Episode Five: Tim Bannon and Eli Walsh

In this special episode, we highlight young writers with disabilities from Tellin’ Tales Theatre’s Young Adult Writers Workshop. Through humor and resilience, they challenge stereotypes and celebrate personal growth.

Featured Stories:

“Trust the Knitters You Must” – Eli Walsh resists attending an adult sleepaway camp for people with disabilities, feeling kidnapped by his parents. But unexpected friendships, anarchist lawyers, and a canceled lube wrestling event transform the weekend into one of his best.

"Tim Bannon: Never Give Up!" – Tim Bannon shares his journey from struggling in gym class to playing high school football. Overcoming exclusion and setbacks—including a painful gym wall collision—he proves that perseverance, friendships, and sports can turn obstacles into victories.

Transcript

Shui 0:17

Hey Robert.

Robert 0:18

Hey Shui.

Shui 0:19

Howdy, Steve.

Steve 0:20

Say hey Shui.

Shui 0:22

You know something I love about Tellin' Tales?

Robert 0:25

Two exceedingly attractive co-presenters.

Steve 0:27

And talented.

Shui 0:29

Well, that too. No, it's that everyone has a story. That's just part of it. Able-bodied and disabled.

Steve 0:35

All part of the service.

Shui 0:37

But that Tellin' Tales reaches out to young writers.

Steve 0:41

Yeah. So you see, every year we invite up to 12 young adults, ages 18 and up, with and without disabilities, to develop stories on our theme.

Robert 0:50

And that's the young adult writers workshop.

Shui 0:53

How fabulous. Like Roth versus Standard IRAs.

Robert 0:57

God do you know how to talk in America's youth?

Shui 0:59

So no?

Steve 1:01

Uh no. But this week we have two young men, Tim and Eli, both who have disabilities and both who didn't let their disabilities get the better of them.

Robert 1:11

Eli was born with a physical disability that affects his speech. So I will be reading his story for him.

Shui 1:19

Can't wait.

Robert 1:20

It's called Trust the Knitters. You must find your people. I'm will not sitting around for a week making fucking friendship bracelets and singing kumbaya while people treat me like a baby. This was my response to my mother's brilliant suggestion that it would be good for me to attend a sleepaway camp for adults with disabilities. But for this to make sense, you'll need to know a little background. Let's start at the beginning. My name is Eli Walsh, and I was born with a physical disability. This story begins in a local yarn shop. That's right. Knitters. You see, my mom has been knitting her whole life, and she has a group of knitting friends. They sit around and knit and try to fix other people's lives. So, when my mom started to get an earful about a camp for adults with disabilities, she naturally began putting a bug in my ear. I think it would be great for you, she said. I have never had the need to participate in activities designed specifically for people with disabilities, and I'm not sure why my mom thought that I needed to now. She didn't exactly drop it. At one point she asked me what my ideal camp experience would be. Well, I didn't have to think about it at all. My ideal camp experience would be hanging out in the woods with a bunch of like minded socialists planning the downfall of the capitalist hierarchy. You know, fun stuff. She continued to awkwardly insert the topic over the next few months. I was subjected to watching a rather sad YouTube video of people making crafts, someone petting a snake. Finally, she enlisted the help of my dad. This was a rarity. He prefers to remain neutral, but my mom used her mom wife powers, and he was on board. One day, the second week in January 2018, my parents denounced we were going for burgers for dinner, so off we went. Thirty minutes into the drive, I asked, why are we on the highway when we have at least eight delicious burger joints within fifteen miles of our house? It was official. I had been kidnapped by my own parents. At this point, I was weighing my options for a safe escape. There appeared to be none. We arrived at Hackney's in Glenview, an hour from my house. I grew increasingly nervous at the fact that all the disability parking was full and several people using wheelchairs were making their way into the building. The smell of burgers and onion loaf wafted through the air of the party room. People with and without disabilities and everyone seemed to be having a good time. It was the Association of Horizon Summer Camp's annual Hackney's fundraiser. I begrudgingly ate my burger and started to look around the room, and I noticed that none of the people with disabilities were being patronized or spoken to like children. One of the folks using a wheelchair was the obvious beer runner because he kept disappearing to the bar, returning with several bottles of beer. His chair had a built-in bottle opener. At this point I realized this was not the picture I had in my head of what this group would look like. This was further reinforced when the president of Horizon approached me and said, I have someone you need to meet. She introduced me to the person who would likely be my able bodied partner should I choose to go to camp. Apparently, he had been attending camp since he first volunteered in high school. Would you believe he was a public defender in Chicago who did BLM pro bono work, attended the Ferguson, Missouri rally, and was arrested and describes himself as an anarchist? Needless to say, we hit it off, and by the end of the night I was filling out a camp application and signing waivers for all kinds of activities. It was a long six months till camp in July 2018. The wait was almost unbearable. My doctor had cleared me for all the camp activities, and I had purchased all of my supplies. As the date approached, we went on our annual family outing, the beginning of July, to see a taping of NPR's wait wait don't tell me. Yep, we were nerds. As fate would have it, we sat in front of a guy who coughed the entire time, and you guessed it, we all got terribly sick. I spent the first four days of camp in my own bed with a high fever hacking up a lung. How was this even possible? How was my camp partner gonna plan the revolution without me? Finally, my fever broke, and I was no longer contagious. I remember my mom asking if I still wanted to drive all the way to camp for what would be basically forty eight hours of camp fun. It was one of those times when you're thinking one thing, but your gut takes over and makes a decision for you. So we packed the car and off to camp we went. When I arrived at camp, my parents had a laundry list of instructions, but before my mom could even get out of the van, someone took my bags and my new best friends whisked me off into the woods. I was officially at camp. My memory of the best forty-eight hours of my life is a little hazy, but the first night of my sleepaway camp at the age of 18, actually my first time ever sleeping away from my parents, goes something like this. We were sitting around a campfire, discussing our favorite books. Suddenly, the sound of get ready for this blaring into the woods, ushering a parade of half-naked folks with and without disabilities as they rolled into camp. Lube wrestling had been canceled. I was still taking antibiotics for a sinus infection and not feeling great, but I wasn't going to miss out on whatever this was. Sometimes you need knitters to help you connect the dots.

Steve 7:56

Can you imagine Eli as an anarchist lawyer? There's trouble.

Robert 8:01

I can imagine Eli as an anarchist lawyer. Yeah.

Steve 8:04

So Tim's story's great too. Too many times, people with disabilities, they're just dismissed, especially where sports are involved.

Robert 8:12

Never dismiss people. You'll be disappointed every time.

Shui 8:16

We're getting ahead of the story.

Steve 8:18

Okay, so here's Tim and never give up.

Tim 8:36

Everybody's worst fear is being picked last in gym. And for me, it was made even worse because not only was I the last kid picked, it was my teacher who was the one picking. Yep, my teacher forced me into a group. Or at least that's how it felt at the time. In elementary school, I had it rough. But I thought since I like sports so much, I would love gym. Oh how wrong I was. I don't know how you're gonna do this. Just go sit on the bleachers or walk the track, my teacher said. In that moment, I thought they hated me. For what reason, I didn't know. All I could think is, is this grown-up really trying to say I can't do activities like hula hoop or get my fellow classmates to do double dutch? In my six-year-old brain, it was like they were putting me in timeout, partially because that's where the disobedient kids sat. As I got older, I was the runt to my class. Never really growing. So as the kids in my class got bigger, they also got stronger. Stronger than me at least. So, in fear of my teacher getting mad at my parents or the school, they said a thing I never liked to hear. Just go sit down. Occupational and physical therapy came to my school. The class they weren't allowed into was gym. It was probably because the teacher knew they were there for me. And what was I doing? Nothing! Fourth grade came around, and I had transferred from private school to public school for a myriad of reasons, including gym. In fact, it was one of the main reasons why I had transferred. During the first part of the school year, my mom gave a presentation to my school telling my soon-to-be future classmates and teachers who I was and what to expect. When I transferred, I was so much more accepted by my peers, and my teachers didn't look at me as a burden. As my mom would put it, it was giving me room to grow and gain my self-confidence. In gym class, I found out rather harshly that being in an environment where to gain that self-confidence, there could be accidents that happened. Wondering what happened exactly? Well, I can remember the details before, and I often have talked to my parents about the incident. About a week into me being in the new school, I was doing activities, one of which was called skilled ladder. It's a neon wrung ladder, it's on the ground, and uh it was meant to be so that I tiptoed through it as quickly as possible. Well, I did as I was told. In the wrong direction. And as I saw the wall coming closer and closer, I Wyle Coyoted through the air, I slipped on one of those flat rungs. Eventually, it was me versus the dastardly wall. And let's just say the wall won. When I got home, I cried like a baby. Not just because it hurt, and I didn't want to look like a wuss in front of my new classmates, but it also reminded me of the times that I did cry, and I was bullied for. I hear the story of the act math with my collision with Wall and his falls. My mom and dad wrecked the school for an event, and a teacher was in the hall as well. Walking towards my parents, saw my mom, and as she puts it, he was white as a ghost. And my mom, ever the comedian, says to him, Why? Did you push him? My teacher responds with a shocked God no. Obviously, she was kidding. Ugh. So embarrassing. Looking back on it now, my high school years were some of the best years of my life. Especially in sports. And the impact that it made on my confidence. My freshman year, I joined the football team. One was for the confidence aspect, the other the social. I was the kicker. I know it's obvious. But I still joked with my teammates. I called them the guys, saying, Maybe I'll be quarterback, meaning wide receiver. We would also joke in the locker rooms before the games about popularized what style. I think it helped the team stay positive in the long run as well, since we weren't the most win-against team in our conference. We never let it stop us from leaving it all out there on the field at the end of the game. I never went to prom or my school senior trip, but I think that's the reason I joined the team. So that while everyone else was out having fun doing senior things, I wasn't the runner like I was back in elementary school. I think I also joined the team as a way to stick it to everyone else who was holding me back in my younger years, especially my teacher. So never give up.

Robert 13:37

 You know he is just going to wind up on the Bears one day.

Steve 13:38

 You know if he does . . .

Shui 13:38

 We'll tell you about it on . . .

All 13:38

 Tellin' Tales Tales Told

Speaker 13:38

 MUSIC