GROWING UP IN PUBLIC -- part 4

GROWING UP IN PUBLIC
FROM POSTER CHILD TO PRACTICING PROFESSIONAL

Editor's note:

Each day leading up to and including Valentine's Day, this blog will tell the story of my bride of 22 years in her own words.

By Heidi Johnson-Wright

Soon my volunteer work became a regular part of my life. The Foundation asked me to be featured in a slide show titled -- what else? -- "Heidi." A photographer followed me around school taking pictures of my efforts to deal with the roadblocks of a typical day.

He also snapped a few shots of my parents and my miniature schnauzer.
When the slide show was being assembled, it was more convenient to hire actors to dub in the voices of my parents and me.

The actor hired to read my dad's part had a voice several octaves lower than my dad's and my mom and I laughed ourselves sick the first time we heard that deep voice paired with my dad's face.

No one else was aware of the dubbing and the otherwise excellent slide show has been used as a public education tool by virtually every chapter across the country. Even today I occasionally meet people at Foundation functions who are amazed that I'm "the Heidi."

My smiling face continued to appear on publicity material when I became the poster child promoting an alliance between the Arthritis Foundation and the Loyal Order of the Moose. For a while, the Ohio Moose adopted the Foundation as their official charity, later to be followed by the Moose nationwide.

I spoke at innumerable lodge dances and awards banquets and while I endured horrendously bad moose puns and sometimes inedible rubber chicken dinners, I made some wonderful, life-long friends -- of the artificially antlered variety, of course.
My publicity and public education work also included a trip to New York City for interviews by columnists from two newspaper syndicates and an appearance on a radio talk show.

I was enjoying the opportunity to travel and be in the spotlight and it felt good to find something that I knew I could do well.

One of my fondest memories is my appearance on the Arthritis Foundation telethon when it originated from Atlantic City, N.J. While it was fun being interviewed on national television and checking out the noisy, neon-lighted casinos, my favorite part was sitting next to falsetto-voiced crooner Tiny Tim in the hotel restaurant.

If only I'd had a camera.

TOMORROW: Child Celebrity

Heidi Johnson-Wright is a licensed attorney and Americans with Disabilities Act expert living in the heart of Miami's Little Havana. She and her husband, Steve, write free-lance articles about travel, entertainment and enhancement of life for persons with disabilities.