Growing up Blind Conversations with Dr. G
Host Dr. Grace Ambrose-Zaken, President and CEO Safe Toddles non-profit and inventor of the Pediatric Belt Cane for blind toddlers discusses why her mission is to make walking safer for toddlers with a mobility visual impairment or blindness. Listen to: Interviews with families, professionals, adults who grew up with a mobility visual impairment or blindness, and more. For more information about this blog contact: 845-244-6600, info@safetoddles.org
Growing up Blind Conversations with Dr. G
Myrna born blind in 1939 Used GPS Before it was Cool!
Myrna is a very intelligent woman who studied music, a career many bright children born blind were funneled into, her husband was a blind piano tuner – another career historically taught to intelligent students at schools for the blind. Myrna broke free of it and joined the modern world in career of assistive technology. She was using GPS before it was cool.
She grew up a dependent traveler. At school she relied on a guide. She learned travel techniques walking with a group of blind friends. Throughout her life she continued to learn strategies that helped her to be a robust, independent traveler- someone who did not have to “learn a route” before she traveled it by herself – the way she was taught in high school.
Myrna described a world that was not welcoming of her preferred mobility tool, the dog guide. Her family, agencies employing and serving people who are blind. and Taxis all preferred her to leave her dog at home.
Blind people no matter what age - should not have so many barriers to using mobility tools that are essential to independence with safety– Denying entry to dog guide users or denying belt canes to blind toddlers – is discrimination. Discrimination is harmful and perpetuates inequality.
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This week is Myrna, another work colleague of mine whom I interviewed March 2000. In 1939 Myrna was just three months old when her mother noticed she wasn’t reacting to things appropriately. Doctors determined she was born blind but not the cause.
She attended regular schools, learned Braille, and earned both her bachelor’s and master’s degrees in music education. She taught music in public schools for 11 years, only the second blind person in New York State to do so, then joined Lighthouse for the Blind where she taught assistive technology for 34 years before retiring. As a self-employed instructor, she teaches assistive technology to private students.
Myrna and her husband, who is also blind, live in Brooklyn, NY. In 2016 she trained with Spring, her 10th Guiding Eyes guide dog! “I prefer a guide dog to a white cane,” she says. “A dog is faster, safer, and I don’t have to think about every step I take. When I’m out with my dog, we own the streets!”
Myrna is a great cook, likes her gadgets, reads a wide variety of books, and loves to teach people to use computers and new technology. “My husband jokes that I am a computer!”
Let’s listen to my interview with my friend Myrna, born 7 years before the long white cane was invented.
Q. Where were you born?
A. I was born in Brooklyn.
Q. And where do you live now?
A. I live in Brooklyn. But I didn’t always live in Brooklyn. I just kinda started there and ended up there.
Q. What do you do for a living?
A. Aah I pretend to—no. (laughs) My title's supposedly, Senior Technology Specialist.
Q. Fun. Where'd you go to college?
A. I went to umm what's it called now? Its Fredonia but it's the full title is SUNY, Fredonia.
Q. And ah, what's your highest degree?
A. That was my Bachelor's and then I went to NYU for my Masters. So my highest degree is Masters in music education.
Q. How long have you had a vision impairment?
A. From forever.
Q. Oh, from birth?
A. Yeah.
Q. What's the name of it?
A. Oh. We don’t know. They just said that my macular never functioned and that I guess there was loss of pigmentation on the retina and now the optic nerve has you know decayed and so who knows.
Q. Neat.
A. But I do see light on a good day.
Q. You see light on good day?
A. Yeah.
Q. Okay, when did you first realize you were visually impaired?
A. Probably forever. I don’t remember realizing that I was visually impaired. I just knew it.
Q. Yeah. When did you first start traveling independent of other people?
A. When I was 16, cause they weren’t teaching cane travel to kids. You know, I mean I could go out, like for example, we had um, we my, my, my, my grandparents had a hotel in the country, in the Catskills and I could kinda travel around the grounds by myself, independently, without cane, without anything. But I, but I really wasn’t. I would say really to be independent traveler, you know, in the subways of New York and get where you wanna get and stuff like that, when I was 16 1/2.
Q. So before you’re 16, you traveled around your neighborhood by yourself a little?
A. I could go. Yeah, I could go to like um to mail something, yeah. I think I could, well or out to, you know not—yeah let’s say or around the grounds. I mean but not in New York City, like you wouldn’t be crossing streets, because that would be too…
Q. And were you totally blind from birth?
A. Yeah, I had exactly what I have now. Maybe I had a little bit more shadow vision, but that’s not, you know, I mean not much. There was any significant.
Q. Did you go to school? I mean to public school?
A. Yeah, I went to public school with what they called a Braille class. Now they’re calling them Resource Rooms. That’s what I did for grade school and for High School, I just went to regular high school. And I had people reading to me and you know, helping my sister did a lot of reading for me for my homework and my then mom ran around and got books brailled and then recording for the blind started to happen and I got stuff on tape.
Q. So, what did you do about getting around school?
A. When I was high school, I went around, really with a sighted guide. Now grade school, it was interesting, cause grade school we, we went, we were encouraged really to, you know, like to go to our ummm, from our Braille class to regular class. And we just kinda went, without canes without anything.
Q. Right.
A. And then high school, I remember them saying to my mom "Oh, we have 5 “ this was Jamaica high school, “oh we have 5000 kids in here, you know, we really don’t want your daughter, you know, going around by herself." They were thinking of insurance probably stupidly me, you know.
Q. Right.
A. I mean I really didn’t have any cane—If I had had cane travel skills, I would have done it.
Q. Right.
A. But until I had cane travel skills, I really didn’t do it.
Q. Yeah.
A. So, I had, you know, went with somebody to school until they had, actually then they had transportation pick us up, so then I didn’t need to do that. But before that I had really a sighted guide go you know. Not too good for self-esteem. I mean what guy wants take somebody out seeing somebody, you know, hanging on somebody's arm. Not too cool.
Q. No.
A. Not, not to if I had to do it over again, it would be very different.
Q. So, you remember having feelings of wanting not to have to do that?
A. Oh yeah.
Q. Yeah. So what happened when you were 16 then?
A. They said, New York State Commission, said to my mother, "well, we, we need to give your daughter mobility, because if she isn’t mobile, we're not gonna sponsor her for college."
Q. Uh huh.
A. Cause my mother really didn’t, you know, she's kinda fearful "Oh, I don’t wanna, you know, using the cane and da, da, da." And when they said that, my mother said, "well okay." (light laugh) that’s what happened.
Q. Right.
A. It was called "oh, you're not gonna sponsor her? Well, then I'd better let her do it." And then, after I did it, I mean goodbye mom, nice knowing ya. I was out of there.
Q. So, do you remember what was the method that they used to teach you mobility?
A. Well, I learned here, at The Lighthouse. And they really didn’t have the kind of methods they have now. I mean we're talking let’s see 1950 what, 55? Yeah, 1950, probably yeah 1955 um into '56. And so what they were doing in those days is get even in ta, even like into 1960, cause when I went upstate to um to teach after college, they were doing the same thing at, what is now NAVA which used to be the Albany Association of the Blind. They just get a real partial—a high partial. You know a person with a lot of partial vision?
Q. Uh huh.
A. That was the mobility instructor.
Q. Uh huh.
A. And um they it was very significant as I look back on it. The route was from my house to The Lighthouse (laugh). Now what can we say significantly about that? I mean but it did encompass a bus and a subway and an escalator and stuff, so really, I mean it was a pretty good route.
Q. So what you're saying is that the basically they were there to teach you this one route,
A. Yeah.
Q. and when you had that that was
A. Yeah and then you kinda, you figured it out from there.
Q. So they gave you a cane?
A. Yeah, and again it wasn’t the long cane. It was kind of a short cane.
Q. It came up to about where?
A. Probably, probably your, let me think, god…not where it should come now. Probably just a little above your waist or something. You know. It wasn’t the long cane.
Q. Oh my yeah.
A. That was not the long cane.
Q. And do you think that they, the instructor
A. That was a wooden cane.
Q. Right (light laugh).
A. I’m serious.
A. A wooden cane yeah. Do you think the instructor took into consideration what you brought with you to the lesson? What knowledge you had?
A. Ummm no because you know what they didn’t even teach you, in those I mean I tell you who exactly it was Roy Ward, who's now retired and living in Virginia some place. They didn’t teach you traffic, they didn’t teach you to listen to traffic. I mean, you know, it was a philosophy. The philosophy of oh you know, teach them as much as they and you know you got—and so that you end up needing to get people you know to help you cross the street, ‘cause they really didn’t teach you, teach you traffic at all.
Q. I see.
A. And then you kinda learned from other people. I mean your best teachers were other blind people really.
Q. Yeah. How did you meet them?
A. Oh, through here {lighthouse} you know what was really interesting? There were 7 of us that were really, really good friends. And when we were probably, you know, seniors in high school and then when we came back from college or something, everybody used to go, you know, used to go some place together. And I mean it was riot, because everybody was in the same boat. Everybody had done this little bit of cane travel stuff.
Q. Uh huh.
A. And so you kind of all taught each other and you all went with each other, and you knew that like in safety there numbers.
Q. Yeah.
A. Nothing was gonna happen. And then we, we all got lost couple times and then you know one time this police officer came " who's your leader?" It was really funny.
Q. That is funny.
A. Well it was a sketch but you really went and you weren't afraid I mean you just went out there and went.
Q. Right.
A. My mother would say, well, "how are you going to get to wherever?" I have a mouth that’s it.
Q. To ask directions?
A. Sure.
Q. So the instruction was…what? Put the cane in front of you?
A. Put the cane in front you know, typical. I mean they did teach you cane technique, so it was you know your you know the cane one foot goes out, cane goes on other side. You know, cane's always ahead of you. I mean it was a basic cane technique. That it was. It was safe, I mean you were safe. But you didn’t have all the other kind of instructions that you should have. I mean you didn’t really…ummm No. He didn’t even teach me how to get on an escalator. I take that back. I learned years later, from a person who was blind. But it was really, you know they taught you little, indoor kinda crazy thing, about you put the cane wasn’t even, you didn’t even use the cane. You kinda you held it crosswise in front of you or something. Come on that didn’t help a lot. So it was just basic cane technique. And that’s really all it was. And you know, some safety.
Q. How to be safe and what?
A. Yeah, how to be safe, how to get you know. How to get from here to there and you know basic subway stuff. But not really crossing streets, you know not really listening for traffic patterns, not. Not really too much on the orientation side of thing.
Q. Yeah.
A. Cause I knew that route. I mean I had gone that way, oodles of times with, you know, my mother, with a volunteer guide that The Lighthouse had gotten, so I knew where I was gonna go.
Q. Right. So, was it ever said out loud when you want to cross the street, ask for help?
A. I think so.
Q. Yeah.
A. In those days I think it was.
Q. Yea. And how long did you get instruction for?
A. Probably, I’m trying to think. Probably like 2 months. For like once a week.
Q. Once a week for 2 months.
A. Yeah.
Q. What travel tool do you use now?
A. A guide dog.
Q. How did that come about?
A. Um let’s see, it came um went around the city, you know after, after my little basic thing and the 7 of us that kind of learned from each other. Um let’s see went to college, went you know did the city when I came home, went to teach up in Schenectady um then I had a little bit of instruction up there again from another, you know, person who was a high partial, but there was no transportation.
Q. Right.
A. Met couple people with guide dogs, saw that they could do some stuff that I couldn’t do, and said, "hey, how can you, you know how do you do that?"
Q. Like what?
A. They could cross some of the streets that because then I guess I'd learned traffic patterns, by then. Okay, so I was crossing streets.
Q. By yourself, or from your friends?
A. No, somebody said, "See look at that, you know you've got to listen for traffic". Oh, okay. Friends.
Q. So other blind friends?
A. Yeah.
Q. Yeah.
A. Then, when I was up there, there was really there were streets with no lights on them, there were streets that you could turn a corner and kind of not know it cause it was like parking—like parking lot type thing. You know it wasn’t a block with a building and stuff. And I met 2 people with guide dogs from Guiding Eyes and was really impressed that Hey. And you know I walked with one person, cause I'd never walked with anybody with a guide dog. Because first of all, in those days, well my mom was afraid of dogs. OK so I never got any encouragement from there. The agencies, blindness agencies, OK? were not encouraging. They discouraged people from getting guide dogs.
Q. Ohh.
A. Right and left. "Oh you don’t want one of those. You know. Oh, you'd have to out in the rain—oh you don’t want, oh it’s not welcome." And in some of the blindness agencies the dogs were not welcome. I got to tell you.
Q. Ohhh.
A. Cause I had an experience here in. Probably let’s see in what 1968, had a guide dog, was sitting down in the--this building, which was the old, you know the old building before it was renovated. And in those days you could go down at noontime, I had readers, cause I was teaching, so I, I probably was using reading service. You know, some vacation or something, went down, was sitting there and you know I had brought a sandwich and they would, you could get coffee and stuff and Marion Held who was in those days Director of Direct Services, that was her title. And I knew Marion cause I was a kid here. And um, and so she came and said, "Oh, you cant bring that dog in here." And I said" Oh yes I can. I said you can bring this dog into any restaurant in this city I certainly can bring this dog in here." She came up to me and apologized.
Q. Good.
A. Because they were, you know, Camp Lighthouse. Back in the whenever it was probably the 70s, um did not allow people with guide dogs in their dining room.
Q. Oh my. Well, that's interesting.
A. Oh yeah. Oh yeah.
Q. So, you've had a wealth of time with having to educate people on your ability to bring them in anywhere. Any particular other stories that stick out about that?
A. Um, don’t go to China Town in New York (light laugh).
Q. Why is that?
A. They won’t let you bring you know they have a whole bad time about that. A lot of Chinese restaurants. Cab drivers. Try the Muslim car service drivers.
Q. Yea. So, just avoid it and don’t deal with it.
A. No, you have to deal with it.
Q. Yeah?
A. Because you need to get where you need to get.
Q. Right. So what do you do about that?
A. Talk to the Taxi and Limousine Commission. They come down and we try to educate people and no one is there to get educated. Somebody took them to court. A former consumer client took them to court. One of the car services. She's an attorney and she's down in where I live, down Brooklyn Heights. Cause the courts aren't that far. And calls up this particular car service, I used always to tell them "It's me with a guide dog. You know, so I want--I'm letting you know because I know a lot of your drivers won’t take a dog, so I'm letting you know so you can get a driver that will take a dog."
Q. Right.
A. Well, she didn’t tell them. Which, she didn’t need to tell them. They came and the driver said "No. No dog, no dog." And he went away. (indistinct) she called them up and she was real angry, oh we’ll send another person and da, ta, da. She sued them. They called me up and they said, look you know we're being sued and we'd like you to sign an affidavit. I said, "No way, no way." So, because I've had trouble. People, you know your drivers are. I have to tell you guys that you know who I am and what I am and have to wait. I said, I'm not gonna sign that. And she won the lawsuit. And that’s and they still are not picking up. I mean if I call them up, it's still you know you don’t know if they're going to pick you up not.
Q. It's ridiculous. How many different types of mobility tools have you tried?
A. Cane, you know, and the long cane, and the folding cane, umm and the guide dog. I've looked at the laser. I've really never been out with it. But I, my husband had for a little while.
Q. Uh huh.
A. Two weeks, and I, and I you know would say that it was kinda interesting. I looked at the sonic guide when it was out, but you know never really had a lot of experience with it. Somebody had it and I just looked at it.
Q. Okay. So you've tried their longer canes. When did you get longer canes?
A. Let me think…when did I get, how did I get the longer cane? I think again friends. Who said you know you really that’s too short you ought to get and then I went out to um an NFB conference in 1970 you know. And then went to visit a friend in California. And at this conference met a friend of mine said, you know you ought to talk to the person at the, since you're gonna be in California this summer you ought to talk to the person at the California orientation center, Alan Jenkins. And Alan is a member of NFB—was a member of NFB so I saw Alan at the thing and I said hey. I said you’ve got a really good mobility thing out there. And I had a guide dog.
Q. Uh huh.
A. but I said, you know a friend who he knew, I said, you know, tells me that I'm not really giving myself a chance that I really should do some cane travel. Can I do some--he said, he said you know what? Well, my mobility people are of course busy with, you know, with our consumers, but he said I'd be glad to go with you. And he was a very good cane traveler. He had a little bit of sight. Again, you know, a blind person. It was real interesting. And I learned more stuff that summer.
Q. Neat. Like what?
A. Ah, just good techniques and good, you know, traffic patterns and good stuff. And we did escalators, and um lots of escalators one day. And it was really interesting.
Q. What did you like about that day, that instruction?
A. Um I liked that, um, well one of the things was it was interesting cause he was doing it so I knew it that was perfectly was possible.
Q. Right.
A. The other thing it was, you know good solid stuff that you could do. And then the other instruction that I had that I really liked is so then I was traveling with a cane, cause I had given up this one guide dog. I was--part of that was also that I had a guide dog that had a lot of problems and I thought maybe I'm just not a guide dog person, maybe I should just you know. And I'll tell you whose influence that was too. NFB also. NFB was not for guide dogs. I went to convention oh "Oh, you really look good. And he said but you look a lot better without that harness." Which you know really I was having problems with her. So she was kind of, she was a good guide but she didn’t like to stay alone. If you left her alone she’d tear up your house She had a lot of separation anxiety.
Q. Oh yeah.
A. She was a boxer. And so, I said, well maybe I haven't really given myself a chance, so after the California experience I did travel in new York for a while, and then I did decide to get a guide dog, because California is very different. California when you step out in the street, they will stop.
Q. Right.
A. New York, they will turn and kill you.
Q. (laugh)
A. So um but, but I did. I mean I did travel for a while, and then, you know, really, really just looked at said no I think I am more comfortable with a dog. And then when I was between dogs, um 7 years ago when my Betsy was, had cancer, and I said to Betty Bird one day I said gee Betty, You know, " I'm gonna, I don’t know, if Betsy dies, and I don’t know when, God forbid, she would do that and if I have to wait to get a dog. And Betty said, well why don’t you just go and take some extra mobility lessons now in case you have to use a cane. She said why don’t you go ask Martin to get you somebody?" And so, Martin came and said well what about Bob? And I said that's fine. And so Bob Sunberg and I went out and Bob was great. Bob was really good. And again, you know good solid stuff. It was a lot of review and a lot of, but, but still, you know, telling me some, some, some good stuff.
Q. Like what?
A. Well the first thing that happened I noticed when I'm traveling with a cane, I'm slower. And I don’t like it. See one thing I like about the dog is, I like to go at a nice clip.
Q. Yeah.
A. Not, not run, but go at a nice clip you know.
Q. Yeah.
A. That was what impressed me first about a guide dog. And so Bob said slow down, slow down, you're going you, you’re going ahead of the cane. And I go, it's okay to slow down? He goes, "well yeah, why wouldn’t it be okay?" and I thought, well you know I don’t wanna look like Miss Groping Lady here. "No, no,” he said, it’s fine." So I mean, he was really good. He was just really good he was good and solid and you know um and really and where are you now, and made you really think. No, Bob was very good. So and after that--
Q. It sounds like there’s a conflict with what you said is that you don’t like to slow down but it was good when he said that you were able to slow down.
A. Well because, because I always thought that I looked weird if I sl—you know I looked kinda gropey if I slowed down but he said, "No, you can." You know. I mean I don’t like it. What I’m saying is I don’t, I like to go faster, but when I am with a cane I don’t like to look kinda gropy and kinda inept.
Q. Yeah.
A. You know what I’m saying? So when he said no it's okay to slow down, no you don’t look that way that kind of, you know but I still like a dog because I can go faster.
Q. Yeah.
A. So both are true is what I'm saying.
Q. Interesting. So what was, what are some comparisons between working with a blind mobility instructor and working with a sighted mobility instructor? What are some differences?
A. What was the difference…I don’t know, because they were both really good. The person you know that wasn’t, were the two partials (laugh).
Q. They weren't good cause they just didn't have much to offer--
A. No, they didn’t have the train--, they didn’t really have. I mean, I mean now the blind person, I mean Alan, was not trained in peripatology. I mean he didn’t go through a Masters in peripatology. He went through his own experience.
Q. Right.
A. The sighted person, Bob, of course went through the masters in, in peripatology. And so he had you know curriculum and he had you know good, you know, he had sequence and he had--so both of them were good, but you know for different reasons. But the partials, forget it.
Q. For what? For what reasons?
A. Why were they good?
Q. Yeah.
A. Because they were sequenced, because they used solid techniques, because you know paid a lot of attention to orientation. It was general, it wasn’t route.
Q. Yeah.
A. See it wasn’t, you know, I actually, the first--when I, when I worked with Alan, who's a blind guy, Alan said, "You don’t wanna do, be a route traveler and that’s what you're thinking. You're thinking in route and you don’t wanna be, you don’t wanna do that. You want to be able to go anywhere you want to go.
Q. Right. How is the cane and the dog the same and how are they different?
A. How are they the same. Well, they both afford independence.
Q. Uh huh.
A. And they're different because it really, you know what, it’s really up to the person. My husband is a cane traveler. He, he says, I, I mean Pat is on the subways constantly. He's a piano tuner technician. He's all over the city. All over the city. Probably travels more than I do during the day. He's pretty fast, but I am faster. I mean I will wait for him at corner and go "Hey slow poke where are you?" Oh well, there was construction. Oh, see and, and with a, with a cane, you, you will find stuff but then you have to figure out, well how to get around this? With a dog, you know like especially like the dogs now that are coming out of Fidelco, that are coming out of Eric Laury's program at Freedom you know its like, its like OK find your way, get me out of this.
Q. Right.
A. Get me out of this mess. Go ahead, find your way. And so, you know that’s nice it kinda takes the stress off a little bit I think.
Q. How's that?
A. I think it takes your stress off a little bit.
Q. How?
A. Because with a cane you're confronted with this object, now how do I get around it, what do I do here? With a dog, you know you have to keep your orientation, and you should. And you know you should never say "oh, I'm gonna let my dog do it", because that’s not it. And the guide dog school will tell you that. You're responsible for your own orientation.
Q. Right.
A. You're responsible for those traffic patterns and hearing them But you know that god forbid, if you make a mistake, you know you've got half a chance because you've got this dog that's gonna push you back or push you forward or push you whatever.
Q. Yeah. So, when you're going to a new place, and you're trying to locate a place for the first time um--
A. You ask all the directions you can before you go, with a cane, with a dog.
Q. With a dog?
A. Yeah. I mean you're gonna ask all the directions you can. How close is it?? Where is it? What side of street is it on? Okay so its between Lexington and Park, well is it closer to Lex or closer to Park? Also do you have a sign out there, cause I might ask somebody in the street, you know. All the stuff you need to ask whether you're using a cane or whether you're using a dog. You're gonna ask the same stuff.
Q. Well, locating the door for the first time is a little different with a dog isn't it?
A. Yeah because—well, yeah…well with a dog no, with a dog like-- It all depends on where you got trained. Now one of the things the I kinda like about Fidelco—cause I have a new Fidelco dog right now.
Q. What's the name of it, Fidelco?
A. Fidelco is in Connecticut.
Q. Connecticut.
A. And they do Shepherds.
Q. How do you spell it?
A. Fidelco. Lenny Goldstein has a Fidelco dog. Ingrid Maccalas is Customer Service at Enterprise she has a Fidelco dog.
Q. And they teach their dogs what?
A. They teach their dogs left inside, right inside, so that "Find a doorway for me."
Q. Neat.
A. Guiding Eyes will teach left, left, or right, right and it's kinda like well, "If you see some place you can get in" But it's not that highly. Fidelco really concentrates on it. And I know Eric Laury at Freedom Dog also does it.
Q. Neat.
A. And I think that the people at Guide Dog Foundation do it too. And the reason they all do it (laugh) there's one big reason they all do it. John Byfield, who's been around as a guide dog trainer for a lot of years, John's from England, and when John came over, he worked first at Guide Dog Foundation at Smith Town and he trained all the you know, the head trainers. He trained John Bigony, Emily and he trained and of course they then trained all their people. But John really trained them, so they're training basically like John trained them. Eric Laury used to work for John, both at Fidelco and at Guide Dogs Foundation. So Eric had his basic training from John. So if you get basic training from John, you're gonna do that. (Laughs)
Q. You're gonna learn to train dogs to do that.
A. Yeah. Which is very helpful.
Q. Yeah it's an important skill.
A. Yeah.
Q. That they will locate the doorway and then when you go in you will ask if this is the place.
A. Oh yeah. You ask, you know.
Q. Do you own canes now? How many do you own?
A. Oh god, how many? I have a long cane and I have a folding cane.
Q. And when do you use a cane?
A. Sometimes, I don’t take my dog. Sometimes if I go to a wedding and we get a ride, I don’t take her, because there's no reason to take her. You can't get up and dance with the dog under the table and then somebody's gonna feed her and then you know. We've gone on vacations with my sister and brother-in-law and my brother-in-law is not a dog person. In fact we are not happy right now with each other. And so when we've gone on vacation, I have taken the cane and, you know, used it. And sometimes, you know even like, you know, when, when my dog Kit. Kit was, I was retiring her, I just retired her in October, she was getting older and you could see cause I'd say "KIT" and she wouldn’t wanna move and act all tired. You just take the cane and kinda go around this building. Also cane's very useful for one thing, I found when we were in our exile at 800 2nd Avenue. I found that really learning it with a cane was better. Because you could, you know, you could, you could feel stuff. Sometimes for orientation, it's really good to use a cane. Because with a dog, you can’t trail walls and stuff like that.
Q. so what did you learn? You learned the building?
A. Yeah, yeah, it's good for orientation. It really is.
Q. Neat. How do you get to and from work?
A. Dog, subway.
Q. Are there any skills of the subway that you could pass along, any tips?
A. Well, you know what's really been nice is a warning strips up here.
Q. Nice.
A. Oh yeah, really nice and we, you know, there was talk about should you walk along the platform, because there were a couple of people who fell off the platform with dogs. And I don’t think, I know in one case, Pam Schneider, which was like in 1993, it was a real hot July day and I think Pam got disoriented. I don’t think it was the dog.
Q. Yeah.
A. But then they talked about no, don’t walk on the platform and then when I got trained this year at Fidelco, I said to Mark, can I walk along the platform? And he, he said sure. So, you know, you just have to keep and people go crazy cause you're pretty near the tracks, but you aren't, the dog is. But its better if you're on an island platform, you know, with the double edge? Better for you to be there, because if you're gonna be… then at least the dog is protecting you from the platform, if you get too much over to the right, if you get in the middle and you get too much over to the right you're gonna be on that platform side.
Q. Right.
A. So, you know, you want that dog on the left. And so people come along "oh lady. You're near the edge." And I go "don’t worry about it, don’t worry about it." Especially, if the warning strips are up. Cause you know where you are.
Q. Yeah. What do you ever use a cane with the dog?
A. No…. I know somebody that did. He was from Canada and came to New York and did it and then he got a new dog and got confident enough that he didn’t any more.
Q. Neat.
A. I'll tell you when I have done it. Actually I shouldn’t say that. When I um…sometimes to give her a break, to take her out at night. You know just go to the bathroom. I will heel her and I'll use a cane. So she's not really being used right—but in other words here take a break dog. You don’t have to guide me here just go on heel and I'll take the cane." Cause it's just a matter of going down and finding an opening and then that's it. And when she was new we talked about that. You know, going my first days of training, and that's, you know, that’s what we did.
Q. What about locating a seat getting on and off the subway? Any kind of tips like that?
A. Ahhh, not really. I mean it’s just what you’re, what you're trained to you know what your trainers tell you, whether it's a cane type thing or whether it’s um a dog thing. Everybody trains you kind of the same way, you know. One of the things that Mark told me, and I think its valid except that sometimes she's gone the other way is that when you're walking on the platform and the train, the train pulls in and you know, stops, and you've got the choice of going to your, let’s say the trains' on your left OK?
Q. Yeah.
A. It’s definitely going to be on your left cause you want to stay on that side. You've got two doors. One you would have to kind of turn around so that the train's on your right, to enter. Mark says don’t do that because then you're putting yourself near the plat—near the edge again.
Q. Uh huh.
A. So you kinda wanna go down to the, you know, keep, keep it so that the trains' on your left. And the dog is between you and that platform. Oh, yeah. I do have a trick that I do. It's not subway. It's Long Island Railroad and Metro North.
Q. What's that?
A. And what you do is a lot of those stations and you're in 914, so you probably have
(end side A)
A. Croton is famous for this. It's called the Croton gap. And it's, you're gonna have a big gap between the platform and the train. What you do with a dog is, you drop the harness, you don’t work the dog. Drop the harness and then I always as getting in, I always put my hand on the train, so I know where the train—the distance is from me to the train. And I let the dog go. Also just say OK go and the dog is on the leash, kinda let the leash go out, so that you can feel how far the dog is going as well.
Q. Yeah.
A. And coming—if you work the dog, you can’t work the dog. You get no distance. So you really have to not work the dog and you really kinda have to put your hand on that train to know that distance.
Q. Neat. So, but leaving the train.
A. Leaving the train what you do is again, you don’t work the dog. Go down the stairs, keep your hand on that--don’t let your hand go off that banister so you have some stuff so if you don’t make it, you have something to hold onto. Let the dog go first so again you can feel how far that dog is going out, and put your one foot out and keep that one foot back, cause you, you know, cause you don’t wanna go splat on your face and you've got, you’ve still got your hand on the train, so if you don’t make it, you can still always come back.
Q. Yeah. Neat.
A. Now with a cane, here's where a cane may give you more help than a dog. Because with a cane you can judge the distance.
Q. Yeah. You can just clear it.
A. Yeah, so there's sometimes I mean you know I don’t think one is the answer. I think it really depends on the individual person. You know you get these people, "aww, you don’t want a dog …awaa wawww" But these other people, "Awww you don’t want a cane." No, no, no whatever is good for someone. I talk to people about dogs. Sometimes I’ll say have you considered, you know, getting a guide dog? Or are you comfortable--if they tell me they're not comfortable with a cane; but if they tell me oh yeah, yeah love it, fine. But if they tell me "Oh, I'm not comfortable," well have you ever thought of getting a guide dog? And they’ll say yeah, but I don’t wanna do this da, da ,da. Okay. Or yeah, I'd like to know more about it. Then I start telling them more about it.
Q. Yeah.
A. Then I've taken a few, I’ve taken a couple of consumers and said have you ever walked with anyone with a guide dog? "No", well come here. Taken them and let them, you know, hold my arm and then um, my right arm and then work the guide dog like down the hall or something like that. You know in a real safe, I say here, here this is what this feels like and they usually say "wow. You go fast. I can't go that, oh wow." You know.
Q. That’s neat. So that’s a neat trick. What about taxis, when they finally do let you in? Do you have any tricks for making sure you don’t get let off at the wrong place? Or you know
A. You know just ask them where are you now? And I insist, no you're not gonna let me get out. Well what was the last one at Penn Station, he was gonna let me out, and I said, "No, you're not" I don’t wanna go there. I wanna go, where I want to go. "But lady I was " I don’t care where you always let everybody off. No. I wanna be on the corner because I wanna go down that escalator, I wanna hit the Amtrak passenger service. I know where I wanna be. And I had a cane at that time, cause I was going up to Fidelco to get my dog. I was going to do some training, Fidelco does training at home, but I was gonna go up there because. I wanted to do, for like 3 or 4 days I wanted to do more than urban training. I wanted to do some rural training and I wanted to do some suburban training.
Q. Neat. So you said to get to Penn station, once you got there you knew where you wanted to get out of the taxi.
A. Yeah.
Q. And he was just going to let you off where he always stops.
A. But I said no.
Q. So, that’s an interesting thing. And he complied eventually?
A. Oh, yeah. And then, you know, when I go home, I’ll say do you know Brooklyn? "No. No problem." Do you know how to get to Brooklyn Bridge? "Yeah" And go, okay you get to the Brooklyn Bridge, when you get on the bridge and you let me know that you've got on the Bridge and I'm gonna let you know exactly how to get off, exactly where to turn, cause I’m right over the Brooklyn Bridge.
Q. Neat. So it's important that you feel you are able to direct the taxi.
A. Oh, you have to. This is why, you know, orientation is like going back to, you know, when you said to me you know your first cane travel experience, why wasn’t it. Because orientation is very important.
Q. Yeah.
A. You know and my husband will say to me, "How can you think that you were on so and so street when the traffic was going that way?" Oh, damn it Pat, you're right. You know, you know what street, you're OK, you’re at on, you know like little tricks, you know you’re at 59th,why cause the traffic's going east.
Q. Yeah…. So do you use cardinal directions a lot?
A. Do I use what?
Q. Cardinal directions?
A. What do you mean cardinal? North, south?
Q. Yeah,
A. Yeah. oh, somebody told me that. We were down, it was really funny. This has got to go back to the—my God, it had to be the early sixties. And somebody again we were talking about north, south, east, and west and I said so what good is that? They started to tell me. You know and of course in Manhattan it's wonderful.
Q. Yeah.
A. In Manhattan it’s the great—oh you know you're absolutely right, because to get outta the train and the train is traveling “hey, you're right absolutely. I learned more from other blind people.
Q. Neat. Neat. Have you ever been disoriented?
A. Sure everybody gets disoriented. If they tell you they’re not they're lying to you. The snow. Oh the snow is wonderful for disorientation.
Q. What do you do?
A. Say Jodie, let's go home (laugh). Uhh, now the snow isn’t--I knew somebody that got a guide dog because… She was, she was diabetic. She is no longer around, she died but. She was diabetic and she was in her back yard and got lost in the snow. And then finally heard the wind chime or something and that kinda gave her orientation. And she was so scared.
Q. Yeah.
A. I mean the snow is horrible--that’s the other reason I got a guide dog. Cause I was Schenectady is, you know, that’s, that’s you can't, I mean there’s, and there they don’t think about pedestrians.
Q. Right.
A. Not at all, everything, is a pile up.
Q. So.
A. And that is very, that is really disorienting. You can’t feel anything. You don’t know anything in the snow.
Q. Yeah. So the Jodie the dog is able to remember the route home.
A. It was only, I mean hey Jodie, I mean we, I took her in the snow last night and it was great big piled up. And I found a place to take her out and I thought, you know, traffic sounds strange to me. And I thought am I facing a different way than I think I am. And I go, "Jodie. Let's go home" She got me out to the sidewalk. I knew I was on the sidewalk and that was okay.
Q. Neat.
A. Cause If I had had a cane I wouldn’t have been out there, because I wouldn’t have needed to take Jodie out.
Q. Right. How do you feel about traveling alone to unfamiliar places?
A. I do it.
Q. How do you prepare for travel to unfamiliar places?
A. I mean you just, you just ask. You need to ask. I mean, I've been, I've traveled alone to conferences.
Q. Uh huh.
A. That’s, that’s no but I went out to a women's conference once out in California. Didn’t know anybody. I’ve you know get off the plane and somebody says "Do you, have you ever been here before?" She says, "No." She says, "I don’t know anybody." Yes you do. You know me. We went spent the conference together.
Q. Oh, fun.
A. I mean, you have to be willing to ask. I go on job sites. I used to go on job sites all the time. And I just used to come find out, you know, where they were, and you know arrange maybe to meet. Have somebody you know, could you have could you meet me downstairs or could you have one of your co-workers do that? Or you know whatever or is there a, um an elevator person in the lobby and you know, could you, OK you know. Stuff like that.
Q. Aha. What about airports? You mentioned--
A. Well airlines I mean airports, you just go to the counter and say help.
Q. Yeah. Any interesting stories about how they choose to help?
A. Cause they want to put you in a wheel chair.
Q. Yeah?
A. I say no.
Q. (light laugh).
A. Uh no.
Q. Right.
A. I, I mean, but one of their logic is that "well if we put you in this thing," or they’ll put you on the electric cart.
Q. Uh huh.
A. And a lot of people go on those carts. "If we put you in the cart, it's a lot easier, because then we don’t have to carry your luggage and try to help you and, and you know, it's a lot easier." Okay, fine go ahead.
Q. Right. Um has that changed over the years? How you’ve got—airport, walking?
A. Nah, I don't really think so. I think the airports are you know, they do the same thing. I’ve seen, I haven't seen any big changes over the years. Except sometimes you go in and they hand you would you like braille book of this”--of the seating arrangement. Oh, yeah that’d be cool.
Q. Neat. Have you ever been put in one of those rooms?
A. No. I've heard about that. Oh I heard about that. No.
Q. It's not happened to you.
A. Where did I read that? I did hear that. Yeah, they got, somebody got, they got put in there and they were supposed to come get them, but they never got.
Q. Right.
A. Yeah but if I was in one of those rooms, like if I'm sitting there and I hear the boarding announcement and the airline is supposed to come, you know and, and assist me and if they don’t, I, I'm gonna stand up. I'm not staying there.
Q. Right.
A. You know I'm moving; I'm not staying there.
Q. Right. So what about unfamiliar hotels, any tips, for--?
A. Well, you know, I usually ask like, like the um, the bellman to kind of, there’s, you know things I need to know like OK so where is, on the phone, how do you get the front desk? You know what do you need to dial? How does the air conditioner work? Two big things you need to know.
Q. Sure.
A. How does the air conditioner work? And how do you and the phone. And where is your fire exit? Just in case.
Q. Neat.
A. And my husband and I did this thing at the Waldorf, when, when we were going to do Vision 99. They asked us to come and be sort of the 2 you know just two visually impaired guests and see what, give them feedback. So we got to do that, this year. Or last June actually. And that was just so much fun.
Q. Oh, nice.
A. And he's a cane person, I'm a dog person, so that’s pretty cool.
Q. So what were you doing? Just to give them feedback on their service?
A. Yeah give them feedback on how they could um because of the conference—the upcoming conference, how they could better do it and you know
Q. Neat.
A. Yeah. And they were good. But I mean they were really good.
Q. Did you give them any tips?
A. Yeah. Yeah, we did.
Q. Like what?
A. Ohh what did, oh god I’d have to look back, it's been so long. It's been almost a year ago. Uhm, oh I know about, when we were eating in the restaurant and we said, you know tell people what when you put down bread, and tell people where you put--
Q. Yeah.
A. You know, little stuff like that.
Q. Yeah.
A. it wasn’t very much but you know it was, it was that and um yeah. And we, you know, and we told we asked someone oh show us where the fire exit is. And we said, you know, you should really just do that. In case somebody doesn’t ask you. Or these are the things that you might, when you're showing, you know, a visually impaired guest the guestroom, these are the things you wanna include. Show them this and show them that and stuff like that.
Q. What about locating your room and elevators?
A. You know now things are brailled.
Q. Yeah.
A. See, now its' a whole new story. People used to put rubber bands on their doors. And then there was the story of the NFB convention when everybody put a rubber band on their door.
Q. (Laugh)
A. Some kind of crazy thing like that. They, but they would go and do dimo tape, the, the years ago I guess the last one that we did in New York, had to be right before I got married, it was 1973. And we, we put dimo on the elevator, we put dimo on the doors, I can’t remember which hotel it was at. It was maybe the New York, maybe the New York Hilton or something like that. Yeah we did, but you don’t need to do that anymore.
Q. Neat.
A. Cause now, more and more hotels that you go to, it's there.
Q. Good. Umm, how do you establish your position in the environment?
A. What do you mean?
Q. How do you know where you are?
A. How do you know where you are. Out on the street? In a room? What?
Q. Both.
A. Umm Out on the street traffic. You know, if you're thinking, gee am I on so and so street or so and so street, again, if you're familiar with it, which way is the traffic going?
Q. Neat. In a room?
A. In a room? Furniture location of furniture. You know.
Q. Neat. Have you used; do you use maps of any kind?
A. I've looked at them. Sometimes, you know what I really thought was neat? You know Atlas Speaks?
Q. Yeah.
A. I thought Atlas Speaks was neat. I found some routes with Atlas Speaks.
Q. What'd you do?
A. Just you know, kinda go along and, and we’re going um it was a subway training at the transit museum. I had it loaded on my computer because I was beta testing it. So okay, so start from here, and then you go down, down, down, and okay, yeah. And then you know the file would say you'll come to the intersection of this and you'll come to this and the next instruction is that. And I know Jim Cozad, who used to teach here, whose got real damn good usable vision, he's probably on the borderline of, you know, 20/200. And Jim was going to, to a consumer and he wanted to find out if he was going to need to take a bus from the train. "Got Atlas loaded?" Yeah okay. Put it up and we started counting blocks. So, it was really cool. I mean we, I liked it.
Q. Where'd you get it from?
A. We were beta test it. Arkanstone asked us to bets test it.
Q. Neat. Neat.
A. So we did. And then, in fact I suggested it to--who was it somebody. Oh, I know, a friend of mine down Texas. And I said, you know why don’t you get Atlas Speaks and that'll give you kind of a really good idea of your whole. Of, of your--she's down in Houston, and she just recently just got a guide dog.
Q. Neat. So, now that has to be on the computer?
A. Yes.
Q. So, that's kinda hard to bring with you or no?
A. No, no, no. No, I was talking about this GPS thing, that would be like in a little lap top that you'd be …Mike Mae has tested it in San Francisco and he said um in fact Who was it I think 20/20 did a piece on it and but you know do you want to carry a lap top around?
Q. Right.
A. That’s the deal. And actually, he said that he didn’t think it was going to work very well in New York because the buildings were too high.
Q. Oh. Yeah that would be hard. Uhm, what one thing that happens frequently when you're traveling, that you like the least?
A. People grabbing you.
Q. Does that happen?
A. Oh, sure.
Q. What do they do?
A. Just grab you. They want to be Helpful Harry. They don’t talk, they just grab.
Q. (laughs) So at what point what do you say to them?
A. If I'm, if I'm relaxed excuse me, did you want something?
Q. Right.
A. Um, if I'm not relaxed. Please let go.
Q. Right.
A. "I was trying to help you." I know, but that’s not the way.
Q. Right.
A. No, and its either and if it's really like, you try and take--"May I take your arm?" You know, and you just drop the harness and take their arm, or um no, I'm fine. If you, if you, you know, you’re familiar. You know where you are and you don’t really need their help. And I love when the push you from the back. That’s the other wonderful thing. I am not a shopping cart.
Q. Where does that usually happen?
A. Anywhere.
Q. Yeah?
A. They're trying to push you into the train. You didn’t ask them to push you into the train.
Q. Right.
A. Excuse me. You know, let go.
Q. It’s annoying.
A. Cause then it’s really crucial communication that you're gonna get pushed, you're gonna get off balance. "Let please, let go."
Q. What about the buses? Do they try and help you into that?
A. No, not as much as really trying to push you in the trains, push you on the escalator, which you really can have an accident
Q. Yeah. Do you take the buses?
A. Uhm I take some buses. I don’t have a lot of occasions to do it. But if I'm going over to see one friend who lives across there's this 57 bus across and up. Yeah.
And sometimes over at Animal Med or back from Animal Med, we're trying to find the bus. We were in training. We couldn’t, we hardly could find the bus. It wasn’t worth it for like 3 blocks. But we wanted to do some bus training, so we did it.
Q. Explain this to me now. You're animal.
A. We went over to Animal Medical Center. When I was in training with Jodie,
just to get her records over there and stuff. And we were gonna do a, we were going back by bus just to get, do some bus training with her. But we could hardly find the bus and then we found it, for like 3 blocks that we went. It was really funny. But we went.
Q. When you say that you could hardly find the bus, what do you mean?
A. I mean, we, we could. We were looking around I mean I was with Marco who can see perfectly and we were looking around for the bus stop for the 57th street. It's a bus that supposedly goes over down York Avenue and then going over 57 street?
Q. Right.
A. We had the hardest time finding that bus.
Q. Oh. So, you were with a sighted person?
A. Yeah. He couldn’t find it. Nobody knew where it was.
Q. So, how do you usually locate bus stops?
A. Well, usually I have to ask. You know, I'll say, can you tell me. I mean I know I'm on the block, so I usually get again, you know, asking in advance and then.
Q. Who, who do you ask in advance?
A. You can call Transit Authority, you can, you know anybody around here. Hey you guys know where the so and so is? You know just like you would do probably.
Q. Yeah.
A. And then, you get on the block and you just stop somebody excuse me,
can you tell me where the bus shelter is?
Q. Neat. What do you want sighted pedestrians to do when they want to help?
A. Ask. "May I help you?" "Would you like some help?"
Q. Yeah, yeah. How do you handle being lost or disoriented?
A. Wait for somebody to come along. (laughs)
Q. How do you locate someone to get assistance from?
A. Yeah, well you gotta hear them. You've gotta hear em. And say excuse me, hello. Or excuse me or hey.
Q. Yeah.
A. Sometimes, they just pass right by.
Q. Does that work, excuse me?
A. Yeah, I works. Excuse me or hello.
Q. What kinds of things--
A. Also, you pray.
Q. You pray?
A. You pray.
Q. What kids of things do you use as landmarks?
A. You can use like, again, you can use traffic patterns, you can use things in the sidewalk as you’re walking along. You know, uphill, downhill, like after the hill it’s gonna be, or a big opening or umm or what else do I use? Sometimes I can see enough to see like a, that there might be a canopy overhead because it gets darker if you look up, you know.
Q. Neat. Is it different from the dog and the cane, with landmarks?
A. Yeah, cause with a cane, sometimes you trail, you can trail like the buildings?
Q. Uh huh.
A. And you're looking for--or for like, even with a dog, if you say left inside he might know it's the building you want or don’t want, because let's say the building you want has one step up.
Q. Right.
A. Or the door is a certain, you know a feel to that door handle.
Q. Right.
A. So, you can do that too. And if it's not the one you say, oh, thank you, but let's keep going.
Q. Yeah, neat.
A. Or how far it is from the corner, you know, how if you've walked a certain distance and stuff.
Q. Do you belong to any professional or consumer organizations?
A. Not really. I used to belong to AER. Um, that was short lived.
Q. Why?
A. Until they stopped giving you the journal and you had to pay for journal. I said forget this. And then, you know what? They really did not have a technology division in the State, so I said forget it. It's really, you know, this really isn’t and we'd talked about starting one and it was gonna be a lot of work to do it and um I don’t think there would've been enough people interested in doing it. I used to belong to NFB. Now I kind of I've been to guide dog user meetings in the past, I've been to and I really should go back next week, if I can get the time. There's a computer users group for visually impaired people in New York that actually I helped to start with friends of mine. But have kind of gone away from it. Cause you know, kind of, I mean at the end of the day. I just wanna go home.
Q. Yeah.
A. I just wanna go home.
Q. So, at this point none.
A. Nah, none. And if you read the Braille Monitor, you read the Braille Forum, you try to look at and somebody says "Hey, there's an article, good article um Journal of Blindness and Visual Impairment" You go OK I’ll read that.
Q. Great.
A. Uhh, I belong to couple of e-mail lists. One is one particular screen reader for Windows, and the other one is the other particular screen reader for Windows. And one is the Ducksbury braille translator list, so that kinda keeps me. You know.
Q. Neat.
A. Yeah.
Q. How did ADA impact you? Do you notice the difference?
A. You know, the one way is that you see a lot more braille signage now. Like I said, on the hotels, you see it in the rooms, you see it on the elevators, you see it on the elevators in buildings.
Q. Neat.
A. And more than ADA, I mean you see like now that everybody is going internet crazy and e-mail crazy, things now become accessible to you because if they're sending it out in email, and they’re the text out in e-mail, you can read it.
Q. Right. Neat. What do you attribute to your present level of mobility?
A. I think I had some good training from, you know, the two people that I mentioned. I think Bob Sunberg and then this guy Alan Jenkins, who’s the blind guy out in California and also the guide dog trainers that I’ve had.
Q. Do dog guide trainers also give you mobility instruction?
A. Well, in some ways. Like, you know, like you're talking the, you’re talking about the traffic patterns and I think the first time I was at Guiding Eyes, way back in the 60s when I really didn’t know a lot about traffic patterns. I think we actually did some of that stuff.
Q. Neat.
A. Yeah.
Q. Would you get more mobility instruction?
A. Would I get it now?
Q. Uh huh.
A. I probably don’t need it now.
Q. Yeah. What do you think of blind mobility instructors?
A. Well, I had a good experience with it.
Q. What's that?
A. I said, I had a good experience with from you know the blind people. I picked up a lot. When I was working with Alan sort of unofficially that summer, I mean I, it was really good.
Q. Yeah. Exactly.
A. It was really good. Because I used to think, how can a blind person, you know, do that? Because don’t they have to kinda watch? No, not really.
Q. Explain that to me, what do you mean?
A. Umm, because we'd be traveling along and I mean, I was always thinking that somebody always had to watch you and um but, really if, if you're tapping that cane, they know where you are.
Q. Uh huh.
A. I knew a blind guy, who trained a guide dog for himself and trained a guide dog for his girl friend and then trained another guide dog that another Guy eventually got. And he was those dogs were very well trained. And he had somebody helping him with the traffic. That was the only thing that, you know, that he really needed help with. But other things he really, really, really had some well trained guide dogs.
Q. Neat. I actually talked to one guy who trained his own dog guide before.
A. Uh huh.
Q. That was the first time I'd ever heard of that. It's neat that you know somebody too.
A. Yeah. I know a girl too. Well I know of her I've met her once or twice long, long time ago. And I guess she trained her guide dog too.
Q. what sort of strategies do you use to learning new environments? Like when you went to college? I mean how would you learn your way around?
A. Well, you kinda, you know what? You go around with somebody.
Q. Uh huh.
A. When we talked about this when I was on distance training with a guide dog, I said you know Mark the hardest thing is, you go to some conference, you're in some hotel and then you have to some other hotel. Some restaurant and they tell you, oh you go across the parking lot and I say, oh God. Parking lot is horrible it’s open space.
Q. Yeah.
A. And he said, "well go with somebody and put the dog on heel." So the dog isn’t concentrating on guiding you and the dog is just kinda looking at where this person is going.
Q. Yeah. Neat.
A. Because, there’s really, I mean there is no way. I mean we did some, some country stuff with, with a cane and again, you can do landmarks. If there are landmarks you can do 'em.
Q. Right?
A. But if you're out in that open parking lot, forget it.
Q. Right.
A. That's where you get disoriented.
Q. So do you think that's like an area that could be addressed by a mobility instructor?
A. Yes. Parking lots. If you guys can figure out any way to do parking lots, to teach people how to do parking lots, I want to be the first one (laughs).
Q. Well, I was thinking more like how to get someone to go with you and to give you orientation information. I mean like, people like, teaching someone to be more handy with getting the information they need from anybody. Friends, family. I don’t know. But yeah, I mean parking lots, that’s definitely,
A. That’s hard.
Q. That’s hard especially if there isn’t much traffic around.
A. Nope.
Q. It's very hard.
A. I mean even if there is traffic around
Q. Right. Well, you'd want to go towards the traffic.
A. Yeah. Well… yeah. So you don’t get stuck. But if you're looking for the, if you’re looking for out of the parking lot
Q. Right.
A. then what?
Q. Well, I imagine if you had a sense of before you get into the parking lot, and you get a line of direction of how are the cars parked.
A. Yeah.
Q. Then like you could locate a car and see if you're still going in that same direction.
A. Yeah, that's what I've done. Yeah.
Q. That's neat. Well, what else have you done?
A. In parking lots?
Q. Yeah.
A. Hoped and prayed.
Q. (laughs)
A. Said, Dog, get me outta here.
Q. Well, gee, Myrna, I really appreciate your taking this time to talk to me.
A. Well, finally, I'm glad that we did this. I’m glad cause we've been kinda you know it's been months and months and months and months. But I'm glad that we finally did it.
Q. Great.
A. OK?
Q. Yes.
A. OK.
Q. Thanks a lot.
A. OK bye, bye.
Myrna is a very intelligent woman who studied music, a career many bright children born blind were funneled into, her husband was a blind piano tuner – another career historically taught to intelligent students at schools for the blind. Myrna broke free of it and joined the modern world in career of assistive technology. She was using GPS before it was cool.
She grew up a dependent traveler. At school she relied on a guide. She learned travel techniques walking with a group of blind friends. Throughout her life she continued to learn strategies that helped her to be a robust, independent traveler- someone who did not have to “learn a route” before she traveled it by herself – the way she was taught in high school.
Myrna described a world that was not welcoming of her preferred mobility tool, the dog guide. Her family, agencies employing and serving people who are blind. and Taxis all preferred her to leave her dog at home.
Blind people no matter what age - should not have so many barriers to using mobility tools that are essential to independence with safety– Denying entry to dog guide users or belt canes to blind toddlers – is discrimination. Discrimination is harmful and perpetuates inequality.
