THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Friday, July 21, 1995 TAG: 9507190129
SECTION: PORTSMOUTH CURRENTS PAGE: 02 EDITION: FINAL
COLUMN: Ida Kay's Portsmouth
SOURCE: Ida Kay Jordan
LENGTH: Medium: 79 lines
Two people whose handicaps haven't stopped them were honored recently during Handicapable Awareness Week.
Patricia Hoffman, a resident of Sentara Nursing Center - Norfolk who has cerebral palsy, and Raul Pernites, a quadriplegic who works at Manning Convalescent Home in Portsmouth, were recognized for their attitudes and accomplishments in the face of disaster that would down lesser people.
Hoffman, although a resident of Sentara and confined to a wheelchair, also works as a volunteer at the Norfolk facility. According to activity director Deborah Freeman, she reads announcements each morning to inform residents of the day's activities and the menus and in the afternoon she delivers mail. In between, she not only participates in daily activities, Freeman said. She zooms up and down the halls rallying others to participate. She does one-to-one visits to others with encouraging words.
``She is outspoken and president of the resident council,'' Freeman added.
Sounds like she might be an excellent representative, as well as a cheerleader, for patients/residents.
Pernites, who lives with his parents, was graduated from Green Run High School in 1984 and broke his neck in a diving accident in 1985. He didn't quit. Instead, he finished work at Tidewater Community College and then enrolled in Radford, where he was graduated with a certificate in recreational therapy.
A sports-loving guy, he plays basketball with the Virginia Beach Sunwheelers and has participated successfully in competition across the country. Right now, he and some of his buddies are trying to form a ``quad rugby'' team.
Both Hoffman and Pernites seem determined to do everything they can - or, better put, they seem determined to do things others don't expect.
My dad would have liked these two people. They represent what he always believed was possible for people who have physical problems, whether from disease or from accident injuries.
So how does my dad figure into this?
He was a real ``handicapable'' person too.
He had polio as an infant in 1900, when nobody had any idea of treatment for the crippling disease. When many died, he survived. Not only did he survive. He lived a long, full life - crutch or no crutch.
If my dad ever felt any bitterness about fate that struck him with a dread disease, he never let it show. In fact, he made jokes about his ``leg,'' the heavy hand-made crutch created especially for him by a woodworker.
If he ever felt like giving up, we never knew it. He never faltered along the way - working until he was 70 in the same hometown bank where he worked through the Great Depression to his retirement. He was known around town for the philosophical quotes and humorous comments he always had posted around his desk - and for his positive outlook on life and interest in other human beings.
He didn't want any special help.
Looking back on my childhood, I realize I never thought of him as handicapped. He did everything anybody else's dad did - except play golf. He fished and hunted and built his own boats, surf-fished (with a big disk on the crutch to keep from sinking into the sand), taught us how to play ball, grew beautiful roses and rang the bell for the Salvation Army on Main Street every Christmas Eve.
Patricia Hoffman and Raul Pernites are just the sort of people he liked. He didn't have much patience with whiners or those who used a physical handicap to gain special favors.
Now don't misunderstand, he had plenty of empathy for people and always was the first to ``help out'' either with money or with action.
But his own experience had taught him that people are happier when they are productive. He knew firsthand that they are healthier when they think of what they can do, rather than what they can't do.
He wanted other people to get as much out of life as he had. He would appreciate Patricia, who urges others to participate in life. He would appreciate Raul, who went on to college in a wheelchair.
Both deserve the Handicapable Award, an honor that recognizes those who go ``beyond given boundaries,'' because apparently neither of them believes in boundaries. by CNB