KANSAS CITY, Mo. — Travel on Holmes Road out south and you might see the “crazy old woman in a wheelchair.”

She says that’s how people describe her when they call the police.

She’s out there on her Permobil M300, hugging the curb through rain, snow and dark. On the past winter’s cold nights, you’d swear the heavy-duty wheelchair was being driven by a heap of coats and blankets because that’s all you could see.

But look deep into the quilted lair, and there’s the round face of Leah Hadas Aviel, wire-rim glasses perched low on her nose, lavender hair, a ring on every finger and rock ’n’ roll in her earbuds.

Good grief, why is she out there? It’s dark, it’s raining, cars zipping past. Why isn’t she at least on the sidewalk? This sweet old granny is gonna get plowed.

Somebody should say something.

Somebody did.

“Yeah, well … have you ever ridden one of these things?” she said kindly when flagged to the curb.

Sidewalk street crossings are bumpy, she explains. It hurts her back, which is already broken, which is why she’s in the wheelchair in the first place. She’ll take the street pavement even if, as she says, she has come close to scraping paint with cars and trucks. She points out, too, her power chair is Missouri Highway Patrol safety-approved and her route is perfectly legal.

This is a woman who has chosen not to go gently into the night. She just goes. And that’s what the wheelchair is for. She’s only 70, but health issues mean she will never walk again. The chair keeps her out in the world. It is her vehicle to independence.

She travels to libraries, downtown, temple and stores all over town, rolling aboard buses for longer trips. She also used the chair to get to vocational school, where she just wrapped up a certificate in medical coding and billing.

Now, she’s just another spring grad looking for a job. Only her endgame is not to start a career, but to get a weekly paycheck and get out of her assisted- living facility.

“I’m not cut out to live with 28 old people sitting in their rooms watching paint dry,” she said. “I want a job, to be on my own. I want my own piece of the earth.

“I want to set up my books on my bookshelf. My hardback books. And this scooter elevates me so I can reach the ones on the top shelf.”

She knows she draws stares when she rolls down a street. Her Permobil, with all its hangings — bags, provisions, stuffed toys and ornaments — looks like a smaller version of Pa Joad’s truck. People think she’s some kind of motorized bag lady, and she’s fine with that.

Because Aviel has places to go. She’s matriarch of a family haunted by demons. She, too, is their connection to faith.

“I need to teach the young ones,” she said.

Rabbi Scott White at Congregation Ohev Sholom in Prairie Village sees Aviel roll into temple every week.

“She’s sort of like a fine wine, keeps getting better,” he said. “She’s very creative, very ambitious. She perseveres through her disability and just keeps going.

“And she is very much the spiritual core of her family.”

Her scooter also gets her to the Daily Limit, a bar up the street. She likes Canadian Club straight up. She also enjoys a band that plays there: the Rippers, a ’60s tribute group.

“I’m one of their groupies,” Aviel said. “I’m out on that dance floor and I’ve wiggled so hard in this scooter I’ve probably shaken a few screws loose.”

A son, a daughter, seven grandchildren, three great-grandchildren and another on the way — and nobody dares tell Great-Grandmother Leah (that’s what her business card says) to stay off the streets at night on her scooter.

Why not just stay in and play bingo and do crafts with the other residents at Waterford South, the residential facility where she lives?

“Wouldn’t do any good,” said son Oliver Edwards of Overland Park, Kan. “She’s going to do what what she’s going to do. Nothing changes there.”

He and other family members say Aviel is like a free-willed, old hippie chick who refuses to stay on the disabled list. Tell her she can’t, and she’ll show you she can.

“‘Stubborn’ is probably the word,” grandson Jesse Tucker said. “She’s taking these classes because she wants a job. She’s just not happy living where she is. Nothing against that place, but she wants a place of her own.

“She doesn’t think she needs managed, and she’ll sure let you know it.”