Judy Born 1952 - proof positive you can grow up without safe mobility and enjoy life to the fullest!

Judy is a poster child of success absent safe mobility. As a child, she had light and color vision – and that means she was mobility visually impaired. In the 1950s, she learned to use the long cane, but she wasn’t allowed to take it home until she was older. She didn’t really start using a long cane until grad school. She and her husband go on grand adventures around the world. He is a dog guide user and she a long cane user. Her fall into an open manhole is tough to hear – Judy is a delight. Yes, Judy proves that it is possible to grow up without safe mobility and be a highly successful adult– I’m just not clear why we ask this of our blind babies. But that's another story for another time. 

This is a laugh out loud great interview –Judy describes her life as a blind traveler before smart phones –with a great story of how she used Atlas speaks an accessible computer maps to help sighted people.

Excerpt:

A. No, I never had a device until I lived in New York, and I was going to graduate school I started using a cane.

Q. Is that right?

A. Yes. It’s really hard to make sense out of because I couldn’t see. 

Q. Right, right.

A. And yet, I don’t know how, I mean I know other kids that did this, and I don’t know how. I don’t… now I don’t know how. I mean I think it has more to do with just the incredible versatility of children as much as anything else. I certainly couldn’t do it now. 

 Q. In thinking back trying to think of some strategies that you used anything come to mind?

A. Ohh. I mean a lot of strategies. You know every crazy thing from you know walking along the line between the grass and the sidewalk and, and, and just hitting things. As a kid I had cuts and bruises from head to toe. People would say well how did you get—I don’t know. You know. I don’t have a clue. 

Q. Which one (laugh).

A. Yeah exactly. I don’t. You know. It just you don’t worry about getting hit. You don’t worry about falling down. I absolutely believe that one of the greatest survival—one of the things that, that spells how well a blind person does is how well—how able they are to tolerate pain. 

Q. Wow. That shows you’ve earned your…

A. Yeah, because you know if you just keep going and you don’t think about it. You can actually do it. 

Q. So is it safe to say the attitudes that your family had were—

A. Oh utterly abhorrent. Yes totally. I mean actually you know as an adult I look back on it I think they were nuts.(laugh) But I’m glad I had them as parents. 

Q. How would you characterize their attitudes towards you?

A. Oh I think you know you talk about parents being overprotective of blind kids. My parents were under protective. Oh, utterly I mean to the point of being ridiculous. And, and that’s fine I survived it, but it would have been so easily for, for not to. 

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Transcript

Judy is a poster child of success. She had light and color vision – and that means she was mobility visually impaired. In the 1950s she learned to use the long cane, but she wasn’t allowed to take it home until much later. She didn’t really start using one until grad school. She and her husband go on grand adventures around the world. He is a dog guide user and she a long cane user. Her fall into an open manhole is tough to hear – Judy is a delight. Yes, it is possible to grow up without a safe mobility and be successful – I’m just not clear why we ask this of our blind babies – this is a great interview –Judy describes her life as a blind travelers before smart phones –and a great story of how she used Atlas speaks an accessible computer maps.

I have a hard time not crying when I hear how much she feels the ability to withstand pain marks the capacity of being a traveler- You hear Judy and are inspired by how much a blind woman can enjoy life. I hear that too, but I am also inspired by providing little Judy’s being born today with a choice in safe mobility – to reduce the pain of blind travel.

I go by Judy. born– 52 in CoCo, Florida. Lived Arlington, Virginia.

What do for living?  I work at the national library service for the blind and physically handicapped.  Job title is Consumer Relations Officer. Which is a bit of an amalgam really. It’s a lot of different things.

College: Stetson University in Deland Florida, undergraduate: Bachelor’s in psychology and graduate school I went to Aldelphi University in Garden City New York. I have a Ph.D. in Clinical Psychology from Aldelphi.

Q. How long have you had a vision impairment?

A. Always.

Q. What is the name of it?

A. Peter’s anomaly.

Q. What does that manifest itself as?

A. It’s a, another name for it is Microphthalmia it’s a, a smaller than normal front portion of the eye. Lack of development in the front; the cornea and the lens and all that part of the eye. 

Q. So, are you totally blind?

A. Now I am. 

Q. Oh OK.

A. I was not totally blind as a child. 

Q. What was your vision as a child?

A. I guess I was sort of low partial. I could see colors. I could see shadows and shapes. I could never see well enough to read print. I could never see well enough to recognize people. 

Q. What age were you when you went blind?

A. Totally blind?

Q. Yeah.

A. Ohhh, boy this may sound strange but I’m not exactly sure. Five or 6 years ago. Or eight or something, I mean (laugh).

Q. Something like that, yeah.

A. It just sort of goes away and it’s not something that you it was not one of these one fine day experiences. 

Q. Right so did you have an acuity?

A. Oh no, I think I was could count fingers at four feet or three feet. Or something like that.

Q. When did you first realize that you were visually impaired?

A. Oh, when did I realize it? 

Q. Yeah.

A. I have no clue.

Q. Pretty young?

A. Oh yeah, I mean…

Q. Before school?

A. Oh yeah, yeah I’m sure I knew before that. I mean there are a lot—I can remember childhood things. You know like thinking that if I was really quiet, they wouldn’t know that I was doing something (laugh).

Q. That’s neat. 

A. I can remember doing things like that and really being quite puzzled about how people knew things and, and, and constantly trying to sort of test that and figure that out. I’d say I was about 3 or 4. 

Q. Yeah, oh that’s interesting.

A. I remember one time I was—it’s a story I heard over and over more than, more than the fact that but I remember it. I told my mother, apparently, that I thought that everyone should carry candles, so I’d know where they were.

Q. wow. When did you first learn to travel independently of another person?

A. Well, I went to the school for the blind when I was in the first grade.

Q. What was the name of that?

A. Florida School for the Blind. St. Augustine. And my parents decided that I needed to be independent because they thought that that’s what a blind person needed to be. And there was--I would take the Greyhound bus alone back and forth from Coco Florida to St. Augustine, Florida and get off the bus and take a taxi to my school at age 5 slash 6. 

Q. Oh my goodness.

A. So I think that is crazy. You know?

Q. Yeah.

A. I don’t think a parent should let any child do that, blind, sighted, or indifferent. But people didn’t think about those kinds of things in rural Florida in the 1950s. 

Q. How far of a trip is that.

A. So, I don’t know how to answer that.

Q. How far of a trip is that?

A. About 2 and ½ hours. I don’t know how to answer that question. I mean I don’t remember not traveling alone or-- 

Q. Yeah. What would you do in terms of your travel, do you remember having any difficulties? Were you restricted in anyway? I understand you were put in a taxi pretty early.

A. I remember having a big fight with my father about when I would be allowed to cross the big street. Because my brothers could cross the big street when they were my age, and they wouldn’t let me. Again, I was probably 4 or 5 and my brothers, well partly they were boys, I think that has as much to do with it as anything else. But I was not allowed to cross the big street. I could cross the little street, but I couldn’t cross the big street. I kept saying, when can I cross the big street? Well, I don’t—and they didn’t know. I mean “we don’t know” I don’t know. 

Q. I’m sure you asked why you weren’t allowed.

A. They wouldn’t tell me. They never said because you can’t see, and they can. 

Q. Right.

A. I mean I think it more didn’t occur to them. They would have had no trouble saying that, but they didn’t say that. They just kept saying you know “when you’re older”.

Q. You crossed the little street, any incidents any scares?

A. I’m sure there must have been. (laugh) There are incidents and scares now. I know there must have been then. Actually, it was so little that maybe there wasn’t. 

Q. What about going to a neighbor’s house?

A. Oh I did that. Really young. 

Q. Yeah.

A. Very, very young.

Q. By yourself?

A. Yeah.

Q. Around the block or across the little street?

A. Across the little street.

Q. And to your friends’ houses and the grocery store?

A. I wouldn’t have. See we I lived it would be considered the country for all practical purposes. No, I never did anything like go to the grocery store. I didn’t, I didn’t do that kind of thing alone until I was probably a teenager. 

Q. When you were a kid did you have any kind of a travel tool, or did you have any kind of device at all that you used?

A. No, I never had a device until I lived in New York, and I was going to graduate school I started using a cane.

Q. Is that right?

A. Yes. It’s really hard to make sense out of because I couldn’t see. 

Q. Right, right.

A. And yet, I don’t know how, I mean I know other kids that did this, and I don’t know how. I don’t… now I don’t know how. I mean I think it has more to do with just the incredible versatility of children as much as anything else. I certainly couldn’t do it now. 

Q. In thinking back trying to think of some strategies that you used anything come to mind?

A. Ohh. I mean a lot of strategies. You know every crazy thing from you know walking along the line between the grass and the sidewalk and, and, and just hitting things. As a kid I had cuts and bruises from head to toe. People would say well how did you get—I don’t know. You know. I don’t have a clue. 

Q. Which one (laugh).

A. Yeah exactly. I don’t. You know. It just you don’t worry about getting hit. You don’t worry about falling down. I absolutely believe that one of the greatest survival—one of the things that, that spells how well a blind person does is how well—how able they are to tolerate pain. 

Q. Wow. That shows you’ve earned your…

A. Yeah, because you know if you just keep going and you don’t think about it. You can actually do it. 

Q. So is it safe to say the attitudes that your family had were—

A. Oh utterly abhorrent. Yes totally. I mean actually you know as an adult I look back on it I think they were nuts.(laugh) But I’m glad I had them as parents. 

Q. How would you characterize their attitudes towards you?

A. Oh I think you know you talk about parents being overprotective of blind kids. My parents were under protective. Oh, utterly I mean to the point of being ridiculous. And, and that’s fine I survived it, but it would have been so easily for, for not to. 

Q. Where do you think they got that?

A. I’ve thought a lot about that, and I’ve talked to them a lot. It was really my father. My father was the, was the. I mean if my mother had been married to another person, I would be a very different kid. Cause I think it was my father. My father was a really interesting man. And he, he had very, very little formal education. He really had probably a, maybe a second or third grade reading and writing very, very minimal reading and writing skills. And his whole method of orienting was similar to the way I needed to do it. And there was a great family story. 

When we were—we were on a trip to an area in Central Florida, Silver Springs and some kids, we were staying in a motel. It was one of these motels that had signs that said room 200 to 500 this way and room whatever to whatever to that way. Well, the family had all gone out, I had two older brothers. That also contributed too, but the family had gone hither, thither and whatever I was swimming and my brothers had gone somewhere. Anyway, we had all scattered.  We were all going back to the room at a particular time to meet and go have lunch. Well, some kids had rearranged the signs as a joke. And my father and I were the only two people who found the room.

Q. That’s great.

A. The rest of the family you know absolutely was totally baffled, and totally confused and but my father oriented the same way I did, and it took me a long time as a kid to figure that out. I mean that was never a spoken thing. I’m not sure he really ever realized it. 

Q. Meaning what kinds of strategies would ya’ll do?

A. He wouldn’t, he didn’t read numbers and things. He would know, you know it was the second opening on the right and then you go up the stairs and turn right and it’s the third room. I mean that kind of thing. 

Q. Yeah.

A. Oh, I did a lot of you know counting of openings and memorizing you know the, the route for getting somewhere. I mean that would be a common way to do things. 

Q. Neat. What are your childhood memories of riding bikes?

A. I did ride a bike. And again, one of the strategies for riding a bike was keep driving back and forth off the edge of the road. 

Q. to what now?

A. Keep riding back and forth along the edge of the road. 

Q. Like the curb?

A. Hit the grass, hit the pavement, hit the grass. See we didn’t have curbs. This was the country. 

Q. Ah -yeah.

A. Hit the grass, hit the pavement, hit the grass—or, or we had a lot of dirt roads. They’re packed, packed dirt. Not, not loose dirt.

Q. Right.

A. So you hit the grass you know and go back, hit the grass, and go back. That was my strategy for riding a bike (laugh). 

Q. Wow, isn’t that neat so then that way you knew you weren’t going to be turning or—

A. I wouldn’t get too far from the grass line. 

Q. Wouldn’t be in the middle of the road, be out of the way.

A. We didn’t have cars. I mean nobody worried about that. 

Q. Right.

A. You could always, the cars were so few that you could hear them, you know, long ways away. I didn’t ride on the big roads. I rode on the neighborhood roads. You know the roads right by our house.

Q. But, but the point was you could go straight.

A. Yep.

Q. You wouldn’t be turning off. 

A. Yep.

Q. You would be more efficient. Neat. Did you desire anything to be different about what you were doing. Did you have a sense of that as a kid? About your travel about wanting more or wanting less?

A. Probably not as a really young kid. No, things didn’t get difficult until you know 11, 12, 13, 14 that age. Because riding around the neighborhood or running around with other kids in the neighborhood was easy. When it got hard was when kids get to the age when you actually go places and start doing things, interacting with strangers. Selecting something in a store. I couldn’t do any of that. And, and It was really hard. And kids, you know kids do not go into a store and say, “excuse me I’m blind could you help me I want to buy a candy bar”.

Q. Right.

A. I mean it just doesn’t happen. So as a kid you have no method to do anything like that. So, when it comes time for the age when, when kids are you know going to the store to get something for themselves or, you know run to the store to get something for their mother, yeah we can no longer do that. 

Q. You knew you weren’t being called upon to do that?

A. Oh that’s right. But we lived far enough from any store that nobody else was either. I mean my brothers, I guess would ride their bike. I think the store, the closest small grocery store would have been about 2 miles, and my brothers would have ridden their bikes to the store. And being a girl it, it obscured the issues slightly because there were two older brothers right there to do things

Q. Right.

A. like ride their bike to the store to get something for my mother. It was not a totally horrible thing to think about oh gosh she always asks them, and she never asks me. Well, they’re older and they’re boys 

Q. Right.

A. and you know so it wasn’t a—it was more you know around the time when kids start doing things you know --when I started doing things with other girlfriends. That’s when things got a lot harder. 

Q. So kindergarten started the school for the blind did you do, what was the—did they have canes there? 

A. No.

Q. Did you have any kind of mobility?

A. No. 

Q. Nothing?

A. No, they expected you to walk around with older kids and that just absolutely didn’t work for me. These older kids, in my opinion, were not competent travelers and I didn’t want to have anything to do with them.

Q. So that was the thing, the younger kids go with the older kids?

A. yes, the first, second, and third graders or kindergartners had partners. They were girls from the 4th, 5th, and sixth grade. You were supposed to go places with your partner. Well, my partner was a jerk (laugh) I knew after the third day I was not going so I did all kinds of stuff to dump this kid. 

Q. (laugh) so you didn’t obviously go to the same classes, was she supposed to come pick you up?

A. No, no, I don’t remember. There was this whole big thing, “you’re supposed to be with you’re partner, where’s your partner?” I don’t know, don’t ask me about my partner

Q. Right, right.

A. and it just stopped being an issue. I don’t remember the mechanics exactly.

Q. Was there ever a sense of the sighted and the blind? The sighted guide thing or were you supposed to hold them?

A.  Yeah, OK, well let me tell you one other piece. I only went to the school for the blind for one year and through Christmas time of second grade 

Q. Ah.

A. and then I left there and went to live with an Aunt and Uncle in Massachusetts. And I lived with my Aunt and Uncle through 7th grade. The reason was that I was having a series of corneal transplants in, in Boston and my mother was from Boston and she was one of 10 kids and she had lots of sisters and brothers and their kids and so forth in the Boston area. My mother was the only one that left. And so, I needed to see this doctor more often than I could conveniently go from Florida. They wanted to do this surgery at Christmas time of, of second grade and the idea was that I would just stay until the end of the year. Well, I started to go to public school, to the end of the school year, so I started to go to public school there and my aunt and uncle had five kids of their own at that time. I was near the youngest. And I loved it. It worked really well for me. I did really well in school. And I really liked the lifestyle. We lived in a suburban neighborhood of Boston, and I ended up staying till the end of 7th grade. 

Q. Is that right?

A. Yes.

Q. So did you go to the regular school then?

A. Yes,

Q. Now this presents itself to you how? I mean. Did you learn the neighborhood, were you allowed to go by yourself?

A. My aunt had five kids so there were a lot of, you know, there was always somebody going pretty much where ever you wanted to go. Certainly, to school I walked to school with my cousins. We could walk to a to stores and to a—and that was always really hard because I don’t know that I ever really did that alone because when I got there I would know that it would be hard to do there whatever I went there for. 

Q. Right.

A. so um, I don’t remember. I certainly walked around the neighborhood alone. I wouldn’t have gotten too far away though. I mean this was a, this was a suburban neighborhood with lots of big streets and busy traffic and stuff. So it was very different from where I had grown up in Florida. 

Q. Had you devised your own method for safely crossing streets?

A. Yes, oh yeah.

Q. What had you come up with?

A. Listen, when there’s nothing coming run like hell. (laugh) 

Q. (laugh) that sounds like a good.

A. I don’t remember, I remember somebody teaching me about traffic lights, so I mean the idea of when the cars that are parallel to you are going you go. I remember. I actually remember consciencely learning that. 

Q.  I know the Perkins school is in Boston

A. Yes, it’s north of Boston. 

Q. You didn’t have any relationship with that though?

A. Wow, this is a funny thing. My Aunt and Uncle, my Uncle was from Maine. And, my Aunt and Uncle about the time that I came they decided to take this blind girl who lived in Maine and get her organized with Perkins. The really odd thing was that I lived with them, and she lived with them. She went to Perkins and I didn’t I went to the neighborhood school. She went to Perkins and came home holidays and things. But she wasn’t there most of the time. That was a big issue for her, why did I get to go to the public school, and she didn’t. So, we went to Perkins to take her back and forth you know at the end of holidays and stuff. A lot of holidays I went to Florida to see my parents, so it was kind of a weird thing, we sometimes just sort of passed on a you know on a weekend or something. But I did go to Perkins to, to when we took her back and forth. I, I was fascinated. You know here are all these blind people and I you know the downside to my lifestyle was I did not know other blind people. 

Q. Yeah.

A. That was something that looked really attractive to me,

Q. Yeah.

A. that, that but I had no idea how to organize that in my life. But that was really intriguing that there were these other blind kids, and I was so curious about them. But we went, dropped her off and left. 

Q. Did you ever get an explanation or ask them?

A. Oh, I, I, I knew the reason I mean she wasn’t all that smart (laugh).

Q. Ahhhh and you were too smart for Perkins?

A. Well yeah, no it wasn’t that I was too smart for Perkins it was that I was smart enough for Public school. 

Q. Traveling around inside the school there how did you learn your way around?

A. We had a, in those days they called it a resource room teacher. I guess they still have that model. 

Q. sure. 

A. In places now. We had, there were other blind kids in my school, they just weren’t in my grade. I didn’t’ see them much. But there were I think five of us. Five or six at any one time. The resource teacher taught us braille and stuff like that. And they actually had a mobility teacher come once a week. An itinerant teacher. I always thought that sounded like a grape picker or something like that. 

Q. Laugh.

A. That person came from somewhere once a week and worked with each of us individually.

Q. So was that your first experience with mobility instruction?

A. Yes, we had that person come once a week for you know all those years. 

Q. What do you remember as the method, was it a he?

A. Uhm there were different ones. 

Q. Different ones.

A. There was a “he” at first and then there were a couple of "shes" over time. Oh, I remember all kinds of stuff. I mean we’d do things like you know here’s a bunch of blocks, which one is heavier and textures, I mean we did a lot of stuff besides mobility. We did you know like orientation kinds of things and OK here is you know where the school is, you know where the streets are, now here is some clay make that. Make what you think it looks like. We’d walk around a lot. We’d walk around the school building. We walked around outside. We got canes. This was an interesting thing. We got canes when the teacher came, but the teacher took the canes away. 

Q. Oh.

A. So we had we only used the canes, it was the weirdest thing, 

Q. That is very weird.

A. It was very weird, and I asked a lot about could we keep the canes, or could we get a cane, “oh no, no, no you’ll get a cane when you’re older”

Q. So you, you know you’re saying “hey, I want this thing.”

A. This is cool, this is really fun.

Q. So what for like 45 minutes one day a week.

A. One day a week (overlap).

Q. You got to use a cane.

A. And that was until, I don’t think we actually, I actually used a cane until like 4th or 5th grade. 

Q. Uh hm.

A. I got my own cane in 7th grade and (laugh), my aunt told me I could walk to the store, but I had to take my cane and I’d cross the street with it and then stick it behind a tree or a bush and go to the store without it. (laugh).

Q. You would?

A. It was very embarrassing. Other kids would, would I can remember neighborhood canes saying “what are you doing with that thing?  What’s that thing you’re carrying?” I found carrying a cane to be very, very embarrassing. 

Q. Well all these mixed messages…traveling around..

A. Oh yeah, so I never had a cane in my hand from 7th grade when I left Massachusetts, I left the cane, and I never had a cane in my hand until after college. 

Q. In that traveling around in that 45 minutes or an hour a week did you do residential 

A. We did, 

Q. all those other kinds of things?

A. We did, and near the end of my time there I mean 7th grade we actually went to other neighborhoods. And you know OK, here’s they’d give you all the names these names of these streets and this one intersects here, and this one intersects there, and I want you to cross the street and turn left and do this, do this and go to the second door. You know I mean that kind of thing. We did a lot of that kind of stuff.

Q. And did you, they were always were with you, following you?

A. They were always somewhere.

Q. Somewhere, you weren’t sure always where.

A. Oh, no, no.

Q. They didn’t walk along and talk with you?

A. No, I think they did that when we were younger, but I mean I vividly remember the times in 7th grade they were just around somewhere, who knew where.

Q. Left you to figure things out by yourself.

A. Right.

Q. How valuable do you think that training was that you got?

A. I think it was enormously valuable. I think it was weird. I mean you know weird in that whole business in that we’re teaching you, you know sort of like we’re teaching you to use a piano, but you don’t have a piano at home. You know?

Q. Right.

A. I mean it was strange. Although I think there was a lot of benefit from it quite apart from whether I had a cane at home or not. You know they didn’t want to give us canes because they didn’t want us to go anywhere. 

Q. Right.

A. That was clear to me (laugh). I can remember sometimes pulling sticks off trees and using them.

Q. Wow.

A. And But I.

Q. Which is even more incognito.

A. (laugh) right yeah.

Q. Kill two birds with one stone (laugh).

A. Right, exactly worked for me. I would do that more in the country I suppose than I did you know in the suburban areas, because we went to Maine a lot.

Q. did you ever do it before you got instruction?

A. That’s a good question, you know I think, I think so, because in Florida we had a lot of boats and I can remember one time, we, we had a houseboat and that was our major family activity was things associated with boats. I mean I learned to water ski when I was real, real little. 

Q. Oh neat. 

A. My father built a board that I learned to ski on before I actually got on to skies. 

Q. Wow.

A. I mean the rope was tied to the board and all I had to do was stand on it and hold on to the rope. And then I went on to skies. I mean a lot of our activity was on boats and water and swimming and stuff. And I can remember picking up one of the oars out of the little rowboat and just walking around with that. 

Q. Yeah.

A. So I think there probably was a lot of just sort of serendipitous using whatever objects, I was always real nervous about walking around on the docks. 

Q. Sure. 

A. I would always just grab something.

Q. I guess so, one false move and you’re in the-.

A. Sometimes I just carried around a piece of rope. I’d just tie something heavy and just keep bouncing it along the dock. 

Q. Oh, neat. So, what travel tool do you use now?

A. I use a cane. 

Q. How many different types of mobility tools have you tried?

A. I’ve never used a dog, my husband has a guide dog, so I’ve lived with guide dogs for years and I’ve played around with electronic travel aids. But never really as a regular user, just played with them more than anything else.

Q. How did they strike you?

A. Oh I think they’re great fun, but they’re pretty inadequate. I mean I haven’t seen one that I think you know is worth the trouble of bothering with. 

Q. What kind have you tried?

A. Well the more recent one was the Casper, do you know about the Casper?

Q. No, tell me about what that is.

A. Well back in the 70s it would have been called the sonic guide,

Q. Uh huh.

A.  made by Leslie Kay in New Zealand. And we bought one in 97. We played around with it; we still have it. It’s sort of a headphones that emits different sounds depending on how far away things are and you can actually set it to one meter or three meters. Three meters is only a little bit over 10 feet. It’s just not far enough. 

Q. Ah. So you’d like something a little further?

A. And it doesn’t do drop offs or anything. 

Q. What about the sounds, I mean would that interfere with maybe...

A. It does, you can really hear other things, I mean you can adjust the volume. You can have it quite low. It really, really you can hear quite well. 

Q. Neat.

A. It’s not a big problem. It just uses these little tinny, tinny tubes, it’s not headphones in that sense. 

Q. Right, right.

A. I mean I remember as a kid we’d practice walking up to a curb and just listening for it. And you know we, we..

Q. Without any cane?

A. Yes.

Q. Listening for it, and what were you listening for?

A. We did a lot, remember, have you ever heard the term facial vision?

Q. Sure.

A. Oh yeah, that’s what, that’s what, that’s what we were into a lot as kids. I mean they were into it, they taught it, they made us very aware of it. 

Q. No, and it works.

A. I wonder if they teach that to kids now?

Q. I think that we really should get back to it if they’re not. I’ve heard a lot of people talk to me about it.

A. I have not heard the term in years.

Q. I think echolocation is another term that’s supplanted.

A. But it’s different.

Q. From the way I look at it, from the way I’ve talked about it with other people it’s more about it exists. There are people like the NFB cane travel instructors 

A. Yeah.

Q. who I’ve spoken with who do teach that. Who say you know we spend a lot of time picking out trees and picking out cars.

A. Well it’s trees, I mean that’s why I say it is different from echo, the curb is probably echolocation. I mean when you just sort of feel a tree passing you and you just feel it, I mean it’s not the same as hearing an echo from it. 

Q. Right, well that’s why that term doesn’t sound right. It’s supposed to mean you know object perception is another one too. 

A. Yeah, yeah.

Q. See down low, it’s not supposed to work

A. That’s right.

Q. it’s supposed to be about hearing, reflected sound, white noise. Things that you know are perceiving. But a curb isn’t anywhere near your ears.

A. Well, when you’re six or seven years old it is.

Q. Ahh that’s a good point.

 A. I mean I don’t recall having, well I certainly do hear curbs, but I mean I don’t remember hearing them anything like I did when I was real little. I think being down there helped. (laugh).

Q. It’s a little advantage. Um, so what’s your cane look like?

(end side one tape I)

A. I travel a lot and I buy canes that intrigue me in other countries, that’s one reason I have one. I use 99% of the time I use an NFB straight cane.

Q. Uh huh.

A.  That’s all I ever use. I mean I play with the others, but I just sort of play with them because I think they’re interesting. 

Q. That’s the rigid.

A. Yes.

Q.  With the metal tip the NFB tip? 

A. Yes.

Q. The grip is?

A. Well I put my own grip on. 

Q. Oh did you?

A. I just added like a rubber golf type material.

Q. Interesting.

A. I like to be able to hold on to it.

Q. Have you tried any other kinds of canes?

A. Oh gosh yeah. I got the one with the rolling tip made in Canada

Q. Uh huh.

A. new Ambicron or whatever it’s called.

Q. What do you think about that?

A. I hate it.

Q. Why’s that?

A. Because it doesn’t, I think it needs to roll. I move too fast for it. I can’t make it go. I like I guess it’s called constant contact.

Q. Yeah.

A. That’s my cane--that’s been my own cane travel technique for years and years, before I even knew the name of it. This woman, that I met. That actually my husband met, because he was talking to her about the Casper she said, you know you use constant contact you might like this cane. She told us about the cane. Cause I use it with the regular NFB cane, I never ever tap a cane. I haven’t tapped a cane in years. If it moved in all directions, I think it would be really neat. Although it would have to be able to do it really fast. I mean it’s just not—

Q. Not there yet—

A. Not there yet, but I think it has some potential. 

Q. Neat.

A. I have one that has a thing at the bottom that frankly looks like a teacup. I mean it’s and I use that in deep snow, that’s my deep snow cane.

Q. The teacup facing sort of downwards?

A. Yeah facing so the open part is up towards the handle.

Q. Up towards the handle.

A. Right, it’s the bottom of the cane. It’s a great snow cane. A cane in the snow is useless because it just goes in and that’s it. 

Q. So this sort of acts like a—

A. Like a basket on a ski pole.

Q. Neat. It allows you to--

A. That’s my deep snow cane. 

Q. to stay above the snow a little more?

A. Right, uh hmm. I’ve got lost in the snow so many times. Oh god.

Q.  It’s, that’s the real hard.

A. It is very hard.

Q. Because everything that you’re used to is covered over? The sounds are different, less people all that.

A. Yeah.

Q. What do you do?

A. You just keep going until you either find something familiar or find a person or something.

Q. So you basically use the straight cane, do you use a cane you use for dress up, for when you’re dressed up?

A. I probably should. I actually just bought a new NFB cane, and I haven’t gotten some grip for it so I haven’t started to use it yet, but I did that because my regular cane is just getting so mangy.

Q. Yeah.

a. It’s scratchy and stuff. I used to. I had a wooden handle made one time. I saw a man who made walking sticks and I asked him if he could make me a cane handle. I had this wonderful, beautiful wooden handle but if finally wore out, it split. I used it for some years. 

Q. What did you like about that?

A. Oh it just felt neat, and it felt you know it was sort of a dress up thing.

Q. Yeah.

A. I mean it just felt a little nicer than just carrying around this piece of plastic all the time. 

Q. And a conversation piece.

A. Yeah, it was great. It was made out of some kind of gnarled something or other. 

Q. So you’re in graduate school of you’ve gone through four years of undergrad you’ve gone and now you’re what you’re getting your master’s and you decide to… what happened?

A. I figured out a very important truth when I lived in New York. I figured out when I started that when I carried a cane people knew what was wrong. 

Q. Ah.

A. When I didn’t carry a cane, they knew something was wrong but they didn’t know what. They often thought I was drunk (laugh) or just crazy and in New York you know they’re quite willing to think that.  

Q. Laugh.

A. So I was taking the Long Island railroad back and forth and I was very, very uncomfortable. And I suddenly found out that if I used the cane I was a lot more comfortable and people actually treated me better. 

Q. Ah. So what did you do? What did you do about that? I mean you came to the realization that you wanted a cane and then you got the cane?

A. I just went and bought a cane. 

Q. just went a bought the cane?

A. Yeah, and I never had any more cane training.

Q. From where? From NFB?

A. From the New York Lighthouse.

Q. the New York Lighthouse. What year was this? 

A. 75.

Q. Neat. What kind of cane did you buy?

A. I think I bought some kind of a folding cane. I think I bought some kind of a Hycore kind of a folding. And I think that's what I used in those years.

Q. So how did you progress? How did you move along to what you’ve got now? What sort of things? What do you like about one or the other?

A. Oh I couldn’t afford folding canes. I broke them once a month at least. (laugh).

Q. Ah.

A. I used them for quite a few years and I don’t remember when I started to use a straight cane it was a long, long time ago. Probably the early eighties the early to mid 80s. And I really started because I found I could go much faster, much more comfortably because the cane was so much lighter. I’ve tried carbon fiber and I break those too. 

Q. Ah.

A. And I’m really bad.

Q. So what’s yours, yours is aluminum?

A. No, no, no. mines a fiberglass.

Q. the carbon fiber ones are the real expensive, super lightweight ones but they’re extremely brittle. I bought one a year or so ago and I used it. This is actually a funny story. I was crossing a street in downtown D.C. And a car hit the cane. The car was actually moving, but I think, I think the guy was just moving up a foot, or something. I mean the traffic was stopped. He was just moving a tiny bit. But the car hit the cane, and the cane is so brittle that it broke in the middle. Just sort of splintered. And I got to the other side and I reached down to see how bad the damage was. It was really bad. The cane was splintered and I cut my hand because the stuff is so sharp.

Q. Yeah.

A. As I was picking the cane up, anyway the cane is bending back and forth. And I just put my, put it down on the ground and put a little pressure on it just to see if it would hold and it broke into two pieces.

Q. Yeah.

A. So I’m standing there with the two pieces of cane trying to decide which one of these pieces is longer and is this piece long enough so I can safely go home on the metro. Or what am I going to do here. So, I was contemplating what to do and meanwhile the man in the car who hit my cane comes running over. “Are you alright?” Well, no, I’m fine, but the cane is sort of broken. And anyway, he offered to give me a ride home. I remember thinking, good lord, you always tell everybody, don’t ever get in cars with strangers.

Q. Right.

A. But he seemed like a nice guy. Since I was, I was not sure if I could, I mean somehow taking a cab at that moment just hadn’t occurred to me. But anyway, the man ended up giving me a ride home and I get my cane home and it’s two pieces. (laugh). I never got another carbon fiber cane. 

Q. That’s the carbon fiber cane story.

A. They’re terrible. They are so brittle.

Q. The length, have you gotten longer?

A. No. I use I mean I’m 5’ 1” and I use a 49” cane and it comes up. It does come up. I mean I remember the old things they used to say it should come up to the bottom of your sternum. Well that’s too short, 

Q. Right.

A. that is ridiculous.

Q. Right. See that’s what I was going to say—

A. but my cane comes up not a whole heck of a lot more than that maybe another five or six inches, but it’s below my chin. 

Q. Yeah. Have you tried a longer cane?

A. Yes I have, I don’t need to know quite. I don’t need to sweep the neighborhood (laugh). That’s how it feels.

Q. It feels like you’re just getting too much? 

A. It really does. Since I don’t use it stretched way out I tend to use it a little bit more vertically at constant contact. It just, it’s just too, too hard. 

Q. And what do you like constant contact over the tapping for?

A. Oh, I can’t stand the noise. Oh god. I, I if I could not. I just oh would not walk down the street going tap, tap, tap. I just can’t.

Q. Yeah. Yeah. You know what I wanted to ask you was, when you were getting mobility training, did you get the feeling from your instructors that they respected or valued or put to use what you brought to the situation, what you already knew about traveling around, because you had so many years under your belt?

A. I think that they did not for the most part. I mean I think they varied a bit on that. We had one teacher in particular that was probably a little better at it than the others than I remember. I think they had their own agenda. They just followed it. It sort of didn’t matter what you already brought to it. 

Q. Hmm.

A. Um I generally there was, there was a blind girl who was a year older than me. We generally had our classes together. And we were pretty similar in our approach to things so it worked fairly well. We were both pretty outgoing and pretty undaunted by the world so that worked fairly well. 

Q. How do you get to and from work?

A. I ride in a car (laugh). I am incorrigible. I take the metro whenever she’s sick or on vacation or whenever the mood strikes me. I mean I take, we take, we live a block from the metro station

Q. Uh huh.

A. so my husband takes the metro every day to work and you know we take it whenever we’re going to go anywhere. I mean I probably ride it a couple times a week. Because we might go downtown to dinner, shopping or something. We’ll go downtown shopping rather than go out further into the suburbs which is what most other people do. So, we take the metro. Our, the D.C. metro is wonderful. It’s really, really neat.

Q. So the car pool how did you set that up?

A. Oh something a colleague at work who lives a couple blocks from me. I’ve been riding with her for 17 years (laugh). 

Q. In the carpool how many people?

A. One it’s a carpool with one driver 

Q. and one passenger.

A. Right, I pay. She drives. 

Q. OK, so is it, you pay for the gas or?

A. Oh yeah. I don’t know what I’m paying for. I pay seventy dollars a month. I have no idea how much I pay

Q. Did you initially know her as a friend? 

A. No.

Q. or did you start it up as a carpool?

A. No, it started up she said, “you know I live right near you”. I rode the bus for like a month and cause where I work is not anywhere near a metro station. It’s actually a really bad neighborhood and the bus was awful I really hated it cause it was a long, absolutely straight road. Totally impossible to tell when to get off it and uh I don’t like buses anyway. And so, uh buses are a lot harder than trains that do nice predictable things. So, she came and asked me. “I live near you”. I said well if I ride I want to pay. How much? 

Q. Cool. Um (pause) 

A. I travel a great deal. I travel several trips a month. I mean I travel for my job. All over the country and well as you know we just came back from New Zealand and Australia.

Q. So tell me about the strategies you’ve developed for airports and all these exotic places that you go to.

A. Well, a lot of it is just getting help from humans, I mean you know I, I it’s we can have just the most wonderful adventures just trying to find the corner bakery or something. 

Q. Yeah.

A. I mean that’s, that’s what’s really fun. My husband and I both like that kind of thing. We like to just strike out on our own and hunt for things and you know it’s, it’s lots of fun. But I mean airports and stuff. It depends on--we’ve gotten Dulles down so well we don’t even need to get help any more. We just go in and we listen for security. We can hear the beeping things and know where, know where to get the shuttle to midfield. Sometimes we have to ask to get the right gate but we go through Dulles alone. But in, in other airports we just get some help.

Q. Would you take your husbands arm or do you walk side by side?

A. He’s a dog user so we walk side-by-side. Actually, he’s a dog user I’m usually behind somewhere (laugh).

Q. Right, he’s fast forward.

A. His current dog though is not too fast and we’re actually able to sort of keep up with each other. 

Q. Well I ask, because I remember you saying he’s a dog guide user and I have talked to other dog guide users who say you’re not supposed to, but sometimes you do. 

A. Oh, yeah we call it double dogging (laugh). And we have done it. I don’t like to do it. We get going way too fast and I hit things. It depends on the dog. How well it works. If you really have a pretty slow pace, actually our current dog right now would probably be the best at doing it, but we just never do. 

Q. So, have you ever been disoriented?

A. Oh yes (laugh) I mean on a regular basis. I mean oh, all the time. 

Q. So what are your strategies for?

A. And, and, and you know we went out and we were in Melbourne for a few days and we traveled. And our friends that we visited in New Zealand are a blind couple also and I work for the library of congress and my husband and I are both into computers and the woman manages the library in New Zealand and her husband manages a computer system. So anyway, we have a lot in common. The four of us went to Australia so we have four blind people all trying to keep up with each other. We went out trooping around the streets and to CD stores and all this stuff and and a couple of times we got really lost and we said, wait now hang on there might be something going on here. We need to stop, just stand still and listen. Gather as much information as you—Oh I’ll tell you a great story. My husband and I were in England, and we went to--he really likes bagpipes. So, we decided to go to this bagpipe museum in Mortense which was about 3 hours north of London. We took the train in the morning, and it all worked fine. We got a taxi and went to the museum. When we were done with that, we went back to the train station. Well, the train station. We hadn’t come through that train station because we had gotten off in New Castle and taken a cab straight from there. So, we hadn’t been to this train station. So, we, the cab drops us off and we walk through a little door in a wall. And when we get on the other side of the little door in the wall, we’re in sort of some graveily area. And I said hang on Doug, cause you know these train stations, I had been to England before and he hadn’t. I said, you know there actually the tracks could be right here. Well sure enough they were we walked forward a couple of feet and there were some train tracks. So, we were trying to figure, OK now which way would the train to London be going? We both concluded that it would probably be on the other side of the tracks. On the other side from where we were. There was nobody around. This is 2:00 o’clock in the afternoon. So, you know at first you try to be a little discrete, walk up and down and try to see if there’s a cross walk. I said, maybe there’s an up and over. Well, so that’s the next thing. After a couple of minutes. We realized there’s nobody here. So, we get quite brave. We’re walk up and down and we’re waving our canes wildly in the air and we’re trying to see the thing where you walk up or down the other side and we’re going up and down “have you found anything?” “no, I haven’t found anything”. “What do you think?” Well, we’re doing this for another five minutes or 10 minutes so neither, we didn’t find anyway to get across this. We’re standing there, well what are we going to do. We’re standing there looking all over the place. A couple of times Doug said, “what do you think that noise is down there?” I said, I don’t know. You could hear this noise, 30 or 40 feet down the tracks and just sort of a fan in the distance. We really didn’t know what it was. So, we’re still buzzing around, trooping around the tracks. Pretty soon we hear feet coming, ba, ba, ba. These two guys come running up to us “are you ready to go?” And we said, they said, “what are you doing” we said we’re waiting for the train. He said, “we are the train” (laugh). 

Q. oh my.

A. The conductor and the guy driving the train were sitting on the train, just sitting there waiting till time for the train to go, because this was the end of the line, and they were just sitting there the whole entire time we were doing that. 

Q. Watching. 

A. Watching and they walked us down to the train like 50 feet. We got on (laugh), it was so funny we just couldn’t believe it. 

Q. Did they talk to you about what they were thinking—

A. Nope. No, no. We said oh we thought we needed to go on the other side. They said, “well we wondered what you were doing” (laugh). That’s about all they said. It’s really fun. We talk a lot about help and how you get help and how helpful people are. The UK is so. People’s whole attitude toward help and toward intervention. You know, “what are you doing, you can’t go there.” We took a cruise on the QE2. We think a cruise is a great kind of vacation for blind people cause you can, you know we get off, we troop into Caribbean island and it’s totally bizarre and crazy and real difficult and we do it for an hour and we say we’re sick of this and go back to our cabin. (laugh) You know? 

Q. Yeah.

A. And you sort of take your house 

Q. Neat.

A. with you so it’s real, you know so we’re totally back on familiar ground. We’ve been real successful with that kind of a vacation, just the two of us. But we took the QE2 which is mostly British staff and, and onetime we were walking down the hall and some American said “you can’t go there!” and then Doug contrasted it, he said you know “on another day if an English guy comes up he says it’s a bit dicey there be careful.” I mean that’s the total difference in attitudes. An American will tell you, you can’t do it, or stop. or “What are you doing?” Or “where are you trying to go?” I love that. 

Q. Laugh.

A. Like what are you gonna, how much do you want to know about this? (laugh). And yet in the UK they just don’t, you know, they don’t approach it that way. 

Q. Maybe even a little more helpful information, like it’s a bit dicey. 

A. Yeah. OK fine great, I’m great.

Q. Could that be underplaying it too?

A. Sometimes they just deliver information and just carry on in the way they were going and it’s really neat. I really I like that. 

Q. A little more respect?

A. And it’s quite fun for us, because it doesn’t take anything away. 

Q. Have you ever been—like in airports. I’ve heard tell some American Airports wanting to put you in a wheelchair, wanting to put people in special rooms.

A. Oh it happens all the time. I haven’t been, they haven’t wanted to put me in a special room in years. I think it’s probably because they don’t have them as much any more. They’re using them now for their first-class passengers and stuff. But they, I mean just, just, just on our way home from, from New Zealand on Monday in, in Los Angeles they, they you know they met us at the gate with wheelchairs. 

Q. Had you requested any kind of assistance?

A. No. They do it anyway you don’t, you don’t have to, I mean they’ll, they’ll, they’ll, they’ll put it in the record. We would never say we don’t want assistance leave us, leave it alone. But we you know just—and actually these days the airline personnel are generally so good about saying, oh no, no they don’t need a wheelchair. They just need someone to walk with them. 

Q. Uh huh.

A. I mean it’s—I it’s never been an issue. Certainly they, they come up with wheelchairs and that happens often, but, but you know declining the wheelchair has never been a problem. I, I had it one time in Paris they told me if I wouldn’t ride with them in a wheelchair they wouldn’t go with me. I said fine then go away. 

Q. Right.

A. Have it your way I don’t care. 

Q. So it’s not just the United States airports it’s around the whole world.

A. Oh yeah when they came to meet us in Auckland, we were coming back from another trip a few years ago there were four of us, you know 4 blind people. The airline sent four people to walk with us. One for each of us. (laugh) I’ve never seen that in the states.

Q. So maybe you get even more help?

A. I think in general you do. I think in general you get more help outside the states.

Q. Interesting. How do you prepare for these trips to unfamiliar places? Do you have any special kinds of things that you do to organize ahead of time?

A. I’m an information gatherer, so I guess I do, but probably, probably not too differently from what anybody would do. I mean I, I would, I would get a recommendation for a hotel from a. We, we, we have--we knew some people who lived there so they, they a suggested a convenient downtown hotel. Which, which turned out to be very convenient and very great. And so I would position myself very centrally. If I was going to a city with a metro with an underground, I would try to get some information about that. That kind of thing. As far as Melbourne is concerned, we didn’t actually get a lot of information and I, I wanted to walk to a department store and I just go downstairs to the hotel desk. And I say now you know where—you know where’s the department store. She said, “well, well just, you know, go, go out, go over, go out here”.  I said oh hang on. I’m going out this door right here. You know, yes. O.K. now do I—which—I go out that door. Do I turn left? “yes” So I turn left, and you cross the street, now what’s the name of that street?” I try to really get a good map of exactly how to get there and it works real well. I mean people, you can always tell if somebody is just really bad with directions. 

Q. But you can walk them through it and still get the information?

A. Yes, and you have to get them oriented first. Oh, what I really hate it getting out of a car with somebody “now walk straight ahead” Do you mean the direction the car is going or the direction I will be going as I exit the car? 

Q. Right.

A. Nobody can do that. 

Q. Right. That’s a hard one, that’s totally a visual thing (laugh). Don’t you understand (laugh)? Right where I’m looking is straight ahead.

A. So we just ask a lot of questions. I mean its and people, people are really you know usually really happy to help.

Q. Do you take any notes like if it’s going to be? 

A. Well actually this was funny. We went shopping with some friends in New Zealand, some sighted friends and their whole approach to finding things just drove me up the wall. I said no, the way I do it I sit down I call on the phone. I find out the address of where I’m going. I talk to them. I say do you have, you know roughly what I’m looking for. Then I go out and I go there. I yes, we use the phone a lot first to get information. 

Q. But, like would you take a braille note on that?

A. Yes, I’d write down the address and stuff. I carry a braille slate and a notebook. 

Q. Uh huh.

A. My friend had a braille lite and she was actually writing down more information. We wanted to buy a lot of C.Ds. So, I read her the list, I had my computer, so I didn’t carry my computer with us shopping she wrote down all of our stuff on her braille lite so.

Q. How do you establish your position in the environment?

A. What do you mean?

Q. How do you know where you are? What sorts of things do you use?

A. In terms of outdoors like on the streets?

Q. Yes.

A. Stand still and listen, and you know where is the traffic more, where is the traffic less how far away does traffic sound like it is? Where is the air coming from? I use air currents for a lot of things.

Q. Like wind?

A. Yes, well um temperature too. 

Q. Uh huh.

A. Uh, you know you’re getting near an exit when the, when the temperature changes or the, the you can just feel the sort of ambient air you know moving when you’re near a door. 

Q. Uh huh.

A. Something like that. Texture under your feet. Oh we were—our, our friends lived on a—we walked back and forth to the, to the--up their road there’s a bakery on the corner which we really enjoyed so we—finding their house was a little tricky coming back because there were lots of little indents and divots. Anyway, there was a tiny little dip in the sidewalk, and you know we got to just—and I kept saying—Doug kept saying, no-not. You know I’d say here it is, and he said, no, not, not yet. And I’d always remember the dip as not quite as dippy as it actually really is. So, I was sort of imagining that I was there first. Then when I really find it oh yeah here it is. 

Q. The subtle differences in the dip in the sidewalk.

A. Oh yeah, and really quite subtle, I mean we’re talking about a really little dip. 

Q. Neat. Have you do you use maps?

A. I’d love to, if there were any to use. 

Q. Yeah.

A. Uh, we have a tactile image enhancer, and we have atlas speaks. You know Atlas Speaks?

Q. Yeah.

A. We’ve had a great time playing with that. Atlas speaks actually has been useful for us in a way that we never imagined when we got it. We had a, we have a friend in Sweden whose son lived with us on weekends for a year. He was an opaire, but his family didn’t want him on the weekends, they only wanted him during the week so he stayed with us on the weekends. For an entire year we had this 23-year-old kid who didn’t have anything better to do but drive around which was great, great fun for us. 

Q. Alright!

A. So, we went all over the place this was back in 95 or 96. But anyway--we had atlas speaks and whenever we wanted to go anywhere, we knew where it was, but he was not as good at understanding verbal directions. We’d show him on atlas speaks. We’d just walk through the whole thing. OK here we go, now we’re going to go here, we’re going to turn right here, blah, blah, blah. We’d just walk through on Atlas speaks. Once we saw how to go he was perfect. We could do it every time. 

Q. So there’s a visual and an auditory display?

A. Yeah and that’s been mostly, we’ve used it for showing sighted people how to go places.

Q. That’s really neat.

A. Because I mean a sighted person would do that. They’d get out a map 

Q. Yeah.

A. and they’d trace their route. We can never show them how to do it. But we can do it with Atlas speaks it’s really fun.

Q. Atlas speaks. That’s a neat one. And the tactile image enhancer?

A. Yeah, we’ve played around with printing things out of Atlas speaks and making tactile images, but that has not been very useful because the, you just can’t get enough at anyone time to really help. 

Q. The maps are too small of an area?

A. Yeah, yep. If you make it too big, it’s just too cluttery to make any sense.

Q. Ah.

A. And I love tactile maps. I find them very useful. But there’s just so, so few of them and usually if they’re tactually meaningful there’s not a lot of detail. 

Q. Yeah. What one thing that happens frequently when you’re traveling that you like the least?

A. People grabbing my cane. 

Q. Ah. 

A. I just let it go. 

Q. Do you?

A. Yeah. They’re standing with it in their hand, and they don’t know what to do (laugh). 

Q. Has anybody ever walked away with it?

A. No. (laugh). It’s a risk. But I just hate it. 

Q. Yeah.

A. Or people you know grabbing me by both shoulders. Or people grabbing me in general. But particularly grabbing me with both hands you know by both shoulders. I just stop, hang on here a minute we gotta, we gotta do something about this. We cannot proceed this way. 

Q. Which I just saw that this morning. I mean here’s a guy he’s on a subway, he boarded—I mean there’s nothing—he did nothing out of the ordinary. The only thing is he had a cane in his hand and he’s exiting and he’s headed right towards the turnstile. So, I mean it’s obviously—he slowed down and I think he had some vision and it was maybe adjusting. Behind comes a guy, puts his hands on his shoulders and says you know do you need some hel—

A. I just stop still when that happens. I just don’t walk. I just absolutely stand still, and I say you know please let go. Or..

(end side two, tape one)

Q. What do you want sighted pedestrians to do when they want to help?

A. “Do you need some help?” That would be—that’s ok. Ask, ask a question. I, I, I talk a lot to groups and stuff. And you know this often comes up. And you know I say, first of all look at the situation, does this person look like they need help? You know. Very often you know, I’m stopped, I’m standing still. I have my head sort of you know listening. I look quizzical. You know I’m very good at looking quizzical when I want help. I, I, I purposely look quizzical so that maybe someone will come along and say, “do you need help?” and that’s--I mean often I do. I’m very happy to have help, but you know look at this person, do they need do they look like they need help? If they do, say you know “excuse me, may I be of some help?” You know. That would be nice.

Q. Yeah.

A. You know. Ask a question. Whatever you—I tell people all the time, whenever you approach a blind person, put it in the form of a question. Unless you have information to deliver that must  be delivered in a hurry. When I’m walking along and people yell “STOP!” You know I stop on a dime. Then we discuss, why am I stopping. (laugh).

Q. This better be good (laugh).

A. Right, oh it happens all the time. 

Q. People calling out to you?

A. They just yell stop. And then you know for no apparent reason they just think you oughten to be walking down the street or something. I had a serious accident a few years ago. I fell down an open manhole and was really very seriously injured. And, and it was sort of interesting because uh it was open. I mean it was. It was. There were no barricades and I walked up to it and knew that it was there. You know, knew that it was a drop off, because I felt it with my cane. And I put my cane down and it encountered something. I thought it was a driveway. And I stepped down and swept out with my cane. Simultaneously as I believe I was taught to do. Well, when I stepped down I, I stepped down on the top rung of a ladder that went down the side of this manhole. They called this thing an electric vault. It was 36 inches in diameter. And I started to f—my foot slipped off the ladder and started going down bing, bing, bing down the ladder. Anyway, started falling freely and fell all the way down twenty-four--a little over 24 feet. And I was really nervous about traveling after that.

Q. Yeah.

A. It was about 7 weeks before I, I could, could travel, or walk or do anything.

Q. Did you break your leg?

A. I broke my leg, I shattered five inches of my upper arm. It was--my upper arm was the worst injured thing. They had to remove bone from my hip and put it in my arm with pins and stuff. And it was, it was I believe it was one of those accidents that you know just happened. It was, it was virtually unavoidable.  I, I, I can’t even say, and I supposed I feel better about this, but I can’t say, you know, gee I wasn’t quite paying attention, or I would have done it differently. I wouldn’t have done anything differently. 

Q. Right.

A. I, I, I, I truly believed that I behaved in a normal way. It just happened. 

Q. An inch this way or that way and the cane may have missed that step.

A. Yes. Exactly. Yep. It was just you know (laugh) that’s how it was. I remember thinking, I can remember as I was falling. I remember thinking, just relax you won’t get hurt, just relax and you won’t get hurt and all the way. And

Q. All the way down.

A. I, I don’t remember having any kind of you know fear. (breathes in) you know totally tensing up. I just remember saying to myself as I was falling, and I realized I was falling far. I thought oh, damn, I am going to get hurt. This is really inconvenient (laugh).

Q. Man, that’s far when you’ve got time to think in full sentences. 

A. Oh yeah. 

Q. Oh my gosh!

A. I kept thinking, man I’m really going to get hurt, then I kept thinking, just relax you won’t get hurt.

Q. Oh.

A. Just relax you won’t get hurt. And, and, and I think I did. I mean I, I, I really was very pleased about that. Because I think, I think it actually I could have been even quite a lot more injured than I was. I remember the first you know the first few weeks that I was traveling again after that happened. I mean every time I would step on a crack I would go (catches breath). 

Q. Yeah. I bet.

A. You know, but I got over it.

Q. Just had to what get back on the horse, I guess.

A. Yeah, exactly, exactly. But it was—

Q. So was this an example of when it would have been good for someone to say stop?

A. Yeah, right. 

Q. and they didn’t?

A. Yeah, and it was a crowded, crowded, busy Washington D.C. street at lunch time. 

Q. Is that right?

A. I mean there had to be people around.

Q. Because it’s interesting when you were telling me the story, I was picturing a deserted place.

A. Nope, nope.

Q. And there’s all these people around that could have—

A. One of the streets borders the Department of Agriculture at one o’clock in the afternoon. 

Q. mm.

A. I mean, my husband and I were walking together, and you know he was, we were, we were chatting actually. He had said something, and I said something and then he, he, he says he asked me a question and then I never answered him. (laugh) He was trying to figure out why I wasn’t answering him. 

Q. Oh wow.

A. And uh It was kind of fun, because we were we he was, he was like “where, where did she go?”

Q. Right!

A. And he was wandering you know back and forth with his dog trying to figure out where I am. This man comes up—

Q. Which is dangerous.

A. Yeah, right.

Q. Of course the dog would probably take him around it.

A. Well the dog did. But this man walked up to him and said, you know “can I help you?” and Doug says, “well I’m looking for my wife, but she’s not here!” He says, “well I don’t see anybody” and, and he says, later in one of our hearings the guy said “well I saw this blind man and his dog was dragging him towards this open hole and I couldn’t figure out why.” And so the guy said “well here, hang on a minute, let me see if she’s, you know th-there’s this, there’s this ho--here”. And the guy went and looked down the hole and saw me there and he told Doug, he says “there’s an open hole” and he says “oh, my god she’s down there” And then he didn’t do anything. And Doug says later they asked him “well, what did you do?”; “well, I didn’t do anything, she looked dead” (laugh).

Q. Oh my god!

A. I (laugh) couldn’t believe it. 

Q. When he didn’t do anything you mean, did he just like go—ok she’s there?

A. Well I mean he didn’t go for help. I mean he didn’t do anything very quickly apparently. I was unconscious, I had no clue what was going on.

Q. Wow.

A. But anyway it was quite a, quite an event.

Q. Well I’m glad you’re here to tell the tale. 

A. (laugh) so am I. 

Q. That’s for sure. 

A. So, you know when you say have you ever been injured—err--

 Q. That’s one of the questions and I just was thinking well I got that one answered. We won’t have to ask that. 

A. That’s the only, that’s the only serious, I mean as I’ve said you know there were 800 million cuts and bruises, but the only broken bone.

Q. So you were well prepared for the.

A. Oh yeah, I think teaching people to fall, teaching them to relax. Teaching them to, to you know not react when they get hurt is a really, really-- 

Q. But in some way, I keep thinking, well what if you had stuck your arms out like a parachute and tried to catch the sides?

A. I probably would have gotten hurt. 

Q. Yeah.

A. Because at that rate of speed, you’d just, you’d just flip.

Q. Right. 

A. You know I think, I really do, I think. My cane broke in 3 pieces. I have no idea how that happened.

Q. Right.

A. you know?

Q. Oh, mmm, well thank you for sharing that.

A. (laugh).

Q. I mean I’ll have the willies for the rest of the week now, oh my.

A. It was an interesting experience.

Q  how do you handle being lost or disoriented?

A. I first try to just gather information, as best I can from listening, and try to gather whatever information I can. I might try to retrace my steps. I--not thinking of any specific example, but just, you know,  in general my sense is that that doesn’t work very well. Usually, you’ve gotten lost you’ve gotten lost for a reason. Because you, you know either didn’t have correct information to begin with or didn’t have or did something wrong or whatever uh and try and find somebody to ask for help. 

Q. uh hm.

A. Um. (laugh) I can remember when I was in college I went out with this guy one night and we’d gone to this beach and I forget what happened, I mean it was just a date. We drove back to, and we stopped near the driveway anyway we’d gotten into a fight about something. And I said, well I’m going home. So, I lived talk about using things for, he, he had, I lived in a house with a bunch of other, other students. I lived off campus and he lived in a dorm. And he had borrowed a tent from one of my roommates. A little, a fold up tent. It was in a very long, thin box and that’s all I had to go home with was a foolish tent in my hands. (laugh) 

Q. Oh my.

A. I started to walk home, and I don’t know whether I didn’t know how to do it or what but anyway. I got so lost. And I just, I mean it was I probably set out to walk home at about 12:30 in the morning and if I had done it all right it should have taken me maybe 10 minutes. Well, I went up one street and down another and up one street and down another. I was carrying part of a bottle of wine which at one point I sat down and finished (laugh). 

Q. (laugh)

A. And came walking along with this stupid tent which I was going to leave also. I was just, I couldn’t figure out where I was. And I guess there was no, nothing. I, I had no landmarks and no basis for anything. I just didn’t . I mean they were just streets. The streets were just like other streets. And I probably walked for oh I think I got home after four in the morning. And finally, I heard a busy street in the distance. And I went to the, I finally found the busy street. And then I was able to figure out where I was and I, I went home. And I got home and ohh my roommates --- my, I, I lived in house with 8 people and 6 of them were guys. And they were all up and furious. They had already called him (laugh). Oh, my husband and I got lost one time, we decided to walk to a nearby, to a, to a donut store. And we decided to do this at 2 in the morning. 

Q. (silent laugh)

A. And, I mean, we knew the way.

Q. Yeah.

A. It was near the way home. We forgot one important thing. At two in the morning there’s not that much traffic. And the streets just all sounded very different. I-we made it—to this day we have no idea exactly what we did, but again we were sort of up one street and down the other. We were only lost for about an hour and finally we found somebody to ask and we say, “what street is this?” They told us where we were, and we were like a ½ a block from the donut store (laugh). When we found ourselves, we bought our donuts and came straight home (light laugh). 

Q. It sounds like you have a lot of fun.

A. Yeah, well you can get in your own neighborhood if the circumstances change you know from what you’re used to.

Q. The time of day…

A. The time of day or it might be really raining hard or something like, I mean anything like that that just changes the whole ambiance. 

Q. What other kinds of things do you use as landmarks? You mention the traffic a lot.

A. Yeah, I guess the density of the traffic, it has the textures, and just buildings. I mean anything and everything that just happens to present itself. Smells. 

Q. Do you belong to any professional or consumer organizations?

A. I don’t. I attend the consumer organizations’ conventions for my boss so I’m very familiar with them. (Hang on a second, let me see who that is, hold on)

Q. So do you attend?

A. I attend the consumer conventions of the consumer organizations. But, but so I’m very familiar with them.

Q. Like ACB?

A. ACB, NFB both. But I’m not a member of either one. 

Q. And you’re on the AER listserv?

A. No, I’m not. 

Q. How did I get a hold of you? 

A. I think it was David Goldstein?

Q. Oh that’s right, that’s right

A. Yeah, he sent, he sent me an email saying

Q. I guess I’ve been corresponding with a bunch of people (laugh) I’m sorry.

A. No, I think, I think that’s what it was.

Q. Right, right. How would you compare and contrast the ACB and NFB. 

A. Oh I really, I really don’t want to comment on that.

Q. OK.

A. They’re different. Ask them.

Q. Would you comment on like anything between NFB and AER?

A. No

Q. Nope. OK. Um How did ADA impact you? There’s another…

 A. I think it has. Certainly, two things there’s a lot more braille signage. Which, which is really neat. And I, I, I there’ve been a number of occasions when I have used the braille signage. I mean elevators are nice. But, you know, they sort of go up and down and it’s not that difficult. But Braille, you know, room numbers, like office buildings like when you’re looking for a doctor’s office or something one of these big downtown buildings. I mean there can often be nobody around. And they’re very helpful. So, I find, I find the larger frequency of braille numbering to be, to be great. And I think it’s just increased awareness. I, I really believe that that over the years that people in general have become more helpful and more appropriately helpful than, than they used to be. I think they’ve just seen more blind people out there. They’re just, they’re just more focused on it. 

Q. Neat. Neat. Um you know I, I I’m just inquisitive--is it a touchy issue? Is it, is it are we splintered?

A. What’s that?

Q. too much with the NFB, the ACB ?

A. Oh, no, no, it’s not.

Q. Is it just a moot point? That you don’t--

A. It’s just, it’s just, --mean it’s just political stuff and I don’t, I don’t—

Q. Political.

A. I’m not interested in that. I mean I don’t. I maintain a, a, an objective, and friendly, and cordial, relationship with both organizations because of my job.

Q. Uh huh.

A. and I don’t know. It’s not--since I’m not a member of either one it’s not, it’s their own positions on things has nothing to do with me. 

Q. I often just wonder aloud to people is why can’t we just all get along.

A. Well, yeah. I mean.

Q. Does that seem somewhere in the future where that might be coming to?

A. I don’t know. I really don’t want to get into it.

Q.  Well, what do you attribute to your present level of mobility?

A. (laugh) Ohh foolishness (laugh). 

Q. Foolish?

A. I don’t know just probably a lot of, a lot of childhood experiences. And just getting out there and doing it and, and being active and being, being physically active. I mean I think, I think that’s you know it’s like everything else. The more you do, the more you can do.

Q. Yeah.

A. and I think being uhm the moving, being comfortable moving is, is, is really, really helpful.

Q. Would you get more mobility instruction?

A. No.

Q. Um what do you think of blind mobility instructors?

A. I, I, I’m very good though at, at teaching the people around me how to tell me what I want to know. 

Q. Oh. Yes.

A. So I mean that, in, in one sense that’s mobility instruction. Because I certainly will ask my friends and colleagues for, for detailed descriptions if I’m going to go somewhere and I’ve never been and I know they know and I know they’re, you know, they’re good at giving information. That happens all the time, but I don’t, no, I mean you know from a, from a, from a formal mobility person. I wouldn’t. I—I mean. Don’t take this wrong, but I don’t think there’s anything they can teach me at this point. 

Q. That’s exactly the kind of thing I love to hear (laugh).

A. I don’t think there is.

Q. Absolutely.

A. I can get information about, about a route or something from, from, from my friends and colleagues. I, I don’t, I don’t need an instructor for that. 

Q. Right. And friends and colleagues what is it about what they say that makes them good at it? What?

A. Well, some people are better at it than others just generally. Because they’re, you know you start at a fixed location, you actually pay attention to the, to you know to all your turns and stuff rather than just the significant ones and things like that. I mean, you know, people who are, who pay attention to details and, and know how to, to describe things. Including everything. I mean, y-you know--I’ve, we’ve all gotten directions from people who just leave out totally, you know, important things (laugh).

Q. Right.

A. You know. “Well go down and cross two streets.” Well, I crossed five. “Oh well though some of them were little” Well, you know like you know jeez. I’m not asking you again. And, and we keep track of you know who’s good at it and. 

Q. If you’re going to like a brand new place new store, new something. Is that, who you would, then you would go to one of your friends or is that… 

A. It would depend on the kind of place. I mean there’d probably a new store I wouldn’t, because there isn’t really much, they can tell you that, that you can use. Um, if I was going (pause) I gave my husband a gift certificate for one hour of a massage for Christmas. The massage place is a place we’ve never been to. The friend of mine, who recommended this place, you know, I called her today. And I said, now which entrance did you go in? It’s on the second floor when you come out of the elevator you take a left. I mean I got detailed directions for how to go to the place. So, that kind of thing sure. I would, I would ask somebody if somebody knew in, in, in a way that I wanted to know. 

Q. Is there a preference than, since you know she’s able to do it, to ask her than to call the place? Or not really.

A. I would not do, I would tend not to do that. If I called the place I might say. I’d, I’d get a lot more general information. I’d say, you know, what is your suite number, you’re on the second floor OK? You know, are you nearest the ninth street entrance? I mean I might say something like that, but I wouldn’t, you know, like which way do I go when I get out of the elevator, I would never ask them that. 

Q. Just it’s something more..

A. It introduces so much complexity into the conversation it’s just not worth it (light laugh). 

Q. Ahhh, uhm OK and what do you think of blind mobility instructors? 

A. I think that blind mobility instructors have a lot to offer, 

Q. Yeah.

A. and I think that, that blind there’s, there’s, there’s certainly a, a role for blind mobility instructors in, in a lot of things. I mean, I think that, that it’s very helpful to blind people to hear from other blind people how they do stuff. There’s, there’s a lot of stuff that happens that I don’t know if sighted mobility instructor can, can truly communicate (light laugh). Um… I think

Q. Do you have any examples of that?

A. Well I don’t know I mean I assume you’re sighted. 

Q. Yeah, I am. 

A. And. And you know I mean I, I, I think if you, if you say to somebody you know you’re probably going to get hurt a lot, and, and you know, what you want to do is try to get comfortable with that. I think, they’d think you’re ridiculous. 

Q. Yeah.

A. And, and yet, as a blind person, I think a blind person can say that.

Q. Interesting.

A. And without, you know, it’s an absurd statement coming from a sighted person. 

Q. Sure.

A. A sighted person wouldn’t say it, because it’s not even—I mean you could say, well blind people have told me this or that or something, but they, you know there’s a level of credibility. 

Q. Absolutely.

A. But on the other hand, I mean I, I definitely support blind people being mobility instructors. I think though that there are times when, when the safety of the client is an issue and probably it, is not an ideal situation for a blind person to be doing you know heavy traffic work and stuff like that. 

Q. Um or at least that’s a consideration. I mean I’m training a guy right now, who is totally blind. And um the consideration is what sorts of people, if they’re your clients. Do you, what do you do to ensure that we’re in a situation that they’re able to do it.

A. Well you have to, I mean even a sighted mobility instructor, you have to make sure your client is safe. 

Q. Right.

A. And you have t--, you have to know is this person good enough to be able to, you know, to be able to do this thing. And, and even as a blind mobility instructor. I mean I think you know the blind person has to say can, I be aware enough of what’s going on and be aware enough of where this person is and so forth. And you know, they’re, they’re in training for a reason so they’re not all that good yet. So that has to be factored in too. 

Q. Right. 

A. You know.

Q. Oh that’s very interesting and I think that your perspective is very fresh, and I really appreciate you sharing that with me. Um. I’d like to see. I think that there’s a huge need for more mobility instructors and the way I’ve been coming at this the more people I’ve been talking to I’ve been learning about um sort of the shame of— and uh if you don’t want me to talk about it (laugh) then I will shut up. But that I feel that AER really kicked itself hard in the fanny when it made that arbitrary ruling about vision. 

A. I think it was unfortunate too. I mean I, I, I, I agree.

Q. And now we’re, we’re, we’re trying to find, find our way back to it. 

A. Well, I can’t figure out why it has to be an either or. 

Q. Exactly, I mean why did they do that?

A. There needs to, there needs to be room for things being done in a reasonable manner. Well, I think they did it because they, they perceive themselves as a, you know a standard setting body. 

Q. But see the original people who were already teaching it. 

A. Yeah I know.

Q. Were the people who were visually impaired. 

A. I know. 

Q. The original rehab teachers, 

A. I know.

Q. the original mobility instructors,

A. Yeah.

Q.  were people that you know and it just and then they come around and say I support, you know wanting to keep my job at the university, I want to have a profession. I want to have it where you get educated in that way. But I don’t, I don’t and I still don’t understand and I talk to a lot of people in the field and they’re like “well you know we had these meetings” it’s very hard to get it out of people to say how angry they were. 

A. But also I think its important for the mobility profession to maintain a notion that what they’re about is really, really quite complicated and quite difficult and quite you know a real science here. And I think it’s rubbish. I can teach somebody everything they ever needed to know about mobility in about 10 minutes. (laugh).

Q. (laugh)

A. I, I really. I mean. I, I, I respect the effort, but I think a lot of it is just um, you know, good old parenting and everything else. I mean its confidence building and its I mean the, the, the skills are pretty straight forward (laugh). 

Q. What, what, what are you going to give me for 10 minutes? Tell me.

A. Oh--(Laugh)

Q. I need to know, (laugh) I don’t want to walk away without hearing this. 

A. I don’t know I’m just saying that, you know that the, the, the---

Q. Here’s the cane and—

A. The things that sighted people do wrong are, you know, just is start from a fixed point and, and, and pay attention to where you’re facing. I mean those kinds of things and you know and every movement counts. Every turn in the road. Every I mean you know, every undulation. Or whatever, I, I think that after that it’s pretty straight forward.

Q. So, now what are you saying, that that’s wrong or that is right?

A. That is right.

Q. Right. Paying attention to your body. Space.

A. Oh, yeah, pay attention to everything there is to pay attention to. And here, here’s a possible list and you know (laugh). 

Q. OK.

A. Figure it out.

Q. And Here’s a cane,

A. Yeah right.

Q. and move that.

A. Move that, yeah, you know. 

Q. And then everything else is experience.

A. Pretty much.

Q. Because you learn by doing.

A. I, I, I, I do think that there’s a, that there is, there seems to be a tendency in the profession for wanting to make it seem much more complicated than it is. 

Q. It’s, it’s also, I think something you mentioned earlier, which is what happened to you which is we’re going to give you this cane once a week—

A. Oh yeah.

Q. For an hour, but we really don’t want you going anywhere with it.

A. Well they do that with kids. I mean they do that with kids in those days. Now, now, now a days they have kid canes, but we didn’t’ have kid canes then. 

Q. So was your cane too long for you?

A. Oh that’s a good question. You know I think, I think. Oh no they cut them. They actually our teachers actually cut them themselves. 

Q. Interesting.

A. Cause I remember that that was sort of a real ceremonial moment. When they actually cut a cane that was an appropriate length for me. 

Q. before that you’d been using one that was too long?

A. I, I that was when I got one. Like you know, “today you’re going to get a cane, but you’re not going to get to keep it” (laugh). Thanks a lot guys.

Q. But I mean it’s still, that’s what I hear a lot is there’s still somehow this underlying thing of 

A. But I mean have you interviewed people who are 25?

Q. Yeah, 18.

A. What happened to them when they were kids?

Q. What happened when they were kids is still very much this lack of number of people out there doing and still it’s very patchy and there’s still very similar stories of, I’m restricted to where I am and going with people and this is normal. This is what everybody does, no I didn’t go to the store, but nobody does at that age. But you know that’s not true in my case, I went everywhere on the bus. As a sighted child.

A. How old.

Q. From a very young age. Because I went—I mean I had crazy parents too. I went to elementary school three buses away from my home. Because it was a really cool school.

A. Oh yeah, well.

Q. But they didn’t go with me after the first couple of times.

A. Well, I think, I think kids in cities though do a lot more younger actually. 

Q. But this is these are kids in cities.

A. Than kids in countries, in the country do. Because you know its.

Q. well, I mean the point, the point I mean you’re right. Hopefully things are progressing and that’s what we want to move to is to get away from this antiquated idea that blind people should not go places by themselves.

A. Right. The hard part, though, I think. I think blind kids are, are totally capable of, of the actual going. What I see as a harder part for a kid is, is the, the total randomness of the possible interaction that you’re likely to have. I mean I guess if you live in a neighborhood and you know the guy that runs the corner store and you know he knows you and you, you know he’s the one that you talk to when you go there. You know, that’s probably OK, but, but these days you can do the simplest thing and run into the weirdest people who and, and or run into and, and I don’t know I mean sometimes you have—even as an adult it’s very, very hard to you know get what you went for. We, we, we live 3 blocks from a major shopping mall. There is a drug store in that shopping mall and, I have, I, I, go there. And I’ll tell you I put it off as long as I possibly can until I absolutely need stuff and must go. 

Q. Why?

A. Because it’s just so bloody hard. I, you know, you go there, try to find somebody to get help from, try to find somebody who speaks English. Try to find somebody who can read. Try to find somebody who. I mean it’s, it’s--

Q. Sure because you need specific items—

A. It’s, it’s a major and I think, I think it’s that aspect of going to the store that’s hard for kids.

Q. Interesting.

A. It’s hard to do that kind of “hello I’m a, I’m a blind person and I’m looking for item X” And I, you know, even if it’s a chocolate bar its hard. 

Q. Yeah.

A. It’s hard to put yourself out there and make that statement about who you are and what it is you want. And then to finesse the situation in such a way so that you actually get it. And that’s what kids can’t do. 

Q. Right.

A. And that’s, and I don’t see anybody putting any effort in teaching them that. 

Q. Well with the restrictions now, I hear more and more is. I try to do in-services, workshops trying to get people to understand the importance of mobility in the schools and why they need. Why they need, the T— why the teachers of the Visually Impaired need mobility instructors, need to send these kids to them. And they’re like well they won’t let  them go off school grounds. They won’t let you teach them all that. It’s like what do you mean? And they’re like  “Well you can teach them in and around the school, but they’re not going to let you go” . I said--

A. We went everywhere. We went in the cars.

Q. I took my students everywhere. I mean I had a blast.

A. We did that too. We went in cars and-- 

Q. I can’t imagine how you’re supposed to do that?

A. I wonder how you’re supposed to do that. I can, I can--I mean you can see. These you know things are so crazy you can see why it’s an issue.

Q. Yeah.

A. It’s, it’s, it’s liability and all this nonsense. I mean nobody worried about that stuff 30 years ago. It’s a, but it’s a big issue. 

Q. Yeah.

A. I mean, but nobody probably put there kid in a greyhound bus to go off to school when they were five either and I’m not sure they should.

Q. No!  I mean. There are limits. 

A. Exactly there are limits.

Q. I mean. I was, I mean, you know I was in, in what--elementary school. I was in fourth grade.  And these people you know guys, you’d be waiting at the bus stop and weird guys in cars would offer you rides, and you’d be have to know have sense enough to say no. 

A. Yeah, that’s true.

Q. And that was just.

A. You can’t, you can’t protect these kids from everything, because they won’t have any sense. 

Q. Right.

A. You’re right I mean. I think fourth grade is totally old enough to you know, know and understand you don’t talk to strangers or ride in cars with strangers and all those kinds of issues. 

Q. Right. Trust your, trust your instincts and I think, you know. Isn’t that a big part of successful travel?

A. But you’ve got to have experiences. You have to have, something has to happen to give you, you know the grist for your mill of instinct 

(end side 1 tape 2) 

A. …can have these kinds of, of, of good sense about stuff.

Q. Yeah, experiences um.

A. and I you know I—

Q. more than once, over and over and over again.

A. But they can’t protect these blind kids from stuff happening to them.

Q. No. no.

A. Because that’s, that’s what it’s all about. You know stuff has to happen. And so what if you get hurt. This was, was a great family story in our, when I was growing up, I don’t remember this at all. But, but it was told a 1000 times, but in Florida we had a house with a flat roof and uh there were, there was a pole that was real easy to climb and my brother and I used to climb up and walk around on the roof all the time. And apparently one day my one of my grandparents drove into our yard and they got out of their car very quietly and they crept into the house, and they said “Howard, do you know that your daughter is walking around on the roof?” And my father’s reac—my father’s response was “what are doctors for?” (laugh).

Q. (laugh). 

A. My Grandmother had kittens. I mean she just thought that was terrible. 

Q. That’s great, (laugh) that’s a great one.

A. But you know, so it’s and I, and I, I really like that because I think it’s absolutely true, I, you know I call it natural selection. You know (laugh).

Q. (laugh). Can I quote you?

A. Yeah you can quote me. 

Q. (laugh)That’s good. Well, Judy I tell you this has been terrific. I really do appreciate you’re taking this time out and letting me in on a little bit of your world there. It’s just been great. I’ve enjoyed it. I’ve learned a lot um and uh maybe I’ll run into you one day. 

A. Yeah (laugh) sure, I’m around everywhere. 

Q. Maybe my book will be in your library.

A. Oh good. Yeah, we do produce books like that.

Q. Oh you do? 

A. Uh huh.

Q. Like publish?

A. No we don’t we—

Q. (laugh).

A. produce it in braille and recorded form. If it’s a published book.

Q. OK (laugh).

A. If you publish it, we’ll put it in, in uh braille and recorded form.

Q. Excellent, excellent. Well again, thank you so much.

A. Great. OK.

Q. You’re a lot of fun.

A. Good luck.

Q. Thank you.

A. You’re welcome.

Q. Goodnight.

A. Bye

------ END OF INTERVIEW ----

Interviewed by: Grace Ambrose

Interview date: 1/6/2000

Transcription Sumita

Transcription Date:

Reviewed by: Grace Ambrose

Review date: 7/2000