ABSTRACT
Walking down the hall with Albert one night after class, I suddenly realized that he has a game leg—in old-fashioned labeling he would be called a “cripple.” How had I missed that? I was taken aback. What did I actually know about Albert? Nothing, really nothing. In trying to tell his story perhaps I should have started here, at the point halfway through the semester when I finally began to see that he was not the befuddled person I thought he was, and that no formula would do him justice. He was not a “cripple” any more than he was a “recovering alcoholic” or a “violent man.” He was not desperate to follow the rules or live up to expectations. He was just Albert, gradually coming into view.
