Gimp Notes

Excerpts from the unpublished writings
of Dan Keplinger, AKA 'King Gimp'

My mom loved me from the minute I was born.  She was a teen mother, I was her first child. To her, I was the perfect baby until they told her otherwise months later. They wanted her to put me in an institution, but, she wouldn’t give me up, no matter what they said. She could have let people tell her what should be done with me, like put me in an institution and make her own life easy. That’s what my real dad wanted. And that’s probably why he left my mom and me when I was six years old. She would never let me be disabled. She didn’t listen to the doctors or my dad telling her to institutionalize me. She took me home for keeps.

She would never let me be disabled.

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For my first twelve years, I had to wait for people to take me places in a push wheelchair, like even down the hall. And then, I was able to move through space. The first power chair, to be polite, was an actual piece of sh--.  I kept running into everyone and everything. They thought it was me, but it was where they had put the control buttons for my knees to operate. 

Nonetheless, I still remember experiencing this new feeling of having this new ability, this freedom to go on my own free will. Sometimes I would feel like going as fast as I could.  I would put the chair on the highest speed of all and ride over a field.  Who knew what I must have looked like. I would go for the bumps and my body would be thrown all over.  Another time, I decided to follow a bird and made my chair go in a creeping mode, I only moved when the bird moved. 

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If I could change one thing about my disability, it would be the way I speak. When the world cannot understand my words, I’m assumed to be deaf or retarded.  People think I don’t have any thoughts or emotions.  It’s a frustration that never goes away.  My thoughts race through my mind, slowed to a near standstill when I begin to talk.  Maybe I am brilliant.  For sure I am an oxymoron... 

People think I don’t have
any thoughts or emotions.

When I was about twelve, I invented this sport, jumping from the club house roof.  Or, more accurately, throwing myself from the clubhouse roof.  Of course, it immediately appealed to me, the risk, the unknown, the feeling of escaping from gravity. For those few seconds I was free, moving through space accompanied by sound of joy I make, arms flapping and thrashing in the air. For those few seconds, I was free, moving through space like anyone else jumping.  For me there were only crash landing on the hard ground below.

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Art came from emotion very deep inside of me, saying what I had never said before.

Art is what made my identity.  In art, I could finally express more of myself.  Art came from emotion very deep inside of me, saying what I had never said before. Taking me in a new direction, as far as I could go and then it took me to a new place.

With painting, I could express myself clearly without anybody interpreting for me. I am so connected with painting. My paintings told of Dan as a man of many faces. It told of part of me and a part of the world that only I know. My soul spoke through my art and for the first time the world heard my voice.

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