Go to 1:06:07 or so and see what happens! My friend Stefanie is right before me and then the group following me are also friends from the on campus version of the MAT.

For me, I’m a little glad it’s over because it means I can focus on my schoolwork again for a few weeks. One of the highlights of this year’s event for me was being a featured speaker at the main ceremony. I talked about some of the reasons I think Swim With Mike is an important event and organization. Here is (more or less) the text of the speech (though there were also divers warming up on the diving platforms drawing oohs and ahs from the marching band that distracted me from a few lines):

You’ve heard a little about my story already and I would love to talk to you more about that story any time today, so don’t hesitate to say hello. First thank you to the volunteers. Thank you also to all of our participants and donors. (I wrote down what I wanted to say because I tend to talk too much).

I’m becoming an English teacher in large part because I believe in the power of story. I believe that when we tell our stories we share part of who we are, fulfilling a deep need that we all have to be known. And when we truly listen and allow ourselves to be affected by each other’s stories we are transformed, becoming more understanding, compassionate - and passionate - people.

There is nothing more powerful than the story of people overcoming tragedy and fulfilling their potential, and each Swim With Mike recipient - and many of you who are volunteers or participants - has such a story.

Swim With Mike is important because it meets a need for the individual recipients, enabling them to move forward and realize their potential. I am so thankful for the support I have received from Swim With Mike, both in terms of finances, and in terms of peer support from getting to know my fellow recipients.

Swim With Mike is also important because individuals with disabilities are at risk in this society we live in, and education mediates this risk and provides greater opportunity. The recipients in Swim With Mike are positioned well to become leaders in whatever they do, which increases the visibility of people with disabilities, can change normative attitudes, and I believe this will improve life for all those that come after.

But Swim With Mike is also important because through it powerful stories are told. All of you here are now part of this story, and you will go out and tell others about what happens here every April, and about all of the incredible people that are here. And as our stories spread, the world will become a better place for all of us, with less inequality and more justice - and when more people can live with more freedom; when the quality of life is raised for some - all people benefit with a higher overall quality of life. When our lives are enriched by the stories of others, our quality of life necessarily improves as well.

Thank you all so much for being here. Mike, Ron Orr, Pat Haden, the whole USC Trojan family, the Trojan marching band, the Song Girls, the football team, volunteers, and participants: Thank you!

And in a few hours I’m going to try to swim a couple miles at Swim With Mike. If you have money burning a hold in your pocket right now, let me help you out of it!Help me make it at least to $500 (I’m currently at $370)…

http://swimwithmike.org/swimmer/?swimmerID=10904

And I would love if someone recorded it somehow, but no pressure internet.

#32nd Annual Swim With Mike

Then I swam with the slow lane for an hour… and… got my butt kicked. I haven’t ever worked that hard swimming. Of course I’m not a real swimmer and don’t ever do real swim workouts, so that isn’t too surprising.

Everyone was very nice and I talked to some great people.

As another reminder to friends, family, and believers in social justice: Swim With Mike is an awesome and important organization and your participation is necessary to keep Swim With Mike alive. Please consider sponsoring me by clicking on the following link: http://swimwithmike.org/swimmer/?swimmerID=10904

On another note, it doesn’t feel very much like Good Friday to me. I guess because I had class and Swim With Mike commitments and I tried to get free chocolate crepes at the women’s tennis match (they were out of tickets for free ones, which was surprising because last week I got an extra ticket for a free grilled cheese!). But really it mostly feels that way because I’m not around family and most of my friends here don’t observe such holy days. I am mindful, however, of the gift of life and grace and forgiveness and redemption was not an easy gift to come by - and I am thankful for that gift today.

But really, the girl was there as I was driving by. I honked and waved. The crowd waved back. It’s 55 and drizzling a little on and off right now. Taylor Lautner, take note: That is devotion. There was another sign that said “I love you Josh” and one more that said “I love you Kevin”. I have no idea who those might refer to, which means I am so out of touch with the youth. Time to catch up on my preteen gossip.

Oh, and there are cool prizes - autographed memorabilia from the USC football team!

If you want more details, contact me (darylholmlund [at] gmail [dot] com). I would love to have you come play or just come and hang out.

Here is the information that Colin sent out:

On March 25, I will be hosting a fundraiser poker tournament for Swim with Mike, a scholarship organization based out of USC which provides scholarships for former student-athletes who now have disabilities. We will have prizes for the top poker stars! All proceeds will go to Swim with Mike.

The details are as follows:
March 25
2 PM-whenever we finish
$25 by March 18/$30 at the door
*dinner will be provided*

If anyone knows someone who would like to donate food, prizes, or cash, please let me know as soon as possible. I would like to have everything sorted out ahead of time. Please plan on signing up and getting me the fee for the event by March 18 so that we are able to know how much food to purchase and can plan accordingly. Invite anyone else who may be interested as well! The more the merrier!

If you are planning to mail your event fee, please send it to: 2390 Portland St. #102, Los Angeles, CA 90007

Come support myself and an excellent organization! I will leave you with some great poker quotes for encouragement, because we all know that those of us in sip and puff wheelchairs are the best poker players this side of the Mississippi!

“If, after the first twenty minutes, you don’t know who the sucker at the table is, it’s you.”
“It’s not enough to succeed. Others must fail.” (Gore Vidal)
“Gambling: The sure way of getting nothing from something.” (Wilson Mizner)
“Your best chance to get a Royal Flush in a casino is in the bathroom”.

Cheers,
– Colin

Oh, and PS, I’m incredibly stoked because I just finished the Performance Assessment for California Teachers (PACT) that I’ve been working on. Now on to finishing some other projects before school starts up again!

Happy St. Patrick’s Day, by the way. I think “Snakes on a Plane 2″ if they ever make it (and they shouldn’t) should take off from Ireland instead of Hawaii - two islands without native snakes.

This is not the case in Los Angeles or at USC. I don’t necessarily want to deface historic buildings with cool architecture, and there would be prohibitive costs to updating other buildings in ways that made the building more universally accessible. However, sometimes there are some things that could be done differently that would make things easier for people with access issues. I’m planning on writing a few posts about these in the near future, but I’ll start with one that is more or less already written for me.

The Lyon Center is USC’s recreation center/gym for students. It was built in the 1989 next to the McDonald’s Olympic Swim Stadium. The pool is incredible and I have loved swimming in both the 50 meter competition pool and the 25 yard diving pool. However, the Lyon Center itself has a few access issues. For one thing, entering the center on the main floor, there is a single width turnstyle for entering and then several doors for exiting users that are kept locked on the outside. So for a wheelchair user to enter the first floor, either a person from the desk has to go around and open the door or if a user is exiting at that moment, he or she can hold the door. That’s not so bad.

To get to the second floor there is an elevator. However, the elevator is outside of the official entrance, in the lobby area. This summer, when I would go to the Lyon Center, the elevator would always be locked and I would have to ask someone from the desk to unlock it if I wanted to use to machines and weights upstairs. This might not seem like a big deal, but sometimes people at the desk were busy or were unable to locate the elevator key right away. And besides that, I was frustrated that I was the only user that I ever saw having to ask to use the upstairs of the facility. I talked to some of the people working at the desk one night. They explained it was policy and I tried to reason with them that the policy was not right and just - and I got a bit heated up and realized there wasn’t anything the front desk workers could do so I left a note for their supervisor with my email.

I’m publishing the following email exchange not as a way to tarnish or damage anyone’s reputation, but for the sake of learning from one another. I understand and respect the position of the people I interacted with concerning this situation, but I think it is interesting because it shows the lack of understanding and awareness for the general public when it comes to accessibility issues. It also gives part of my position in regards to access and why equal and independently achieved access is so important.

Here is the email I received after leaving the note:

Hi Daryl,

I received a note from one of my staff members about the elevator access. We have to lock the elevator in the up position during business hours because it allows direct access to our second floor. Hence we have no way to control who uses the elevator to gain access to the facility. That is why we lock the elevator unless we have a member who needs to utilize it. I hope this helps answer your question and apologize for the inconvenience. If you ever need access, just let one of our staff members know and they’d be happy to help you. Thank you.

Brendan Gail
Assistant Director, Recreational Sports

My (delayed) response to this email:

Brendan,

I’m surprised I never replied to this message when I received it a few months back. I appreciate the information about elevator access at the Lyon Center - however, I have to respectfully question whether there isn’t a better solution to this issue. I was actually quite surprised, as a new graduate student at USC, to find this situation with the elevator in the recreation center, especially since USC is the host institution for the Swim With Mike program and has had so many SWM recipients. I’m not saying that this is an egregious piece of discrimination, but it is a blatant inequality. Only students who require elevator use have to ask to go to the second floor - and then wait while a staff member finds the elevator key. Since you have never been in this situation, you might not realize that access issues confront wheelchair users everywhere they go, creating a feeling of second-class citizenship. Certainly an institution like USC would want to be on the front lines creating
an equal-access environment for as many students as possible. A tenet of education in America today is that “separate is not equal,” and it doesn’t seem as though I should have to ask to go upstairs at the Lyon Center when no other student would ever have to do the same.

If the situation doesn’t change I will still continue to use the Lyon Center - think of this message as a suggestion of something to look into that could improve the experience of a small group of students. I’m not sure what a good solution would be to this problem, but one idea would be to issue elevator passes to students or other Lyon Center users who require elevator access and request them.

I also have one other suggestion for the Lyon Center. It could be beneficial to the student population as a whole have one or two pieces of cardio equipment that could be utilized by non-ambulatory students, such as an upper body ergometer or stationary handcycle. These could benefit not only students who are not able to use the other cardio machines such as treadmills or ellipticals, but also other students who are rehabbing from injury or who want to do a cross-training workout.

Thank you for your consideration,

Daryl Holmlund

The response that I got back, after my email apparently made its way to a different level of management:

Daryl,

First of all, I want you to know that the reason we keep the elevator in the locked position is for “safety”. As Brendan has mentioned to you in his email, we have had some unfortunate situations with non USC students gaining access to the facilities through the facilities. Having said that, you have made a very valid point. Our intent is never to make anyone unwelcome or have the feeling of inequality.

Moving forward, my suggestion is for anyone who needs the use of the elevator to check out the key with his/her ID from our Membership and/or Facilities staff. I will work with the Facilities Management Services staff to see the possibilities of installing a card swipe system for the elevator.
Please let me know if you have any other suggestions and we will work together to resolve it.
Thank you.

Arvin Varma
Project Administrator Youth Programs
Associate Director
USC Recreational Sports

I would like to say that I have seen the new cardio equipment that was ordered, but I haven’t. And I would love to say that a card swipe had been installed for the elevator. It hasn’t.

But, on the other hand, the elevator hasn’t ever been locked anytime I’ve been to the Lyon Center during this school year. I’m not sure if giving up security for accessibility is a 100% win, but perhaps they realized that the security issue was easily taken care of by having attentive desk workers, while the accessibility issue was also easily resolved (for me, at least) by leaving the elevator unlocked. I know there are several other wheelchair users who occasionally use the Lyon Center, but more importantly, it will hopefully mean better access for the students who will be coming in the future.

My friend Seth commented on my last post and finished with some insight that should not be overlooked: “But we all have to start somewhere with something specific, and do what we can.”

When there is a flood coming down the canyon, it is easy to freeze up and forget that there are still steps you can take in the place you are right now. (First, start hiking uphill as fast as you can; second, keep moving uphill; third, pull as many people out of the water as you can /// An alternative: if you have a raft, carry it uphill as fast as you can; when the water comes, get ready to shred the gnar; also pull people out of the water if you can).

Seth’s comment also reminded me of a message I have heard a few times from Gary Haugen, the president of International Justice Mission: Jesus asked only for what the boy had in his lunch pail that one day - and then used it to feed 5000. We don’t have to supply the miracle, only what we have. And that means starting somewhere specific.