Walkies Only

Editor’s note: This is the second of a three-part series exploring ableism and the rhetoric that sustains it. 

In the fall of 2015, I had no idea what I was walking into. My wife and I had agreed to a huge gamble. We gave up job security, a considerable chunk of our first ever consistent income and took an additional “cost of living adjustment” on the chin to move from Kennewick, Washington, to Arcata. We did this so I could take a job directing speech and debate at what was then Humboldt State University (HSU). I had never been to HSU before but knew the debate team well. As a California State University school, HSU often showed up with teams that were consistently large and consistently good. I was worried about a lot when I arrived on campus but not about falling down the stairs.

This changed when I saw my new workplace. It was Telonicher House, a former home built in the 1940s. This isn’t uncommon on college campuses; the office I had running the speech and debate team at the University of Oregon in grad school was in the basement of a similar building. Everyone called both buildings “cute.” But unlike this new workplace, the office in Eugene had a printer, my mailbox and all the supplies I needed to do my job in the basement, where my office was.

I was born with an incredibly rare and little-understood malady in my joints that required numerous and sometimes repetitive operations. Thanks to these surgeries and my learned ability to work within the constraints they offered, I became a downhill skier and backpacker. I learned to play piano and racquetball. On my terms and depending on my pain tolerance, my body can still do all sorts of enjoyable things. Nonetheless, I have always hated stairs.

Depending on the steepness of the slope or whether there are railings, I avoid them if I can. They hurt to go up. They hurt to come down. They are dangerous. On good days, I climb stairs. It’s quicker and more fun to walk with friends. But as I age, the good days are fewer and further between. And on bad days, stairs are a no-go. Now, I was facing 14 of them up and back every time I needed supplies or had to print. This would add up fast.

I asked why there wasn’t a ramp or an elevator. Colleagues said they had asked for one years ago but been told the ramp would have to be too steep, an elevator was too expensive and that the university was going to tear the building down soon anyway.

“Maybe we can move the department office downstairs?” I asked.

“There’s no space,” I was told. “It’s too bad.”

In the fall of 2024, I had finally had enough. I had spoken with numerous administrators who would pass me to other people or sometimes just disappear. I filled out complaints and tickets requesting work to be done. I started jumping through the numerous, often onerous, hoops to receive “accommodation.”

I had seen major construction projects come and go all over campus (and indeed around Telonicher House) but there was never the money or the ability to fix this problem I faced every day. The ramp that couldn’t be built then because the grade was “too steep” became “too expensive” when the library was seismically retrofitted, raising the nearby sidewalk by nearly 3 feet.

“They are going to tear that building down soon,” they said again, but when demolitions were scheduled, Telonicher House was spared. I was told this had gone on for more than 40 years.

For the first six or seven years, nobody supported me in asking that we move the department. Nobody else suggested putting the department office and meeting spaces on the ground floor where everybody could access them. I was given a personal printer that didn’t staple, wasn’t installed and did not fit in my office. I was then offered help that seemed reasonable (“I heard folks in your department offered to bring you your printing from upstairs?”) but was infeasible (I print a lot the night before and on weekends). Responses were never about the space itself — they were about me and “my needs.” Over time, I became “the disability guy.”

Eventually, they moved me to a different building several dozen vertical feet above my old space, segregating me from my peers. From the time I requested this move to the time it was completed, I waited two years. When it finally came, I was relieved not to face the stairs every day. I was also angry. Rather than make my department accessible, administration was sending me somewhere else. Disability accommodations (if this applies) are supposed to be “temporary,” this was the solution for the foreseeable future. I continued speaking up.

I pointed out bushes growing over railings that took years to cut, buildings with no signs or signs that were not accurate that didn’t get remedied. I gave speeches at the University Senate. I met with coordinators and administrators, my department and college and union leadership, all in my spare time. I was told, “That sucks,” and “I’m sorry,” and, “You should try ….” My colleagues focused on “harm reduction” but kept using the space I could not. “It’s the best we can do.” My impatience was framed as unreasonable; I was chastised for calling for a departmental vote on the matter. I couldn’t get people to stand in protest. I gave up on my community, and I got angrier.

I woke up angry about going to school. I came home angry about how I felt carrying too many supplies on the stairs to save a trip but stumbling because I had too much in my hands — again. My anger followed me everywhere. I was called “grumpy.”

Two things made a difference. A colleague, Jim Graham, got proactively involved. In the coverage of my protest last fall (“A Segregated Campus,” Sept. 5), I was quoted referring to Graham as a “hero,” and it is hard to explain how meaningful his involvement has been. He heard about my speech at senate, reached out and said he wanted to help. He volunteered hours and hours of his time and openly acknowledged that with tenure, he had more security to pursue this. He emphasized my claims about the Americans with Disabilities Act being overlooked, if not ignored. He agreed with me that even if the ADA was not legally being violated, our campus was inaccessible, and it was not just “too bad,” it was dangerous and even insulting.

He surprised me again and again with new paths around the obstacles I had been facing. For example, he made a map linked to a webpage (AccessCPH.org). When I stood in front of Telonicher House protesting the space last fall, I could hand people a printout covered with red circles, triangles, squares and lines, and I could quickly show them missing bathrooms, emergency equipment and entire areas of campus that could not be accessed by folks who used wheelchairs or struggled with stairs. A lot of people said, “I know it’s bad here …,” but the folks who looked at the map were shocked. Now they said, “I had no idea.”

Second, I found a book. As a debater, research has always been my way of processing difficult times. Among the health communication literature on disability and ableist rhetoric, I found the book Ableist Rhetoric: How We Know, Value and See Disability by James Cherney, whom I mentioned in my last column (“When We Walk Right By,” May 15). In it, he explains how bodies are not “disabled,” but rather the ways we utilize any place disables bodies. I did not feel disabled until I came to Cal Poly Humboldt. It wasn’t about me at all.

Cherney’s book mentions a sign: “Walkies Only.” He emphasizes reliance on stairs, in particular as, a disabling culture that is overlooked frequently, even in societies that strive to be more inclusive.

“Walkies” is an insult, but it carries no historical power. It cannot stigmatize people the ways disabling spaces do. Rather, it creates discomfort at the reliance on privilege and names behavior that is exclusionary yet ignored. Cherney says any public building that requires stairs to navigate should have a “Walkies Only” sign out front. So, I gave it a try. The results were mixed. “Why do you have to be so hateful?” “Why use shame?” and other predictable reactions to “name calling” were common. But a lot of people looked at Telonicher House as if for the first time. Again, a lot of folks said, “I had no idea.”

During this time, the local campus literary magazine Toyon put out a call for work on social justice themes. I sent them a piece called “I Worked in a Building That Isn’t Accessible and That’s Too Bad.” It won an award for satire, making me officially an award-winning satirist and helping me feel seen in a rare and meaningful way. That helped, too. Telonicher House is still in use, though. At least for another year.

It kind of feels like the joke is still on me.

Aaron Donaldson (he/him) has been a collegiate educator and speech and debate coach for more than 20 years. He has lectured in the Department of Communication at Cal Poly Humboldt since 2015 and lives in Arcata with his family and two filthy dogs.

This article appears in The Man Who Unsolved a Murder.