The Ordinary Lives Of The `Smallest Minority' -- Dwarfs Work, Raise Kids - And Cope With The Misperceptions And Barriers Set Up By A Taller Society That Often Believes They Still Belong In Circus Sideshows

Go ahead, ask her. Vicki Montzingo won't mind, as long as you're considerate. People approach her all the time with the same basic question: What's it like being so little?

Just don't be surprised if her answer bores you. She might talk about her three kids, her husband the golf nut, and all the running around she has to do every day - driving the kids to swimming and play practice, attending PTA and church meetings, etc.

It's her way of saying her life is pretty much like yours. Yes, being barely 4 feet tall can be hard. No, she's never been tossed, nor been part of a circus. Like most of the estimated 500 dwarfs who live in the Northwest, Montzingo, 36, spends her days in the realm of the mundane, just where she likes it.

"People are shocked we live ordinary lives," the Seattle homemaker says.

Breaking through the public's perception of dwarfs as carnival characters - to be laughed at or pitied or viewed from a distance - is the all-important goal of what has been called the Little People's Liberation Movement.

In April, dwarfs and friends and families of dwarfs from all over the region will converge in Portland for a three-day conference sponsored by the Little People of America, the largest dwarf organization in the world.

The LPA is the do-all agency for the estimated 1.5 million dwarfs in the United States. The organization advocates, educates, supports, disseminates, announces, refers and introduces (Montzingo

met her husband, Darrell, 15 years ago at the annual LPA golf tournament in Southern California). The LPA newsletter keeps the community informed. Conferences keep members connected.

At the Portland conference, attendees will learn the latest in medical research, and discuss strategies to promote friendlier building codes. They'll also address that constant theme of public perception, which they consider their tallest hurdle.

Changing the public's view has been much harder than changing public building codes.

"There are a whole lot of people who still think of us as cute and funny, as some sort of joke," said actor Billy Barty, who founded the LPA in 1957. Barty, 71, has been in dozens of movies in a film career that began when he was 3. He's an actor many people recognize but can't name. He played the Bible salesman in "Foul Play" and the village leader in "Willow."

"People think dwarfs are all happy and work in circuses," he says. "There's still this attitude that we're a sideshow, that we're not to be taken seriously. There'll be people reading this article looking for a punch line."

The perception, Barty says, has kept "the smallest minority" on the outer edge of society's fringe.

Technically, any adult under 4 feet 10 inches is a dwarf, except for certain aboriginal peoples in Africa and Asia. There are more than 100 types of dwarfism. The most common is called achondroplasia (pronounced a-kon-dro-play-zha), a condition of extremely short leg and arm bones caused by a gene mutation. The condition occurs in 1 out of every 30,000 births. More than 90 percent of dwarfs have average-sized parents.

People with achondroplasia call themselves "Acons." Barty and Darrell Montzingo are Acons. The average height for men is 4 feet 4 inches and for women, 4 feet 1 inch.

Most people typically encounter only two or three dwarfs in their lifetime, says Joan Ablon, who's written several books on dwarfism. And the public in general, she says, knows next to nothing about the real-life experiences of dwarfs.

Knowledge about dwarfs - or little people, as some prefer to be called - is often limited to news accounts of the bizarre, such as dwarf-tossing, or to myth and folklore. Mythical beings of short stature, gifted with supernatural powers, appear in the folklore of many peoples.

Rarely are dwarfs associated with the mundane. Yet dwarfs are people with a disability, and few things are more mundane than the day-to-day challenges of the disabled.

"There are a million adults in this country who can't reach light switches, drink at water fountains, push elevator buttons or use pay phones," says Pat Techaira, from LPA headquarters in Burbank, Calif.

Flights of stairs can be like mountains. Counters might as well be rooftops. The world is full of counters, says Vicki Montzingo - in banks, restaurants, stores, offices. The Montzingos, who have two dwarf children and one average-sized child, have completely redone their house, lowering counters, sinks and light switches.

If only the rest of the world were as dwarf-friendly.

Barty jokes: "You haven't seen discrimination until you walk into a bathroom with your 14-inch inseam and face a toilet 19 inches high."

But little people in Washington are better off than little people in most other states, according to LPA members.

The state is known for its progressive policies for the disabled, and it hasn't hurt that the past chairman of the Governor's Committee on Disability Issues and Employment, Paul Wysocki, is a dwarf.

"This state is a step ahead," says Wysocki, who is still an emeritus committee member.

State laws have protected the civil rights of the disabled since the 1970s, whereas the rest of the country caught up only in 1990 with the Americans with Disabilities Act.

Seattle was one of the first cities to make its bus system accessible to people in wheelchairs. Ramps, elevators, lower light switches and drinking fountains, toilet stalls with support bars - all make life easier for little people, many of whom suffer from problems such as curvature of the spine, brittle bones and bowed legs.

Still, most buildings are not friendly to little people. Barty and the LPA have targeted building codes as their newest legislative goal, lobbying for clauses in the ADA that would require friendlier facilities. In public demonstrations, Barty likes to ask a tall person from the audience to stand next to him. He then asks the tall person to hold his hand. As Barty reaches up and his partner reaches down, he asks:

"Can you reach this? Well, so can I."

Dwarfs and other disabled people in Washington have more educational and employment opportunities, have a higher average income and more mainstream lifestyles than in other states, says Wysocki.

It used to be that little people gravitated toward certain occupations. Many went into entertainment. For years, The Boeing Co. hired dwarfs to work as mechanics inside the wings of B-17s and B-52s. Operators of the Alaska pipeline hired little people to work the "pigs" - tiny shuttles used inside the pipeline to fix leaks.

Today, little people in the Northwest can be found in nearly every profession. Rob Tille, Northwest director of LPA, works as an engineer at the Naval Submarine Base at Bangor. Darrell Montzingo is a physical-education teacher at Roosevelt High School in Seattle. Jeff Patterson is a bank officer for U.S. Bank in Seattle.

They live and work in different parts of the Puget Sound, travel in different circles but remain in constant contact with one another through the LPA.

"It's not like we're all bosom buddies, but in a way we are," Vicki Montzingo says. "Our similarities keep us close. It's nice to be with people who understand without you having to explain. They know. If we sit in chairs and our feet dangle, we don't think twice about it. We don't have other people's observations put upon us."