Growing up Blind Conversations with Dr. G
Host Dr. Grace Ambrose-Zaken, President and CEO Safe Toddles non-profit and inventor of the Pediatric Belt Cane for blind toddlers discusses why her mission is to make walking safer for toddlers with a mobility visual impairment or blindness. Listen to: Interviews with families, professionals, adults who grew up with a mobility visual impairment or blindness, and more. For more information about this blog contact: 845-244-6600, info@safetoddles.org
Growing up Blind Conversations with Dr. G
Mike Jones born 1963 - grew up using echolocation until his first dog guide in his second year of college.
For New Years Eve 2024 I’m bringing you one of my all-time favorite interviews- conducted November 1999, just shy of Y2K- blind travel was not for the faint of heart. Born in 1963 –he didn’t get a full-time mobility tool until his first guide dog in his second year of college. Sit back and relax – this is a good one
Mike’s honesty about the importance of mobility tools in his life is also filled with the push and pull of the lifetime of growing up with the philosophy that it shouldn’t be that hard to walk if you can’t see. Mike explained safe mobility has become to be the first and most important aspect of his life and his sincere wish is that everybody prioritize safe mobility for all blind travelers.
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For New Years Eve 2024 I’m bringing you one of my all-time favorite interviews- conducted November 1999, just shy of Y2K- blind travel was not for the faint of heart. Born in 1963 –he didn’t get a full-time mobility tool until his first guide dog in his second year of college. Sit back and relax – this is a good one
Q. What’s your name?
A. Michael Jones
Q. What’s your date of birth:
A. 1963
Q. Where were you born?
A. Atlanta.
Q. Atlanta, Georgia, OK Where live now?
A. Talladega, Alabama
Q. What do you do for a living?
A. I run an instructional resource center.
Q. Where did you go to College?
A. Auburn University
Q. What’s your highest degree
A. Masters
Q. How long have you had a vision impairment?
A. All my life
Q. What’s the name of it?
A. Blind. (laugh) I’m sorry.
Q. (laugh)
A. I was born with congenital glaucoma and then lost all of it when I was about 12.
Q. So, when did it start to affect your travel?
A. It always affected my travel.
Q. Uh huh.
A. I was not of an age to understand any difference but I was always legally blind. I mean I just had one eye, not only legally blind, but I only had one eye so obviously it affected my travel.
Q. When did you first realize that you were visually impaired?
A. Well in grade school. I always knew I was. There was not a time when I realized. I always knew I was different either I couldn’t see as well as brothers and sisters or family. And then at school it was classmates. So, I always knew.
Q. When did you first learn to travel independent of another person?
A. Uhm…I always traveled independent I think.
Q. Uh huh.
A. I don’t think it was ever a conscious thing.
Q. Um. Were you restricted in any way to where you could go by yourself?
A. Well, what do you mean? Be more specific.
Q. I mean as growing up you say you always were independent, but with a visual impairment I was wondering if that restricted you to any place within your neighborhood or to your backyard?
A. Well, I was restricted more from things than from going.
Q. Uh huh.
A. I lived out in the country and the fields, and the farm and you learned your way around and so none of that was restrictive. I was more restricted to doing things like driving equipment, or shooting, or motorbikes.
Q. So you weren’t allowed to do any of that?
A. Yeah, when I could see I drove the tractor and had my little gun but then when I lost my sight, I couldn’t do any of that. I was limited then, or restricted.
Q. So your-- how far away was the nearest town from where you lived?
A. An hour, well town, no, well a little town just 2 miles.
Q. Would you go in there by yourself? Go to town.
A. No, as a child you wouldn’t do that anyway.
Q. No body did?
A. No. you went with your folks, you went to the store or whatever, but you didn’t go by yourself. You stayed out in the country on your farm.
Q. What’s that like just hanging out on the farm?
A. Well, I thought I couldn’t get away from it fast enough and I did. I go away from it pretty quick and now it’s like I can’t get back to it fast enough. (laugh). It’s a different way of life, peaceful and educational and just real calming kind of place to be.
Q. So, Before you were 12 you used your vision for what?
A. Whatever I could. I could read large print, I could read with a hand magnifier, you know small print. I was just learning really to use my sight just before I lost it. I was remember getting good with a gun figuring out how to sight you know with a gun. Figuring out, kind of where my field of vision. When I think back now that I’ve learned all this stuff about field, I guess I started to figure out scanning techniques. And just figuring out how to use my vision, just before I lost it. I was really getting along better with it.
Q. How did you stay oriented on your farm, between buildings or in the field.
A. I don’t want to fool you now, I could see. I could see from house to house. I could see my grandmother’s house the next whatever. I could see. Just I could see.
Q. Right.
A. I could see the driveways and I could see the highways and I could see the grass. I cut grass so. Although I kind of got restricted when I cut down a lot of little trees. My mother wanted to plant a lot of new trees.
Q. Was that an accident?
A. Well I couldn’t see them, they were little stick trees.
Q. You walked over them, or you ran over them?
A. No, riding mower you know.
Q. Uh huh.
A. If I was headed into the sun well heck, I couldn’t see anything. I could look down and see the grass, but I couldn’t see those little sapling trees. She got mad about that because it ended up costing her money.
Q. And so –
A. Which is kind of funny, you know people, and I think back now what would I do, well I’d tell somebody just tie a big dag gum ribbon on the tree. Then you could see it, but nobody ever thought about that stuff back then.
Q. What would you use it for now? So, you wouldn’t mow it over.
A. I don’t have any sight now, the way I mow grass now is with a push mower and I pull it, so I don’t have the same consequence. If it were back then and I could see and I was riding a riding mower I would take me a bright piece of something I could see and tie it around the trees so I could see the tree and go around it. Do you know what we’re talking about when I say a sapling?
A. yeah.
Q. Yeah, OK - I’m not talking about running into a big ole hundred year old oak tree.
Q. So you did do that or you think you should have done?
A. That’s what should have been done. Actually, I remember trying to do that on my own one time using a gas can to sit by our tree then I think I did something stupid like take out the gas can because I cut around the tree and then I forgot and ran over it anyway.
Q. Ooohps.
A. (laugh) but you know I was 9 or 10 trying to figure out stuff and there wasn’t anybody there to figure it out for me.
Q. When you went to school was there any kind of special teacher or anything like that?
A. Nah.
Q. No?
A. Nah, you know the country
Q. Yeah.
A. and that was pre 94-142. I tell a lot of people I didn’t start school until the 5th grade.
Q. Is that when you?
A. Discovered a blind school.
Q. When you went totally blind what happened? You went totally blind so…
A. I went to the blind school when I could still see. I went totally blind in my third year at school for the blind.
Q. I see.
A. yeah, my folks discovered there was a school for the blind after the 4th grade and so I went to the blind school--
Q. What was the name of that?
A. Georgia Academy.
Q. What was it like to go to that school?
A. It sucked.
Q. Yeah.
A. (laugh). I mean in many ways it saved me of course, but residential school for a little kid sucked.
Q. Yeah.
A. No way to sugar coat it.
Q. Uh hmm.
A. But I got some good skills training out of it.
Q. Did you start learning orientation and mobility when you first went there?
A. Yeah, I can remember working on O&M when I was in the 5th grade and I could still see. I assume now looking back on it they were just seeing if I could negotiate with what sight I had. Of course, when I went totally blind, you know, it was full-time then.
Q. After you went totally blind, they gave it to you every day?
A. Yeah, every period - everyday. Although they had this real asinine policy at the school for the blind that you couldn’t carry your cane except in mobility class. (laugh)
Q. What were you supposed to do?
A. (laugh) Just get around, echolocation I guess.
Q. Golly.
A. I swear to god and the funniest thing, I ran into a colleague of mine now who was a teacher back then way back then at the school for the Blind. Once she and I made that connection I said, why in the world did they not let us carry our canes. She said it had something to do with shortage of instructors and liability which is always that liability answer for everything.
Q. Right.
A. Like the catchall when you really ain’t got sense enough to explain your stupid policy.
Q. Right.
A. So that was a weird stupid thing. It was good training though, good mobility instruction.
Q. So, do you remember the method that was used to teach you O&M?
A. Well started out with the stupid self-protective techniques. Which I remember thinking you are out of your mind if you think I’m going to walk around with my arm in front of me and my other in another way.(laugh).
Q. (laugh).
A. I mean they had to force me to do it in class. I thought, no way I’m doing this, I’d rather run into something than walk around looking like a moron. (laugh).
Q. Uh huh.
A. I think that went on for a whole year. A whole year of that garbage. It wasn’t until the next year that I started using a cane.
Q. So there was a year of just traveling without a cane instruction. Did you work on orientation skills too?
A. Yeah, but that stuff came natural for me.
Q. Yeah.
A. That was a piece of cake.
Q. How many years were you in mobility class?
A. seventh grade, eighth grade, ninth grade that was it.
Q. So 3 years, and uh the second year was with the cane, would you go outside at that point?
A. Yeah. Good aggressive instruction, I thought. I guess - residential stuff, a little city stuff and but again we’d show up to mobility class and get your cane out of the corner. (laugh). Then when the 45 minutes was up, stick it back in the corner.
Q. Wow.
A. Hey that stuff still goes on today.
Q. At that same place?
A. No, but I worked for blind school, instructional resource center happens to be at the school for the blind in Alabama. Same thing.
Q. Golly - that’s so hard to believe.
A. Oh y’all are educating them.
Q. Uhm.
A. I’m sorry I just have to get that in there.
Q. I don’t mind being lumped into the problem; I’m also trying to be part of the solution.
A. I know it.
Q. By the last year, the ninth grade what was the highest level most advanced things you were doing in mobility?
A. You could call it downtown travel, but you really shouldn’t call it that because it really wasn’t, you certainly shouldn’t call it city travel. Certainly, had done no bus work, no six lane crossings, no nothing like that.
Q. uh hm.
A. Did you always have a feeling that they were always right there with you, the instructor, or?
A. They always were,
Q. Pretty close
A. There was no feeling about it they were.
Q. They were always very nearby?
A. There was always conversation going on or something like that.
Q. Oh they would walk and talk with you?
A. Yeah, yeah. I mean there were times when they would say, go down two blocks.
Q. Uh huh.
A. so then there wouldn’t be any conversation, but for the most part yeah you know you never were put out on a solo or anything.
Q. Never?
A. No. That may be because I didn’t stay in one program long enough. In the middle of 9th grade, I moved to Alabama, so it may be that Georgia would a-- just didn’t do solos for 8th graders-or.
Q. Right.
A. ninth- you know I just may have missed out on the sequencing or something.
Q. Right. Uh And then when was that the end of your mobility training?
A. yeah that was it
Q. at ninth-
A. Yeah
Q. Because you moved to Alabama
A. Yeah I went to public school after that.
Q. And they didn’t have any training there?
A. No, again it was—well it was after 94-142, but it just uh- it was my folks didn’t know anything about any IEP and didn’t know anything about you could ask for this kind of service, you know. So that was the end of the specialized services?
Q. Did you have the books in braille and other things?
A. No, I didn’t get anything in braille. Now, that I think back on it. It’s kind of neat that I’m in a job where I provide all the books in braille to everybody now.
Q. That is wild.
A. And I just think back and say good lord I wish I would had this had this when I was in school. (laugh)
Q. sure.
A. So I just relied on whatever tapes I could get from RFB. But High School you gotta think back is easy. If you just show up every day and just sit and listen to the teacher’s lecture you’re going to make good grades.
Q. So in high school would you travel by yourself to places?
A. Yeah.
Q. What kind of travel would you do?
A. Echolocation.
Q. Uh huh. Without a cane?
A. Without a cane. Well, you know you have to understand I had not had cane travel role modeled to me. You know. Cane travel had always been something you do in mobility class and that was it.
Q. Wow.
A. In public school there wasn’t any mobility class. (laugh)
Q. And they didn’t give you the cane when you left?
A. No, of course not. The blind school send you home with a cane? (laugh).
Q. Golly. So, did you always go with somebody or did you go by yourself?
A. No- you have to – I.. I always, I have phenomenal sense of spatial awareness, spatial relationships and my body in space and uh using all those sound clues and then my echolocation was extremely developed.
Q. Uh hmm.
A. It’s not anymore because I use mobility tools now, but when you wasn’t using any mobility tools you know that stuff was really developed. I mean I could walk down halls and know you know when they intersect. I could even know when a chair was in front of me.
Q. Interesting.
A. When I look back on it’s very interesting. But uhm – but it was still. I don’t even want you to believe for any stretch of the imagination that that was the appropriate way to travel.
Q. Yeah.
A. I mean because it was extremely energy-taxing.
Q. Yeah.
A. I mean -my energy had to be focused on where I was going and what I was doing and I wasn’t, I was never comfortable unless it was, I was just never comfortable. I was in high school with thousands of kids and even though it was a small high school and a real easy layout. You know what I would consider, the pattern was all easily laid out. And all- you just had to pay attention because you didn’t want to run into anybody and look stupid. But uh that was the picture.
Q. How did you get to and from school?
A. School bus.
Q. And what were your after-school activities?
A. I’d go to the civic center and workout a few days a week or if it was good weather we’d go water skiing when we got home or. Go out with friends, ride around in cars. You know that’s about it. A lot of times just coming home, staying home.
Q. So where you go work out how would you get there?
A. School bus, it was on my route home. It was kind of a regular stop because the civic center, the city community center thing.
Q. Uh huh.
A. I would just get off there. I was in drama; I was in drama club. A lot of my time was spent in drama class after school.
Q. So when did you finally get a cane, what travel tool do you use now? I should ask.
A. (laugh) I use a cane and a dog now. I really didn’t embrace the cane till probably 10 or 11 years ago.
Q. Is that right?
A. Yeah - I even went through the first 2 years of college without a cane. Which was even more asinine.
Q. Mmmh.
A. After high school I went to this, uhm well just no one ever modeled a cane to me. I never saw any blind people using canes and the rehab system in Alabama that I went through --they never said anything about me not using a cane. They said I should, but they could never tell me why I should.
Q. Right.
A. or I never saw anybody using it you know. And uh so uh, I went two years of college without a cane.
Q. How did you learn your classes, how to get to and from?
A. Same way I did in High school.
Q. Which was?
A. Echolocation. And mentally mapping out the area.
Q. Say the very first time you’re going to go someplace.
A. I would have a rehab teacher orient me to my schedule.
Q. Uh huh.
A. And then from that point that was just 3 or 4 classes, whatever my dorm to 3 or 4 classes. But from that point on it was just a lot of listening. A lot of getting lost. and figuring out what I did wrong. A heck of a lot of anxiety.
Q. Yeah.
A. But I did it. But I sure wouldn’t want to do it again. (laugh)
Q. Sort of you would, the first day was with a rehab teacher. They probably took you to class.
A. Yeah, right before the quarter got started.
Q. Before the quarter started and the next semester you got a friend to go with you or?
A. No rehab teacher.
Q. Just get another rehab teacher.
A. Yeah, the same one and then we got to doing it, but after a couple of quarters I had pretty much had learned the campus and knew then we just kind of did it to just get together.
Q. Uh huh.
A. You know Just as a, really just as a how you doing, let’s go do this, kind of thing. I mean not as a necessity.
Q. Did you feel restricted in going out and going places?
A. Yeah, I sure did. I can remember uh- I can remember going hungry you know. because the cafeteria that I knew, it just so happens wasn’t open on the weekends or wasn’t open on Sunday or something. (laugh)
Q. Oh-Golly.
A. And I wasn’t empowered enough to, to a- go. Yeah, I was restricted. I didn’t go off campus unless I went with someone then I went sighted guide.
Q. Uh huh.
A. But I guess I did that enough. But -I don’t know, you know- I think back on it now. I you know went out of town with people all my method of mobility then, outside some limited box in somebody’s house or something was sighted guide.
Q. Uh huh.
A. I think now good lord, what was I thinking?
Q. What happened year three? What turned it around to finally get some mobility? You said the first two years was that way.
A. Yeah, this old guy came through with a dog. It was an actor named Tom Sullivan and uhm. He had a dog, and it looked real cool to me and he came to Auburn on a lecture series and so I went and got a dog between my sophomore and junior year.
Q. Alright then.
A. and um - that…, the dog though, it’s really not the dog. The dog didn’t do it at all.
Q. What do you mean it didn’t do it?
A. Well, it certainly it made me, it took away all my barriers. OK?
Q. Uh huh.
A. You know because all of a sudden I was in the mainstream then, uhm. But it still was an emotional or psychological adjustment to overcome. Because the dog takes away the focus of the blindness and puts it on the dog. So, the dog is acceptable and I still wouldn’t use a cane though.
Q. Uh huh.
A. It took several more years before I got to where comfortable enough to use a cane. I don’t think it was till that point that I really embraced a lot of the tools of mobility. Or became comfortable enough, confident enough being blind that it didn’t make any difference, you know dog or cane it was still my skills and my ability just using the tools and not being ashamed or embarrassed to use them. and I think that’s the big thing. That’s what I see in all these kids in school having to struggle with.
Q. Right. Where do you think all that shame came from?
A. Do what
Q. The shame.
A. …shame? Oh growing up in the rural south. I grew up in a culture that rewarded people based on what they did. The work they did. The chores they did and then the results of your work. Um and being able to accomplish hunting and fishing skills and other skills.
Q. Right.
A. and I never could match up. I could match up verbally and I could match up with my mind and I liked sports and could follow them. I couldn’t compete in them. But you know all that stuff builds up because eventually you, you, you get. You’re the last one chosen for the teams. You’re the—your grandparents don’t—you know always call on your brother or your sister to help them come do a chore, don’t ever call on you. There’s a lot of reinforcements that you’re blind. You’re not equal. You’re not as good.
Q. Right.
A. That’s where it all comes from.
Q. So somewhere along the way if you’re not using a cane, you’re not blind?
A. Oh yeah. As long as you don’t. Yeah that blinded. I mean that cane was designed for only one thing.
Q. Right.
A. Which now I know is a wonderful thing. There’s nothing wrong with being blind. But, back then its, its- you know During. Because of my lack of information. Because of my parents’ lack of information and because of my lack of any models, you know role models or anything that’s the way I developed.
Q. So you use a dog now and a cane.
A. YeaUh huh.
Q. When do you de—
A. Yeah simultaneously.
Q. Is that right?
A. Oh yeah.
Q. How do you do that?
A. I use a telescoping cane. And uh I just used them together, where was I at… what’s today Sunday?
Q. Yeah.
A. Somewhere this weekend I just used them together. Um, I’m on my second dog. I’ve had a dog now for 16 years. It’s going to be my last dog. So, I’m phasing out the dog. I’ve already taken certain categories of my life and said OK you’re not going to show up here again. And That’s grocery shopping, dog doesn’t go again. Won’t go any more.
Q. Why is that?
A. because I’m going to be using the cane. Solely from now on or when she’s ready to retire. You never know when, but she’s over 9 years old. It ain’t going to be too long. So I’ve got to start disciplining myself again with the cane and developing those, a lot of the subtle behaviors you need to develop. So, church and grocery store are two places I’ve phased her out. You know, you’ve got to make a mental, you’ve got to make a conscience effort to do it or you won’t do it.
Q. Why do you want to change over
A. Do what?
Q. Why do you want to change from dog to cane?
A. I guess I’m getting old. Dog’s too much trouble. I mean a dog is OK when you’re young, but in social settings the dog is trouble, nobody wants her in the car. I mean I live in a place where, I mean Alabama is, this Talladega area really people are just so anti dog. And I just have over the last few years gotten a whole lot of negative reinforcement about having the dog.
Q. Oh.
A. I just don’t want it in my life, don’t want the hassle anymore.
Q. Yeah.
A. I mean if I lived somewhere else it wouldn’t be a concern for me. You know just be headed down the road and getting another dog, but I live where I need to take a lot of rides from people. And uhm I don’t know just getting tired.
Q. Yeah.
A. Getting tired of picking up shit. (laugh)
Q. Oh yeah that’s for sure.
A. That dag gum cane is easy and I’m finding out the cane is just as good as a dog.
Q. Yeah.
A. I mean absolutely just as good as a dog.
Q. Sure, sure.
A. But it really is all me, it was all me working the dog and it’s all me working the cane.
Q. So in order to do that you’re phasing out.
A. Yeah, I think that if I don’t, well at work, I pretty much at work have always used the cane. The dog just sleeps in my office. I always have a cane in the corner of my office. I snatch it so 8 hours a day I’m always traveling around the office with a cane. And uhm. Like I said I go to church and back and forth to church with the cane and to the grocery store and um anytime I’ve got to jump in the car and go somewhere to the quick mart or drop off laundry or pick up laundry it’s just with a cane. The only things that I haven’t tackled yet are a-real city travel and airport travel.
Q. Uh hm.
A. and I have a pretty high standard for myself. and I don’t know how I’m going to, I don’t know how I’m going to swallow it. I’ll know in say 6 months without a dog if I—I might be going back (laugh).
Q. Yeah- Cause right now for airports what do you do?
A. Oh, total independence with the dog.
Q. Uh huh.
A. I mean I don’t ask for nothing but gate numbers and directions. No, don’t want your help.
Q. Right.
A. So I don’t. I just can’t do sighted guide. I cannot physically walk with somebody sighted guide.
Q. What do you mean?
A. I just can’t do it. A) I feel I just, I can’t- I hate it, I just hate it. I can’t well I haven’t done sighted guide in so many years the very little time that I’ve even done sighted guide it lasted like 30 seconds or a minute because I can’t it’s just so foreign. It’s not normal, it’s not natural. It just isn’t somewhere I’m going to go. I’m not willing to go there because in my opinion it’s not mobility. I mean it’s not independent travel.
Q. Right.
A. But I do believe the cane can do it fully for me. There’s a few times that you need a little sighted guide like you generally, you know just temporarily, but not any kind of more than five minutes’ worth.
Q. So does it all come back pretty quick there with the cane all the or did you do--?
A. No, I learn tricks as I do, I learn something different all the time. I mean its uh-
Q. For example?
A. Well, just how to react to with the cane. How to react with my balance how to – balance is different with the dog and with the cane. Cause with the dog you’ve got a constant pull and pressure, and you’ve adjusted yourself with that sort of left handed pull on your, your balance has adjusted to that
Q. Uh huh.
A. and so that, I’ve got to compensate for that or I’ve got to come back to it… The real difference is when I haven’t done or when I don’t know what to expect from the terrain. In order to now -down an area where I’ve used my cane, I’ve done that particular area two, three times well the anticipation is there so it’s no big deal. It’s real easy and it’s real fluid. And a- you gotta pay a little more attention. I got lost the other night but--going up to the civic center and -just not paying attention. And so, I think the balance is such a big difference.
Q. Uh hmm.
A. But the dog is so good when unknown areas and first time you been somewhere whatever. But really after you’ve been somewhere 2 or 3 times the dog is just unnecessary.
Q. Tell me why a dog is good in an unknown area. And first time areas-
A. Cause they can see and you don’t have to encounter all the little obstacles.
Q. Uh huh.
A. You know you don’t have to worry about the gutter being filled with pine straw and limbs. You don’t have to-- you just miss all the little subtle stumbling blocks because the dog just zips around them. And the dog deals with the big picture. You and the cane, you’ve got to deal with the little picture and the big picture. (laugh)
Q. Right.
A. That’s why it’s easier and so in many ways yeah, it’s easier but your skills have relaxed. It’s just a different way of orienting and traveling.
Q. But- now I’m asking- When you pick up this cane again, is-have you gotten additional instruction or is it all come back to you from grade school, or?
A. Baby, there ain’t nothing a mobility instructor can tell me.
Q. No.
A. No, if I want additional instruction, I talk to blind people.
Q. Right
A. –who travel with canes all the time. That’s what got my confidence in doing the cane. That’s how--I got this good buddy of mine; I talk to her, and I say I’m really scared (laugh).
Q. Uh huh.
A. I don’t know what I’m doing.
Q. basically she just listens to me and says you ain’t got no trouble (laugh).
A. Uh huh.
A. And she’s usually right. It’s just there’s nothing, no I won’t seek any instruction. I’ll just go do it and learn the hard way. But this phasing in thing, you know my plan about phasing out it’s not going to be that big of an adjustment at all.
Q. No?
A. No, the only time, the only thing I see …is doing like I did a couple of weeks ago when I went to Mexico. I had lost my birth certificate, so I had to go to Atlanta to go get a birth certificate. Well, that meant get somebody to drive me over to the next town that had a Greyhound bus which OK, well that’s easy. Getting a ticket at the Greyhound bus station and getting on the Greyhound bus well that’s easy ain’t no big deal. Then it’s get on the bus. In Atlanta, though my plan was to get off the greyhound, get on the subways and switch trains and I had called the health department and found out where it was gotten directions from, or did I call a blind person over in Atlanta, I think I called some blind guy over in Atlanta. Or somebody I called to figure out how to do the subway over to the health department
Q. Uh hmm.
A. although I’ve been through Atlanta enough to kind of know which subway, I’ve ridden them enough. So, you know I went from the Greyhound I went around the corner and got on the subway and switched trains and got off and went a couple of blocks down the road to the health department, got my certificate, went back to the airport took a shuttle to the hotel and spent the night. Got up the next morning and went to Mexico. Well, that’s all a piece of cake for me. But it’s all a piece of cake because it’s all me and you know me and the dog. It’s just a different story thinking about doing something like that with the cane, but then I’ve know people who’ve done it.
Q. Right.
A. So, I mean it’s doable and I can see how it’s doable, but you know it’s just frightening that I rely a lot on the dog’s seeing the big picture and going for it.
Q. Yeah.
A. And I’m going to have to rely on me listening really good and all the other stuff that goes into cane travel.
Q. Right. How do you get to and from work.
A. Walk. Mile and a quarter.
Q. Mile and a quarter. What kind of terrain is that?
A. Nothing, a piece of cake.
Q. Residential, rural?
A. Residential, a little ole dumpy town here. Nothing really at all.
Q. If you have inclement weather?
A. Walk.
Q. Snow?
A. Walk.
Q. Any tips or strategies for dealing with that kind of weather?
A. (laugh) When I lived in the city, I’ve only lived in this little town for the last three years to come and run this instructional resource center. So, when I lived in Birmingham that was a lot funner travel. A lot better.
Q. Why’s that?
A. Well you’ve got real traffic riding on city bus, all that stuff. I mean this heck. I go to sleep. I doze. I mean dog’s on autopilot.
Q. Oh uh huh.
A. Awe shoot. I mean many of times I’ll like come out of a dream like where am I (laugh).
Q. (laugh).
A. I swear to god. I don’t even give the dog commands at the street.
Q. The dog just takes you there, takes you back.
A. Take you there take you back.
Q. I think you’re going to miss that dog. (laugh)
A. Well that’s (laugh).
Q. I don’t think the cane will do the same kind of thing. (laugh)
A. (laugh) No it won’t. But you know, nay I remember busting my butt a bunch on ice travel. But we don’t get it enough down here so I don’t know. I don’t have any tips. If it ever snowed I’m going to have to call somebody up and say hey what do you do with a cane when it snows. I guess it’s kind of similar to all these leaves we’ve got out here. All the fall leaves, you know they’ve covered everything. I guess it would be sort of similar to that.
Q. What do you do for that?
A. Constant contact, scoop them out of the way.
Q. Uh hm.
A. Just scoop them out of the way.
Q. Have you ever been disoriented?
A. Oh yeah.
Q. What do you do when that happens?
A. Well, what I do now and what I did in the past are two different things. What I do now is I don’t panic. I don’t worry about it. I break it down to simple things. I say, OK can I retrace what I’ve done? And usually yeah, I can retrace what I’ve done,
Q. mmm.
A. lately I can. Will that reorient you all the time, no (laugh). But and then I just say OK let’s break it down. Got one block, you’ve got a parallel street here you just go. You know are we doing country work or are we on sidewalk? And you just apply some real basic uh fundamental skills that is traveling the environment that you’re presented with right then and there-- until you can find somebody to ask.
Q. Uh hmm.
A. I don’t make no bones about figuring out some landmark or something cause—hell if I could have done that I wouldn’t have been disoriented. (laugh) Where’s somebody to ask. (laugh). Last night I went to this intersection and you know I identify everything I’m at OK? Is this a four-way stop, is this a traffic light, wadda, wadda, wadda you know. Hoping that would give me a clue and I was clueless. Well, I knew it was a four-way stop but I was still clueless. It didn’t help me none. I thought hell, next car comes I’m going to ask. So, I walk up to some car and it happens to be one of my buddies (laugh) saying Jones what are you doing over here? I stuck my head in the window, and I said where in the hell am I (laugh). But uh- You know the big key is you just be patient and just calm and you know well you’re in American ain’t nobody going to mow you down. Unless you’re in some physical distress you know you just kind of got to get a peace and calm about it cause getting your emotions involved in it will just exacerbate the problem.
Q. That’s for sure- have you traveled in real rural areas? How do you usually get around them?
A. Just try and walk on the road, just walk on the shoulder. If there’s not a shoulder walk in the road, face the traffic. I think that’s the right rules. That’s what I always do is face the traffic. But I mean I don’t find it anything difficult. I mean it’s just you know there’s nothing to it.
Q. The mileage must be greater, it just seems to me there would be a lot more walking, with greater distances between things.
A. Yeah, but as long as you know that. I mean I wouldn’t, I’ve never ended up in a rural, just ended up in a rural area. I would always be there for a purpose
Q. Uh huh.
A. or somewhere where I would know. It’s not the mileage to me it’s more the lack of anticipation or the anticipation.
Q. Uh huh.
A. Do I know what to expect and am I encountering what I expected to encounter? Anyway it’s that lack of expectation that’ll throw you off.
Q. What do you use for landmarks and clues out in a rural area on a road, on a dirt road, whatever?
A. Driveways usually.
Q. What about the driveway?
A. Just their existence.
Q. Uh huh.
A. And you know mailboxes. But, I mean it’s uh. I’m one of these travelers who listens way, way far ahead. I mean there could be a car a mile or two off.
Q. Uh huh.
A. If I can hear it, I’ll listen to it and let it draw a picture for me. You know you can hear it turn way far ahead and go. You know sometimes you can. I always just try and let the traffic paint a picture for me.
Q. mm hmm.
A. If I don’t know and I always, even on city blocks I do the same thing, I’ll be a half block away from an intersection and I’ll be paying attention to the traffic patterns and knowing what, and by the time I get to the intersection I already know what they’re going to do. You know it’s not any different, but you just use your sound clues and out in the country you use more sound clues. You can use birds and stuff way off in the tree.
Q. How do they help?
A. Well they’re distant sound clues but they give you a picture, you know if there are a bunch of trees there ain’t no road.
Q. uh Huh.
A. Or you know there’s not going to be no tractor trailer roll over you. They, they- You got to make, I make a lot of assumptions when I travel and I make well I guess I’d say a lot of generalities. I assume for instance that a stairwell is a stairwell is a stairwell. And I assume that if the first floor of the building is laid out like this than probably the other twelve are too.
Q. Uh huh.
A. You know I assume out in the country that you’ve got a country road, and you’ve got trees or you’ve got pastures, or you know and those trees are generally in a pattern or group and they will generally line roads or you know they’ll give you some information. You know maybe you’re looking for those trees. You know you can listen for the wind or the birds. But I try to first take everything from the birds’ eye view of it.
Q. Uh huh.
A. You know when somebody’s describing it to me, I try to stop and say well wait what if you were a bird? What’s the shape of this building? Because you know you’ve just got to realize that buildings are just architectural design and that’s nothing. Eventually they’re going to have four walls that encompass everything so just give me the shape of it. You know you look down on it, is it an E or an H or a box or you know, then I’ll make a lot of assumptions from that. Then as I go through a building my assumptions are wrong or right, but they fill in the puzzle and I can orient myself usually in a hotel in oh a matter of 10 or 15 minutes.
Q. If they tell you the shape of it, or?
A. Yeah if I get some decent information at the get go. But if I’ve got to figure it all out by myself then it will take me, it may take me the whole time I’m staying there simply because I’ll just learn my little patterns, know just the restaurant, know the bar, go to take the dog out. Front desk and then I just kind of fill in. A lot of times I don’t even need to know. But of course, then there are just some hotels that are just absolutely impossible. And you just got to know how to realize it. You’re going to always have to ask for directions.
Q. I imagine in a small town there isn’t much in the way of public transportation.
A. No, there definitely isn’t.
Q. So is that, what do you do about that?
A. Hire people.
Q. You do, you hire them.
A. Hire people to get you to the public transit. You know hire people to get you to greyhound or hire people to get you to airport. But it’s so much better if I lived, when I was living in Birmingham. Man when I had the city bus I could just jump on it and go where I had to go or connect me up anyway.
Q. So how do you hire people to do that through the paper or word of mouth?
A. Mostly word of mouth. I have – uhm it’s difficult. It’s very difficult and I have gotten way, way lucky this year with this young girl who is 22 or so. One of the few things I’ve learned, the first thing I’ve learned is sighted people hate driving that just blows my mind. That sighted people do not want to drive any more than they have to drive (laugh) you know and I suppose I’d be the same way.
Q. Uh huh.
A. I can understand but they don’t want to drive no more than they’ve got to drive. I think, hey baby go without driving for a while.
Tape 1 side B.
Younger people want to, one thing you do learn is well, sighted people don’t like to drive but young people, that’s all they want to do is it the road. And so and you know you can usually and so I’ve gotten real lucky with that one. And by word of mouth, you can find people that are not working because their back went out or they’re on disability or some such nonsense you know so you really just have to build you a little collection of people.
Q. Uh huh.
A. I have about 3 I guess and that I can pretty much count on, and you’ve got to pay good. You can’t be stingy.
Q. Right.
A. You’ve got to put out the money because you’ve got to think about it. That’s the you know how valuable is it to you?
Q. What’s the going rate? What do you pay?
A. I’ll pay well I don’t break it down to rate, like on this trip to go get my daughter is five hours I figure it takes 5 hours of her time.
Q. uh hmm.
A. Friday and Sunday night, one hour up one hour back so that’s four then I figure 10 bucks an hour that includes our gas. I thought that was reasonable, she thought that was reasonable. And a lot of times, well if I’ve got to go to Montgomery for some meeting all day long, and again it’s like the other, this month I had to go to Montgomery on Saturday. So, I hired a guy. Well, I want you to pick me up. Well, we’ll be back around five so there’s a whole day of your time.
Q. Right.
A. So I think I paid 70, 75 you know including gas. I mean he took his gas out of that.
Q. Uh huh. I don’t like to get into this gas business.
A. Right.
Q. no you just tell me what you need. (laugh). So but you, I really try to pay people somewhere close to 10 bucks an hour you know including their gas.
Q. Which includes the gas.
A. Which includes the gas, that’s the right way to say that.
Q. Including gas would be extra.
A. Okay.
Q. So do you have any qualifications that you’re looking for or?
A. …take what you can get.
Q. Take what you can get, have you ever had to fire anybody in the way they drove or anything?
A. I have in a professional capacity, well not personally you don’t fire them you just don’t use them again.
Q. right. So, have you quit using somebody because of the way they drove?
A. Yeah, when I was a counselor, but this was in my job to take, to find a driver and I had this one guy, was awful. I’d always had to direct him where to go. I would, Oh it was just awful.
Q. Yeah.
A. He had to go.
Q. So you’re looking for people who have a good understanding of directions and can read a map?
A. In my personal life, no I’m looking for people that are available.
Q. Just availability?
A. Just available. I’ll tell you what to do, when to go, where to turn how to get there.
Q. Uh huh.
A. (laugh) you know just willing and available.
Q. Right.
A. I mean that’s basically what you break it down to you’ve got to have it. I mean I’ve put myself in this area where I don’t even have Greyhound. So, you know that’s bottom line.
Q. Right. How do you feel about traveling alone to unfamiliar places?
A. Took off for New York City last year.
Q. Uh huh.
A. Oh I loved it, loved it, loved it. I loved New York City.
Q. It’s a good city. How do you prepare for a trip like that?
A. Well I went to the Internet. And I’d done a little reading and that didn’t help me any so I called this guy, this blind guy that lived up in Manhattan and I said describe Manhattan to me. Well it’s like a cigar and something goes north and south, some goes east west. You know he sort of pumped me up with all that information. So, I just again I broke it down in my mind. I said, OK now I’m flying to LaGuardia so going up there is no biggie even though it sounds --it’s still an airport. (laugh). And OK how am I going to get to my hotel? Well it’s like any other city. I’m sure. Hey I know there’s cabs and you don’t want to take them and I’m sure there’s a city bus. In New York there ought to be a subway, so I called the transit and got the scoop on all that. I figured I didn’t want to do that so I said you know it’s got to be like, they all got to be shuttles, so that’s what I, I was armed with that... I hadn’t decided what I was going to do, but I was armed with that information. So, when I got off my plane you know I slid down to the ground transit area. I just I heard some people talking, some women so I went over there and started shooting the breeze with them. So, what’s the best way to get to Manhattan you know? And ended up with a shuttle and my hotel and you know from that point I had to rely on what this blind guy told me about Manhattan. What it was like.
Q. Uh huh.
A. God I couldn’t believe how easy it was.
Q. Yeah.
A. In about a half a day I had the subway figured out. I mean just, I had a blast. That’s with a dog. I don’t (laugh) know with a cane.
Q. How did you figure out the subway?
A. Talking to people who ride the subway,
Q. Uh huh.
A. just passengers. Saying hey what you know did that and then uh got one guy who really was really articulate who just laid it out for me basically.
Q. uh huh.
A. But it was easy because all of them went east or west, north or south whichever way is the downtown to uptown.
Q. Right.
A. I forgot. They all just run in that one direction. What I figured out is if you got on the wrong one you were just going to be too far over whichever way, you know what I mean, but you were still headed in the direction you were headed in. You know I mean I stayed basically in Mid town you know that area. I went up to Guggenheim once, I went way up to like 80 something you know on a subway, but then I walked down from there down to my hotel was on 34th.
Q. That’s a good long walk.
A. Yeah, but that’s what you go to New York City for.
Q. Yeah. How do you find your luggage at the airport at the baggage claim?
A. Oh I just get right up there on the dad gum rail I mean the carousal.
Q. Uh huh.
A. I put my hand down there and feel everything that comes by. I use my cane and stick my cane out there and knock everything you know just so I don’ t have to bend over, just stick my cane and hit something and I’ll reach down when my cane hits something and I’ll feel of it to see if it’s mine. Sometimes I tie, if I think about it, usually I don’t think about it, a few, only a few times I’ve thought about it (laugh) and that’ s like tying one of those oh what do you call a like a lei or like a garland that goes on a Christmas tree. You know what I’m talking about? A Hawaiian lei. And I’ll tie that on the handle. Just some real obvious tactile sign. But like I’ve said, I’ve only thought of that 2 or 3 times in my life. I usually forget. So it’s usually I go right to the front of the carousel, and wait on people to help, you know you’re just, just, just losing time if you’re doing that. I just go right to the carousel and stand there and use my cane and stick it on the carousel and every time it hits a piece of luggage reach down and feel it.
Q. How do you establish you position in the environment?
A. Way, distant sound clues. I go from distant sound clues to close in sound clues and uhm I try to get a mental map of the area
Q. Neat
A. . Is that what you mean?
Q. Yep.
A. Have you used, do you use maps of any kind?
A. Nah, they’re worthless. As a matter of fact I make, my department makes maps. This mobility instructor called me up, well “we have this conference and we want you to make a map of this hotel”. I was laughing at him, man when have you ever known a tactile map to be helpful? She said, I know, I know, but the state office wants a map. We’re the only office in the state that has a tactile image enhancer. I don’t know I shouldn’t down it, it’s pretty cool.
Q. Yeah.
A. They are, they’re OK. To me, I’m kind of a visual learner so I do sort of like, give me the big picture of the map. The details just oh when you get to that tactile image stuff it really, as you I’m sure well know the more detail on those things the more confusing.
Q. Right, yeah.
A. But I like, I like north, south, east and west.
Q. You do.
A. I really like that.
Q. Yeah.
A. And I like the street numbers cause you know, especially if a city does it right and the odds are on one side and the evens are on the other.
Q. You mean for addresses?
A. Yeah. But I really like north, south, east and west. Because I get a big picture-- That’s what I as struggling with when I went to Mexico a couple of weeks ago. I even looked at this big tactile globe that we have and another tactile map. Because I was trying to relate being in Cancun and trying to relate that to being back in Alabama. What parallel direction are they and if I had to walk back home, which way would I walk (laugh). So, I like the north, south. I like the relationship between the way things are laid out and that helps me get oriented.
Q. So how do you establish north, south, east west to start out?
A. Somebody’s got to tell me.
Q. So you start out knowing.
A. Well if I know from starting out, like pretty much anywhere in America, I can tell you. I think, usually because I pay attention. I mean I know which direction the plane is going to fly to get me somewhere. I uh, if I take a cab in then I question the cab driver a lot. Oh what interstate is this and then usually I know, it’s some stupid quirk of mine, but I’ll know which way intestates usually run. Uh you know I question the cabby and what goes this way and what’s north and south. You know that sort of chattering
Q. Uh huh.
A. and uhm, but nowadays with the Internet, I do a lot more stuff. If I’m going to go to a city I’ll listen to their radio station on the Internet that week that I’m going. And You get a lot of traffic reports and you know they give you stuff. I just like to get the big picture.
Q. Yeah.
A. Just a lot of verbal information. But a lot of traveling is so easy sometimes it's just in for a conference, hotel and out and you just don’t have to bother with much.
Q. Yeah. What one thing that happens frequently when you’re traveling that you like the least?
A. I don’t know Grace. I don’t have a lot- I couldn’t tell you. Because there’s… there’s always stuff that happens. There’s always little small stuff that happens that doesn’t mean anything or make a difference. I mean you know A that you’re going to get a hassle at airport security. No matter what.
Q. Why?
A. Well just cause they’re poorly trained and they’re not really highly paid people and
Q. So how do you get hassled?
A. You got to understand my perspective of hassle I guess (laugh) If I’m treated any otherwise than somebody sighted than I’ve been hassled.
Q. Sure.
A. If you detained me questioned me or started a ruckus because of my presence then I’ve been hassled.
Q. Uh huh.
A. And I can always see it, the noise level as soon as I start approaching the thing. The noise level gets higher, the workers get more agitated. I always watch their behavior and so I’ve worked out techniques to deal with that and calm that down. Make it a positive thing instead of a you know a negative thing. Nothing really happens when I travel. Let me tell you the things that happen to me when I travel are because of something I did. Because of poor planning or you know just. I guess the frustrating stuff is if you get bad information. Just bad directions, and people are it’s just so tough for people to give directions.
Q. Yeah.
A. That would be it I guess,
Q. So give me an example of bad directions.
A. Well not knowing left from right. The very first direction you’ve got to give right. (laugh).
Q. (laugh).
A. I mean you’ve just got to give the first one right. (laugh) Oftentimes the first one is wrong.
Q. Right.
A. That’s because I didn’t understand what they said but explain it to me right and it’s oh, it just didn’t work. Just the little things like, OK it’s straight in front of you. OK what do you mean by straight? (laugh)
Q. Yeah.
A. I’ve got to come back with that, because I’ve just learned. Uh you mean straight in front of me when I’m facing this way? Or straight in front of me when I’m facing that way? Or straight in front of you? (laugh)
Q. (laugh).
A. It’s just routine now, it doesn’t bother me. So that’s part of the business of being blind.
Q. What do you want sighted pedestrians to do when they want to help.
A. Just ask. Take no for an answer.
Q. Right.
A. That’s all.
Q. How do you handle being lost or disoriented?
A. Try to get unlost and undisoriented.
Q. (laugh).
A. Just ask, I mean no- the quickest thing is find a –listen for a pedestrian and ask. I mean I don’t play around with getting lost especially with strange cities and places. You don’t know, you know.
Q. Yeah.
A. I mean you just don’t play around with that mess. Find somebody quick to ask. That’s my feeling anyway.
Q. What kinds of things do you use as landmarks?
A. Anything and everything. Like I said I do a lot of distant sound clues. I mean there are temporary landmarks and there are permanent landmarks. And there are just cues that give you something. I mean anything and everything I’ll use. You know building line, pothole bush. It really doesn’t matter anything is a landmark really. Whether it’s physical or auditory it’s a landmark. It’s a clue to something. You just have to figure out what the clue is.
Q. Have you ever been injured when traveling?
A. I’ve been ran over a couple of times.
Q. Have you?
A. Yeah.
Q. Have you ever been in the hospital for it?
A. No, I was lucky. Athough I gotta go back- I got hit this year. Idiot ran through a stop. Driving without a license. Late couldn’t get her kids to school on time. Hit and run. Took off. I got hit one time in college. That was my fault cause I wasn’t traveling with a cane.
Q. Right, how do you know so much about the driver that hit and ran?
A. Well she was arrested.
Q. they got her?
A. Yeah they got her--It’s a small town you can’t get away with something like that. Her kids went to school talking about it. (laugh).
Q. (laugh)
A. There’s a man on my mom’s windshield. You know I told the cops I had a witness who said there were two little kids in the car. So well there’s only two elementary schools. So the cops just go talk to the principal. You know.
Q. Right.
A. But I have back trouble. Oh I hope to god I don’t have permanent back trouble.
Q. Oh gosh.
A. Getting waylaid I tell you. I don’t know how my dog kept from getting hit, although they hit me from behind sort of, you know I was already halfway across the street, and she was turning into the street. So, it caught you just right behind the dog. I really was not, I mean if I had been sighted I had gotten hit. If I hadn’t a been looking because I mean I heard the car coming, I knew the car was coming,
Q. Right.
A. but you know cars are coming. But you know cars are coming in the intersection because a three-way stop. They’re going to stop. They’re going to roll on thru till you get on by and then they’re going to go. Well, the only difference with this idiot she didn’t stop.
Q. Do you belong to any professional or consumer organizations?
A. Oh, no professional they raised the dues too much I quit AER.
Q. Uh huh.
A. I dropped out at 60 some dollars. I belong to NFB on the consumer side.
Q. Uh huh. Was it ever a conflict for you to belong to both organizations?
A. Yeah, sure. I mean I work for a state agency and I’m an NFB state president. So, I have constant conflict.
Q. Right, it’s amazing how many state presidents I’ve been able to talk to from NFB.
A. Well you got on the right list.
Q. It’s great. So that’s an elected position right?
A. Yeah.
Q. So there was a conflict, there is a conflict. How is that resolved within yourself?
A. I’ve got to come to peace with myself, because you’re never going to change a state agency.
Q. uh huh.
A. I’m never going to tell them you know convince the principal, the rest of the school for the blind that no it’s not a good idea to make the kids hang their canes up on the walls when they come into the cafeteria.
Q. Right.
A. I mean just the other day at a thanksgiving dinner at the school we, I left my dog, and I went up there with a cane. I don’t think it matters, but at first I thought it was a sit-down meal, because somebody said they was going to serve us today since it was special. But then I quickly realized that, no, staff need to get up and go get their food. So, I cruise up there and I’m talking to my lady’s and they handed me my food and I turn around here ‘s the, I guess you’d call her like the vice principal. She’s nothing to me but she is to all the students, “Mike can I take that plate for you?” Oh no thank you, so that’ll be the end of it right? Well, she proceeds to argue with me. I mean, oh it’s so hot and nah, nah, na, na. You know I’m 35 years old? Well, I know you’re 3---and then she kept on arguing. But this is the one woman who supervises the mobility instructor, for some reason mobility is under her. But that’s the attitude in the city.
Q. Wow.
A. No you can’t carry a tray, you can’t carry a plate. Whenever you go off on a field trip you must use sighted guide. It’s just stupid.
Q. Yeah.
A. It’s absolutely stupid. But all I can do is be a role model there. I’ve quit talking.
Q. So had did that situation resolve itself?
A. That it doesn’t. She hates me and I hate her. (laugh)
Q. Before that incident or after?
A. Both (laugh)
Q. (laugh)
A. I just have no respect for her, and she has no respect for me. You know and she will never understand because these people in Alabama don’t have, don’t see the big picture.
Q. Right.
A. They don’t have a clue as to what it takes to get the skills and the confidence that a blind person needs to go and do.
Q. Yeah- It’s pretty- Its frustrating, I’d imagine.
A. You really’ve got to come to some inner peace with it.
Q. Yeah.
A. But it’s hard to know that the people that are of your culture are getting such poor training and not even getting an opportunity to build confidence and develop.
Q. Yeah - it’s constant battle in class to break that down in my students.
A. Oh I had this one idiot mobility instructor she went out to a school to kind of get him oriented. It’s a real rural public school and they had this blind kid for the first time. A good little girl, she’s had cane travel for 8 years, you know, no problems, gifted probably going to be their valedictorian. They’re asking me “well the mobility instructor wants us to build a speed bump across this parking lot so she can trail it.” I said what? (laugh) What’s she talking about? She explained. I said let me go see it. Let’s just go walk it. I took my cane, and I walked it. I mean we’re talking about having to connect from, I don’t know, maybe the width maybe ten yards wide. Ten or 12 yards wide, and you know it was, you got to traverse to hit up with another sidewalk. You know across. Her solution is to get the school system to build a speed bump across the parking lot slash driveway. You know, so she could trail across. I explained to the aide and fortunately her mother is a good friend of mine. I called her mother. She said, “yeah I know they trotted that by me too.” She said, “you know Mike when I moved to the neighborhood, I wanted them to put up a sign that said blind children at play and speed bumps and I wanted them to put up a stop light and then I thought, and I thought and I stopped and I said what am I talking about?” She said, “my daughter is going to have to be out in the real world. She’s going to have to learn how to negotiate whatever the environment presents her”. She said, “I told school there wasn’t going to be any more speed bumps built (laugh).
Q. It’s frustrating is also these aides. I don’t necessarily know what their function is.
A. The aids?
Q. To be there every day all day long and they have little or no education themselves.
A. Right, right.
Q. They’re supposed to assist in this child’s education.
A. Well I’ve seen all Aids, I guess I’ve seen them all in Alabama. They are a pack mule I some places.
Q. Right.
A. And one, I will never forget there’s this woman, the kid is 14 or 15, big ole’ husky boy. Here comes this aid trotting behind him carrying everything. Carrying his braillewriter carrying everything. (laugh) and she’s an old woman. (laugh).
Q. Right.
A. This one, this particular one is doing it right. The girl goes everywhere independently. The only time she sees this aid is in the little resource room and really the only thing the aid does is brailling.
Q. Uh huh.
A. Using the computer to braille. Although she is walking her to and from the bus every day. I’ve gotten really friendly with her and I say Anita what are you doing that for? And you know “I just want to mother her” and I say Oh I understand I have a little girl. I said you know we’ve got to get you out of that picture. We know you’ve got to remove yourself from that because she needs, you know, that needs to be a peer thing. And then I said basically how do you expect her to go and travel on a city bus? I said here’s your first training ground, you know. You’ve got these school buses lined up. So, I’ve been talking to her, and she’ll phase herself out, but she’s a good aide. But like I’ve said. I’ve seen aides and it’s not the aides’ fault it’s what they’re taught. What they’re taught, they’re not taught anything. That’s what they’re told to do.
Q. Right.
A. So I really would like to see a you really need a curriculum for paraprofessionals you know to train these paraprofessionals.
Q. Yeah. What do you think drives the split between NFB and AER?
A. Well for so long, the professionals just don’t want to give up any turf. I think for so long the professionals have reigned dictatorially. We know what’s best. We’re the experts. We’ve written the books we teach the classes. We run the agencies. We know. They’ve told the state legislatures that they’ve lost in Congress. I mean there’s nobody to beats NFB in Congress. They’ve lost that battleground. But in the state legislature the agencies still rule for the most part. I don’t think, you know it’s just a lot of old heads in AER that don’t want to give up turf. That don’t want to recognize that or maybe just don’t believe what they say. Maybe they don’t believe that a blind person truly can compete. Truly can be independent. I’d like to know what they’re definition is.
Q. Right.
A. You know you really don’t know. In Alabama, I don’t worry about them because they’re just nonexistent. There’s nothing they could do in Alabama that I couldn’t put a stop to. Simply because they’re small and they don’t have a real clear purpose. They have a convention once a year.
Q. Who?
A. AER.
Q. Uh huh.
A. And that’s it. I mean I’m never worried about them going to the legislature cause they’re not ever going to get organized to do it. But there just is a real aristocratic kind of elitism amongst them. They think they know it all. I guess that’s it. Although probably today the upper echelon of the organizations would tell you we’re really, we’ve really come together on things we disagree on but that’s just bull. We hate them and they hate us. (laugh)
Q. So, just sort of an emotional hatred you think?
A. Yeah, yeah. I didn’t develop all of this. I didn’t go through development. I hadn’t been. The nineties I’ve been all involved in it, but before the nineties I wasn’t really involved in it. So, I didn’t grow up. Although I can look back and see. It’s really the unwillingness of the professionals to listen to the consumers and implement what the consumers have to say.
Q. Uh hm.
A. I went and spoke to this; our Governor has some kind of cabinet position on disability issues. This person came up with a committee, so I went to talk to the committee about some legislation that we were going to do at NFB. I talked to them about maybe what their role could be. If they want to really be a true advocate. I said what exactly, I said what is the unemployment rate of people with disabilities in Alabama? I went around the table and asked all these supposed consumer advocates. Which none of them were consumers, they were all agency people. Nobody knew and I said well see there’s your first problem. You don’t even know what the unemployment rate of people with disabilities is in Alabama. They said, “I suppose you know?” I said, no I don’t know (laugh) it’s not measurable, and why haven’t we measured it. But I would guess it would be 85 to 90 percent. My point in saying all of this was let us people with disabilities take it over and run it. Cause I promise you we could do better than a 90% unemployment rate. I’m not the right person to ask this question.
Q. Why?
A. Because I’m not objective about it.
Q. Well do you think I want somebody to tell me what I want to hear? (laugh)
A. You might need somebody more objective. (laugh)
Q. This isn’t a what do the people of Alabama think, this is what does Mike Jones think.
A. Ahh, it’s what the blind know. What the blind people have figured out that we damn well know better. I’ve always heard that from our NFB people and I’ve always recited that. But that never had came to a catharsis with me until 2 or 3 years, well I matured into that. I truly understand now that sighted people don’t have a clue as to what blind people need.
Q. Right.
A. Because outside of an 8 to 5 job they don’t live the life of a blind person. They have no clue as to the transportation needs. They have no clue of social needs. They have just no clue. If you don’t live that life you can’t know.
Q. Well that’s the kind of thing I like to hear.
A. Well I know it.
Q. No, absolutely. Why not?
A. Go back home (laugh)
Q. (laugh)
A. Well I don’t ‘mean that in a mean-spirited way, but it’s absolutely the truth.
Q. I think the pendulum swings and I think that you know back in the 30s or 40s predominately people doing this business were visually impaired.
A. Oh really?
Q. Yeah, cane instructors, rehab teachers, and information was shared among them, and it wasn’t a lot even then. But that was sort of a trial by error thing. And then, somewhere along the way we wanted to raise it up to a master’s level profession which you know being a college professor I think is a good idea. (laugh) No one wants to lose their job, but why did it turn into then you have to be able to see to do it? And that’s been something that no one’s been able to satisfactorily answer for me.
A. Yeah.
Q. It was only in mobility that the restrictions were really placed on people and in fact in some states like New Jersey restricted rehab teaching hiring to people who were visually impaired. And they would only hire people who are visually impaired to do the rehab teaching. That, that has since now been shown to be an illegal activity. To restrict people who are visually impaired from this profession, but it had devastating effect on the profession and I think the time and the trouble of two organizations supposedly wanting to get out and be teachers it’s been an awful waste of energy and ultimately who makes the best teacher are people who
A. Want to teach
Q. make good teachers and set good goals and have an understanding of how to do it, it doesn’t come down to disability. Whether you have one or you don’t. But I certainly do understand why people who are blind don’t want anything to do with AER. I understand it wholeheartedly. Even though I’m an AER member, certified mobility instructor. You know?
A. (laugh) yeah it just I don’t see a lot of purpose for AER. I can see some true directed goals through NFB. I don’t see a lot of directed goals through AER. But that’s their own organization.
Q. Uh hmm.
A. I don’t care, but you know unfortunately. You can get a lot of creative sighted folks, just what you said, people are good teachers are good teachers. There are some sighted people that taught me a heck of a lot. Some taught me good stuff about travel. Some taught me good stuff about computers, well I mean the majority of the people I know are sighted.
Q. Uh hm.
A. So, but the majority of the professionals I know are sighted and I don’t have a real good relationship with them. The good relationship with people who are sighted that aren’t professionals and that teach me stuff and I teach them stuff but they relate to me on a human level because they see me as a human being. They see me as a father. They see me, I’m getting up, I’m going to work every day coming home. They see me talking about how stuff sucks and you know they can relate to me as a human being and I don’t think professionals, the sighted professionals in the field will ever see the blind consumer as a human being.
Q. Right.
A. Because if they did, they wouldn’t ever want to limit you. Why in hell do they try to limit us?
Q. Yeah.
A. That’s something I don’t, I ain’t, I haven’t figured out yet.
Q. No neither have I. Uhm. Anyway, how did ADA impact you? Did you notice a difference before and after its passage?
A. (laugh) Nah.
Q. No.
A. I mean it, I’m using it as an employment weapon now. I’m glad it’s there. I’m very glad it’s there. I’m only now seeing it impact me in the way I’m treated as a manager as an administrator. I can use ADA to say look. You don’t make job assignments based on a person’s disability. You know that kind of stuff has happened to me, so you know it’s really comforting to have a federal law to back you up. It isn’t just Mike Jones that says, you know you really shouldn’t have said, I couldn’t do this because I couldn’t see.
Q. Right.
A. I can say you know according to the ADA making personnel decisions based on individual disabilities is discriminatory. (laugh) It’s comforting that it’s there. It really is.
Q. Yeah, absolutely - do you ever bring the law to bear when people tell you they don’t want you to bring your dog in their car?
A. In their car?
Q. Or anywhere?
A. No. I mean I know where I can go and where I can’t go.
Q. Uh huh.
A. I’ve never said anything to a private individual. But I’ll say something to a public place. Although I’ve developed into a style, and I’ve talked to other people a lot of other people have developed into the same style. Just ignore ‘em. (laugh) just don’t even respond.
Q. Yeah.
A. Keep on moving. Although you know sometimes you try to joke with it. I’m glad you don’t allow dogs because I don’t want my dog associating with any other dogs. You know let’s go have a seat. (laugh).
Q. That’s funny.
A. You just can’t get uptight about it, you can’t argue with anybody, and you can’t educate them on the law. The people you talk to they ain’t going to be educated on the law in five minutes so just take the path of least resistance and that’ do nothing, say nothing and go sit down. Cause it’s a heck of a lot easier to throw somebody out of a restaurant if they haven’t been seated. But really, I don’t know if you credit the ADA with it or just our society I don’t run into that stuff anymore. I can’t even remember the last time somebody said something negative to me about the dog being in a place.
Q. Neat.
A. I guess if I thought hard enough I could but I mean I go a lot of places. It just doesn’t happen much at all.
Q. Neat. What do you think of blind mobility instructors?
A. I’ve never encountered one, although I used to do some instructing when I was a counselor.
Q. Uh huh.
A. I instructed only within my limitations. And that was here’s a cane, here’s what you do with it. Let’s get up, let’s teach you how to go to the mailbox. Let’s get you going in and around your house and your yard. I would say, eventually rehab is going to get you a mobility instructor out here to see you, but I don’t think you should have to wait six months (laugh) let’s get going. I just tried to boost their confidence, people’s confidence and get them comfortable with the cane and take the mystery and the myth out of it. Just let them know look you know it’s just a stick it’s just going to show you what’s in front of you. But I’ve never encountered a blind mobility instructor, so I really don’t have a clue.
Q. You have training as a rehab teacher?
A. Counselor, but I picked up all those tricks. I was thrown into a job. I have a bachelors in rehab which sort of trains you in a lot of different—
Q. I see.
A. It’s one of the only undergraduate programs around and it trains you in a lot of stuff. Then I went, interned in a decent place, so a lot of it. The job I just happened to get you know you’re going to help blind people adjust to being blind. OK (laugh).
Q. Right. Do other rehab counselors bring canes with them as well. Is that pretty standard operating—
A. No, nobody does. I was the only one that did. You know they will, a rehab counselor will say, you know we’re going to refer you to a mobility instructor, and you know that will be, or we’re going to send you away to a center. But either way you’re talking months and months down the road.
Q. Yeah.
A. You’re just wasting valuable time for a person that’s just going to sit and swell up in depression.
Q. Yeah.
A. You just can’t have it. And you know the mobility instructor’s discipline, you university people created this myth about it was illegal for anybody to help a blind person with a cane.
Q. There’s no law.
A. No I know that-I know there isn’t. (laugh)
Q. (laugh).
A. I had to convince a lot of—I had people that would argue me. They would go through these university courses in vision and get their vision certification they’red be an O&M component, you know one semester of O&M. “My O&M instructor said it would be illegal if we taught a kid anything about a cane. I said really, tell them come tell me. I would just challenge people and say OK, cite me the law. But that myth is still out there. I guarantee you ask a lot of people they’ll tell you, oh no it’s illegal, I can’t do that. And that hurts. It’s just I don’t understand why you don’t want to proliferate the people using canes. You know anybody. Help is help.
Q. I guess I’d like to see licensure as a whole come through New York.
A. Oh I don’t know about that. I’ve thought about that, and I’ve thought about that what I would do if somebody proposed it in Alabama. I’ll never propose it, but and I guess my feeling is if it was ever proposed in Alabama, I’d kill it. Although I’d have to take a hard look at the language was. Because I don’t want to limit anybody. I don’t want to limit Mike Jones being able to help somebody use a cane.
Q. Right. Well I guess on the other side of the coin Mike Jones is probably an excellent person to work with someone with the cane. You take things seriously and you talk about – you know you probably have good technique for understanding whether or not someone is using it in a way that is going to be useful to them, but then on the other hand there are people who have not much education and they are not really understanding the big picture and they are a body. You know they just don’t have it. They don’t have what you have, and they can do it because there isn’t any restrictions on who could be paid for these roles.
A. But see the thing is there’s nobody being preyed upon. Now- I mean there’s nobody giving out cane instruction. I mean the negative side isn’t happening. I mean there aren’t shysters out there teaching people how to use canes.
Q. Well I disagree, I think that there are people who are using, that are doing the work that aren't trained who limit what they call quote unquote services because they don’t have what they need to do it. They don’t see the long-term picture the big picture. The understanding of what else it entails. To what they can do. So it’s there’s a greater knowledge out there than someone who isn’t trained in the field knows what it is. Yet they still count that off as this person is done. Finished training.
A. Let me back up, we don’t have that in Alabama. The negative in Alabama is just the absolute absence of training. OK, unless the mobility instructor can get around to you or a particular school system happens to whatever, but unless the O&M person comes around it just doesn’t exist. Cause the rehab teachers in Alabama don’t touch it. They might give somebody a cane if the person asked them too, usually people aren’t empowered enough to know that they can ask to and whatever.
Q. Right.
A. So the rehab teachers don’t touch it, the counselors don’t touch it. The mobility instructors just float around when they can, and I mean the only case I’ve seen or heard of is when one school system had an aide or a vision teacher that was doing a little bit of both. I don’t think they’re doing anything to harm anybody. Not much of nothing. You know what I mean. So eventually I turned that around and got them a mobility instructor, but so in Alabama the negative is it doesn’t exist.
Q. The hope is if you had a licensed profession, one that doctors recognized could be referred to, there would be third party reimbursement, there would be a way to get increase what this field does. It doesn’t limit to any particular person. It’s like here you can enter this field, and you are going to be a profession. Right now, there’s really no advancement. It doesn’t really attract a lot of people and it’s right, you don’t have it out there, who’s out there doing it?
A. Yeah, I know them all in Alabama.
Q. It’s feast or famine, it’s like my goodness.
A. Did you see the proposed federal legislation that AER put out there?
Q. For what?
A. For the congress to let me try and remember now it just happened now in August. Medicare, so Medicare will pay for it.
Q. Yeah.
A. Does that ring a bell?
Q. Yeah 3rd party.
A. Third party and I guess that will get killed but, although the rationale was cause, well I know our rationale was cause we didn’t want medical providers making the determination whether you do or do not need mobility instructor that was what the rehab system was for. It was apparently the bill was taking it out of the rehab system and putting it in a medical model. I don’t suspect that will have any kind of – that legislation with have any legs to it but. State licensure it just I think I guess your motivation is always going to be looking for 3rd party payees.
Q. Down the road whether or not there will even be, you know, without this it will probably be a dying breed and—
A. That’s a good point though that you make, and I’ve heard it before. The whole discipline. It truly is a discipline that the state agencies, that the schools for the blind have locked into instructor level only.
Q. Yeah.
A. That’s it. You can graduate somebody with a BS or a master’s or somebody with a doctorate, I don’t know if can even get a doctorate in mobility, but I assume you can somewhere. But they’re going to be nothing more than instructor level.
Q. Right.
A. I’ve even told the school for the blind principal, how can you have an administrative team here and you don’t have any mobility services as part of your team. I mean god knows you’ve got blind kids running around extended day activities, residential settings, classroom settings, their whole movement is nothing but mobility and why isn’t that person part of your administrative structure? (laugh).
Q. Right.
A. Well, see you know as much as I despise university mobility people (end tape 1)
Q. (laugh) guys like you we don’t need (laugh).
A. (laugh) You’re right mobility as a somehow we’ve got to take that thing out of we’ve got to elevate it’s status. We’ve got to say this is the crucial skill for independence in this world.
Q. Absolutely.
A. So, but you ain’t never going to get that because your mobility people are too afraid to rock the boat, because they’re just instructor levels. They don’t have any voice or any
Q. Well, you know if it was listen you go blind tomorrow and you can get a doctor to recognize that part of that treatment has to involve you know mobility instruction, rehab teaching, you know whatever and that’s billable to insurance then you’ve got a real profession. If you have then licensure that says in order to provide these services, you have to meet these licensure certification standards you know you’ve really got something, you’ve got recognition. That an O.T. could do it if they have the licensure if they add that on, but not until they can and not until they know that.
A. I know you all are all afraid of the O.T.
Q. Well I’m not afraid of the O. T.
A. (laugh).
Q. except for the fact that they have a licensed profession that is recognized by doctors.
A. OK, but it’s a medical model though. That’s a, it was easy for them because they’re in the medical model. Mobility is not in the medical model.
Q. Well I know how much people, you say that’s really the wrong model to use, but it’s the bottom line is what is happening. And what is happening is at this point we’re sort of fighting each other rather than getting making sure that these strategies move on. And I’ve talked to a lot of cane instructors and people who do this. There isn’t a wide gap between the methodology. For whatever names are put on the methods for doing it are just different based on how I regulate how I observe how I work with my student in terms of knowing what their cane skills are doing because of my vision.
A. There’s really not much difference.
Q. But there’s no real difference I mean there’s even the two-point touch is the same. Maybe the cane’s a little longer but and the grip is a little different, but other than that the problem-solving method, the method for understanding where you are is basically the same. It’s like the only thing that I would say-that I would like to see is that we get the reading and the writing component. That you’re able to read the literature and you’re able to present your ideas and you’re able to write well because I think that is important for furthering the profession. I think that a master’s degree, or a bachelor’s degree, you know a college education does merit a profession.
A. Absolutely, absolutely.
Q. That makes sense and you make a good argument and I’m not so sure I’m convinced that we’re totally correct about, we at NFB are correct about O&M not wanting it to be in a medical model. I’m not so sure that the medical model may not be a place for it. May be the place for it, um as I think about it. Although, you know that sort of says you need something healed and I’m not so sure that if I wanted some mobility services tomorrow I don’t know if that’s necessarily healing me from anything. You know what I mean?
Q. Yeah-It certainly is where you’re gaining the ability to do something that you didn’t do before.
A. You see I would put that with education,
Q. It infringes your ability to get out. Make a living.
A. That’s the same thing with education. If I went out here and took me a class in programming an NT server you know I haven’t been healed, but I’ve certainly been trained to do something I couldn’t do.
Q. Well the insurance doesn’t pay for education.
A. Right.
Q. Bottom line. I don’t care what they call it, just pay for it. (laugh)
A. Alright, not I’m with you hell,
Q. And respect it, respect for what it is. Definitely something that—it’s not common sense per se’. It does take calling someone, talking with someone, working with someone who knows what they’re doing.
A. Yeah.
Q. Bar whatever it’s definitely does work and that’s the neat thing about it too, it does work. It works.
A. Well anything you can do to put canes in blind people’s hands and get them off their couches and going. I’m all for it. It’s just ridiculous, awe it’s just so sad the number of blind people that go blind and they sit there and sit there and eventually they’ll sit there so long that it’s too late.
Q. What do you attribute to your level of mobility?
A. Bad attitude. (laugh)
Q. This I can tell. (laugh) I mean cause you’re not the first person I’ve spoken to who went 20 years, longer almost 30 in some cases without a cane, without instruction. I mean you had some instruction, but you didn’t have a cane. I’ve talked to people with no instruction, and no cane. And yet there’s something in the spirit, something in them that still they were going to go out and do. And yet they all say gee I wish I would have had that sooner. You know it would have made a difference in my life if I had the cane when I was younger. They never wanted to go back to not having their mobility tool.
A. Yeah, I just. I cannot take a step without my cane in my hand or my dog. I’m not comfortable doing it. I even tell people use your cane in your house. I mean there is no better place to get comfortable with that cane than in a place that you know like the back of your hand. Cause then you get to learn how to move it, interpret what it’s saying and anticipate what it will do. People like, man you’re crazy. I say well OK take my advice if you want to, I don’t care. I’m not telling you I use my cane in my house, but which I do once in a while, but if I go stay with people I use my cane in their house. Even if I’ve been in their house a hundred times. In the office that I’m in sure I could walk around that office, but I’m not going to.
Q. Well why do it anyway?
A. why do it anyway?
Q. Have a little bumper, that connects, why should I connect with it?
A. Yeah, it’s just uhm, the cane is a wonderful thing. It is the tool. It is the perfect tool. My old buddy rehab, you know, manager. She was asking me she said, “mobility instructor wants me to buy a laser cane for this guy, what do you think?” (laugh) I said,
I ain’t seen but one and it didn’t look too hot to me. (laugh). I mean you know whoever invented the cane, whoever that was, did the right thing. Although they’ve got this cool picture up at the Seeing Eye of, I mean it was way back in biblical times. I guess, you know it’s an artist’s painting and it’s the blind and they’re using the dad gum staff for a cane. So,
Q. Yeah. Well I mean I talked to a guy. Alvin Roberts. He’s a good old fella he was born in 1930 and he said, everybody back on the farm like in the days before the automobile. Used canes, used support canes walked with canes. I mean that’s, I mean I know that from my own hiking. You know. It’s just nicer to have that cane that third leg or whatever. To bear weight on, put it in front of you, whatever. He said he would just use that to put out in front of him. So, he used it a little bit differently, he said he didn’t stick out because just about every farmer, everybody he knew walked with one. Because you just walked miles and miles back then very few people had cars.
A. Yeah, my granddaddy always had a big hickory stick that he took to support himself walking through the woods.
Q. Yeah.
A. But, I back to your question, what makes me and it’s attitude.
Q. Yeah.
A. Ain’t nothing but attitude and confidence. All the little confidence building things that I’ve done. And that’s the kind of stuff I try to teach my daughter. No, we don’t give up. We won’t quit. We can’t get everything, just calm down. Let’s do this again. You’ll get it right this time. You just have to have that. You know if you don’t really understand that the world is not a big bad place, it’s just really isn’t any difference between Talladega and New York City. Still people, still sidewalk, you know you’ve got to have that understanding. No good b- oh you’ve got Alan Harris.
Q. Oh that name, is he CBVH up here?
A. Yeah.
Q. Yeah.
A. Yeah. I think he’s over all the blind services of New York State. He told me he said, we were both working on this guy. We were having dinner at the restaurant. This old boy, he’s said he had to get up and go to the bathroom. Alan and I knew right off what was up. He wasn’t real confident and he didn’t really know where the bathroom was or whatever.
Q. Mmm hmm.
A. So we ignored him for awhile and (clears throat) again. At the time I had this girlfriend with me, she was sighted. I knew after a while she was going to cave in (laugh). Alan and I – Alan said “well Dan I’m not sure, but I’d say this is just a building and I figure this is just a restaurant and I figure the bathroom would be somewhere in the back. I figure I just get up and turn around and go walk back there somewhere you know listen around for clues and ask somebody.” You know just a building. (laugh) We just Al and I just kept after him. We wouldn’t let him off the hook, you know eventually my girlfriend caved in, but Alan was telling me, he said “Mike” he said “cane travel is truly 90% confidence and 10% skill.
Q. hmmm.
A. Mmmm. I know you professors love to hear that—
Q. No, I think you’re absolutely right.
A. I said you know you’re right Alan. I hadn’t thought about it that way. Unless you’ve got the confidence to step off the street or get up and go and do, uhm
Q. Quell the fear, quell the inner voice that wants to panic.
A. I do a lot of mine with just moving. I figure a moving object gets more information. (laugh) so if I’m not sure I just move, just go.
Q. Yeah, at some point standing there you exhaust all of the possibilities.
A. Yes, of that little area.
Q. You’ve got to collect some more information, absolutely.
Mike’s honesty about the importance of mobility tools in his life is also filled with the push and pull of the lifetime of growing up with the philosophy that it shouldn’t be that hard to walk if you can’t see. Mike explained safe mobility has become to be the first and most important aspect of his life and his sincere wish is that everybody prioritize safe mobility for all blind travelers.
Happy New Year!!
Interviewed by: Grace Ambrose
Interview date: 11/28/99
Transcription Grace
Transcription Date: 1/20/00
Reviewed by: n/a
Review date:
