In front of the Holiday Inn French Quarter yesterday, Dan Cota showed fellow dwarfs the Honda Rebel motorcycle he modified to accommodate his height of 4 feet, 4 inches.
“A perfect example of how we deal with the big person's world is we cut it down to our size,” said Mr. Cota of Bowling Green, pointing to the bike seat he lowered by a foot.
Inside the Perrysburg Township hotel, however, many of the issues facing about 200 dwarfs and family members at the Little People of America five-state convention this weekend could not be made small.
“When I was born in 1952, my mother received three sympathy cards,” said Mark Andrews, a radio sportscaster from Grosse Point, Mich.
Until 1965, the Detroit Public Schools automatically assigned dwarfs to special education classes for slow students. Mr. Andrews' family moved to the suburbs.
But there's no place to escape many of the challenges of living with arms and legs that are about half the length of most people's.
“I'd like to take you through a few days,” said Doyle Harris of Louisville, a district director of the organization.
Restaurant salad bars are usually about nose-level. Hotels often put fresh towels on shelves so high that dwarfs have to stand on the toilet to grab them. Adjusting a shower head can require calling housekeeping.
Gasoline pumps, bank teller windows, and elevator buttons for top floors are often just as frustrating.
Most dwarfs make their own pedal extenders for driving a car or buy them at conventions. But clearing ice from windshields often means crawling up on the hood of the car - a miserable experience in dress clothes.
Some dwarfs carry a pointer to reach high buttons. Some pack stepstools for a night at a hotel. Many credit the Americans with Disabilities Act for making things easier. More pay telephones, for instance, are now low enough for them to deposit a coin.
But some, such as Mr. Harris, say they are faced with far more problems than most minorities and don't get as much assistance. He is a police dispatcher and one of only about three dwarfs at the university where he works. But the university's minority affairs office told him it can't help with discrimination complaints because he's “not a minority.”
Little People members are generally united on such issues - though some say it's an awfully hard battle.
“There just aren't enough of us for the law of repetition to educate the general public,” said Mr. Cota, a computer technician at Toledo Hospital.
There's much disagreement among dwarfs themselves, however, in what they want the organization to present to the public on other issues.
Limb lengthening is a big one. Surgery that involves breaking dwarfs' bones, inserting steel rods, and stretching the rest of their arms and legs can - with great pain and huge expense - add inches to their height.
“To each his own,” Mr. Harris said. “But I think that people should try to make the best of the situation they were born into. A good part of what our group is about is becoming comfortable with ourselves.”
Danny Black, a member from De Witt, Mich., a Lansing suburb, says he's done just that, turning his 4 feet, 2 inches stature into an advantage with his entertainment business shortdwarf.com.
To him, it's poetic justice that although he wouldn't be able to get a job in a factory, he can earn far more than factory workers per hour by entertaining them.
At a Cinco de Mayo party next month he will be paid more than some people earn in a week to walk around with a sombrero on his head that holds chips and dip. The act is called “hors d'warfs” and like much of his work it's not popular with some of his fellow dwarfs.
Even more offensive to many are the dwarf tossing events he has booked.
Mr. Harris said such acts - in which people pay to hurl dwarfs onto padded mats - add danger to the lives of all dwarfs.
“You go to a nightclub to enjoy yourself with friends and some great big guy walks in and says, `You must be the dwarf here for dwarf tossing,'” he said.
Three times, he's been thrown on the grass against his will. And it's far riskier for him to crash-land on the ground than for most people of average height. Many dwarfs have chronic back and leg pain that can easily be aggravated by what would be minor injuries to others.
Mr. Black said such concerns are overstated and that other organization members apparently agree with him. He has found talent for his acts at Little People conventions, he said.
He's also found buyers for the controversial T-shirts he designs. Some convention-goers yesterday were wearing his designs from past years, such as one that reads “Real live dwarf” on the front and “Not really, it's just a costume” on the back.
But some said he crossed the line this year with his latest T-shirt that reads “Midget Petting Zoo.” Many dwarfs say they are offended by the word midget - although the Little People group was called Midgets of America before changing its name in the late 1950s.
Mr. Black, however, said his T-shirts that often spoof popular logos are all about accepting who he is.
“It's a vehicle for communication,” he said. “It's a vehicle for bridging that awkward aura that occurs when you average folks come upon us.”
First Published April 28, 2002, 4:25 p.m.
