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[3catwoman3]

57. Your story of the restaurant worker reminds me of something I saw...

...while in nursing school back in 1972. Those of us enrolled in a summer elective called Chronic Pediatric were taken by our instructor to observe various activities at a sheltered workshop that provided jobs/activities for people with various physical or intellectual challenges. The folks working there did a variety of things - collating small local phone books, operating a machine that made the stick -on bows that we all put on holiday and birthday presents, etc.

What has stuck vividly in my memory all these years is a circle of people who were sorting items for recycling. One young man was very severely affected by cerebral palsy, and had extremely tight contractures of all his joints - couldn't straighten out his knees, elbows, or hands. His job was to crush cans before they went into the recycling bins. To accomplish this, he was sitting on the floor and would lean his whole body sideways against a can to flatten it. The image is seared into my mind's eye, and always brings tears to my eyes when I tell someone about it.

I remember thinking that if this young man, as limited as he was, had found a way to have a purpose, there was not much excuse for almost anyone to sit on their ass and do nothing.