Stories like this remind me of one of my life's "look at what you've
got" stories. It comes to mind every time I hear a story like this,
and I apologize if I have tossed it out here before.
In the early through mid 1980's I was an active ham radio guy. Ham
radio has many variants, and I was active in a band called 2 meters,
which was regional, FM, no static, and so on. It was a fairly regular
group, and we all talked several times a week on the air, met in the
summers at swapfests, typical hobby stuff.
What shook us up, was to hear a guy who was born blind, and another
guy who was 40 years old and paralyzed at age 17 discuss their
infirmities, and greatly prefer theirs to the other guy's.
blind guy: "Wow, im so glad that I'm blind and not stuck in a
wheelchair. I can get around on my own, and even though some say my
mobility is limited, I can do anything that I want to".
guy in the chair: "I would hate to be blind! I can see things around
me, and I think I can get around better than you (he had a car)".
These two guys lived about 100 miles apart, were friends, and went
along in this vein for awhile, with friendly jabs at the other guy.
The rest of us were soon pretty speechless. This was a conversation in
which we had nothing to contribute.
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