hal's pals

i must have been 10 or 11 when mom heard about dolls inspired by the cabbage patch craze who featured special accessories. like leg braces, hearing aids, and a wheelchair. they were quite spendy for my parents. i did not beg for one so much as stare in awe of the entire idea flipping through the catalog. a doll. that i could hand-pick. to be like me. hal, the leader of the pack, was a skiing amputee. a one-legged amputee with no prosthesis.

i went with a brown-yarned beauty in pigtails with both her legs and braces. the braces automatically came with crutches. i picked a doll that did not have my disability at all, but rather my interpretation of it. i mean. i had legs. they were fake, but i had them. and the little braces were cute. plus. honestly. having your doll walk around on crutches is way fun.

my doll was also allowed to claim a wheelchair with her insurance provider. i do not remember playing with it much. i, too, had a wheelchair, that i preferred not claim. in 7th grade english i used it as a prop to demonstrate the proper way of pushing a wheelchair over a curb. it was a really lame 'how-to' presentation as i could think of nothing else what with my friend binky already showing, and rightfully so, how to clean and paint ceramics. ceramics that her mother brought us to every wednesday night and was also way fun.

it was a salty purchase, this doll and her braces and wheels, for my parents. especially for a girl just about at the end of her doll-playing years. it's one of those things i've always looked on with great respect and tenderness for their effort. and luckily, back in the 80's you could still get for what you paid for.

i do not know where the brown-yarned gal has gone to, but the cabbage patch girl who stole them was still wearing her braces and crutching along when i unpacked her after my wedding. in the box with all the doll gear was also that wheelchair with a cloth seating and stainless steel frame.

every toddler i've ever adored since has taken a spin in that doll chair. friends, nephews, nieces, cousins. my own. caleb rode it around until he couldn't get out of it anymore. often walking around hobbled with a wheelchair attached to his back-side, getting out of it became sport. and then a few months later when his hips wouldn't fit at all, but his cousin's would. oh. the cruelty of life.

elmo was almost always thrown in the chair upside down and then raced through the house. unbuckled. poor little monster would be ejected and on the ground he'd giggle senselessly as the chair and deranged orderly trampled him.

we got maddy a sweet little baby stroller-walker for her first birthday. she loves it. she loves the wheelchair more. she has a thing about making a seat wherever she is. vern's calf when he's on his knees. target's bottom display shelf. a single stiff piece of cardboard she'll stand on end. this chair on wheels is her thing. and it can double as a stroller. and it turns better than the walker-stroller when racing her brother. (though she'll carry her babies rather than risk brain damaging them to bits.)

that little toy doll wheelchair has lasted longer than two of mine. caleb imagines all kids have wheelchairs to play with.

my parents back in 1986 or 7 would have gotten such a huge charge out of that.