Author Archives: Peter Sanford Kahrmann

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About Peter Sanford Kahrmann

Writer, disability rights advocate, civil rights advocate.

Saving My Sister

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I love my sister. Nothing that has happened and nothing that will happen will ever change that. If she keeps drinking, she will die; from the sounds of it she may not have long.

Our father died on August 16, 1969. I was 15 and my sister (how I love the words, my sister) was 10 when, 16 weeks after he died, my mother placed me in reform school on a PINS (Person in Need of Supervision) Petition and subsequently disowned me. In those days a PINS often meant a family saying to the court, I don’t want him, you take him. While I lost my father and  family in a 16-week span, my sister lost her father and brother, a brutal event for any 10-year-old.

We would run into each other from time to time over the years. When my mother and I began to reconcile in the late 1970s, it was because I’d begun to visit my sister who shared a split-level home her. We came together for a short time when our mother committed suicide in August 1992.

My sister has three children, one boy and two girls. The boy is the oldest and at age 35 is a remarkable young man. Recently he reached out to me to let me know my sister is in bad shape. She can’t (won’t) stop drinking. Her body is breaking down (she’s 52), she has a hard time opening her hands and refuses help of any kind, including medical help.

I am a recovering alcoholic and know damned well you can’t make another person get sober or make someone choose life. I also know I can’t make someone discover their value and worth even though it’s there.  At  the center of who my sister is, behind the horror and dysfunction and pain, is a gloriously wonderful person.

She used to enjoy telling the following story about us. I’d been out of the family for a couple of years. She was 12 or 13. I was staying not far from where she lived with my mother and grandparents. One day not far from her house she was  being harassed and threatened by three boys when, as she describes it, “My brother came flying out of car, challenged them all to a fight, and they ran.”

I’ll try to save you again my precious sister, but I can’t do it without you.

Choosing Change

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There is nothing unique in saying change can be scary. It often is. Even when you choose it as I did recently when I resigned from the New York State Council on Independent Living, as remarkable a group of people as I’ve ever worked with.

The heartfelt commitment I witnessed in council members to the rights of people with disabilities to live independently, which means as equal citizens, is breathtaking. I hesitate to mention certain members because all deserve to be mentioned, but I’m going to do so anyway. The two who dazzled me most were and are Bruce Darling and Brad Williams, the former being the head of the remarkable Center for Disability Rights  and the latter being the executive director of NYSILC.

I resigned from the council for three reasons: it is time to focus on my writing, my stamina level is not what it once was, and, at age 57, I don’t know how many years I have left. There are books I am writing and want to write along with short stories, blog essays, and, well, anything else that strikes my fancy. I need to finish a memoir, I task I’ve let lag far too along with two novels and a non-fiction work about working in the field of disability, brain injury specifically, a book I’m calling It’s All About Respect.

Do I find the change I’ve chosen scary? You betcha. But there is an expression about fear I wrote some years back that I love: It’s okay to be afraid, don’t let it scare you. If we wait until the fear leaves before we make the changes we want, they’ll never get made.

Henry David Thoreau’s line was a great help to me in summoning the moxie to make this change. “Go confidently in the directions of your dreams! Live the life you’ve imagined.” This goes for you too.

Me’n Theo

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As many of you know, it’s not easy to find a good roommate or housemate. Get stuck with the wrong one and the experience can be downright miserable. I got lucky with Theo.

Theo was already living here when I moved in. He lives upstairs from me.  Actually, he lives right over my writing room. We’re both possessed of private natures and keep to ourselves. For the most part he is an easy housemate to get along with. He does not play loud music. He does not have loud parties. I don’t think he’s had a visitor since I moved in some 12 weeks ago.

There are other pluses to Theo. He doesn’t mess with my food and I don’t mess with his. And while we don’t hang out or go for walks together, he loves the outdoors as much as I do. Sometimes I see him outside and he has remarkable energy. The cold never seems to bother him  probably because he’s an exercise nut. He runs everywhere! I don’t know where he gets the energy and stamina.

We’re both early risers. I like my early hours in my writing room, the nest, as I call it. It was during my first days here that I learned Theo does not like being bossed. I’d be in my writing room early in the morning trying to write or read and sure enough, Theo would wake up and start walking around non-stop right above me. Being sound-sensitive to begin with, listening to my housemate walking around non-stop in the morning right over my nest drove me nuts. He does not intimidate either. Yelling at him to shut up or pounding on the walls and ceiling to get him to quiet down had no effect whatsoever.

Curiously, I’ve come to enjoy hearing him in the morning. I admire his independent spirit, his penchant for privacy, and his industrious early morning routines. And, I’m proud to say, I’ve finally accepted that he does not like to be bossed. After all, I’ve never met a squirrel that does.

My Country, by Sarah Palin

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First I’d like to say in words, yes words you know, we know, yes it is true, talking to my country, meaning yours too, ours, yes, my words here are for you for all.

This great country is shining, we know, don’t we know? It shines it does from sea to shining mountains and seas, a most beautiful land with, you know you beautiful people are too, yes, you know this is true.

I believe in things, many things, you know me and you know this, it is all true. From my Alaska mountaintop I see as you would many things, not just Russia but many things, God is there, yes you know my words are here and there and for you and for God from you and me, they’re on the mountaintop, in Alaska, more than Russia I see for my country.

My country’s future, mine and yours and the mountains below with rivers, yes, of course lakes streams, but this Obama is dangerous, you know from my mountain I know, no one, anywhere and there too knows what or who or what is being said.

And you can quote me.

I Miss My Father

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He was born February 20, 1914 and died August 16, 1969 when he was 55 and I was 15. He was my closest friend and remains the greatest gift life has ever given me.

While I know there will be more missives like this one about him, I also know that any words of mine will fail in their attempt to tell you what a truly special human being he was. There are things I can tell you that may, I hope, give you a glimpse. For example, there was not an iota of bigotry in him. He comfortably accepted people for who they were. It didn’t matter to him, and I mean, it didn’t matter to him if someone was gay or straight, if someone was black, Latino, Asian, Jewish, Muslim and so forth.

My father experienced people as individuals, and was not adverse to stinging back when confronted by bigotry. When we moved from Pearl River, New York to Nyack, New York somewhere around 1967, the house in Pearl River had not yet sold. While Nyack was a truly integrated community Pearl River was, for all intents and purposes, snowflake white. We were known as a civil rights family. Our minister marched with Dr. King and all of us were very open about our commitment to civil rights – for all people.

One day my father returned to check on the Pearl River house to discover someone had written the words Nigger Lovers on the front window. My father either lost sight of the fact selling the house might be a tad easier if he removed the words or he simply didn’t care because, rather than remove the words, he added some of his own. When he drove away, the words Nigger Lovers were still on the front window, however, they were now followed by the words, And Proud of It.

Staying with this theme, my father let me fight my own fights but would, at times, be nearby in case things got out of hand. Soon after we moved to Nyack I became enamored with a beautiful girl who happened to be black. Anyway, some kids found out. One day me and about three or four boys my own age were hanging out in our garage when one of them told me they weren’t going to let me out of the garage unless I said the word nigger. Now, while I supported Dr. King’s non-violent movement I must admit I wasn’t very good at it. I punched the kid right in the face and next thing I knew I was in a fight with all of them. Suddenly one of the boys saw my father approaching the garage. Everybody froze. I went out to see father. I was disheveled and may have had a bloody nose.

“You okay?” he asked.

“Yeah,” I said. I told him what they wanted me to say in order to get out of the garage.

“You want some help?”

“No, I’m okay.”

“Okay. I’ll be nearby if you need me.”

And so I went back into the garage and ended things when, after more punches were thrown, I picked up a long-handled shovel and begin swinging for the fences which caused my opponents to flee.

When I went back into the house my father ran a bath for his bruised-up son. I sat in the bath and my father sat in the bathroom with me and we talked.  In a tone that told me he knew the answer he asked, “Did you say it?”

“Nope.”

“Good for you. I’m proud of you.” He stood up, leaned over,  kissed me on top of my head, and said, “I’ll get you some aspirin.”

I miss my father.