. People ask me and I
00:37:21
Speaker
got it down, you know, but once you remember it, you know, it's, you know, it's pretty straightforward. I mean, you know, I mean, I guess particularly with the disability in the life, you've got this, you've got this disability that, you know, is going to stop you from doing some things. You're not going to be able to do
00:37:48
Speaker
all the same things you used to do. Even if you think you might be able to, or you can do some version of them, your life has changed. And I mean, you could look at it. I mean, all of a sudden you find yourself, you know, you're not able to walk. You're not able to use your legs.
00:38:08
Speaker
I mean, if you look at my hands, that's my hands. I can't move any of my fingers. But still, I've got a little bit of pinch and I've figured out how I'll use a laptop, I'll use a tablet, and I've basically typed that whole book multiple times on my own.
00:38:32
Speaker
I'll use a little bit of voice recognition software now that it's finally gotten pretty decent. But I still tend to just type stuff out one letter at a time. But you could look at that as just nothing. Your life is nothing. You don't have anything left. What do you have left? But there is something there. And if you find it,
00:39:01
Speaker
you've got something and you've got something that's enjoyable and you've got plenty of something possibilities. So there's a lot of somethings and it's not all nothing. I think it works just for disability itself. I mean, there can be something rather than nothing with whatever disability you've got. I mean, I talk about in the book,
00:39:28
Speaker
People in iron lungs. I don't know why. I've just always been intrigued. That was fascinating, that part. Yeah. When I saw an iron lung myself for the first time, it's like, how could somebody live their whole life? Then I've seen these photos of whole rooms full of people in their iron lungs.
00:39:57
Speaker
that movie Breathe, Robin Cavendish, and then his son Jonathan made the movie Breathe.
00:40:04
Speaker
That to me is an amazing movie. I think it was the late 50s, he gets polio in Africa. He's in this hospital there and his wife says, why can't we take him home? You can make this machine to help him breathe and we'll bring him home. They bring him home and he eventually gets back to England. They even fly back to Africa one time.
00:40:31
Speaker
I mean, of course, this guy has huge resources and money. They take his wheelchair-adapted van from back then and put it in an airplane and fly it to Africa. But living with that respirator your whole life, but for the people that spend many, many years in an iron lung, and then those three that I talk about in that article that I read,
00:41:03
Speaker
They say they've got rich, full lives. They're happy. They've found something. To me, when I first looked at that, I look at that and it can look pretty close to nothing, but they've found a lot of something, they say. I've sent that article to a lot of different people and I've gotten different responses. Some of the responses are just,
00:41:33
Speaker
Oh, that's terrible. I was really inspired by that article. I kept it for a long time and obviously I put it in the book even. Something about that that people can find a lot of things that they're able to do with their life.
00:41:51
Speaker
Yeah, it was striking to me as well. Everybody been talking to Jim LaBelle, memoir, wheelchair bound, question mark, audible book. Jim, tell the listeners where to find the book and such.
00:42:18
Speaker
You can go to your local bookstore. I like to support the local bookstores. You can go to your local bookstore. Again, it's wheelchair bound with a question mark because I don't like the word wheelchair bound. And there have been people that told me they don't want to even read my book because I use that word on it. But I remind them there's a question mark because I'm questioning the whole term that there really is no such thing as wheelchair bound. It's just, you know,
00:42:48
Speaker
Might as well start throwing out the word ableist because it's got to come up somewhere here. It's just an ableist term. It's got this real negative connotation. Years and years ago, I saw this cartoon where this guy's all tied up in rope. That's what I think of when I hear wheelchair bound. It's saying you're not able to do things. I'm questioning that term. You've got wheelchair bound.
00:43:14
Speaker
My name is James LaBelle. You go to your local bookstore, they should be able to order it for you. Get it, you know, seven, 10 days, something like that. If you don't want to do that, you can go to Barnes and Noble. They can order it. If you don't want to do that, you can go to Amazon. And if you've got Amazon Prime, they'll ship it to you for free. Otherwise, you're going to have to pay some shipping.
00:43:41
Speaker
Or you can get it as a Kindle book, so you can just read it online, or not online, on your Kindle. You can read it through, buy it at Barnes and Noble, read it on your Nook. Or if you wanna just buy it directly from me through my IngramSpark account, you can go to,
00:44:08
Speaker
bit.ly bit.ly slash buy Jim's book. But I didn't realize bit.ly was case sensitive when I signed up for it because that was the first one I ever did. So the buy is capitalized. So it's capital B U Y and then all the rest of it's just lowercase Jim's book. So
00:44:33
Speaker
If you, the book Barnes and Noble, your local bookstore, Amazon, any of those people, when you buy it, they get 55%. So I like seeing your local bookstore get 55%. Yeah. So and the, uh, get the book. It's, it's also on Kindle unlimited. If you have a Kindle unlimited account,
00:45:00
Speaker
And like I say, I would say in less than a month, it's going to be on Audible, Apple, and Amazon Audible. Awesome. Yeah, that's what I was going to ask. A lot of people have subscriptions to that. And then you can just get it there. So yeah, so you can read it, Kindle, Nook. You should be able to get it pretty much anywhere, ordering it. It kind of amazes me very early on. I sold four copies in Italy.
00:45:30
Speaker
couple copies in Germany and then I just sold one like a little bit of going Switzerland and then because of connecting with this one person on Instagram I think I've sold like eight paperback copies in the UK and a couple ebooks in the UK so it's interesting to me that I mean they're all obviously just in English there it's not translated in any other language yes but in the first month or so I saw that I'd sold books in Italy and you know Germany so
00:46:02
Speaker
Well, congrats, congrats on that. And it's good to, it is interesting. I even see it with the show where, you know, I'm like, who the heck's, who the heck's listening in Peteroo? But they do. And it's exciting sitting from wherever you are.
Technology and Accessibility
00:46:22
Speaker
Listeners, James LaBelle really recommend
00:46:28
Speaker
this book wheelchair bound question mark. And just like I said to you, Jim, just hearing about the bit about where there's the question about whether it's educational for me as an immersive reader is getting connected to this. I learned so much because when I read, I get pulled in in trying to navigate
00:46:53
Speaker
understand how to navigate with you. I just find it even immersive in that sense. I know that in the later chapters, it's a lot of my time where I've moved to Washington here and I'm being a single parent. It's not about me doing big travel adventures anymore. Sean and I have done some good shorter trips here and there.
00:47:25
Speaker
As I'm listening to it, it's a lot of day-to-day stuff, and I kind of wonder. But I think people like even just hearing how you navigate day-to-day stuff. And there's things that just do come up. And then I talk a little bit of just about how different it is for kids growing up here in the 90s. And Sean was born in 93, so 90s and early
00:47:55
Speaker
you know, 2000s compared to when I grew up in the, you know, fifties and early sixties. It's just, it's a different world, you know? Yeah. You know, it's like, even when I was first injured, I,
00:48:12
Speaker
I'll mention, when I was first injured, there was no internet, there was no cell phones, there was no movie rentals. I mean, when you wanted to see a movie, I'd go to the movie theater, wait for it to come on TV on Sunday evening or something.
00:48:30
Speaker
A lot of that stuff has really made it better. That's another area where you talked earlier about the differences for people with disabilities. Voice recognition software is so much better. For people who have even less arm movement than I do, they're able to
00:48:52
Speaker
just run all kinds of things just by setting their cell phone up properly, you know, and talking into their cell phone and operating things and writing things and coding and, you know, doing, you know, I don't even understand it, but, you know, it works.
00:49:12
Speaker
And cell phones are just such a safety thing. I mean, I just make sure I always have my cell phone with me if, you know, my fan doesn't start or, you know, I just get stuck somewhere, you know, I can call somebody.
00:49:29
Speaker
There were many years when I first lived in South Dakota on the Indian reservation, and I was driving long distances. You had a CB radio, but is anybody really going to be around? I never even used the thing enough to understand how it even worked. I knew how it worked, but how I would get help with it.
00:49:51
Speaker
Yeah, the CB radio with is there somebody on the other end versus GPS potential GPS location.
00:50:06
Speaker
Hey, everybody, listeners, make sure to check out Jim's work. And I'm very excited to hear about the audio book. You know why? Because I like to listen to what I've read as well. So I'll have that extra joy.
00:50:24
Speaker
I just really wanted to thank you for reaching out, Jim, because like I said, it's been a very good experience for me and a learning one. And anybody who does read the book, I really appreciate feedback. Whether you want to leave it on Goodreads or Amazon or any of those spots,
00:50:52
Speaker
It helps me to hear what people have to say about the book.
00:51:01
Speaker
Writing turned out to be fun, and editing was actually more fun than I thought it was going to be. At first, I didn't quite understand the whole process of sending it and she'd make corrections, and I can accept or deny the corrections, and she'd make comments, and I'd add a sentence here or there, and then we'd go through it again after the corrections were made. So it was a long process, but it was fun.
00:51:27
Speaker
But I haven't found a lot of fun in marketing, but, you know, maybe doing podcasts. This is the first time I've ever done a podcast. There we go. Podcasts are fun. Podcasts are fun. I started listening to podcasts a while back and, you know, like anything, they're mixed quality. But I tell you, there's
00:51:51
Speaker
I definitely listened to a few when I've been in the hospital, one of the nurses, one of the night nurses that worked 11 to seven was finding out this one that just had a big variety of guests. Totally different topics from one time to the next. Well, thank you for being on your first podcast.
00:52:16
Speaker
uh probably many more probably uh other others to come uh uh pleasure meeting you uh Jim and thanks thanks for thanks for talking to you you know i like your site you get a lot of you get a lot of unusual stuff you know so you get some good people and some good artwork and some you know some some
00:52:38
Speaker
I never know where it's going to go with creative folks. You never know. That's what's fun about it. It's the same thing. A lot of people with disabilities also find that they turn into artwork. They'll really do some interesting artwork. I've seen people that
00:53:08
Speaker
aren't able to use their arms or their hands, but they'll do these incredibly detailed paintings with just using a brush or a pen or whatever, using their mouth and their head to paint
Representation of Disability in Media
00:53:25
Speaker
with. And you're not buying it because they're an artist with a disability. You're buying it because it's a piece of art that you really like. I know this one woman that
00:53:36
Speaker
was a quad and she painted and she didn't want people buying her paintings because she was, you know, a quad artist. She wanted them to buy the painting because they liked it, you know. But, you know, it's amazing what some of the artists do. It really is and I think there's more discussion around it. I've had singers and artists on and, you know, talking about disabilities and conditions that really make it
00:54:07
Speaker
That's where you were talking to. That's a big change to me in the last 50 years. You see people in, I think it was just like an Expedia commercial or a Target commercial. I think Target even this year had Christmas ornaments with a guy in a wheel, a Santa Claus in a wheelchair. You just see a lot more representation out there in the world. That's what I felt good about too when I was teaching at the two-year college. It's good for people to
00:54:36
Speaker
just see people in chairs out there interacting in the world. If you make the world more accessible, you're going to see a lot more people in the chairs out using it. It shouldn't be unusual that I did all this stuff and I wrote about it.
00:55:01
Speaker
You should expect to see people in chairs out doing stuff. Yeah. Yeah. And I think it has changed and it's inspiring. And it's come a long way in 55 years. That was the basis of the big, profound thing or just such a span of time. It's got a long way to go. But like I say, you see people in chairs doing a lot more fun stuff and enjoying life. It's not a death sentence.
00:55:31
Speaker
Yeah, absolutely. Thank you so much, Jim. It was good. It was fun. Deep pleasure talking to you and hope to talk again soon. I'll be looking forward to that audio book, like I said. Okay, thanks a lot. Thanks, brother. Sure. This is something rather than nothing.
00:56:04
Speaker
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00:56:25
Speaker
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00:56:53
Speaker
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