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I LOVE a protest. Always have. Always will. I remember being part of one of the very first disability protests in the city of Toronto in Canada. Transportation was a real sore issue for many with disabilities and at the time I worked ad a classroom assistant with students who had physcial disabilities. They were a really bright group. But, my, oh my, they were passive. The world came and went without much comment from them. True enough it was difficult just to get through their days mainstreamed in a high school and dealing with teenage - things. But still.

They had their first tast of militarism when I encouraged them to complain about the schools lack of access to the field, not by writing to the school board, but by writing to the media. One media story about a school that had students with disabilities that wasn't completely accessible and the offending curbs were torn down and a couple of acres of space became accessible. And I got my first warning - apparently I wasn't there to educate them about disability politics, they were there to learn math. I joked that all I taught them was to put two and two together. The warning went in my file.

Then I heard that there would be a rally outside Queen's Park (the Ontario Legislature) of people with disabilities to demand better access to transit and that transit hours expand to equal that of the other transit in the city. All the students had complained about the transit. I pushed and prodded them to go to the protest. They said that the couldn't because it was during school hours. I told them that the reason it was during school hours was because transit stopped at 5. "Take the day off school, go protest." I told them I was taking the day off sick and would be there.

I was called to the principals office. She was mad. She told me that I'd be fired if I took the day of the protest off. I told her that the union might have something to say about her threat. Then she said, "If I see you on television with our students there will be hell to pay."

I don't know how much she paid Satan but I knew she saw us. She couldn't miss us. There may have been 20 of us all together. The low number is explained two ways. First this was early days of the movement in Toronto. Second, the transit company had a lot of drivers sick that day so they had to cancel the rides of their riders to the protest of the drivers working hours. One of the students, Tony, was desperate to be there. He wanted to protest. But his transportation was cancelled.

Twenty minutes before the protest ended there we saw Tony in his electric wheelchair with a look of such determination on his face, he was going to make it. And he did. Almost burned out his chair, but he made it.

I loved those days of protest. Having that kind of zeal for and idea or a cause is better than drinking a Red Bull for giving me energy. Years fall away and I get all jazzed by an idea. It's kind of like that for me now. Over on Chewing the Fat someone handed me a cause on a platter. I'm blogging and organizing and getting letters written. It's FUN. It's FUN to be mad at someone. To take someone on. To shake my fist at the sky.

I care that we win, of course, but it's just good to be 'got up' over something again. Suddenly I'm not the old guy who just wants to take a nap in the afternoon. I'm on fire. I am cripple hear me roar!!!

Oh, by the way, that protest with the kids from school. Amazing. We won. Three days later the government announced funding and extended hours. Matching hours with regular transit. It had a huge effect on the students. And I got another letter in the file.

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