More Top Picks Garmin 55
player ready...I’m angry with myself. As regular readers might know, I’ve been having some mobility problems for the past year. Although I’m improving, I still have a way to go. Hopefully, by the time the spring lambs are leaping in the meadow, I’ll be right there leaping with them.
But I certainly wasn’t leaping when I came home from voting at the Naperville Municipal Center in November. As I headed for the front door, I stubbed my toe and fell right on the edge of our slate-covered concrete front porch. It wasn’t a pleasant experience.
It could have been prevented had I ever installed a handrail there, but I hadn’t. I have no excuse. I’ve been disabled before and know how difficult it is to get around with a bad leg or any impairment, even a minor one. It takes very little disability to make navigating a home difficult.
I have seen others with disabilities. Our very close friend and neighbor, one of the happiest and most optimistic people I have ever known, died this year at age 96. For decades I watched her gradually lose her ability to walk and use her arms, although her mind, wit and sense of humor remained razor sharp.
When she died, she could move only her head and one arm. I had seen her go from a limp to a cane to a walker to a motorized wheelchair and finally to a hospital bed, so it wasn’t as though I didn’t know stuff like that happens. I just didn’t bother to do anything about it in my own home.
We all get hurt, and if we’re lucky, we all get old, so it’s likely most of us are going to need the kinds of amenities that make our homes safer and easier to live in. Those are exactly the kinds of amenities that Naperville’s Senior Task Force is trying to encourage builders to include in their houses.
In the interests of disclosure, I have been friends with Bev Patterson Frier and her late husband Bill for many years, and I have recently become friends with Bev’s task force co-chairwoman, Karen Courney. But I’ve had nothing to do with the Senior Task Force or any of its activities.
I certainly support them on this effort, however. What they would like builders to include in at least 10 percent of their houses or rental units are such things as lever handles, as opposed to knobs, on doors. We have one on our front door, and everybody prefers it, including the kids. If your hands are full, you can open it with your arm.
You don’t have to be old or disabled to slip in the bathtub or shower. Grab bars make bathing safer and more comfortable for everyone. If you’ve ever moved furniture around in a house, you know wide doors and hallways are handy for everyone, not just people in wheelchairs.
Glow-in-the-dark light switches make groping around in the dark unnecessary. Even toddlers can trip on thresholds that aren’t flush with the floor. And at the present time, I sure wish there were one entrance into our house that didn’t involve steps.
The entire list of things that would allow a builder to win the Senior Task Force’s approval can be found at www.naperville.il.us/seniortaskforce. Obviously, there are a lot of reasons why every home can’t be equipped to accommodate folks who are disabled, but many of us don’t want to have to move someday just because we didn’t think ahead. So why not make your home safe now?
And if you don’t see the need for things like handrails, try falling on the edge of a slate-covered concrete porch and see how you feel about it then. Even if you’re not particularly old, there will be days when you will feel a lot older than you ordinarily do. Those days serve the valuable purpose of showing you what’s ahead — if you’re lucky.