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Early in September 1955, I was struck by polio and, at the age of eleven, became a respiratory quad. Graduating from iron lung to rocking bed within three months and from rocking bed to no assistance in two years, I began slowly to re-establish my pre-adolescence and make the long return to as normal an existence as possible. While in the hospital I had already begun learning to adapt to life from the vantage point of a wheelchair and I learned the invaluable skill of writing with my left hand (I was right-handed) so that I could resume school as soon as I returned home. Once home, I "attended" both junior and senior high school at home with teachers from the New York City Board of Education's Home Instruction Department.

Encouraged by my parents and teachers and my success in attaining a level of education comparable to that of my friends attending the local high schools, I began to think about going to college and of college as an opportunity I could and therefore must take advantage of. For my parents, with the foresight that became characteristic of them, had begun to impress me with my absolute need to become financially independent of them if I was going to be able to insure myself a long and usefully stable life. After all, I could expect to need for an unknown number of years money for attendant care, for physical therapy, for wheelchairs and/or repairs, and for special transportation, not to mention food, shelter, and clothing. I couldn't afford to pass college by and so, in September of 1962, I began as a student at Brooklyn College, attending school for the first time again since September seven years before.

In five years I had earned a B.A. magna cum laude in psychology from Brooklyn College and had successfully competed for and won a Woodrow Wilson Fellowship to attend graduate school for a year. My dream was to move out to the West coast where, as the words of a popular song so aptly express, "the weather suits my clothes." The concept of really going was a little bit scary. But the dream had an excitement I could hardly contain. I felt as if I would be, in some sense, a real pioneer, pioneering a new independence for myself, staking out a member of my family in a new part of the world, making a go of it on my own, really on my own. Yet a million "What if's?" crossed my mind while my parents wanted to know: "Why do you have to go so far? How would you manage in an emergency when you're so far away?"

Stanford University accepted my application for graduate work in Psychology, offered me a place to live and the opportunity to work with a great man whose work had begun to fascinate me at Brooklyn College, Dr. William Dement, a famous researcher on problems of sleep and dreaming. On September 9, 1967, I was aboard my first transcontinental flight headed for Stanford. On September 11th I moved into a cozy, three-room on-campus apartment (where I still live) and I began my long-term love-affair with California. On September 29th I became one of twenty-five other young men and women to register for classes as first-year graduate students in the Department of Psychology's Ph.D. program.

The preparation leading up to that day was both catastrophic and challenging. Soon after affirming my acceptance early in April 1967, I realized that on Stanford's huge 8,000-acre campus I would have to have auto transportation to survive. At Brooklyn College New York State DVR had provided me with transportation to school but they obviously could not assist me with it in California. Also, services similar to the bus service in Brooklyn were more expensive in California. The answer was to buy a car. Beside the car, in order to achieve a level of physical independence I was going to need a motorized wheelchair since I was not strong enough to propel a manual one. Furthermore, I would need a full-time live-in attendant-housekeeper to cook and drive and role-play a myriad of faces. I was beginning to see the chunk I had bitten off.

The first problem was money, as it always is. Ingenuity and generosity and thoughtful people genuinely on my side helped solve this problem in short order. The New York State DVR agreed to pay my tuition for the first year at Stanford. The Woodrow Wilson Foundation agreed to give me money in lieu of tuition with which to buy a car. And the Ruth Kirzon Group, a private philanthropic group in New York City, graciously bought me an Everest & Jennings motorized wheelchair. Things were starting to fall into place.

Smooth going was still yet to come, though. We decided to purchase a Chevrolet Greenbrier van which would carry me and the wheelchair "in one piece." (This van is probably the most comfortable of all the similar models available. It has 54" head room and is only 15" off the ground. Unfortunately, Chevrolet discontinued it after 1965.) We found a van in good condition in New York, bought it at the end of August, packed it full of necessities (books, linens, pots and pans, typewriter, and television) and arranged for it to be driven to San Francisco by an auto transport firm to arrive in time to meet me when I flew in. Two days after the car left New York, it was wrecked and unsalvageable in Oklahoma. Fortunately, the auto and its contents were insured and I had a friend, a Los Angelino I had met in New York who was to become a very special friend. He liked nothing as much as a good challenge and with his help I had another Greenbrier in San Francisco on September 10th. I was beginning to feel lucky. The attendant-housekeeper problem was solved for the time by an alluring ad in the New York Times. Initial preparations were thus complete.