The Marginal Way

The postings on this site are my own and don't necessarily represent IBM's positions, strategies or opinions.

It's Beautiful

"Excuse me, may I stop you for a moment?" I asked a woman with shoulder-length, gray hair and a lovely face, riding a mobility scooter past me on the Marginal Way.

She stopped. There was a tall man with her, with a thickish, white beard, wearing a white T-shirt and white shorts.

"I wonder how portable that is," I said, "I mean, my mom's 82 and I don't know if she could fit that in her trunk."

"Well, this [the steering column] comes off, and then the seat, too, and the battery, which is 29 pounds."

"But my mom doesn't have someone like you've got, unfortunately [I looked over at her apparent husband], to lift it into the car for her....It's too bad because I think she'd love it; she's a champion of her walker, where most of her peers are too vain to use one."

"Yeah, I have MS and this has --"

"-- revolutionized your mobility, right?"

"Right."

"My aunt had MS. Too bad she couldn't have used something like this back then. She just hobbled along at the end -- she didn't die of MS; she died of breast cancer."

We looked together at a twisted cedar and I realized that Pat had continued down the path to get more shots of crashing waves. "What's the brand name?" I asked, looking at the back.

"Go Go, PRIDE," the man answered.

I smiled at them, at the name. "That's a great name. Well, I'd better find my partner. Thanks for the info."

Pat was some distance down the path and she showed me where she was shooting. Suddenly, I heard tires stop on sandy asphalt. "I want to tell you," said the woman, next to me again, "My daughter's gay, too, and she noticed the name of the scooter, too."

I smiled, "Well, yes, it's a great name. It should be called 'Pride.'"