Accessible Date Assignment- Chaz Chapman
This past Wednesday afternoon, I
took the time to venture out with my Grandfather on an outing. My Grandfather
suffers from minor dementia, which causes him complications in conversation and
it is accompanied with mild (on a scale of 1-10 with 10 being totally deaf,
he’d have a 7) difficulty of hearing. On this particular outing, we went out to
eat to his favorite restaurant, Bankhead Fish Market, went to the park and
watched an old country western movie (one of our mutual favorite past times).
During our mini adventure, I utilized eight of the Key Concepts for
Understanding Physical Environment-Behavior Relationships on page 214 of our
Hutchinson textbook.
Although my Grandfather is slightly
disadvantaged, the most difficult part was actually coming from me. Because he
is accustomed to being hard of hearing, he expects others to naturally speak up
or enunciate as they speak. When we had conversations, I had to speak louder
than normal and when someone asked him what he wanted to eat, they had to
repeat it. Ultimately, I learned that sometimes a disability is only that when
the individual feels hopeless. I appreciated that even though to me my
Grandfather was hard of hearing, in his mind, I just needed to speak up more!
Accessibility
Accessibility
played a major role when we were getting ready to eat. One thing about the
restaurant is that it lacks much space to move around and utilize the
environment. For someone like my Grandfather to be there alone, it would have
been drastically uncomfortable because parking is absolutely horrible. There
was one handicap parking spot, however, the parking lot itself is on the corner
of two major streets. At the time we were going, it was kind of hectic and
honestly, I was more worried about other people not knowing how to drive and
damaging my car. It wasn’t an impossible feat to enter the restaurant, but to
someone who is a bit more handicapped, it would pose a major challenge.
Activity
As
mentioned before, we went during a busy time and there were a lot of people
there. Because the restaurant does not provide accommodations to dine-in, the
chaos was at the door entering in and the cash register. There was one register
with the cashier taking orders and another individual bringing the order out.
Following
that, my Grandfather and I went to visit a nearby park (Adamsville Park and
Recreation) and it was actually pretty deserted. I think he enjoyed it because
in his old age, he does not care for socializing with any one other than
family. Here we were able to relax, enjoy our food and the weather.
Comfort
I will
admit, both my Grandfather and myself were completely uncomfortable in the
restaurant. People weren’t extremely rude, but the cramped space of the
restaurant didn’t help.
When we stopped
by the park, we were extremely comfortable because we were the only ones there.
For me, the lack of people there kind of readied me to leave earlier.
Crowding
It was
extremely crowded at the restaurant and in the parking lot, which affected some
of the other key concepts. The crowded environment definitely deprived us of
comfort and increased the activity, which also decreased comfort. I was more
uncomfortable because of the crowding in the parking lot. I seriously felt that
someone was going to hit my car or scratch it carelessly while my Grandfather’s
uneasiness came from being around so many people. Mind you, some of the
individuals were young and rude with their casual language while some were just
as ready to leave as we were.
Legibility
I would say
that out of our prior visit to the restaurant, we knew what to expect and how
the line would form. My Grandfather was just simply excited to go to his
favorite restaurant. Although it wasn’t professionally assembled, the line was
formed as people followed suit from a little cardboard sign that said, “Line
Starts Here”. The first time I went with him as the driver, I remember him just
telling me, “Turn into the entrance that red car is going and find parking”.
Meaning
From my
understanding, my Grandfather used to visit this restaurant on his lunch breaks
when he worked down the street from there. On top of that, it’s extremely
expensive and “reminds him of Momma N’ems” fish fries.
Another
thing that I learned about the restaurant is that it has been around when many
other surrounding businesses failed. It was found by a homey Black man that my
Great Grandparents knew and he passed the tradition down through his family. My
Grandfather loves supporting Black owned businesses.
As for the
old country western film that we were watching, my Grandfather grew up watching
the cowboy and Indian films. He will literally sit and watch these movies from
sunrise to sun set.
Sensory Stimulation
The
restaurant was actually really bland. Not much consideration was put into the
aesthetics of which I was a bit disappointed in but then again, my Grandfather
introduced their amazing food to me. It
was noisy, but because of my Grandfather’s hardness in hearing, it actually didn’t
bother him.
What was
interesting was when we made it back to his house to watch the movie and his TV
was extremely loud, or at least louder than my comfort level. To him, it was
the norm. So in some instances, he was able to control the stimulation, which
is very fortunate.
Sociality
All of our
environments allowed us to socialize amongst each other or with other people. I
learned that my Grandfather does like to flirt with women he thinks are his
age. When we were in line, an elderly lady walked in and he wanted to use me as
bait. Interesting enough, I couldn’t help but laugh.
Indeed,
because of his hearing disability, it was harder to have a conversation without
hearing, “Huh”, “What”, “Who” or him thinking that I said something totally
irrelevant to the conversation
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