Over the past couple of weeks, I have been pondering a thought, after a conversation I had.  I found it a little weird, bordering on the macabre! Finally I have decided to share it with you.

Up until I lost my legs in a horrific train accident, (through no one’s fault at the end of the day) the world for a 21-year-old was pretty good. Fit and healthy. Full of life, one could even say ten foot tall and bullet proof. Weren’t we all at that age?

I don’t dwell on the past, never have. I’ll never forget a dear friend saying to me: “Look at where you’ve been to see where you’re going”. So very true! I adjusted pretty quickly to my new surroundings without legs. Just got on with it really. I like to think that I have a pretty positive attitude. Over the years, I have seen people having to prove some point or other by having to climb a mountain or bum their way up the “Kokoda Track” or somehow prove their normality.

Here’s the thing – I considered myself ‘normal’, my boys saw me as no different to any other dad. Oh, they quickly worked out that they could test me to the limit and knew just how far to push the boundary. My work colleagues didn’t take too much notice of the fact that I was legless and in a wheelchair, after all, I was another voice on the radio. Who needed legs to talk on air?  So on it went. I guess all things considered, I did ok. I had my share of ups and downs like anyone else. My own demons to deal with. I did that in my own way coming to a place of peace within myself.

Then, the other day it turned upside down!  I had a conversation with a disabled person who by choice had a leg surgically removed because this person did not like the way they looked and from what I gather, didn’t like the way other people looked at them. I reacted perhaps a little surprised when I heard this. Should I have reacted the way I did? I questioned the ethic of this. Yes, it is your body and I guess you have the right to decide. Then I read about an art exhibition called “SPARE PARTS”. This was a collection of prosthetics, all painted in a variety of colour and design. Innovative, I thought, until I did some further research. What I discovered is that these people nurture and caress these limbs in a way I personally find a little intriguing.

Is this normal, I asked myself?

Thomas S. Szasz sums it up rather well: “There are two kinds of ‘disabled’ persons: Those who dwell on what they have lost and those who concentrate on what they have left.”

Personally I prefer the latter…

Carl Jung once said  “The meeting of two personalities is like the contact of two chemical substances: if there is any reaction, both are transformed.”

I read of a relationship that to me had everything that Jung was talking about. Both persons transformed by love, emotion, sexuality, chemistry, commitment and that special bonding two people have. Unconditional love. Both are in their 60s – warm, intelligent, honest and completely open. They ran a successful business in a small, idyllic, sleepy seaside town, where people leave their doors open whilst they pop down to the beach for a swim.

Now, this couple is at the centre of a hate campaign. Their mail-order gardening business, that they built out of their love for horticulture, (after both leaving successful teaching careers,) was torched 6 months ago. The packing shed destroyed, along with the part-time jobs of 8 employees at the height of the season.

Now here’s the thing: it has cost them their business, and left them preparing to quit the beach-side community that they love.  But, more than this, it has caused them to question being openly gay!!

Between them, the couple has five children and 10 grandchildren who all know that their grans are in a lesbian marriage. They have both lived in heterosexual relationships. They married each other, celebrating their love and Lesbian commitment in a Civil Union ceremony.

In their time living in this tiny community, they have never had a bad word uttered against them. Now the hatred has escalated to crudely written graffiti scrawled across their cars, fences, sleep out and the walls of their cosy house.

People are disgusted and asking why them? There has been a gay presence, including a lesbian community, in the area for many years, without anything like this ever occurring.

So…why now?  They’ve never hidden their sexuality, or in fact their relationship.

They’re optimistic that the general ease with which they, as a gay couple have been accepted as any straight couple, will continue to be the hallmark of the seaside village in which they live despite the ‘homophobic’ attack on them.

It is a sad indictment in today’s society, where we are taught tolerance and acceptance that attacks of this nature continue to take place.

We don’t care that politicians living in a Lesbian relationship can become pregnant, or that a ’super-star’ and his partner can adopt a child, but when it comes down to this everyday ordinary couple, out pours the hatred.

Perhaps they are a much easier target for the cowardly, gutless person that has set out to destroy this unassuming couple in their 60s.

Many of my friends are gay and openly in loving relationships.  I love and respect their decision to commit to each other. Sometimes I look at them and wish that every couple had what they have. Sadly this is not the case.

There is still far too much hatred and homophobia on this Mortal Coil.

Even Pope Benedict has said the Catholic Church could not accept gay marriage and urged young people to root out evil in society and shun a lukewarm” faith that damages their Church.

He needs to take a long hard look inside His own house first!!

As my mother once said:

“Before you try to change other people, just remember how hard it is to change yourself.”

I was going to write about 9/11 but I have decided to wait until I visit Ground Zero later this year. I do not believe I can do justice to such a poignant event in world history without having visited and experienced for myself first hand. I particularly want to follow the Cross at Ground Zero as so much has been said and written about the significance of this piece of steel.

What I do know is this. The shape was oddly identifiable in the blasted wreckage of the World Trade Centre, standing upright amid beams bent like fork tines and jagged, pagan-seeming tridents. A grief-exhausted excavator named Frank Silecchia found it on September 13, 2001, two days after the terrorist attacks. A few days later, he spoke to a Franciscan priest named Father Brian Jordan, who was blessing remains at Ground Zero. Fr Brian has been asked countless times, “Why did God do this?” His reply has always been the same – he would say it had nothing to do with God, but it was the actions of men abusing their free will.

The 10^th anniversary has come and gone, but the memories will forever live on in all of us, one way or another affected by this destruction and innocent loss of nearly 3,000 lives.

We all know where we were on that fateful day. It is etched forever in our memory. The symbolic Cross has become controversial in itself, with the American Atheists, a non profit group, who sued to remove it, calling it an unlawful and “repugnant”.

Like it or not, the steel and debris of the World Trade Center has become more than just wreckage. It has been alchemized into relics, not just by fire but also by memory and trauma. Larger spiritual meanings have been attributed to it.

The Latin term for relic (reliquiae) means “remains” or “something left behind”.

Somehow among 1.8 million tonnes of debris, this cross rose from the rubble and caught the eye of Father Brian Jordan. I don’t know the reason or have any answers. Do any of us?

Ten years on, this I do know, much of the sacred steel recovered from Ground Zero has been held in Hangar 17 at John F. Kennedy Airport.

To this day, items are still being recovered: a rack of bikes, a battered shovel, a dented filing cabinet bursting with papers.

To quote Nancy Johnson, who directs the World Trade Center Artifacts project and has overseen the preservation of the Ground Zero wreckage since 2006.

“Wreckage becomes relic when it is associated with people and experiences that brought you joy”.

You can take the cross out of the World Trade Centre. But can you take it out of someone’s skin?

Father’s Day 2011

Bartrand Hubbard once said: “I’ve had a hard life, but my hardships are nothing against the hardships that my father went through in order to get me to where I started.”

My dad is in his mid 80s now. His body is telling him it’s nearly time, but his mind remains as sharp as the day. He grew up in a small rural community, riding a horse 10 miles to school every day.

A couple of years ago, I took my youngest son on a journey, to visit and spend time with his granddad. I wanted him to know about those early days. He remarked that my son was a walking magnet, with all the steel in his body, and that he had more ink on him than in the classroom he learned in (He has a couple of tattoos and at the time, two or three piercings).

So…I wanted him to open up to my son. I asked him about those informative years. “Hard years” he said and started to open up. I learned as much as my son that day. You see, I thought I knew my old man. Turns out I only knew what he decided I should know.

I never knew about the beatings he regularly got from his ‘old man’ – my grandfather. I did know about his brother chopping off his toe, but not about being chained to the chopping block because of it. I had always wondered about the truth of this, but when he started reminiscing with my son, I began to believe in the reality of life during the depression and those years that shaped my dad into the man he became.

He would over the years say to me on more than one occasion: “Your grandfather was a hard bastard – but a fair one!”

Somehow, that cliche ‘Like father. Like son’ rings in my mind. My old man was hard. But fair! I never really saw him show true affection to me or my five brothers all that often but then, I was not really around most of their growing years.

He did love us unconditionally, protected us and kept us safe. Many times he covered my arse – I just did not know it! Not then at least.

I do now, but it was to be many years later that I learned the truth. We never came to blows, but there were many harsh words. He was, after all just trying to instill the values he had been taught by his father, into me. I really didn’t want to listen. At 16 I knew it all and it was the dawning of ‘The Age of Aquarius’ and I had an adventure to begin.

Some years later, when he got the call that no father wants to hear: “Your son has had a very serious accident and may not make it through the night. You best get here quick” he just downed tools and come hell or high water was going to be at my bedside. No questions asked.

He was there and remained until I was out of immediate danger. He cared not for his business or any other matter, apart from getting to the hospital to be at the side of his eldest son.

As we drove that August morning some 2 years ago, my own son began to learn more and more about this kind, loving and compassionate man – my father, his granddad.

We stopped at a little country cafe for lunch and all my old man wanted was a cold beer and a plate of seafood chowder.

I have never seen that smile since. He was in old man’s heaven.

We got back into the car and he proceeded to ramble on about his lunch for what seemed hours, issuing directions with military precision on how to get to the family homestead. After an hour, my son and I looked at each other bewildered, as we were so certain we were just plain lost!!

Next thing, we are right outside the gate to the family farm. He had let us to this gate with pin point accuracy.

It was about this time that he demanded we stop for lunch because he had not eaten since breakfast and he was hungry.

My son told him he had lunch an hour ago and couldn’t understand why he was getting so agitated.

My dad now lives in a very comfortable retirement home. He has all his wants and needs met and is surrounded by loving family.

I hope the good lord allows me one more visit.

I for one, will be calling my old man this Father’s Day, to tell him how much I love him.

Yes…he did teach me well. I hope through him, I have taught my boys well.

Winston Churchill once said “Attitude is a little thing that makes a big difference”.  How right he was.

I was reminded of this at the weekend, when I had coffee with an old work colleague.

He enquired, “Do you mind if I ask you a personal question?”

He simply said, “Mate, I have always admired you. You don’t let anything get in the way of the road you walk. If it does…you embrace it! What is it that makes you the person you are?”

I just replied, “Attitude” and he nodded.

So…I started thinking.

Over the years, I’ve had a pretty good career as a broadcaster. The industry has been kind to me and paid me well. Sure there were the 4am starts and late nights, sometimes not getting home till after 10pm. The highs, the lows, but  to achieve what I have after losing my legs was no mean feat (I know, the pun!!).

I worked hard to prove to the skeptics that I could cut it with the rest of them. I also took pride in the fact that I was unique! After all, there was no-one else with no legs and in a wheelchair working in the industry at the time. I always had a positive ‘Attitude‘ no matter how good or bad I was feeling. I never let it drag me into the depths of despair. Sure, there were many times I rode a ‘Rocket to Hell,’ but I always remembered a conversation I had with a very dear friend just after I lost my legs. It helped every time.

I’ve never forgotten it.  I try to live by what he said and taught me to this day.

It goes a bit like this…

“Develop a positive ‘Attitude’, a sunny ‘Attitude’ and something wonderful happens. People will like you. People will welcome you. Through them, you will meet other people because you’ll be a pleasure to have around. If you believe it, you can achieve it. If you can dream it, you can do it. !!!”

He said, there would be times I would need to be bold in order to achieve. There would be times when I would have to take risks with my life’s direction. He suggested that fortune favours the brave and there would be times when I would need to be brave, even if I felt I couldn’t. He told me that people are everything and never to dismiss them just because they may look different to me. He suggested I find out what makes them tick…Once I’ve done that, I might be amazed at how much I learn and how much I can give back.

He taught me many years ago that understanding other people are one of the keys to success. He suggested that knowing what people want and why they want things and want to do things will help them towards their dreams. Once again, I was told that if I helped other people with their dreams they would help me with mine. How true this is! He taught me to take an interest in other people. He said we all have our own story and our own strengths. He put it to me, that if I took an interest in others, they would take an interest in me.

Here’s another thing he taught me.  Be kind to other people and try not to hurt them. Remember to be generous. Being kind and generous is far more powerful than hurting. The more you give, the more you’ll get back. Finally…remember this. If a person makes a mistake against you, forgive them. Don’t keep it in your heart. Your resentment will over time become bitter and bitterness is a bad attitude. If a person falls, help them up.

Remember, ‘Love’ always wins. It might take longer than evil and hatred, resentment and envy, but ‘Love’ always wins. Always trust ‘Love.’ Always know that no matter what – water can cut through iron.  His final words were: “Find out who you are. Know who you are. Know your strengths and weaknesses. Be proud of your strengths and laugh at your weaknesses. Be brave even if you are frightened. Value yourself. There is only one of you. Don’t worry if you feel different from everyone else. We’re all different.” Your new journey is beginning. Just embrace it with a positive ‘Attitude’.

I have never forgotten these words…

RIP my friend. You taught me well.

Steven Demetre Georgiou, remember him? Probably not.

I’m a huge fan. His hits just kept on coming, the albums sold millions. One of my favorites was Tea for the Tillerman.

Ahhh, now you’re remembering. Cat Stevens, that’s right the bearded hippy, folk singer that took the world by storm.

Then he just up and quit. Years later, Cat Stevens resurfaced as “Yusuf Islam”, acclaimed singer-songwriter, humanitarian and philanthropist.

Trouble was, he had become Muslim. Stevens’ decision to leave the music business, become a Muslim, and devote his life to humanitarian and educational causes is one that has often been greeted with a mixture of curiosity and confusion. Then, out of the blue he was back on the world stage, touring and thrilling thousands of fans worldwide. He looked every bit the Muslim, softly spoken and words well chosen, a humble man with a simple message.

Who really cared that this great singer had become a Muslim? We were more than happy to pay the ticket price to see him in concert and listen to his philosophy.

It was inspiring and uplifting and for many, provided an insight into the way of Islam. We were more than tolerant and happy to sit for 2 hours, to listen, be entertained and even learn a thing or two. Or have we? I read daily of the conflict between cultures, the hatred that is building, the clashes and violence happening with regular monotony.

Sadly we have seen the terrible result of one idealist in Norway. Right now we are witnessing the rioting in London and the effect it is having across the world.

(I remember listening to Enoch Powell’s so-called ‘Rivers of Blood’ speech, which was delivered to a Conservative Association meeting in Birmingham on April 20 1968 and thinking this will never happen. How wrong could one be?)

Questions are being raised as to how we could let these things happen. I don’t have the answer, but what I know is this, it has happened, for whatever reason.

I pity the hatred this Norwegian man has for Islam amongst other things. We as a society must learn tolerance. We might not like what we are confronted with, but somewhere within, we must accept it.

It is hard to forgive and forget, but over time, the scar fades.

We are coming up on the 10th anniversary of 9/11 and the haunting pictures are etched firmly in our minds forever. The destruction, loss, anger and pain suffered by everyone in their own way, will never leave us. But, here’s the thing, we have become tolerant and this tragic event for most, over time, has become a memory. It will never ever go away, but we learn to live with it. We live with the fact that Islam is here to stay, we might not like it, but somehow we tolerate it.

I learned to be tolerant a long time ago in fact, October 1973, the day I lost my legs. I’m well over that, but when I read and hear of how people of different cultures are being treated, I can’t help but wonder.

I have nothing but admiration for “Yusuf Islam,” aka “Cat Stevens”.

I will listen and no doubt I might just learn something!

I was asked to comment on the recent performance of Lady Gaga at her concert in Sydney, where she performed a number, using a wheelchair as a prop.

It seems this has outraged people in wheelchairs, their families and friends and has opened the floodgates, creating media frenzy with complaints to Anti-discrimination and other rights groups worldwide.

Look, to be honest, it didn’t faze me one little bit.

As a broadcaster in a wheelchair and someone that’s been in the public eye for the past 38 years, I got over the fact that people saw me as different a long time ago.

Truth is, I never saw it that way. Never have, never will.

Having no legs and in a chair certainly made me unique within the industry. It’s amazing the perception listeners have of you.

On more than one occasion, I was asked; “HOW DO YOU SPEAK ON THE RADIO WITH NO LEGS?” Once I stopped laughing and thought about it, I realized the observation that people had in general, when it came to someone in a wheelchair was draconian.

Education was in its infancy and public opinion was not very gracious.

Did I care? Of course I did. I decided to make it my goal to change public opinion.

I’ve lost count of the number of groups and organisations I’ve spoken to over the years. I coached my sons’ rugby team, shot hoops fished with mates, been the brunt of their jokes etc.

Did I care? No. I gave back as good as I got.

I was accepted as normal so much so that on one occasion as I recall, a group from the Radio Station where I was working at the time, went 10-pin bowling. Everybody was lining up for their bowling shoes and the manager (my best mate) turned and asked. “Porte, what’s your shoe size mate?” I told him and as he ordered my shoes, the person behind the counter stared at him with disbelief.

You see, the point here was simple. He never saw the disability. Just the person. That is how it was and still is to this day. However, there are still people that have a very narrow-minded view. That’s their right but sometimes I wish that those in a wheelchair that still have a chip on their shoulder, for what ever their reason, would take a step back, think about their attitude and the effect it leaves on others.

I never climbed any mountain, flew a plane or embarked on the hundreds of other challenges that people with disabilities have embarked on to prove a point. To say, “Look at me” I’m normal!

I am normal; I have my faults and failings just like you. But what I have is ATTITUDE. I really don’t give a monkey’s that I have no legs. I got a second crack at life and I have embraced it. It’s that simple.

Don’t get me wrong…

Dealing with a tragic accident or illness, is not easy, nor is the aftermath. The rehabilitation, the dramatic adjustment and realisation that things will never be the same are very real and do take time and their toll. I know it is a cliché but “it does get better.”

I actually like Lady Gaga, I think she’s branded herself into a pretty niche position and it’s working. Look, she’s not the first to use a wheelchair. She won’t be the last. Pink did it a year or so ago.

Some people really do need to get the chip off their shoulder and embrace their disability. Make the most of what life has to offer. As I said, I did.

I have no regrets whatsoever. At the end of the day, to be honest, it’s all about ATTITUDE.

The performance was nothing but brilliant and personally, I would hate to see her discard it”.