He Revels In The Gift Of Life

Beyond Steven Allert’s bent wrists, tilted head and protruding tongue is a mind as sharp as a Ginsu knife.

For 44 years, cerebral palsy has relegated Steven’s ability to communicate thoughts and ideas to a variety of moans and groans. He’s carried a notebook filled with common words and pointed to the ones that express his thoughts. The method was cumbersome and slow, but it was communication.

Then, last July, a generous and anonymous woman named Ann gave him a voice and led him a step closer to independence.

Ann gave Steven $2,500 to buy a computer/communicator to provide sounds for his ideas. Steven went right to work.

“I can handle more of my personal things than I could years ago,” his communicator says after Steven patiently forces his hands to hit the right keys.

He’s never let cerebral palsy hold him back. Social Security pays his basic expenses, but Steven has worked for everything else. His ultimate goal is to live on his own.

When he needed an engine and a wheelchair lift for his van, he sold mailing labels and personalized stationery he designed on his home computer. He transferred photographs onto microfilm for the Moscow police.

He worked toward a communicator, but the $3,000-plus price tag was daunting.

Social workers were impressed with Steven’s creativity and drive. They told his story often, and people responded with donations. Ann’s gave him enough to start shopping.

Last July, relying on the research of several social agencies, Steven bought an Apple MacIntosh Powerbook with a touch-sensitive screen and communicator. Since then, Annette Barnes, his driver and helper, has helped him program in the words and phrases he needs to communicate on his own.

“He’s smarter than all of us,” she says, playfully tweaking his dark hair.

The communicator allows Steven to travel alone, albeit by electric wheelchair. He told his life story through the communicator at a recent conference. He can order for himself in restaurants or shop alone in stores. He can work, preferably with computers.

And he can live alone. He lives in Post Falls now with his parents in a mobile home that has no room for his electric wheelchair. Soon after he bought the communicator, Steven added his name to the waiting list for subsidized housing.

His eyes shine with a mixture of concentration and joy now when he prepares to hold up his end of a conversation.

What does the communicator mean to him? His ring finger circles the keyboard until it finds the right keys, and then his new voice says clearly, “Freedom.”

Tough women

Where would the West be today without the women of yesterday? Cowboys and miners are great, but they’re only half the story. Lewis Clark State College will tell the other half of the West’s history this spring in a special class, “Women of the American West.”

A look at the Native American, Chinese, Japanese, Hispanic and white pioneer women who helped build the West explains a lot about the traditional mettle in the region.

The class starts Jan. 16. Treat yourself. Call 666-6707 for registration details.

Revealing lesson

I admit that I shoveled my neighbor’s sidewalk only because I was caught up in the rapture of using a new, efficient snow shovel. But it paid off. The next day it snowed, my neighbors shoveled my walk before I had a chance to get out my super-duper shovel.

I think we have something nice going, even though we’ve never met.

, DataTimes ILLUSTRATION: Color photo

MEMO: What have your neighbors done that’s surprised you? Sing their praises to Cynthia Taggart, “Close to Home,” 608 Northwest Blvd., Suite 200, Coeur d’Alene 83814; fax to 765-7149; call 765-7128; or e-mail to cynthiat@spokesman.com.