Dave Hingsburger

I have known of Dave Hingsburger, now, for a little more than 25 years. On Friday and Saturday, Dave came to my home town, Carleton Place, and spoke to us. He didn't talk to us, or lecture to us. He spoke to us. He was originally slated to speak at the Carleton Place Canoe Club, where Dave spoke to us several years ago when he was still able to walk. Instead, we carried on at the Beckwith Township Hall on Friday, and in the Conference Room at Lanark Community Programs on Saturday - because the Canoe Club is still inaccessible and our alternatives to get Dave into the hall were unworkable. The Canoe Club is slated to be completely accessible by March 31, 2011. Our use of the hall helps them raise the necessary capital to put in an elevator. Dave was flexible and gracious as we scrambled and, with the help of some marvellous volunteers from the Mills Community Support Corporation, Jan Watson and Freda Clark, both Team Leaders in their residential services, we started just about a half hour later than anticipated, in an unplanned but totally accessible venue at the Beckwith Township Hall. Other than being unable to eat together at lunch time, this worked out reasonably well. We are fortunate in our small-town/rural settings in Lanark County (about a half-hour to forty-five minutes west of Ottawa) that we can invent solutions so quickly to what for some areas might be insurmountable problems. Cellphones and energetic volunteers made it happen quickly and relatively painlessly. I think I'll tell Dave that maybe we should try an experiment - like the way "Raves" are planned (or maybe, NOT planned, but spontaneous) - but just have Dave go wherever he'd like to speak from, and announce via Twitter, cellphone texts, and emails, the location and what time he will start speaking - and wait for the crowd to show up to hear him.

But that's not what I want to say in my blog. I want to say that I have crossed paths with Dave numerous times - for example, in either 1984 or 1985 (or it might have been 1986 - my memory is not very precise) I was speaking at St. Clair College in Chatham, during their "Winter Workshop Week" which used to be held in February each year - I think it might have been 1984 or 1985, and there was Dave doing a keynote address. In the early 1990's I was managing the Special Needs Unit at the Children's Aid Society of Ottawa, and a number of my staff, foster parents and OPR (Outside Paid Resource) providers were going to hear Dave speaking about Safeguards. I was also speaking a short time later to a group that was using money obtained through running workshops to supply their Sexuality Library with new resources, on the topic of spotting and responding to signs of abuse in people with disabilities. Dave's books and materials were some of the resources that the group purchased with their extra revenue. I was driving to work a few years later and heard Dave on CBC.

This past weekend, I was privileged to once again meet with Dave and listen to him on topics that are not so familiar to North American audiences, certainly not so familiar to us in Southeastern Ontario.

I don't know Dave, personally, very well, but as an observer, over time, of him as he presents himself in his public addresses, I marvelled at how he never seems one smidgen less passionate than I remember him at what must have been nearer to the start of his career. His jokes are never the same (at least to me), his stories never repeated (again, at least to my ears). His MESSAGE, however, has remained as strong and as reliable as ever I recall. He still disarms his audience by his self-deprecating humour, removing the distance between him as a speaker and his audience as human beings; he still reminds us of our humanity, both when we make mistakes, but also when he exhorts us to be better than the system in which we find ourselves. Dave is a masterful storyteller, who through the context that many of us find so familiar, begins to form his point, sometimes predictably, by rising to it as all good stories do. Sometimes the climb is like a hill with plateaus, rising in series until finally, at the top, only then does the view become clear and we can look back down to see where the "stopping off" points have been on our way to "getting it". His earthy way of speaking also communicates directly to those who are spending their time in direct care, whether paid or unpaid.

Dave also points out that many times, what should be so completely obvious, is anything but so. This is a point that Wolf Wolfensburger makes frequently, as well. We humans can, especially when working within formal systems, self-deceive, rationalize and think ourselves away from what is really important, better than anyone, and sometimes those of us inside human service systems do it WAY more than is good for those we serve. Dave encourages us to "Listen Up" and to really SEE, not just look. Dave spoke on Friday of Dick Sobsey's concept of MEETING a person with disabilities, not just "greeting" them. Clearly Dick has had a significant impact upon Dave, as he has for me and for many others who have had the benefit of reading, listening to, studying with him, or otherwise being able to access even just a little of the knowledge that Dick carries with him.

People who came to hear Dave, as must be the experience of nearly everybody who ever has heard Dave over his many years of service (quite a lot of people out there, around the world!) came away inspired, encouraged, positive, hopeful, determined, and informed. Some, I'm sure, with sore sides from laughing more than they might have done within the last many months. But my hope is that they got the point, and they got something else from Dave too - passion that never fades!

Dave even had the graciousness to thank Marjorie Gaw and Garth Teskey, the caterers of both Friday and Saturday. Since they moved their kitchen from Almonte to the Canoe Club to the Beckwith Hall and then Lanark Community Programs, and with no complaints, I think he was right on!