                       THE BRAILLE MONITOR

                           July, 1990

                    Kenneth Jernigan, Editor


     Published in inkprint, Braille, on talking-book disc, 
                        and cassette by 


              THE NATIONAL FEDERATION OF THE BLIND 
                     MARC MAURER, PRESIDENT 
 


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                   Baltimore, Maryland 21230 

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THE NATIONAL FEDERATION OF THE BLIND IS NOT AN ORGANIZATION
SPEAKING FOR THE BLIND--IT IS THE BLIND SPEAKING FOR THEMSELVES

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                      THE BRAILLE MONITOR
       PUBLICATION OF THE NATIONAL FEDERATION OF THE BLIND

                            CONTENTS
                           JULY, 1990

A VISIT TO THE WHITE HOUSE
  by Kenneth Jernigan

WHY BRAILLE LITERACY BILLS?
  by Michael Freeman

WHAT CAN'T BLIND CHILDREN DO?
  by Carol Castellano

THE VALUE OF COMPARISON

YET ANOTHER BRUSH WITH THE AUDIBLE TRAFFIC SIGNAL
by Kay Porth

PACKING YOUR OWN PARACHUTE
  by Tom Ley

SEARCY EWELL NAMED VOLUNTEER OF THE YEAR

GRAND JURY MAKES RECOMMENDATIONS CONCERNING 
ALABAMA INSTITUTE FOR DEAF AND BLIND

SO YOU DON'T DRIVE
  by Larry Streeter

FROM THE EDITOR'S MAIL BASKET: FURTHER COMMENTS ON BRAILLE

COLLECTIVE ACTION PAYS OFF IN MINNESOTA
  by Scott LaBarre

DONALD GIST APPOINTED COMMISSIONER OF 
SOUTH CAROLINA COMMISSION FOR THE BLIND

PROBLEMS WITH COUNSELING THE VISUALLY HANDICAPPED
by Fareed Haj, Ph.D.

LAWYER BEATS MEDICAL ODDS

I HAVE A RIGHT TO SKATE IN THE MIDDLE
  by Diane McGeorge

FOR THE BLIND, BUSINESS OWNERSHIP OPENS A CLOSED DOOR: 
ENTREPRENEURSHIP RISES ALONG WITH SELF-ESTEEM AND LENDER
CONFIDENCE

RECIPES

MONITOR MINIATURES


Copyright, National Federation of the Blind, Inc., 1990
                                 
A VISIT TO THE WHITE HOUSE
                       by Kenneth Jernigan

I have been to the White House four times during my life. The
first trip occurred early in the 1960s, maybe 1962. I went with
Tim Seward, Congressman Walter Baring's assistant, to talk with
Larry O'Brien, who was an official in the Kennedy administration
and a key figure in the Democratic Party.
My second visit was some twenty years later when I spent
approximately forty-five minutes talking with the then Vice
President of the United States. I was trying to get him to make a
distinction between organizations  of  the disabled
(particularly, the blind) and officials of state and federal
agencies operating programs  for  the blind.  I told the Vice
President that the National Federation of the Blind was the only
large organization of disabled people in the country which, to
the best of my knowledge, had not at one time or another taken
swipes at the Reagan/Bush administration but that no
Federationist had been appointed to any of the national advisory
councils or committees making government policy for programs
affecting the blind. It was a spirited but thoroughly friendly
conversation, in which the Vice President told me that he was not
knowledgeable about programs for the blind and I replied that I
was not talking about programs for the blind but about politics a
subject on which he was quite knowledgeable.  The Vice President
was interested and gracious, and I left with positive feelings.
My third trip to the White House occurred shortly after my
meeting with the Vice President. I was privileged to be part of a
delegation that visited with President Reagan in the Oval Office.
There were a number of us there, and I was certainly not the key
figure in the conversation, which was quite brief but that in no
way diminished my sense of the honor of being allowed to be
there. Any American who is permitted to stand in the Oval Office
of the White House and shake hands with the President of the
United States should, in my opinion, feel singularly privileged.
My rural upbringing in the hills of Tennessee is too much a part
of my being for me to feel otherwise.
My fourth trip to the White House (and probably my last) occurred
on Tuesday, May 1, 1990, when President Bush invited about a
dozen representatives of publications which deal with the
disabled to interview him. The meeting was scheduled for 11:15 in
the morning, so Mrs. Jernigan and I left Baltimore early to allow
for the Washington traffic and unexpected delays. The meeting was
held in the Roosevelt Room, which is near the Oval Office, and
there was an air of expectancy as we waited for the President.
We were allowed to tape, so I set up my recorder as we waited.
When the President came in, he sat near the middle of the table.
He said he would start at his left and go around the circle,
taking a question from each of us. Since I was at the end of the
table on his right, I was tenth in line. I want to print the
entire text of my exchange with the President, following which I
will share with you some of my thoughts about it. As you will
see, the President had obviously been briefed about what I was
likely to ask him, and just as obviously he indicated that he
remembered our earlier conversation. Here is how the exchange
went:
                  Press Conference, May 1, 1990

 President Bush:  Ken, I have never thought of you as a reporter,
but here you are.  (laughter) Delighted to see you.
 Monitor Editor:  Well, I edit the  Braille Monitor , Mr. 
President, which is the largest circulation magazine in the
blindness field.
 President Bush:  You do head that?
 Monitor Editor:  Yes sir, I edit that.
 President Bush:  I take back my attack on you. (laughter) 
Monitor Editor:  We circulate over 30,000 copies a month of it in
Braille, print, and recorded form. Mr. President, I had the
pleasure to meet with you on an afternoon when you were Vice
President.   President Bush:  I remember that.
 Monitor Editor:  You were most helpful then. I appreciate that. 
We have a problem, I think, in this country about who speaks for
various groups of persons with disabilities and, specifically in
our case, who speaks for blind people. Now, I still find
government officials who can't distinguish (or won't distinguish)
between listening to government agencies who say they speak for
the blind, on the one hand, or listening to elected leaders of
the blind who are chosen by the blind themselves, on the other.
That's all very well except that it impacts on all kinds of
things.
Let me give you an instance and then ask you a question about it. 
Members of your Administration and you personally have strongly
advocated
for equal rights for persons with disabilities. The Air Carrier
Access Act of 1986 prohibits discrimination against disabled
persons in air travel. Yet, ironically (citing this law as a
reason) the Federal Aviation Administration has just issued rules
restricting our seating on planes. The rules say that
discrimination is not permitted.  They go on to say that a
passenger must be able to see to sit near an exit.  Now, there is
no evidence of a safety problem. In fact, blind persons have, on
more than one occasion in emergencies, helped with evacuations
during times when lights were out on planes.
My question to you, Mr. President, is this: Is it possible that
some persons responsible for airline regulations haven't got the
message that you oppose discrimination and, more to the point, is
it too late for another look to be taken at that situation?
 President Bush:  Ken, in the first place, I have the blessing of
having a Secretary of Transportation who, on this subject, is
about as sensitive as anyone I know. He went down, I am told, and
actually tested the doors (aside: Is that right?)
 Unidentified Voice:  Yes.
 President Bush:  On this kind of situation, and I think they
have formulated regulations that obviously you disagree with. And
it is almost like sitting next to this one exit door is almost
like
an additional member of the crew in that that person has a
responsibility to be able to open the hatch, or whatever it is,
in event of an accident.  And whether the regulation can be
changed so as to have flexibility in instructing a nonsighted
person who sat there, I don't know, and I'd be glad to talk to
Sam Skinner about it. But the door, the opening, for example It's
not just  (as I understand it) against... aimed at disqualifying
nonsighted people from sitting there. I believe that there has to
be some evidence that the person is physically able to open that
hatch, 'cause it's almost like an additional safety factor for
the airline. I will ask Sam, given this interest that has been
brought to my attention before this meeting, as to whether there
can be some flexibility in terms of a person, you know,  Look,
here is where this handle is. If something goes wrong, reach over
and open the damn thing.  I think it was done on a basis, not to
discriminate, but really to try to save lives, and by being sure
that whoever sat there was totally capable of (without
instruction) knowing where you grab, reading the instructions and
I think that is where the dilemma comes from.  But if there is
some other way to handle it, Ken, why
I think we're in the nondiscrimination business, not the
discrimination business.  So let me see if we can talk to Sam
about it. What is your answer if he said,  Now wait a minute;
there's a safety function here. 
 Monitor Editor:  Mr. President, if it is truly a question of
safety, we want to ride as safely as anybody else. Of course we
don't want to sit next to that door. I don't think we're really
dealing
with that. I have personally evacuated one of those planes,
participated in a test evacuation and I know a number of other
people who have.  And it's not a question of whether you feel
better sitting next to that seat or not. Often blind people have
been assigned to those seats, and then a great row has occurred
public humiliation follows.  My answer, I guess, is this:  If
there is the slightest evidence of a safety problem, that ends
it. We think there is not, and we evacuated and took video tapes
of that and presented them in evidence.  There
is, as you may know, a bill that is now before Congress that has
thirty-seven Senatorial sponsors, including the ranking
Republican member of the Aviation Committee of the Senate. It has
already passed the Senate Committee.
It has 180 co-sponsors in the House, where it is now stuck, and
it simply says that you can't discriminate on the basis of
eyesight in seating on a plane. So I guess, Mr. President, that
my answer is:  We think we have evidence that it is not a safety
problem, and if there is, that ends it.
 President Bush:  All right. Well, that's a very broad view of it
and if there isn't evidence, then I'll end it if I have the power
so to do. Because, as I say, we are trying to get out of the
discrimination business and into the business of
nondiscrimination.  I appreciate your phrasing it that way, but
the way it was presented to me is strictly in terms of almost an
extra attendant in the cabin for that one seat and for safety.
 Monitor Editor:  Can somebody then be assigned to look into it
or talk? You know, that's all we ask?
 President Bush:  Yes, Boyden Gray will look into it. He's an
expert on regulations per se and has a very close relationship
with Secretary Skinner. So we will, and we'll get an answer to
you on it.  ____________________
That is how the conversation went, and I came away with mixed
feelings for while I feel honored to be allowed to be in the
presence of the President at the White House, that does not
diminish my capacity to reason or
my concern that blind people receive fair treatment from the
government.  Whether the exchange with President Bush was
positive or negative will depend on what was meant and what
follows.
When, for instance, the President says that Secretary Skinner 
went down and actually tested the doors on this kind of
situation,  one has to be a bit troubled. Secretary Skinner is
not knowledgeable about the techniques of blindness. He has not
had training in those techniques, nor can he make informed
judgments as to what a blind person can or cannot do. It would be
like my trying to make a decision about what a surgeon can do by
going to the operating room and experimenting with the
instruments good for public relations but not much else. 
Likewise when President Bush says that he will ask his legal
counsel, Boyden Gray, to look into the situation, it depends on
what will actually be done. The President said that Mr. Gray  has
a very close relationship with Secretary Skinner  and that he
will get an answer and get back to us. If this means that Mr.
Gray will simply talk with Secretary Skinner (and perhaps with
FAA officials) and then tell us what they say, it will be an
exercise in futility. If it means that Mr. Gray will ask
Secretary Skinner to talk with us and consider our evidence, then
we are dealing with something else entirely. I hope it will be
the latter. I fear it will be the former.
I believe the President approached my question with good will and
sincerity, but I also believe he got his briefing from people who
were opposed to our position and did not give him all of the
facts.  Perhaps they did not have the facts to give. For example,
surely anyone who has observed the normal configuration of exit
row seating would not argue that the people who sit in those
seats have special training or competence. And obviously the
people who sit there should be able physically to open the  hatch 
or window, but that is exactly the point. Blind people can and
have, and many of those who routinely sit there can't and
haven't. Moreover, no one has ever said that the blind are the
only ones at whom the discriminatory regulation is aimed.  Again,
that is exactly the point. We are lumped with small children, the
frail elderly, the extremely obese, and a variety of others but
the facts are that those others (whether they should be or not)
are not ordinarily barred from such seats. As we have so often
said, this issue runs much deeper than who sits in an exit row,
and it is very hard to get people to deal with it with their
minds and not just their emotions.
I came away from the interview feeling that President Bush is
perceptive and truly concerned to do the right thing, not just
about our issues but about anything he approaches. I think he
will do the right thing if he gets the facts. To set this matter
in perspective we are printing the editorial which appeared in 
USA Today  on June 14, 1989.
It capsulized in fewer than 300 words our position about the
airlines.  Here it is:

                  Face-Off: Seating Passengers 
Near Emergency Exits
              Stop Airlines' Bias Against the Blind
                       by Kenneth Jernigan
                         Guest Columnist

 Kenneth Jernigan is the Executive Director of the National
Federation of the Blind. 
BALTIMORE - Today no blind person can board a plane without fear
of harassment and possible arrest and injury. The problem
involves attempts by airlines to impose special rules and travel
limitations on us.  Typical is the requirement that blind persons
not sit in exit rows.

If as airlines say we are a hazard in exit rows, it is not civil
rights but safety. If we can function as well as others in exit
rows, it is not safety but civil rights. Forget the mush about
compassion.  It is either safety or it isn't. Here is a pilot's
sworn statement:   I have been a pilot for many years. I
currently fly 727 aircraft, and I have been employed to do so
since 1974. I am familiar with a number of blind people, and I am
generally familiar with the capacities of the blind. In an
emergency there are circumstances in which it would be helpful to
have an able-bodied blind person seated in an emergency exit row
with a sighted person. In those cases in which there is smoke in
the cabin, an able-bodied blind person, being used to handling
situations without sight, would be able to assist with more
facility in the evacuation. An able-bodied blind person would not
hinder an emergency evacuation. 
In the early '80s, a member of the National Federation of the
Blind proved the theory. As his plane approached San Francisco,
the landing gear stuck. They landed on foam. The lights went out.
It was night.  There was near panic. It was the blind man who
found the exit and helped the sighted evacuate.
If safety is the issue, why serve liquor to exit row passengers
or allow carry-on luggage in exit rows? Sighted passengers with
hidden problems (heart, back, feet, emotions, removing 70-pound
exit row windows) sit unmolested in exit rows. But our argument
is not that others are unsafe, so let us be unsafe, too. It is
that we should not be held to a higher standard than others, that
no blind person has ever contributed to a problem in an airplane
emergency, and that in the name of safety we are suffering
massive daily abuse.
To another generation Martin Luther King was quibbling and
nit-picking, a troublemaking radical.
                   WHY BRAILLE LITERACY BILLS?
                       by Michael Freeman
 Michael Freeman is Second Vice President of the National
Association to Promote the Use of Braille and one of the leaders
of the National Federation of the Blind of Washington. 
Throughout this country, much attention is being devoted to the
problems besetting our system of elementary and secondary
education. Whole forests have been sacrificed in the quest to
provide a definitive answer to the guestion:   Why can't Johnny
read?  Although there may not be a simple answer to this
question, there is a growing consensus among the blind that if
Johnny is blind, and, most especially, if Johnny has some
residual vision, the answer to this question is, at least in
part, that Johnny is not being taught Braille, the system of
raised dots used for reading and writing by the blind. According
to the National Braille Press in a recent publication, whereas in
1978, 52 percent of school-aged legally blind children could read
and write Braille, today, only 12 percent of these children can
do so. This is a shameful statistic!
When asked to justify this deplorable state of affairs, educators
advance a plethora of arguments, notably (1) that technology tape
recorders, talking computers, print- magnification equipment and
the like makes Braille obsolete and (2) that teaching Braille to
any but the totally blind is psychologically damaging since
Braille makes the student  conspicuous  and  not normal  and is
tantamount to forcing the student to be blind.
These arguments are easily answered. First, if technology REALLY
could supplant reading, it could do so for the sighted as well as
for the blind. Thus, television could become an acceptable
substitute for the written word. I know of few educators who
would be prepared to defend such a proposition. If such a
proposition is indefensible for the sighted, it is equally
indefensible for the blind. Tape recorders and talking computers,
useful though they may be, do not easily convey format and
spelling information. Tape recorders do not lend themselves to
quick scanning or skimming for particular bits of information. 
Print enlarging equipment tends to limit the amount of material
which can be seen at a given instant and tends to cause fatigue
if used for long periods. Such equipment is often not very
portable, limiting its usefulness. Braille, on the other hand,
does not suffer from these shortcomings.
Second, simply by virtue of being legally blind, the student is
already conspicuous. Reading print two inches from the nose,
using equipment
that makes letters six inches high, or carrying around a lot of
electronic gear is not inconspicuous behavior. This is not to
argue that such activities are wrong; it is simply to say that
the argument that the use of Braille makes the user more
conspicuous than does the use of other methods is not valid. It
is simply an attempt to justify the attitude that the blind are
inferior and, as a class, are incapable of performing to the same
standards as do the sighted; that it is somehow not quite
respectable to be blind.
Such an attitude is starkly evident on the part of special
education personnel when discussing the ramifications of
mandatory exposure
of blind and visually-impaired students to Braille instruction.
Whereas objections to educational requirements are seldom raised
when discussing sighted children even those with handicaps a host
of problems is discovered when it is proposed that legally blind
children be exposed to Braille. It is suggested by special
educators that requiring exposure to Braille would violate the
Individualized Education Plan of legally blind children required
under the federal statute Public Law 94-142, the Education for
All Handicapped Children Act as Amended; that many, if not most
of these children are multihandicapped and therefore would be
impossible to instruct in Braille; that, for example, laws
mandating some level of Braille exposure for blind students would
require even students in a coma (are they really in school?) to
be given Braille instruction, etc.
Such assertions are ridiculous. First, the Congress of the United
States never intended Public Law 94-142 to be used as an excuse
to eliminate educational requirements for handicapped children,
nor did it intend that the requirement that a handicapped child's
education should be tailored to meet his/her needs be used to
foster illiteracy among the blind! The intent was, rather, to see
to it that a handicapped child's education would be structured in
a manner which would best remedy any deficits the child had and
which would equip the child to overcome the problems he/she would
face in becoming a productive member of society. Second, the
objection to Braille's being taught to the multihandicapped blind
is based on the false assumption that the study of Braille is a
very abstruse and arcane discipline. This is nonsense!  Braille
is not difficult; one can learn to read Braille in the same time
it takes to learn to read print. Moreover, in the days before
recorded materials and computers, blind persons were known to
have learned to read Braille with their toes and tongues. The
real problem in learning Braille is not the medium but the
negative messages about it conveyed by educators.
In opposing legislation promoting Braille literacy, special
education personnel often maintain that such legislation would
require inordinate expenditures by state education departments
and local school districts.  In assessing the cost of Braille
literacy legislation, it is necessary to bear in mind two costs
associated with the status quo. First, there is the recognized
cost of illiteracy. Today's world of work requires, no less for
the blind than for the sighted, the ability to read and write
fluently and with precision. Illiteracy tends to equate to lower
paying jobs (with the consequent lessened tax revenues) or no
jobs
at all (with the attendant burden on the taxpayer). Second, many
legally blind students graduate from high school illiterate,
since they cannot read print fluently. When they attend
rehabilitation centers, they often must be taught Braille in
order to obtain a good job and integrate themselves successfully
into society. Taxpayers are therefore paying twice to teach these
students reading skills. This is a waste of tax dollars. Over and
above the tangible costs of Braille illiteracy,
there is the intangible cost of wasted lives and talents lost to
society.  In an era when many demographers are predicting a labor
shortage, society can no longer afford to bear these costs.
For the sake of this nation's blind children, the blind adult
citizenry of tomorrow, we must secure passage of Braille literacy
legislation throughout the country. Johnny, whether blind or
sighted, deserves the chance to live a fulfilled, literate, and
happy life.       WHAT CAN'T BLIND CHILDREN DO?
                       by Carol Castellano
From the Associate Editor: Parents who have had to listen to a
physician tell them that their child is blind understandably feel
that blindness will forevermore loom over every aspect of their
lives. Certainly people who lose their sight later in life are
preoccupied (for a while at least) with grieving for the loss.
They concentrate agonizingly on how much they can still see and
on what they are now missing. To all of these people the National
Federation of the Blind's optimistic focus on what is and what
can be sometimes seems unrealistic to the point of absurdity and
annoyance. Often we are told that individually and
organizationally we are denying the facts of our blindness 
refusing to deal with reality.
Yet thousands of us have discovered that the road to emotional
well-being, self-confidence, and competitiveness in the pursuits
of daily life
lies in the opposite direction from self-pity and obsession with
blindness.  Equally exciting, parents of blind children are
beginning to discover
the same bracing truths. Carol Castellano is the mother of a
five-year-old daughter Serena, who happens to be blind. In the
pages of  Future Reflections , the Federation's quarterly
magazine for parents and teachers of blind children, she has
written refreshingly of her adventures with grocery shopping and
cooking as opportunities to teach a blind child about her world.
Mrs. Castellano has adopted our view of blindness as her own, and
Serena is the stronger and healthier for it. Blindness is a fact
of the Castellano family's life. Serena must learn some
alternative techniques. Her parents provide her with information
in ways that make sense to her. But no one in the household is
dominated by the imagined limitations imposed on Serena or her
family by the specter of blindness.
In the summer of 1989 Mrs. Castellano's brother was married in
California, and the Castellano family attended the wedding and
stayed on for a vacation. Mrs. Castellano has now written about
that holiday and all the things the family did. Serena was a part
of it all, as was her two-year-old brother. The astonishing thing
about this article is that blindness as such played no
discernible part in the vacation.  Did Mrs. Castellano worry
about her daughter when the family climbed over jagged rocks with
the tide rushing in behind them? Of course she did. She admits
that she was a nervous wreck about the children, as any mother
would have been about any youngsters. But blindness
was only one small component of the mix in this unforgettable
vacation for the whole family. Can blind children do the things
other kids do? Of course they can! Or at least they can when
their parents are wise enough to let them do so. Here is the
article Carol Castellano wrote:

Last August my family had the good fortune to travel to Northern
California for the wedding of my brother and a subsequent
vacation in the West.  The wedding, lovely and distinctive, took
place in a moody morning
fog on beautiful, deserted Limantour Beach with the waves of the
Pacific pounding in the background. My five-year-old daughter
Serena still talks about the fact that the bride wasn't wearing
any shoes!
My brother had arranged for our extended family to rent a house
in Bolinas, an artists' community about 30 miles north of San
Francisco.  We delighted in the cool airiness of the house and
were charmed by its amenities filigreed iron and wicker
furniture, comfortable futons, wainscoting, and an interior
courtyard. Abundant plants were a perfect complement to the lush
greenery outdoors. Beyond our windows lay the shimmering Pacific.
Seals frolicked by day, and at night the distant lights of San
Francisco twinkled across the water.
Outside in the yard, we discovered that the house was built on a
cliff which dropped 200 feet straight down to the water. The
setting was striking and dramatic. Since there was no fence, one
of the first things we did was to show the children just where
they could venture safely in the yard and how close to the edge
they would be allowed to go. We lay on our bellies at the edge of
the cliff and hung our arms down. From the crashing sound of the
waves below, Serena, the blind member of our group, got a good
sense of how far away the water was. She seemed to derive a sense
of excitement and danger, at once healthy and realistic, from
being at the edge.
In our week at Bolinas, we combed the beach for shells and the
characteristic soft, striated rocks that had separated from the
eroding cliffs. Serena enjoyed investigating the layers of rock
and the streams of water
that surprised us as they came forth in sporadic bursts from the
rocks.

At the Point Reyes Visitors Center we enjoyed hands-on exhibits
of animals in recreations of their natural habitats. For the
first time Serena saw what a seal, a doe, a skunk, and a raccoon
were like in size, shape, and feel.
The restored Indian village, former home of the Coast Miwoks, was
of great interest to the children. We wandered through tepees,
rested at the outdoor eating areas, and squatted in the sweat
hut. The silos were full of the acorns from which the Miwok women
made their flour.  Since the same sort of tree still grows there,
we were able to take a few acorns home as souvenirs.
 At the end of a happy week my extended family, assorted friends,
and the newlyweds themselves made the long journey along the
twisting California coastline to Mendocino County, about three
hours north of San Francisco. There we took up residence in a
second house, a rustic cottage perched on the rim of a gorge,
again high above the Pacific.
Mendocino, from an Easterner's point of view, is in the middle of
nowhere. It has grand scenic beauty and nothing to do. Nothing,
that is, but to go outside and enjoy nature. My suburban family
had never experienced a vacation like this before.
The beaches were strewn with huge sun-bleached logs that had
washed ashore years before when rivers flooded the logging
forests and carried the harvested trees into the ocean.
Resembling giant bones, they were great fun to climb on. We slid
down high hills of sand and examined the long, sinewy sea
grasses, which were in various stages of drying.

My new sister-in-law, a California native, and my brother, a
transplant that took, accompanied us on a hike through a
beautiful, sun-filtered forest. Our destination was Russian Gulch
Falls, three miles up the mountain. Even my mom and my two-and-a-
half-year-old son participated in the six-mile round-trip trek.
The first part of the trail was flat (and, incidentally,
wheelchair-accessible), winding for about a mile and a half among
ferns, mulberry bushes,
and fiery poison oak. As we journeyed deeper into the forest, we
encountered huge redwood trees that the children hugged and
circled. Burnt-out stumps offered the opportunity for us to get
inside the trees. As the trail became steeper, we took turns
linking arms with Mom and holding hands with the children.
The hike was at its most exciting when the path narrowed to about
two feet, with a mountain face on one side and, on the other, a
steep drop down to the river below. (I guess no one will accuse
me of being an overprotective mother.) We made sure to show
Serena the drop and the width of the path. Again she seemed
thrilled, as were the rest of us, with the drama of our
adventure. Listening to the water below and the other sounds of
nature was extra special for all of us in the deep quiet of the
forest.
At last we arrived at the waterfall, which pattered noisily in
the surrounding silence. I went as far as the little bridge over
the ravine.  My sure-footed husband and sister-in-law took the
children down under the falls, a funny, refreshing experience for
them, somehow to be standing on a log in front of a rock, getting
splashed by water rushing down from the mountain above.
Another day found us at the coastal headlands of Russian Gulch
State Park. Very few beaches exist along this part of the coast.
Instead, at water's edge there are rocky cliffs that rise up
sharply to level headlands above. The headlands intrigued us with
promises of blow holes, where the ocean pounds its way through
softer parts of the rock and explodes triumphantly through the
ground as far as 200 feet away from the shoreline, and punch
bowls, in which the underground cavities created by the ocean
enlarge to the point that the ground above them collapses,
creating deep, wide depressions in the earth.

Narrow paths winding through high grasses and wildflowers led us
to a punch bowl, about 100 feet across and 100 feet deep and
surrounded by a fence. At the bottom was a mini-beach, complete
with logs and seaweed. The sound of the crashing waves below us,
far from the actual body of the ocean, was fascinating and
mesmerizing.
It was my husband's idea to climb down the rocks at low tide and
get close to the water. The rocks were extremely jagged  sharp
points with deep gouges between. Climbing on them with three
children was challenging, to say the least. We worked our way
down and down toward the relatively flatter, smoother rocks
exposed by the low tide. Some were hollowed out like giant bowls
in which all five of us could easily sit.
We discovered a blowhole! There it was, a narrow cylindrical hole
that went all the way through the rock to the water. With ears
close to the damp, mussel-laden wall, we listened excitedly to
the increasing power in each set of waves. Sprays of water from
the most powerful waves frothed ebulliently through the hole, all
the way up to where we were perched.
Around a bend was a shallow cave, which the children enjoyed
exploring.  We were even further down now, out on a small
peninsula, with ocean around us on three sides. We were only
about seven feet above the surface of the water, out where,
incredibly, the ocean would be imposing itself in a matter of
hours. The situation took my breath away, but the kids just took
it in stride.
We clamored among the rocks and tide pools until I, the most
conservative of our party, became concerned that perhaps we were
getting close
to the turning of the tide. We began our ascent, with one adult
going up to the next level and the other stabilizing and boosting
up the children. Nobody else seemed to mind, but this part made
me a nervous wreck something about responsibility for the
children, something about losing our footing, something about
falling into the icy ocean below. We did make it home, and upon
our return the three little ones regaled their grandparents with
tales of their rock-climbing adventure.

I suppose there are those who would argue that there are some
things a blind child simply can't do, and perhaps hiking narrow
mountain trails and climbing rocks would be on their list of
taboos. They would suggest that we think realistically, in terms
of constraints and limitations.  To them I would answer, all
people have limits: some are not well coordinated, some are not
bright, some are not well-spoken. But exclude a child from
rigorous physical activity and interesting adventures on the
basis of blindness? Ridiculous!
Our vacation in California was unlike any other my family has
ever had. Not only Serena, but most of us, were exposed to new
and different opportunities to explore, learn, and grow
confident. I sincerely believe that Serena's future will be
shaped more by her talents, abilities, ambitions, determination,
and inner resources than by her blindness.
If someone were to ask me:  Realistically, what can't blind
children do?  I would answer emphatically and unequivocally, 
Nothing! 

                                 
 
THE VALUE OF COMPARISON
 From the Associate Editor:  Sometimes it is easy to forget
that people who know little or nothing about blindness find the
philosophy of the National Federation of the Blind to be
reasonable when it is explained in a straightforward, sensible
way. We know it is true because we have experienced its
transforming power in our own lives, but when one is surrounded
by professional literature and the self-serving nonsense cobbled
together by agencies and employers who want nothing to do with
blind people, it is all too easy to lose sight of the fact that
ordinary men and women are capable of understanding our point of
view. 
 These thoughts came to mind recently as I read a letter from
Fred Schroeder, a member of the Board of Directors of the
National Federation of the Blind. In going through his personal
files, he came across a student paper from a course he had taught
several years before.
Fred had asked the class to read and think about two articles
expressing contrasting views of blindness and then write a short
essay about them. Fred was particularly impressed with one of the
responses he received to this very interesting assignment. The
uninformed often suggest that blind people should get together
and agree on what they
need and how to get it. The source documents in this assignment
demonstrate with stark clarity the near impossibility of such a
task. Here is the letter that Fred Schroeder wrote to Dr.
Jernigan: 

                                          Albuquerque, New Mexico
                                                December 11, 1989

Dear Dr. Jernigan:

Several years ago I taught an introductory course on the
education of blind children through the Special Education
Department of the University of New Mexico. One of the
assignments I gave my students was to read your article entitled 
A Left-Handed Dissertation  and a contrasting article by Richard
Brown entitled  Thoughts Concerning Blindness.  The students were
asked to write a brief reaction to the articles stating
specifically the points with which they agreed and disagreed and
why.
Enclosed is the paper submitted by Loretta Garcia, a graduate
student in Special Education. I came upon this paper in my files
and thought you might find it interesting to see the conclusions
she drew. Loretta is not a blind person, nor is she a member of
the National Federation of the Blind. Yet she recognized without
difficulty the falseness of Brown's negative view of blindness.
Loretta's paper points out
the real power of spreading our message to the public and
demonstrates the public's willingness and ability to accept a
progressive view of blindness when given straightforward
information.
I hope you will find Loretta's paper as interesting and
encouraging as I did.

                                                 Sincerely yours,
                                                   Fred Schroeder
____________________
That is the cover letter Fred Schroeder wrote to Dr. Jernigan,
but in order to appreciate Loretta Garcia's paper, one really
should read the documents she was asked to compare. Here is  A
Left-Handed Dissertation,  a speech first delivered at the 1973
convention of the National Federation of the Blind. It was
written while Dr.  Jernigan drove from Michigan to Iowa during a
blizzard. As the opening sentences indicate, a Federationist had
written Dr. Jernigan a letter which he answered while dealing
with mail during that unforgettable drive. This is Dr. Jernigan's
response to that Federationist's question:

                  A LEFT-HANDED DISSERTATION: 
OPEN LETTER TO A FEDERATIONIST
                       by Kenneth Jernigan

Dear Colleague:
You have asked me to comment on a seeming contradiction in the
philosophy of the National Federation of the Blind. You tell me
that, on the one hand, we say the ordinary blind person can
compete on terms of equality with the ordinary sighted person if
he gets proper training and opportunity. You call to my attention
our statement that the average blind person can do the average
job in the average place of business, and do it as well as his
sighted neighbor. You remind me that we tell the world (with
great insistence) that the blind person can be as happy and lead
as full a life as anybody else.
You tell me that, on the other hand, we say blindness need not be
the great tragedy it has always been considered but that it can
be reduced to the level of a mere physical nuisance. You say
these two propositions seem contradictory and that, if you are to
buy the one, you do not see how you can buy the other. You tell
me you are prepared to accept the fact that the blind can compete
and, therefore, that
you are not prepared (unless I can trot out valid reasons to the
contrary) to concede that blindness is a nuisance at all that is,
any more than any other characteristic is a nuisance to any other
person in normal living.
Let me begin by saying that you have put me in an unusual
position.  Ordinarily people want to argue the other way. Most of
them say that it is ridiculous to pretend that blindness can be
reduced to the level of a nuisance since it is obviously a major
tragedy, involving severe problems and extreme limitations, not
to mention emotional distress and psychological disturbance. You,
however, deny that it is even a nuisance and ask me to come up to
the line and prove that it is.  Fair enough. I shall try. The
very fact that you can seriously raise such a question shows how
much progress we have made. I doubt that anybody could have done
it, even as recently as twenty years ago.

To begin with, even if we were to concede (and I don't concede
it, as I will shortly indicate) that there is absolutely nothing
which can be done with sight which cannot be done just as easily
and just as well without it, blindness would still be a nuisance,
as the world is now constituted. Why? Because the world is
planned and structured for the sighted. This does not mean that
blindness need be a terrible tragedy or that the blind are
inferior or that they cannot compete on terms of equality with
the sighted.
For an exact analogy, consider the situation of those who are
left-handed.
The world is planned and structured for the right- handed. Thus,
left-handedness is a nuisance and is recognized as such,
especially by the left-handed.  Even so, the left-handed can
compete on terms of equality with the right-handed since their
handicap can be reduced to the level of a mere physical nuisance.
If you are not left-handed (I am not. I am a  normal. ), you may
not have thought of the problems. A left-handed person ordinarily
wears his wristwatch on his right arm. Not to do so is awkward
and causes problems. But the watch is made for the right-handed.
Therefore, when it is worn on the right arm, the stem is toward
the elbow, not the fingers. The watch is inconvenient to wind, a
veritable nuisance.

Then there are butter knives. Many of them are so constructed
that the left-handed must either spread the butter with the back
of the
knife, awkwardly use the right hand, or turn the wrist in a most
uncomfortable way nuisances all. But not of the sort to ruin
one's psyche or cause nightmares, just annoying. The garden
variety can opener (the one you grip in your left hand and turn
with your right that is, if you are  normal ) is made for 
normals.  If you
hold it in your right hand and turn it with your left (as any
respectable left-hander is tempted to do), you must either
clumsily reach across it to get at the handle or turn it upside
down so that the handle
is conveniently located, in which case it won't work at all.
Likewise, steak knives are usually serrated to favor the
right-handed. Scissors, egg beaters, ice cream dippers, and other
utensils are also made for the same group.
So are ordinary school desk classroom chairs. How many have you
seen with the arms on the left side? Of course, a few enlightened
schools and colleges (with proper, present-day concern for the
well-being of minorities) have two or three left-handed chairs in
each of their classrooms, but this is the exception rather than
the rule. It succeeds only in earning the ill will of chauvinist
right-handers, who must use the desks when the room is full and
the left-handed are absent.  Of course, these occasional left-
handed desks are the most blatant form of tokenism, the groveling
gratitude of occasional left-handed Uncle Toms to the contrary
notwithstanding.
In at least one case, it would seem, the problem of the
left-handed is not just a side effect of the fact that the world
is constructed
for the right-handed but a real, inherent weakness. When the
left-handed person writes with ink (the ballpoint pen was a
blessing, indeed), his hand tends to smear the ink as it drags
over what he has written.  Of course, he can hold his hand up as
he writes, but this is an inferior technique, not to mention
being tiresome. Upon closer examination even this apparently
inherent weakness is not really inherent at all but simply
another problem created by society in its catering to the
right-handed. There is no real reason why it is better to begin
reading or writing at the left side of the page and move to the
right, except
that it is more efficient and comfortable for the majority, the
right-handed.  In fact, it would be just as easy to read or write
from the right to the left (more so for the left-handed), and
thus the shoe would be on the other foot or, more precisely, the
pen would be in the other hand.
The left-handed have always been considered inferior by the
right-handed.  Formerly (in primitive times twenty or thirty
years ago) parents tried to make their left-handed children
behave normally that is, use their right hands. Thereby, they
often created trauma and psychiatric problems causing complexes,
psychoses, and emotional disturbances. Today (in the age of
enlightenment) while parents do
not exactly say,  left is beautiful,  they recognize the rights
of minorities and leave their left-handed progeny to do their own
thing.
(Parenthetically, I might say here that those who work with the
blind
are not always so progressive. Parents and especially educators
still try to make the blind child with a little sight read large
type, even when Braille would serve him better and be more
efficient. They put great stress on reading in the  normal 
manner and not being  conspicuous.  They make him ashamed of his
blindness and often cause permanent damage.)
But back to the left-handed. Regardless of the enlightenment of
parents and teachers, the ancient myth of the inferiority of the
left-handed still lingers to bedevil the lives of that
unfortunate minority. To say that someone has given you a 
left-handed compliment  is not a compliment to the left- handed.
It is usually the left hand that doesn't know what the right hand
is doing, rarely the other way around; and it is the right hand
that is raised, or placed on the Bible, to take an oath. Salutes
and the Pledge of Allegiance are given with the right hand.
Divine Scripture tells us that the good and the evil shall be
divided and that, at the day of judgment, the sheep shall be on
the right hand and the goats on the left, from whence they shall
be cast into outer darkness forever and ever. The guest of honor
sits on the right hand of the host, and in an argument one always
wants to be right. No one ever wants to be left behind. Whether
these uses of the words  left  and  right  are subtleties of
language reinforcing the stereotype and bespeaking deeply
ingrained, subconscious prejudice or whether they are accidental,
as the  normals  allege, who can say? It may simply be that the
left-handed are supersensitive, wearing chips on their shoulders
and looking for insult where none is intended.
It is hard to make this case, however, when one considers the
word  gauche . The 1971 edition of  Webster's Third New
International Dictionary of the English Language, Unabridged ,
says:  gauche...left, on the left, French...lacking in social
graces or ease, tact, and familiarity with polite usage; likely
or inclined to commit social blunders especially from lack of
experience or training...lacking finish or exhibiting crudity (as
of style, form or technique)...being or designed for use with the
left hand: LEFT-HANDED. Synonym see AWKWARD. gauchely, adverb: in
a gauche manner: AWKWARDLY, CLUMSILY, CRUDELY. 
Whatever else may be said, there is nothing subtle about all of
that; nor is there anything subtle about the term  bar sinister, 
which comes from the Latin sinistral, meaning  left-handed.  The
1971 edition of  Webster's Third New International Dictionary of
the English Language, Unabridged , says:  bar sinister...the fact
or condition of being of illegitimate birth...an enduring stigma,
stain, or reproach (as of improper conduct or irregular status). 
Supersensitive? Quibbling? Not on your life. Left-handers, arise! 
You have nothing to lose but your chains. They probably don't fit
you anyway, being made for the right-handed. Look for the new
slogans any day:  Left is lovely,  and  Get righty! 
As with other oppressed minorities, the subtleties of language
and prejudice carry over into the job market. I know of a woman,
for instance, who lives in Kansas and who sought employment in a
factory in that state. She was interviewed and passed every test
with flying colors.  The prospective employer terminated the
interview by telling her,  You are in every way qualified for the
job, and I would hire
you immediately, except for your handicap.  In outrage and
indignation she demanded to know what he meant.  Why,  he said, 
it's obvious! You are left-handed. The machines on our assembly
line are
made for the right-handed. You would slow down the entire
operation.  This is not fantasy but fact. The company makes
greeting cards. The woman did not get the job.
If, in truth and in fact, the left-handed woman would have slowed
the assembly line, it is hard to see how the action of the
employer can be called discriminatory. He could not be expected
to buy new machinery simply to give her a job, nor could he be
expected to redesign the entire factory. The  normal  person is
right-handed, and it is reasonable for the factory to be designed
accordingly.
Or does all of this miss the whole point? Is this not exactly the
way employers and the general public think and talk about the
blind?  How did he know she was less efficient? Perhaps she had
alternative techniques. Perhaps, in fact, she could have done the
job better than most of the other people he had on the line. He
decided (based on what he doubtless called  obvious  and  common
sense  reasons) that she couldn't do the work. Accordingly, she
was never even given the opportunity to try. Beware the  obvious, 
and look very carefully at so- called  common sense. 
Do you still say there is no discrimination against the
left-handed?  Probably you do unless you begin to think about it,
until you
get the facts and even then, some people will say you are
quibbling, that you are exaggerating. How very like the case of
the blind. How easy to make quick judgments and have all of the
answers, especially when you are not confronted with the problem
or compelled to look at reality.
From all of this, you can see that the life of the left-hander is
not easy. Nevertheless, his infirmity can be reduced to the level
of a mere nuisance. It need not mean helplessness or inferiority. 
It does not necessarily cripple him psychologically. With
reasonable opportunity he can compete on terms of equality with
his right-handed neighbor. The average left-hander can do the
average job in the average place of business and do it as well as
the average right-hander. So far as I can tell, there is no
inherent weakness in left-handedness at all. The problems arise
from the fact that society is structured for the right-handed.
But these problems (annoying though they be) do not keep the
left-handed from leading normal lives or competing with others.
They are at the nuisance level.
Therefore, even if blindness (like left-handedness) had no
inherent problems, it would still be a nuisance since society is
structured and planned for the sighted sometimes when it could be
arranged
more efficiently otherwise. For instance, most windows in modern
buildings are not there for ventilation. They are sealed. They
are there only so that the sighted may look out of them. The
building loses heat
in winter and coolness in summer, but the sighted (the majority)
will have their windows.
I think, however, that blindness is not exactly like
left-handedness.  I think there are some things that are
inherently easier to do with sight than without it. For instance,
you can glance down the street and see who is coming. You can
look across a crowded room and tell who is there.
But here, it seems to me, most people go astray. They assume
that, because you cannot look across the room and see who is
there or enjoy the sunset or look down the street and recognize a
friend, you are confronted with a major tragedy that you are
psychologically crippled, sociologically inferior, and
economically unable to compete. Regardless of the words they use,
they feel (deep down at the gut level) that the blind are
necessarily less fortunate than the sighted. They think that
blindness means lack of ability. Such views are held not only by
most of the sighted but by many of the blind as well. They are
also held by many, if not most, of the professionals in the field
of work with the blind. In the  Journal of Rehabilitation  for
January-February 1966, an article appeared entitled:  Social
Isolation of the Blind: An Underrated Aspect of Disability and
Dependency.  This article was written by none other than Dr. D.
C. MacFarland, Chief of the Office for the Blind, Social and
Rehabilitation Service, Department of Health, Education, and
Welfare. Dr. MacFarland says:   Let me repeat a statement which I
violently oppose. There is
a slowly evolving fiction which can be summed up in the
generalization, `Blindness is a mere inconvenience.' I do not
agree with this, and I do not know what to call such exaggeration
in reverse. I think it has done its share of harm, throwing some
very well-intentioned people
off the track about what blindness really amounts to in people's
lives. 

It seems to me that Dr. MacFarland is as far off the track as the
people who contend that blindness is not even important enough to
be considered a nuisance. I think it would be pleasant to look at
a sunset. I think it would be helpful to look across a room and
see who is there, or glance down the street and recognize a
friend. But
I know that these things are peripheral to the major concerns of
life.
It is true that it is sometimes a nuisance to devise alternative
techniques to get the same results I could have without effort if
I were sighted, but it is just that (a nuisance), not a tragedy
or a psychological crisis or an international incident.
It seems to me that many of the problems which are regarded as
inherent in blindness are more like those of the left-handed in
other words, created as a natural side effect of the structuring
of society for the sighted. It seems to me that the remaining
problems (those that are truly indigenous to blindness) are
usually vastly overrated and overdramatized.
Blindness can, indeed, be a tragedy and a veritable hell, but
this is not because of the blindness or anything inherent in it.
It is because of what people have thought about blindness and
because of the deprivations and the denials which result. It is
because of the destructive myths which have existed from the time
of the caveman myths which have equated eyesight with ability,
and light with intelligence and purity. It is because the blind,
being part of the general culture, have tended to accept the
public attitudes and thus have done much to make those attitudes
reality.
As far as I am concerned, all that I have been saying is tied up
with the why and wherefore of the National Federation of the
Blind. If
our principal problem is the physical fact of blindness, I think
there is little purpose in organizing. However, the real problem
is not the blindness but the mistaken attitudes about it. These
attitudes can be changed, and we are changing them. The sighted
can also change.  They can be shown that we are in no way
inferior to them and that the old ideas were wrong that we are
able to compete with the sighted, play with the sighted, work
with the sighted, and live with the sighted on terms of complete
equality. We the blind can also come to recognize these truths,
and we can live by them.
For all these reasons I say to you that the blind are able to
compete on terms of absolute equality with the sighted, but I go
on to say that blindness (even when properly dealt with) is still
a physical nuisance. We must avoid the sin and the fallacy of
either extreme.  Blindness need not be a tragic hell. It cannot
be a total nullity, lacking all inconvenience. It can, as we of
the National Federation of the Blind say at every opportunity, be
reduced to the level of a mere annoyance. Right on! And let us
neither cop out by selling ourselves short with self-pity and
myths of tragic deprivation, nor lie to ourselves by denying the
existence of a problem. There is no place in our movement for the
philosophy of the self-effacing Uncle
Tom, but there is also no place for unreasonable and unrealistic
belligerence.  We are not out to  get sighty. 
____________________
That is what Dr. Jernigan said in 1973, and the speech has become
one of the best loved articulations of the philosophy held by
members of the National Federation of the Blind. As might be
expected, those who spend their time reacting against the
Federation and finding ways of explaining away their
unwillingness to try living life to the full have responded
through the years to this speech with anger and ridicule in an
effort to disguise their own insecurity. In the March, 1978,
edition of the  Journal of Visual Impairment and Blindness ,
Richard Brown, a Braille instructor for the Veterans
Administration in Hines, Illinois, wrote what he probably thought
was a refutation of Dr. Jernigan's speech.
It is an interesting tagbag of gripes and grumbles which begins
with the argument that, if everyone had always been blind,
society would probably lack many of the concepts and contrivances
that make life pleasant today; therefore, the blind individual is
at a great disadvantage.  This is like saying that the race could
not survive if all human beings were male; therefore, every man
is a threat to the species. He goes
on to point out that the federal government does not consider
left-handedness to be a full disability as it does blindness.
Brown finds it convenient to ignore the fact that the NFB has
always contended that the handicap of blindness can be, and often
is, a tragedy. Lack of vision is only one part a small part of
the phenomenon, which also includes public ignorance,
discrimination, denial of training, and restricted educational
opportunities.
He concludes his article with a bitter little diatribe against
the training of blind people under sleepshades, arguing that
brain damaged people are not mentally retarded and the hearing
impaired need hearing aids, not training in the skills of
deafness. Such analogies, of course, fall apart immediately when
they are examined, but even so, it surely makes sense to offer
the whole range of needed skills to anyone with a disability and
to employ teaching methods that will assist him or her to master
the body of information. If an individual's brain damage is such
that presenting information in small, frequently repeated bits is
the most effective way of teaching, then that is how it should be
done. If a particular hearing impairment is severe, then learning
to lip read or to sign might be useful to the person in
situations with lots of noise and confusion. Surely the object is
to provide
the individual with useful tools as many tools as possible.
Unfortunately, blind people with a little residual sight are
usually denied the possibility of learning the skills which would
often be most useful just because they and their families believe
that sight is always the best method of completing any task in
which it can be used at all.
Here is what Richard Brown has to say in reaction to  A Left-
Handed Dissertation :


                      THOUGHTS  CONCERNING 
BLINDNESS
                       by Richard N. Brown


Blindness was once considered an insufferable tragedy; now, some
say, it is only an inconvenience. What is an inconvenience? An
inconvenience is missing a bus and having to wait five or ten
minutes for another one. The incident is not important. It
doesn't affect your life; it
is just something to grumble about. If blindness is that
unimportant or, to put it another way if sight is that immaterial
to life, why then it would not matter if no one could see, or if
no one had ever seen.

The Importance of Sight

But if no one had ever seen, how would we know about the stars?
And if we didn't know about the stars, how would man have
navigated the wide oceans? For, from prehistoric times to the
modern era, such diverse peoples as the Phoenicians and the
Polynesians relied on the sun and the stars to tell them where
they were and in what direction they were going. If no one had
ever seen, how would we know about the moon?  And if we didn't
know anything about the moon, how would we explain the ocean
tides? The camera, the television, the great paintings of the
past and present would have no value for this civilization.
Without the microscope, how would we have discovered bacteria,
the cause of so many diseases? The x-ray would be useless.
Without sight, would
we have known about the speed of light, or cared? Without the
electron microscope, how would we have solved the mysteries of
the atom, the cell, and DNA? The driving of automobiles, the
piloting of planes, the daily weather forecast all of these tasks
require sight. There are many more tasks and occupations, besides
those I have mentioned, which illustrate that sight is a vital
part of life.
A civilization of only blind people, by using alternative
methods, might have developed to where we are now. Intelligence
is, after all, the most important ingredient necessary to a
civilization's progress.  However, I suspect the growth would
have been slower, and the result very different.

Blindness Like Being Left-Handed?

There are some people who maintain that blindness is on a par
with being left-handed. I would like to mention a few
differences, such as: Do the left-handed have to use a different
medium for reading than the right-handed? Do the left-handed have
to use a cane or dog
for purposes of travel? Does the federal government consider the
left-handed totally disabled meaning not able to work and,
therefore, give them total disability benefits? The answer to all
these questions is no! Furthermore, we really do not believe
these arguments ourselves.  For, with the next breath, we cry out
for more benefits. We ask for fewer quarters of Social Security
coverage, and we ask that we receive the money regardless of
income. We rationalize these differing positions of equality
versus inequality by saying:  The sighted discriminate against
us; they will not employ us, and this makes the government
subsidy necessary.  It is certainly true that we are
under-employed.  There are many positions we could fill if
employers would give us a chance. Still, it is a fact, and some
of us hate to face it, that with blindness come limitations. I
know everyone has limitations.
I know there are blind people who are not as limited as many
sighted people. But for the average blind person, it means that
he will be more limited in the job market than the average
sighted person.

Making the Most of Residual Vision

When the public thinks of a blind person, they think of someone
without the vestige of sight. It was decided by our authorities
that 10 percent of normal vision, or an extremely constricted
field, would constitute legal blindness. Some countries have not
adopted this definition;
their visual requirements are more stringent than ours. I feel
personally that the legally blind should be classified in two
categories: 1) Those who have to use Braille or talking books for
reading and have
to use the cane or dog to aid them in their travel should be
considered blind; and 2) Those who can read print and travel
without the assistance of a cane or dog should be classified as
severely visually impaired.

There is a certain philosophy which believes that all legally
blind persons should be trained as though they were totally
blind. It is thought that such training will change the person's
attitude toward blindness. It will give him confidence in himself
as a blind person, and if total loss of sight should occur, the
individual will not be overwhelmed nor afraid. I work for an
agency that once had this policy at least in orientation and
mobility. Every lesson was done under the blindfold, no matter
how much the patient could see. Many of these people did
extremely well in mobility; one person said it was like playing
an interesting game. But if the client lost his sight, mobility
was no longer a game. It became serious, it was a reality, and
all the confidence had to be regained.
Personally, I don't believe in this school of thought. If I were
hard of hearing, I would not wish to be the trainee for deafness.
I would want the best hearing aid possible, and I would want to
use my hearing to the maximum. And if I were brain damaged, I
would not want to be trained as though I were mentally retarded.
I would want to be taught to use my remaining brain power to its
utmost. Similarly, if I had useful vision, I would try to find a
lens that would improve it and hope I would be taught to use this
remaining vision. Many people who are severely visually impaired
must at times use the skills learned by the totally blind. If I
had enough vision so that I could rely mainly on print for
reading and travel without a cane most of the
time, I would hope the stress would be placed on how to use and
function with this vision, rather than on teaching me to live as
though totally blind.
Blindness is more than an inconvenience. It is certainly more
serious than being left-handed, and it does involve many
limitations. For some people, whether we like it or not,
blindness is a tragedy for some, that tragedy is insurmountable.
Fortunately, most people are
able to adjust to their blindness. They learn the alternative
techniques that enable them to get along without sight and do
lead normal, productive lives in spite of their handicap.
___________________
There you have Richard Brown's response, and an interesting
contrast
to Dr. Jernigan's thoughts it is, too. Here is what one graduate
student gleaned from a careful reading of both papers:

    LEFT-HANDED DISSERTATION/ THOUGHTS CONCERNING  BLINDNESS
                      by Loretta S. Garcia
                       September 12, 1984

After reading  Blindness: A Left-Handed Dissertation  by Kenneth
Jernigan and  Thoughts Concerning Blindness  by Richard Brown, my
first reaction was to question if Brown is blind or not. If so,
he fits perfectly into what Jernigan refers to as a blind person
that has accepted the general public's negative attitudes towards
blindness and has done as much as possible to make those
attitudes reality.
If not, he has an extremely low opinion of the blind and their
capabilities of functioning successfully in a sighted society. I
found Brown's article to be extremely opinionated. He magnifies
the importance and necessity of sight in history, technology, and
job opportunities.
Upon summarizing the data mentioned above, Brown has the gall to
assume that if our civilization consisted of blind people, growth
would have been slower, and our society might not have become as
advanced!
On the other hand, Kenneth Jernigan's article takes a positive
stance on blindness, and he also points out that there are tasks
which are inherently easier to do with sight than without. I
appreciate the fact that Jernigan does not avoid the obvious
drawbacks concerning blindness, yet he believes strongly that
these drawbacks are not necessarily significant enough to hinder
a blind individual's life.  Jernigan's comparison of blindness to
being left-handed serves as an excellent example of how
majorities tend automatically to make assumptions without
sufficient knowledge or evidence.
Assumptions are what get us into trouble because we do not take
the
time to prove what we already think we  know  or what we consider 
obvious  or  common sense.  The limitations and negative aspects
of blindness that Brown focused on are the most common
assumptions that come to mind of the sighted (or majority). These
assumptions
are rarely thought through and are taken for granted as tasks or
skills that the blind cannot possibly do independently. Again, as
Jernigan stresses, we must look very carefully at the so-called 
common sense  which people rely on too heavily and without second
thought.

From our narrow-minded assumptions we develop discriminations in
areas
that we are ill-informed about or ignorant in. It would be an 
obvious  risk (or  common sense ) to an apartment owner not to
rent an apartment to a blind person. How is this person going to
keep the place clean (vacuum or dust)? What about cooking the
renter may burn the place down! These questions and doubts could
easily be proven wrong but again stem from ignorance. We have
assumptions that lead us to believe that a blind person could not
possibly handle a normal amount of responsibility thus we have
discrimination.
Yes, I do agree with Jernigan in that the real problem is not the
blindness but the mistaken attitudes about it. These attitudes
will take time to change, especially for those who share Brown's
disposition on blindness. If the sighted are shown that blindness
need not mean loss of independence and self-worth, then a major
breakthrough will be made. Again, this is easier said than done
due to the fact that the blind will be given fewer opportunities
to prove their skills and competence. As a result, like any other
minority, the blind will have to fight for their rights and
constantly prove themselves to the sighted majority.
                   YET ANOTHER BRUSH WITH THE 
AUDIBLE TRAFFIC SIGNAL
                          by Kay Porth
 Kay Porth is the energetic President of the National Federation
of the Blind of Alaska. Like so many of the rest of us, the
members of the Alaska affiliate have found the noisy little
critters called audible traffic signals encroaching on their
peace and quiet against their will and despite their best efforts
to prevent the migration.  Recently Kay wrote a letter to Dr.
Jernigan designed to gladden the hearts of everyone who yearns to
cross streets again with unimpaired freedom to listen to the
traffic without the intrusion of whoops and whistles. Here is her
letter: 

                                                   March 28, 1990
                                                Anchorage, Alaska

Dear Dr. Jernigan:
The members of the Alaska Affiliate would like to share with 
Monitor  readers a little story which will sound very familiar.
In October, 1989, I received a phone call from a person who
identified himself as the Municipal Traffic Engineer for the City
of Anchorage.  He wanted to know my feelings about the city
council's plan to install audible traffic signals in the vicinity
of the city's new performing arts center. I was ready with my
very negative opinion, and he asked me to put it in writing so
that he could present it at the next city council meeting. A
recent article in the  Monitor , in which Mary Ellen Gabias had
written just such a letter, helped me put it all together very
quickly, and my letter in response to his request was written and
mailed on the same day.
The next day a reporter for the  Anchorage Daily News  contacted
me and also asked my opinion of the  tweety  birds. He told me
that he had recently been in Washington, D.C., and had talked
with Jim Gashel about the signals. He said that he understood
from Mr.  Gashel that the NFB did not approve of the signals, and
he wished to know if the local affiliate agreed with Mr. Gashel's
opinion. Of course we did! How could we not? The reporter
published an article entitled  Audible Traffic Signals Irk the
Blind,  in which he quoted statements from both Mr. Gashel and
me.
Meanwhile, back in the halls of local government, the city
council met, and the traffic engineer called with the news that
the traffic signals had already been installed. The rationale the
council used
was that many groups for the blind and experts in the field had
assured the council that it was the thing to do and that blind
people would certainly benefit.
 So we went through the winter with the blind of the city
ignoring the beeps and whistles as best we could in order to hear
the traffic and safely cross the streets. Then spring came, and
guess what? With the warmer weather office workers in the area
opened their windows and began to complain about the noisy
signals. Then somebody purloined one of them. I remember reading
this story before. In fact, it parallels the adventures of the
vanishing signals recounted in the August, 1989,  Monitor 
article  Arlington, Massachusetts, May Yet Go Cuckoo  and the
information provided in my letter to the council.
A new Municipal Traffic Engineer took over and called to ask my
opinion of the traffic signals. He told me that a new signal
would have to be purchased to replace the one which had been
stolen. He added that he thought the signals were silly and would
like to do away with them but had been told by his superiors that
he could do this only if the blind agreed. I asked him to find
the letter I had written to the former traffic engineer, which
would make our opinion of the signals very clear. He contacted me
again to say that he had located and read my letter and
understood and agreed with the NFB. When I asked him to forget
about purchasing any new signals and to do away with the existing
ones, he ended our conversation by saying,  They're gone.  This
story has a much happier ending than the story of the
poltergeists, which ends with the little girl who says,  They're
back.  I suppose these audible traffic signals will keep
reappearing, like the poltergeists, and we of the NFB must keep
educating and making our philosophy known. But we've won this
one, and we are proud that the NFB of Alaska is changing what it
means to be blind.

Sincerely,
Kay Porth, President
National Federation of the Blind of Alaska
                   PACKING YOUR OWN PARACHUTE
                           by Tom Ley
 Tom Ley is a student at Louisiana Technical Institute and a
leader in the Student Division of the National Federation of the
Blind. This article appeared in the Spring, 1990, edition of  The
Student Slate,  the newsletter of the NFB Student Division. His
comments are directed at students who face the task of hiring and
training readers, but
his advice applies equally to training readers in all other
situations.  Here is what he has to say: 

When a skydiver prepares to make a jump, he has in mind the
specific task of returning to the ground. However, not only does
he wish to accomplish this task, but he also wishes to fulfill
the goals of maximum safety and maximum excitement. Of course, he
could simply return to the ground in the plane. The task would be
accomplished, but although this method is usually very safe, it
is certainly not very exciting.  On the other hand, he could
simply jump out of the plane and fall
to the ground. However, although once again the task would be
accomplished and the thrill of a lifetime provided, to date this
method has not proven to be particularly healthful. Of course,
the answer to this dilemma for the skydiver is to jump out of the
plane with a parachute strapped to his back. He receives maximum
excitement during the free fall and then, at the appropriate
moment, pulls the ripcord and floats lazily to the ground. It
should be noted that the task can be accomplished without the
parachute, but fulfilling simultaneously the criteria of both
safety and excitement cannot be done without it. Because of the
importance of having a fully functioning parachute when jumping
out of a plane, most skydivers, as a rule, do not make a jump
unless
the parachute they are using is one they have chosen and packed
themselves.  It may sound obvious, but there is no way for one to
feel in control of a situation unless one really is in control.
As a blind student in a college or university, one of the primary
tasks you have to accomplish is to read and comprehend voluminous
amounts of written material. Fortunately, many of these materials
are available in a timely fashion and in a form that can be read
independently by the blind. However, it is an inevitable fact of
life that a good portion of the material that you have to read is
not available in Braille or recorded form, and when it is, it
cannot be obtained quickly enough to be of any use. The solution
to this dilemma is, of course, to use a live person to read the
material. In a way analogous to the importance of a skydiver's
being able to choose and pack his own parachute, it is important
for the blind student to hire and train his own readers and to
use them whenever and wherever it is most convenient.
I am writing this from the perspective of having attended college
under circumstances which allowed me to select and direct my own
readers.  I realize that, unfortunately, this is not the case for
many blind students across the country. If it is not for you,
then you should know that the situation is not going to improve
unless you and the other blind students in your state see that it
does.
The following is a series of helpful hints for use when obtaining
and using readers. They are a combination of the advice that I
have received from other blind students and the approaches which
I have adopted based on my own experience throughout my college
career. Nearly all of the suggestions have the underlying
message,  You must
be the one in control.  After all, why allow others to be in
charge when the quality of your education hangs in the balance?
The question that everybody wants the answer to is,  How do you
find a reader who has an easy-to-listen-to voice, is absolutely
dependable, has a flexible schedule, can describe graphs and
tables efficiently, can read quickly, and has a compatible
personality?  The answer is that you don't at least not very
often. However, if you can get enough people knocking down your
door to read for you, then your chances of finding someone who
comes close will be greatly improved.  Campus and local
newspapers are excellent places through which to spread the word
that you are looking for readers. Advertising space is usually
inexpensive. Bulletin boards in heavily traveled areas
such as student unions, post offices, and cafeterias are also
excellent places to get the word out. Of course, the campus
employment office
is the first place you should go. If you need readers who know a
particular subject, try the bulletin boards and offices in the
departments where these students can most likely be found.
Finally, be sure to say in each of your notices that the position
is paid. This announcement will greatly increase the response.
Now that your phone is ringing off the wall with calls from
people
who are dying to be readers, the next step is to interview the
potential readers. There should be more to the process than a
simple question and answer interview over the phone. These
interviews are an excellent way to narrow the field to a small
number of candidates, but before any hiring is done, each reader
should go through an in-person tryout.  During the phone
interviews you can weed out all of the people that you conclude,
for various reasons, will not work out. But you will not know if
the others will work, until you actually sit down with them and
do some simple reading. During the interview have the reader
tackle as many of the types of material you need as possible. For
instance, if you are using a math textbook, then you will want to
make sure that your reader is well versed in mathematical
notation
and can describe graphs clearly and concisely. It is also very
important to make sure that the reader reads exactly what is on
the page. Those
who editorialize or selectively omit material that they feel is
unnecessary are not the ones you want to hire. Also, if you plan
on having your readers record material, now is the time to find
out whether or not a person has an aversion to being recorded.
Some people are extremely uncomfortable when a tape recorder is
rolling.
Finally, if your schedule is full of classes that require
research, make sure that your readers have good library skills.
The last thing that any college student needs is to spend more
time than is necessary doing research. Remember, the interview
and tryout process is your opportunity to decide who is the best
person for the job. You are choosing your parachute, so use this
opportunity to make sure that you do not get one that will let
you down.
Now that you have several highly compatible and hard-working
readers all lined up and ready to go, how can you make best use
of them? As with finding and hiring your readers, the key to a
productive working relationship is for you to be in control. At
the beginning of each semester, compare schedules with each of
your readers and set up specific times during the week which they
will leave open. Of course, as you find out exactly how much
reading time you will generally require during each week, you can
either increase or decrease the number of scheduled times that
each reader should set aside. By establishing scheduled reading
times, you know when you can have a reader available.  However,
as important as it is for you to have your readers reserve
specific times in their schedules, it is just as important to
your readers that you notify them as early as possible if you
will not need them at a time which has been previously scheduled.
If you make a conscientious effort to let your readers know as
early as possible when they will not be needed, then they are
more likely to make a conscientious effort to keep the reserved
times open. It does not take much extra work on your part to set
up the schedules, and the value of having a reader available when
you need one is well worth the effort.
On the subject of making conscientious efforts, if you are the
person responsible for filling out and returning the paperwork
that most state agencies require in order to make payments to
your readers, then make sure that you get it done consistently
and quickly. After all, a person who gets paid regularly is
usually much more reliable than one who never knows how long it
is going to be before he gets his check.
When you start working with a new reader, it is of the utmost
importance that you establish from the very beginning exactly
what is expected of him during the time that he is reading for
you. For example, you should make it clear that socializing is
fine before and after a reading session, but when the reader is
on the clock and reading to you, the atmosphere is professional
and not social. Remember, you are the employer, and the
responsibility for getting your employees to work efficiently
rests on your shoulders. Finally, as is the case when working
with human beings in any situation, a little flexibility goes a
long way toward a smooth working relationship.
Hopefully, you are now ready to jump into the world of academia
which
will result in exciting years of progress and an easy landing at
graduation.  You have assumed control of the situation by picking
and packing your own readers, and all that you have to do now is
start the trip. Remember, the key to success when working with
readers is always to be the one who is in control. After all, it
is your education, and who better to be in control?
                                 
SEARCY EWELL 
NAMED VOLUNTEER OF THE YEAR
 From the Editor:  As  Monitor  readers know, Searcy Ewell is the
President of the National Federation of the Blind of Arkansas. 
He is quiet man but one who is steadfast and persistent. He works
away to achieve the things he believes in. 
 Recently Mr. Ewell was honored for volunteer work in his
community.  It is a recognition well deserved, and we
congratulate him, not only for his accomplishments but also for
the sterling qualities which characterize his daily behavior.
Here in part is the news release issued by the United Way of
Pulaski County, Arkansas, dated April 23, 1990: 

Searcy Ewell, retired, a volunteer with Arkansas ABLE (Abilities
Based on Lone Experience), has been named  Volunteer of the Year 
by the United Way of Pulaski County's Voluntary Action Center
(VAC).  Ewell will be honored at a special ceremony at the
Arkansas ABLE office at 519 East Capitol Avenue, 1st Floor East,
on Tuesday, April 24, at 11:00 a.m.
Ewell, who is blind, retired from the Arkansas School for the
Blind after thirty years of service. For more than two years he
has donate eight hours each week to conducting telephone surveys
for Arkansas
ABLE in an effort to recruit people ages fifty-five or older and
unemployed for the group's JOB SHOP program. JOB SHOP helps
people ages fifty-five and older learn employment skills and find
employment.
 As a result of Mr. Ewell's efforts, economically disadvantaged
persons fifty-five and over have entered employment at an average
of $6.17 per hour, thus improving their economical condition as
well as their contributions to Pulaski County,  said Robert E.
Guyton, employment counselor for Arkansas ABLE. Guyton added that
Ewell has also counseled visually impaired people ages fifty-five
and older on available services for the blind.
Ewell is President of the National Federation of the Blind of
Arkansas and is a member of the board of directors of Life
Project, Living Independence for the Blind, Independent Living
Center, Central Arkansas Transit Service, and Division of
Services for the Blind. He is a member of the board of directors
of Mount Pleasant Baptist Church.
At the Tuesday award presentation Ewell will also receive
recognition as the  Unsung Hero  of the month by VAC and the 
Arkansas Democrat  newspaper. The  Unsung Hero  program is an
ongoing effort to publicly recognize volunteers who are seldom
noted for all that they do.
GRAND JURY MAKES RECOMMENDATIONS CONCERNING ALABAMA INSTITUTE FOR
DEAF AND BLIND
 In the February, 1990,  Braille Monitor  we carried an article
about the Alabama Institute for the Deaf and Blind and,
particularly, about the goings on of Dr. Jack Hawkins, its
erstwhile president.
Upon his appointment to another position Dr. Hawkins removed
(allegedly by mistake) a laundry list of items from the
president's mansion at the Institute silver, china, bed linens,
furniture, and even a chandelier. The items were later returned
amid calls to the police
and a flurry of charges and countercharges. Moreover, while Dr.
Hawkins was employed as president of the Institute, his wife was
also employed there, but not directly and openly. The Institute
was providing funds to the University of Alabama, which in turn
was feeding them back
to the project which employed Mrs. Hawkins. Some said it was a 
cozy  arrangement. 
 Dr. Hawkins left his job at the Alabama Institute for the Deaf
and Blind in the summer of 1989, and the grand jury began an
investigation to see whether indictments should be handed down.
On March 23, 1990,
the grand jury made its report; and although it did not make
indictments, it made some rather pointed recommendations, leading
to the speculation that it felt that improvements were definitely
in order. Here, in part, is what the news media reported that the
grand jury submitted to the court: 

 We have heard testimony concerning Alabama Institute for Deaf
and Blind and make the following recommendations at Alabama
Institute for Deaf and Blind and to the board:
 Item 1. Recommend that Alabama Institute for Deaf and Blind make
an inventory and itemize and number all state owned property in
excess of $25 and have a perpetual inventory of each building and
further that inventory be checked quarterly.
 Item 2. Recommend reviewing purchasing practices for household
expenditures of the president's home and make changes or
improvements where necessary.
 Item 3. No member of president's family should be employed by
Alabama Institute for Deaf and Blind or any other agency or
institution contracted with or by the Institute for Deaf and
Blind.
 Item 4. Laws governing the sale of state property should be
strictly adhered to by officials of Alabama Institute for Deaf
and Blind.   Item 5. The removal of items from president's home
should be supervised by comptroller's office.
 Item 6. We suggest that these recommendations be implemented and
a report of same be returned within the next 12 months to the
grand jury then in session.... 
                       SO YOU DON'T DRIVE
                        by Larry Streeter

(Note)  From the Editor: I first met Larry Streeter at least
fifteen years ago. At that time he lived in Idaho and was a
teacher. Then he began the peripatetic course of the following
years, moving to Texas, Virginia, Tennessee, probably other
places I don't remember, and finally (of course, it may not be
finally) to Omaha, where he
now resides. Wherever he has gone, Larry has not only been a
Federationist but an active one. He has recruited members,
established chapters, been president of chapters, and otherwise
worked in the movement.  In short, he takes his Federationism
seriously, and he carries it with him wherever he goes. Larry's
wife Sandy, who is also blind,
is equally active and dedicated. It is not just that Larry is a
Federationist but that it is a Federation family. Larry and Sandy
typify that large number of committed members and leaders who
rarely get a lot of the limelight but who constitute the
backbone, muscle, and heart of the movement.

(Note)  In the circumstances it is not surprising that Larry and
Sandy took the actions described in the following article. In
sending it
to me Larry said:  In my years as a member of the National
Federation of the Blind, I have never had an experience like the
one described in this article. It is quite clear to me that we
must continue to inform and educate the public about blindness. 
We print Larry's article not only for the story it tells but also
as a tribute to him and Sandy and the thousands of other
Federationists throughout the country who on a daily basis are
changing what it means to be blind.  Here is how Larry says it
happened:

A few weeks ago, I woke up to face another day.  It was my day
off,
due to my flex schedule, and I was alive with ambition and great
intentions.  I wandered around the house thinking that something
constructive should occur like cleaning the garage or placing
fertilizer on the lawn.  Those particular thoughts faded quickly.
I made a sudden decision
to sit down at my computer. It would be so easy to play computer
games and just forget about assuming responsibility.
I turned on the computer and just sat there for a moment or two. 
Sandy came in and we started to talk about taking a trip to one
of the Mormon temples.  This wasn't the first time the subject
had come up.  Each previous time we had planned such a trip for
the family, it had been placed on the back burner for one reason
or another.  We both made each other a commitment that this time
our goal would be met.  Several locations were discussed and
debated, and we finally decided on Denver.  Sandy checked on air
fares, and the cost was too much for our budget.  So we both
thought we could ask some friends at church to go with us. 
Several couples offered to use their car and drive us. However,
six persons in one of these small cars for 541 miles each way can
be rather unbearable.  Sandy started calling around to check out
prices for renting a mini van.  We found some pretty good
bargains and finally settled on dealing with Budget Rent-A-Car.
I called Budget on April 11 to reserve a van for April 19 and
during the conversation was told that a driver's license and
major credit card would be required.  The customer service
representative asked the usual questions such as my telephone
number and name of the credit card to be used. She stated the
driver would be required to supply
the license and the card with at least $251 to cover the cost of
renting the van.
We have rented numerous vans and cars over the years and have
never had any difficulty, but this apparently was going to be
different.  I told the representative that I did not drive, due
to my blindness
and was quickly informed that the driver would need to meet the
requirements she had already discussed. The battle had begun. 
She was informed that: (1) I was the person renting the van; and
(2) I would pay for said van with my credit card, which I had
done on so many occasions before; and (3) that I had rented vans
from this very company many times before, without difficulty. 
She retorted that her company had their rules and I in turn
informed her about the White Cane Law of the State of Nebraska
and said that she was probably violating the law and thus
discriminating against the blind.  She denied the charge and told
me that if we wanted to rent the van, the rules would apply.  In
final, she stated that my reservation would be retained and
advised me of the location where to pick up the van.
To express it mildly, we were rather disgusted about the entire
episode.  Budget had the van we wanted and the price of our
liking.  So why the hassle?  My thoughts ran wild:   It's time to
go to the press and tell our story  or  let's put these jerks out
of business  and  call the members of the chapter and let's go to
the airport to picket.  I thought about our White Cane Banquet
last September.  We had presented the National Park Service (NPS)
regional office and
the Hyatt Hotel Reservation Center with employee of the year
awards.  Had I heard the statements by Ken Compton from NPS and
Jeannette Foxvog from Hyatt correctly or was it only a dream? 
Mr. Compton expressed his appreciation for the positive
recognition and  hoped someday that awards like this would not be
necessary and that employment of the blind would be an ordinary
occurrence.  Ms. Foxvog proclaimed her pleasure with the
performance of the two blind employees recently hired and hoped
to employ additional blind people in the near future.  This fact
has become a reality since that evening. Had circumstances for
the blind of Omaha not improved?  It only took a few short
moments, for once again I was forced to return to reality and
common sense prevailed.
My sleeping time was extremely limited that night and I couldn't
wait until the national consumer complaints number for Budget was
accessible at the crack of dawn.  I was absolutely determined
that the van set aside in my name would be ours to rent and under
our conditions.  Pam LaPour of the consumer relations department
in Dallas listened and attempted to respond to my concerns.  She
put me on hold and called the Omaha airport location and spoke to
a Mr. Baack.  After some time, she returned and asked me if the
driver would have a credit card.  It was then evident that Ms.
LaPour had not heard me correctly.  The issue was restated again,
emphasizing the fact that I would pay for the van with my credit
card and that the agency was discriminating against us because of
our blindness. She finally put Mr. Baack on the line, and we
discussed the matter.  He was totally unfamiliar with the
Nebraska White Cane statute and did not believe that his agency
was being unreasonable nor unfair.
The conversation became quite interesting.  He continued to claim
that it was not our blindness but the fact that the driver may
not return the vehicle.  Did we have a man who had lost his mind?
Was I going deaf? I alerted him to the fact that as a federal
employee, I had a great deal to lose most assuredly my position
and would certainly assume the responsibility to return a van. 
For an instant my mind pictured large numbers of the blind
carrying signs at the airport with scores of reporters dashing
around seeking the truth. An inner voice told me that we would
close this business down.  I suddenly asked Mr. Baack if twenty
blind citizens came in with twenty drivers and each had the same
circumstance I was facing, would he send them to Hertz, Avis,
Thrifty or Dollar Rent-A-Car? He responded in the affirmative. I
told him, in no uncertain terms, that he was
not a good businessman and that this did not make good economic
sense.  He was informed that this was a most unfortunate
situation, for I had always been pleased with Budget in the past. 
The moments wore on with the same issue being rehashed without
positive results.  Finally, Mr. Baack stated he would be willing
to review the White Cane Law.  I advised him that he would
receive a copy of the document in question.  I arrived at work
that morning and anxiously awaited a call from our state
president, Barbara Walker.  She called shortly before 9:00 and
read the section of the White Cane Law which we felt pertained to
our case.  I listened carefully as she read from Chapter 20,
Section 127 of the Nebraska Statutes:  The blind, visually
handicapped, and otherwise physically disabled shall be entitled
to full and equal accommodations, advantages, facilities, and
privileges of all common carriers airplanes, motor vehicles,
railroad trains, motor buses, streetcars, boats, or any other
public conveyance or mode of transportation, hotels, lodging
places, places of public accommodation, amusement or resort, and
other places to which the general public is invited, subject only
to the conditions and limitations established by law and
applicable alike to all persons. 
The words full and equal sounded great was victory in our sight? 
Barbara felt the issue was straightforward.  We had never had
this kind of problem arise in Nebraska. Numerous members, for
example, had rented cars and vans from various companies and
trouble had not occurred in one single instance.  We decided it
would be worth our time to contact other companies and ascertain
their policy. Sandy followed up by calling several agencies,
including (but not limited to) Avis and Hertz.  The Avis
representative stated it was a simple issue.  The blind person
could use his credit card and sign a form authorizing a person to
drive. The driver would present his license
to the representative and sign the form required for all drivers. 
Hertz made the matter even easier.  A blind person pays with his
credit card and the driver provides the license to operate the
vehicle.  No hassle from Hertz or Avis.
Later, that same afternoon I spoke with Mr. Hank Carriger, the
chief deputy to the county attorney.  We reviewed the situation
together.  He was sympathetic to our situation. However, he felt
that a jury would not find Budget  criminally guilty  of
violating the
White Cane Law. Together we came to the conclusion that the best
maneuver would be to ask my state legislator to request an
opinion from the state attorney general.
While securing information from the car agencies, Sandy was told
by Hertz that they would be happy to rent one of their vans to us
for
$20 less a day than our previous offer by Budget.  After some
deliberation, we decided to take this opportunity for we could
save money by making this change.  We plan to take further action
by speaking with our state legislator and reviewing this issue
with him.  Hopefully, we will make a decision to request an
opinion from the attorney general, but only time will tell.  I
have also written to the president of
Budget and expressed to him my personal feelings regarding this
incident.  We, the Streeter family, will take our trip to the
Mormon temple in Denver.  I am sure that on the way we will
review the circumstances,
and questions will arise in our minds if we made the proper
decision.  Much has been learned from this situation.  We should
always be ready to deal with unreasonable people, at the most
inappropriate times. We
must constantly be aware that many people have illogical and
unrealistic attitudes about us.
For a short few hours, we as a family will be inside the quiet,
sacred, and reverent confines of the temple.  It is a place where
we are able to leave the problems of the world behind and
concentrate on those higher spiritual issues. However, upon
leaving this peaceful setting, we are very much aware that we
will, as before, be challenged with complicated issues and
concerns.  The struggle for first-class citizenship will never be
easy; the blind of this nation must be constantly prepared, armed
with the facts, and ready, willing and with a firm conviction to
do battle if necessary.
____________________
                                                  Omaha, Nebraska
                                                   April 18, 1990

Mr. Clifton Haley, President
Budget Rent-A-Car
Chicago, Illinois

Dear Mr. Haley:
The purpose of this correspondence is to bring to your attention
a matter which, I believe, needs immediate consideration. First,
let me say that throughout the past several years I have rented
cars and vans from your company without any difficulty. One can
easily determine from this statement that I have been pleased
with the services offered by your organization. Unfortunately,
this is no longer the case.  As an employee of the National Park
Service and as a member of the National Federation of the Blind,
I travel throughout the country.  However, I do not drive due to
my blindness. My wife is also blind, and we travel extensively
for business and pleasure.
On April 11, 1990, we made contact with your Budget location at
the Omaha airport to rent a van for a trip from Omaha to Denver.
The call
was made to rent a van for April 19. However, once the sales
representative was informed of my blindness, she quickly stated
that I would have to produce a driver's license and a credit card
to cover the cost
of $251. My credit, to say the least, is excellent. However, the
license is out of the question. She was informed that I would pay
for the
van and my driver would sign the required form to consummate the
transaction.  She made it quite clear that this would be against
the rules and that
I would not be able to rent the vehicle. My driver would need to
provide the cards and sign the necessary documents.
I advised your sales representative that she was most likely
violating the Nebraska White Cane Law, which is enclosed for your
review. This statute provides for full and equal access to all
public facilities and accommodations. The conversation concluded
with her statement that the van reservation would be retained in
the computer; and if
I wanted to rent said van, I must agree to the terms previously
cited.  The next morning I contacted your customer service number
in Dallas
and spoke with a Ms. LaPour, who tried to field my questions and
concerns.  But during the conversation she apparently completely
missed the point.  After some time, Ms. LaPour made contact with
a Mr. Baack at the Omaha airport location. We then discussed the
matter, and several points regarding this contact should be
noted:
1. Mr. Baack had never heard of the White Cane Law.
2. He restated the same conditions for renting a Budget van.
3. He expressed the fact that he could not rent the van to me not
because of my blindness, but rather due to the condition that the
van may not be returned.
The first two comments were expected. There are many persons who
have never read nor chose to abide by the provisions of the White
Cane Law. I knew that a repeat performance would come regarding
the rules of the company. The third statement, however, raises
serious questions.  Here are several facts: I have a good paying
job, my credit is excellent, and I would be paying for the van.
Why would I decide to risk all of this, not return your van, and
thus engage in criminal activity?  How many sighted customers are
insulted with such a statement? The point is clear to me. A
sighted person would never have to deal with such a ludicrous and
discriminatory statement. However, due to my blindness (and only
for that reason), different (and definitely incorrect)
assumptions were made.
I asked Mr. Baack (I believe Ms. LaPour was still listening) if I
brought in twenty blind citizens who each had a driver, would he
send them to one of your competitors? Without any hesitation, he
responded in the affirmative. I informed him that he was not a
very good or smart businessman. Mr. Baack, toward the end of the
conversation, did agree to review the Nebraska White Cane Law.
Time was becoming a factor, and my wife decided to call several
other companies and determine their rental requirements. Avis
said their policy would be to have the blind person sign a form
to authorize another person
to drive. The driver would be required, as expected, to show his
license.  Hertz only wanted a record (for the computer) that the
blind person would be using a driver, who had a valid license.
Mr. Haley, your company has a problem which does not appear to be
a problem for your competitors. We decided to rent from Hertz
because they had a better deal, speaking in terms of attitudes
and economics.  Hertz made it quite clear that as blind persons,
we are entitled to the same privileges as sighted persons who
choose to rent vehicles.
I would hope that you, as president of Budget, would apply good
common sense and resolve this matter so as to avoid a similar
circumstance.  I am sure there are effective ways of establishing
policy for all rental locations. The blind consumer will, as
before, continue to rent vans, cars, and trucks from companies
who use sound business judgment and common sense.
This entire situation was unfortunate, to state it mildly. As a
consumer, I am aware there is a need to establish guidelines and
set policy.  However, we should not be penalized because of our
blindness.
I am convinced that it would make good common sense for your
company to change its policy and attitude. Your attention to
these concerns would be greatly appreciated. I look forward to
hearing from you soon.  Thank you so very much.

                                                 Sincerely yours,
                                                Larry E. Streeter

cc: Mr. Marc Maurer, President
National Federation of the Blind
                 FROM THE EDITOR'S MAIL BASKET: 
FURTHER COMMENTS ON BRAILLE
                                                    Austin, Texas
                                                   April 10, 1990

Dear Dr. Jernigan:
I have just enjoyed your article,  Of Literacy, Braille, and the
Oddities of Semantics,  which appears in the March, 1990, edition
of the  Monitor . It put me in mind of a very positive statement
concerning Braille, which was published by an educational
institution.  Unfortunately, such statements from  the experts 
on the education of blind children and adults are becoming rare.
The statement is under the heading,  A Word About Braille.  It is
located on page 17 of the Hadley School for the Blind's student
course catalog for 1988 and 1989 (also current through 1990). It
says in part:
 ...If you have little or no usable vision, or if you can only
read print under highly controlled or difficult to achieve
circumstances, we encourage you to consider learning Braille. The
Hadley faculty offers this guidance based on extensive
experience. Braille is indeed a medium of inestimable value in
the education and the lives of blind persons. 
I bring this to your attention because, as a Federationist, I
feel that the movement should recognize and welcome such positive
statements whenever they are made. Moreover, the readers of the 
Monitor  should be informed of them.
If this has already been done, then please disregard my letter. I
have only been receiving the  Monitor  since October, 1988, so it
is possible that I have missed the published recognition, which
the above statement deserves. Also, I am still very much a babe
in the woods when it comes to experience in the NFB.
In our Austin chapter I am in charge of public relations. For
those
of us who are engaged in the education of the general public
concerning
the Federation, the  Monitor  is an excellent resource for
information.  If published, Hadley's statement could be useful in
the movement's ongoing efforts to inform both educators and the
general public concerning the vital need for, and the essential
usefulness of, Braille.
It seems that with the passing of each year, mankind makes more
and longer strides in the field of technology as it is applied to
education.  It is not difficult for educators and the public at
large to be distracted from some of the most basic tools of
education by the ever increasing array of new educational devices
which are available. Hadley's words could be a help in
emphasizing the NFB's view that Braille is as essential to the
education of the blind as print is to the education of the
sighted....

                                         Yours in the Federation,
                                                     David Milner
             COLLECTIVE ACTION PAYS OFF IN MINNESOTA
                        by Scott LaBarre
 From the Associate Editor:  Scott LaBarre is the First Vice
President of the National Federation of the Blind's Student
Division
and a leader in the Minnesota Student Chapter. He has just been
graduated from St. John's University in Minnesota, and he plans
to attend law school in the fall. This article is reprinted from
the Spring, 1990, issue of  The Student Slate,  the newsletter of
the NFB Student Division. 
 For those students who qualify for such services, virtually
every state rehabilitation agency in the country will pay for
post-secondary undergraduate education at state institutions. The
vast majority will allocate an equivalent amount of money toward
defraying the costs of an education at a private college or
university. A very few (Ohio is the one that comes to my mind
immediately) have almost categorically refused to have anything
to do with this minimal funding of private education on the
questionable grounds that, if a student and his or her family are
willing to incur the debt that inevitably results from the
decision to attend such a school, the client must not really have
the financial need that the agency had thought was present. All
of us should rejoice with students in Minnesota, who truly have
won a signal victory. This is how Scott LaBarre described what
happened:  If you read the last issue of  The Student Slate,  you
will recall an article entitled  A Protest Against Mediocrity. 
That article was a copy of a tuition policy proposal from the
Minnesota Student Chapter of the National Federation of the Blind
of Minnesota. For the last two years we have been working
arduously to alter Minnesota State Services for the Blind's
(SSB's) policy which required the agency to pay for tuition only
up to the amount charged at Minnesota state colleges and
universities. As you might have guessed, tuition at these state
institutions is the lowest in Minnesota. Since SSB's own mission
statement boldly declares that the agency shall strive to foster
the maximum potential from each of its clients and to achieve
upward mobility rates equal to those of the general public, the
Division's tuition
cap did not conform to the lofty goals contained in its mission
statement.  If you would like to review our arguments for
advocating change in SSB policy, please refer to the Fall, 1989,
issue of  The Student Slate. 
On November 16, 1989, some wonderful news came across the
telephone
line to me. Curtis Chong (NFB of Minnesota representative to the
Minnesota Council for the Blind, which serves as SSB's advisory
council) informed me that the Council had adopted our tuition
policy proposal, exactly as we had submitted it. I could not
believe my ears. Since SSB and the American Council of the Blind
originally opposed our proposal,
I had assumed it would take many more years to change minds and
attitudes.  The tuition cap was removed, however, with only one
dissenting vote and eight in favor.
So what does this all mean? Collective action pays off! That is
what it means. Without the active members of the Minnesota
Student Chapter and the strong support of the Minnesota
affiliate, we could not have scored such a large victory for
blind students in Minnesota. Now a blind student can select the
best school for his or her educational and vocational purposes
without having to worry about whether or not SSB will fund that
choice.
This experience, combined with many others, underscores the vital
importance of having a strong student chapter. I believe that we
had such quick success on this matter because we are the only
organized group of blind students in the state of Minnesota.
Curtis Chong and I worked diligently for many months on an SSB
task force set up to deal with financial matters.
If you have a student chapter in your state, make sure you seek
representation on appropriate state agency committees. If you do
not have a student chapter, you need to organize one so that you
can obtain an official voice on relevant committees.
In the last few years we have experienced tremendous growth
within
the Student Division, and the growth is now beginning to pay
dividends.  Because we are more powerful, vibrant, and active
today, we are scoring larger and larger victories for blind
students.
Since we are a very important part of the future of the organized
blind movement, we need to sustain and build upon our growth. If
we do not advocate for major changes for blind people, someone
with less direct interest in our cause will. We must be the voice
of organized blind students, and we must change what it means to
be blind.DONALD GIST APPOINTED COMMISSIONER OF  SOUTH CAROLINA COMMISSION
FOR THE BLIND
                       by Donald C. Capps
From the Associate Editor: In the January, 1990, issue of the 
Braille Monitor  we printed a story reporting the September 20,
1989, resignation of William James from his position as
Commissioner of the South Carolina Commission for the Blind.
Under James' leadership the Commission had done its best to
ignore the concerns of South Carolina's blind citizens.  Auditing
and other administrative irregularities as well as ugly racial
problems became commonplace, and eventually the Commission's
governing board concluded that James should be allowed to resign.
They had no choice but to start over.
For six months a search for the new Commissioner was conducted,
but this time the Board had the good sense to include consumers
of its services in the process. Their change of heart and
strategy appears to have paid off. Writing in the May, 1990,
issue of  The Palmetto Blind , the publication of the NFB of
South Carolina, Donald Capps, President of the affiliate and
editor of the magazine, writes:
 The new commissioner has made it clear to me that he wants
continuing dialogue and wants the lines of communication open at
all times. The Commission has outstanding facilities. No doubt
the Commission has many competent staff members. Where additional
funding is needed, the NFB of South Carolina will be there to
support Commissioner Gist and the agency. While it is an
appropriate function of the NFB of South Carolina to be
interested in and monitor programs, it is also time for healing
and harmony as well as good will. I believe Mr. Gist is a healer.
I also believe the best opportunity in many years now exists for
all of us in this big program of serving the blind to get our
joint act together. These are exciting times, and the NFB of
South Carolina is encouraged and optimistic about the future. 
That is what Donald Capps said in the May, 1990,  Palmetto Blind
; and all of us join with South Carolinians in wishing Mr. Gist
well as he works to rebuild the South Carolina Commission for the
Blind.  He seems to be beginning wisely. A good leader must be
willing to listen to everyone and able to synthesize the best
ideas from what he learns. Here is the article about Donald Gist
that appeared in the May, 1990, edition of  The Palmetto Blind :

On March 21, 1990, Mr. Donald Gist of Columbia, South Carolina,
was officially appointed Commissioner of the South Carolina
Commission for the Blind by the agency's governing board. For six
months the Commission's board carefully screened more than sixty
applicants for the commissioner's position. Mr. Gist was one of
three finalists.

The new commissioner is a graduate of Benedict College, having
earned
a B.A. degree in history and political science. He also earned a
Master's degree in history at the University of South Carolina.
Additionally, Mr. Gist received his juris doctor from the
University of South Carolina Law School in 1978. A native of
Jonesville in Union County, South Carolina, Mr. Gist is married
and has two children.
The new commissioner has extensive state government experience.
Nationally recognized as a labor relations expert, Mr. Gist was
Deputy Commissioner of Labor Management Services with the South
Carolina Department of Labor before coming to the Commission for
the Blind. Having joined
the Department of Labor in 1972, Mr. Gist was responsible for
administering state industrial relations, personnel
administration, labor law, and labor relations, as well as
regulation oversight of the South Carolina
state policies and procedures for private and public sector
employer/personnel law administration.
According to Mrs. Earlene Gardner, Board Chairman, Mr. Gist was
selected based on his experience with labor management
negotiations, his knowledge of the South Carolina business sector
and its leaders, and his understanding that each individual needs
to be self-supporting. Mrs. Gardner also stated,  Although there
were three outstanding finalists, the Board felt that Mr. Gist
would have the greatest impact on the 70 percent jobless rate
among the employable blind of South Carolina. 

At a news conference after the board meeting, Mr. Gist said his
priorities would be to work with the business community in
developing job opportunities for blind and severely visually
impaired people. Mr. Gist also said,  I appreciate the
opportunity to lead the Commission for the Blind into the future. 
He also pointed out that the people served by the Commission
comprise a segment of South Carolina's population  that has been
neglected. The hiring of Mr. Gist undoubtedly was influenced by
the governing board's belief that he was the candidate best
equipped to deal with staff tensions and low morale. Mr. Gist
told the media that the agency has problems, but indicated the
way he will handle them is to be a fair administrator, regardless
of an employee's race, color, creed, or religion. The
Commissioner pledged to meet with every employee within 90 days.
Active in other areas, Mr. Gist serves as Chairman of the South
Carolina Opportunities Industrialization Council and has also
served on the Governor's blue ribbon panel to study the problems
of the aging in South Carolina. Unlike six years ago, when former
Commissioner William
K. James was hired, there was extensive board involvement as well
as fair and reasonable input by consumer organizations, including
the National Federation of the Blind of South Carolina. State
President Donald Capps represented the NFB of South Carolina. A
get-acquainted dinner for the three finalists was sponsored on
Friday evening, March 16, at a Columbia restaurant.
On Saturday, March 17, the three finalists made academic
presentations
at a joint meeting of the Board of Commissioners and consumer
representatives.  Mr. Gist was dynamic in his presentation, which
was far more impressive than those made by the two other
finalists. He came across as knowledgeable and sincere and
demonstrated a great deal of common sense. Mr. Gist convinced
everyone present that he sincerely wanted an opportunity
to lead the Commission at a time when the Commission has many
challenges.  Without excessive emphasis Mr. Gist alluded to his
faith in God who he stated was his leader.
With regard to sheltered workshops and set-aside taxes on blind
vendors, Mr. Gist stated emphatically that he opposes both set-
aside and sheltered workshops. He made it clear that he believes
in strong consumer input with all the groups with a vital
interest in this big program of serving the blind being involved
as fully as possible. Mr. Gist stated that the mission of the
Commission for the Blind is strictly that of serving blind South
Carolinians.
Hiring qualified blind staff members, including minority blind
citizens is also a goal of Mr. Gist. In response to a question by
Mr. Capps concerning quality closures, Mr. Gist replied that it
will be his policy as commissioner to see that blind persons are
well trained and then placed in meaningful and competitive jobs.
He said that he
plans to use numerous available training centers and facilities
throughout the state in equipping blind persons for competitive
employment.  Mr. Gist indicated that he was completely familiar
with the serious problems of the Commission's computer operations
and was committed to finding a solution. Two years ago the
Commission for the Blind permitted some $200,000 in funds to
lapse. Mr. Gist is opposed to permitting any Commission funds to
lapse, stating that all funding will be used to provide needed
services to clients. Concerned with staff tensions and low
morale, Mr. Gist indicated that there will be significant staff
changes. As a follow up to the March 16 and 17 meetings, a
conference was held between Commissioner Donald Gist and NFB of
South Carolina President Donald Capps on Wednesday, March 28. 
After the conference the following communication was released on
March
29 by President Capps to the NFB of South Carolina state board,
Federation chapter and division presidents, and other NFB of
South Carolina leaders:   By now all of you across the state
probably know that Mr. Donald
Gist of Columbia was appointed Commissioner for the Blind by the
Commission's Board Wednesday, March 21. I first met Mr. Gist on
Friday evening, March 16, at a special dinner held for the three
finalists. Also, on Saturday morning, March 17, prior to my
leaving for Michigan that afternoon, I participated in a
Commission Board meeting in which Mr.  Gist made an academic
presentation along with the two other finalists, Ed Thomas of
Columbia and Harry McGee of Miami. Unquestionably, Mr.  Gist made
the best presentation of the three. While lacking experience and
background in work with the blind, which initially concerned the
NFB of South Carolina, Mr. Gist impressed the Commission Board
sufficiently that a majority voted for him. He had previously
announced that he wanted to meet with key leaders in work with
the blind; thus he and
I agreed that we would meet as soon as possible. Yesterday,
Wednesday, March 28, Mr. Gist and I met in the conference room at
the Federation Center for nearly two hours. I felt it was
necessary for Mr. Gist to be given firsthand information about
the NFB of South Carolina
and its many accomplishments. His orientation included the new
ten-minute sound-slide documentary featured at the statewide
seminar. He was also given copies of the  The Palmetto Blind  and
the 25 pieces of legislation the NFB of South Carolina has
successfully sponsored over a period of thirty years. Upon his
request, I also gave him a written agenda of the NFB of South
Carolina, which concentrates on finding jobs for blind people and
reducing the 70 percent unemployment rate. I also gave him the 
Cause for Concern  brochure, which was given to legislators who
attended the January, 1989, legislative dinner and was also given
to all members of the General Assembly.

 In our discussion Mr. Gist reiterated that he opposes set-aside
tax on blind vendors. He opposes sheltered workshops. He favors
the hiring of qualified blind persons on the staff of the
Commission.  He requested that I meet with him at least monthly
to review mutual concerns. Not only will Mr. Gist be attending
the South Carolina state convention, but upon my request he
agreed to attend the national convention in Dallas. Mr. Gist is
committed to a sincere personal effort to improve the overall
climate in work with the blind so that there can be maximum
progress. Mr. Gist has been with the South Carolina Department of
Labor since 1972 and has served as deputy commissioner of that
state agency for a number of years. He also has a law degree from
the University of South Carolina. He is highly intelligent; and
being a minority citizen, he understands the significance of
discrimination and can, therefore, sympathize with those who face
discrimination based upon blindness. Mr. Gist struck me as being
very sincere. He obviously recognizes the importance of getting
along with the NFB of South Carolina.

 He specifically requested me to give him the opportunity to
negotiate a settlement before going public, if any future
disagreement arises between the Federation and the Commission. He
wants no fight with
the NFB of South Carolina or anyone else in work with the blind.
Based upon my meeting with Mr. Gist yesterday, I believe that he
is competent; and while he has a lot to learn in the specific
field of blindness, he suggested that he would like the NFB of
South Carolina to help teach him about the blindness system.
Obviously, his eagerness to attend Federation functions,
including the national convention, is a real plus and
demonstrates intelligence on his part. The NFB of South Carolina
has the policy of being fair, and there is every reason for the
Federation to wish Mr. Gist well. After all, he has no track
record of failure in work with the blind, and there is plenty of
opportunity for him to succeed, but he will need the
understanding and support of the NFB of South Carolina to be
entirely successful. Mr. Gist made clear to me the fact that he
recognizes he will have to produce for the blind. In the May
issue of  The Palmetto Blind  there will be an opportunity to
give much more information about Mr. Gist. 

In addition to accepting invitations to attend both the national
and state NFB conventions, Mr. Gist also accepted an invitation
to speak
to the Columbia Chapter of the NFB of South Carolina on Thursday
evening, May 10. As Program Chairman of the Forest Acres Rotary
Club, Capps also invited Mr. Gist to be the guest speaker on
April 25. Mr. Gist officially assumed his responsibilities with
the Commission for the Blind on Tuesday, April 17.
                    PROBLEMS WITH COUNSELING 
THE VISUALLY HANDICAPPED
                      by Fareed Haj, Ph.D.
From the Associate Editor: In 1970 Mrs. Jernigan was doing some
affiliate organizing in the state of Florida. While she was
working in Miami, she met a young educator who was interested in
the things she had to say about the National Federation of the
Blind. He had received his Ph.D. from New York University two
years before and was profoundly aware of the discrimination faced
by blind people whose ambition is to live active, contributing
lives as fully participating members of their communities. The
name of this young man was Fareed Haj. He has kept in touch with
members of the Federation through the years and has continued to
read the  Braille Monitor .
Dr. Haj has worked in special education in Dade County, Florida,
for the past twenty-three years. Initially he was hired to teach
twelve visually impaired students but was soon given an
additional twelve youngsters who used wheelchairs, all without
the help of a classroom aide. He then spent some time teaching
honors English and social studies to regular students and then
served as a high school guidance counselor.  For the last ten
years he has been an Educational Specialist in the Florida
Diagnostic and Learning Resources System, which does
psychological testing of new students, trains teachers to work
with youngsters having various disabilities, maintains a resource
library, conducts a computer lab for training staff and
developing special programs, and publishes a newsletter. Dr. Haj
actually works in a resource center, providing support to
teachers all over the school system who need help in dealing with
handicapped students.
Dr. Haj earned a Bachelor of Arts degree from the Hebrew
University in Jerusalem in English and philosophy. Simultaneously
he earned an external degree in the same disciplines from the
University of London. He was short of funds at the time and
decided that if he was unable to complete one degree for
financial reasons, he could be sure of finishing the other. He
then traveled to New York City, where he earned a Master's degree
from Hunter College in rehabilitation counseling.  His Ph.D. from
New York University is in counseling with strong emphasis on
special education and psychology. He has also done a great deal
of post-doctoral work primarily at Teachers College, Columbia
University, but also at Harvard, Fordham, and a number of other
institutions.

On April 1, 1990, Dr. Haj delivered an informal talk to a group
of special education teachers. His views about blindness and the
education of the blind were so refreshingly sensible (one is
tempted to say despite his impressive credentials) that it seems
useful to reprint the speech in full. Dr. Haj's views are another
reminder that competent blind laymen are not the only ones
advocating the use of Braille, rigorous teaching for blind
youngsters, and treatment of blind students as though they were
capable of being educated normally. There are professionals out
there who do believe in and work toward enabling blind people to
reach their full potential. Many, like Dr. Haj, are themselves
blind, but increasingly others who are sighted are winning our
respect by their willingness to learn about blindness, not just
from books and other professionals, but from blind people,
speaking for themselves. Here are Dr. Haj's remarks:

My topic this morning has to do with problems of counseling the
visually handicapped. I do not propose to talk about personality
theory. Any of you who have been in a classroom with visually
handicapped children or in meetings with blind adults know that
there is no such thing
as a unified personality of the visually handicapped. Consider a
group of six, and you find that one is outgoing and bubbly, and
another is quiet and reflective. One is very friendly, another is
private, and so on.
Nor do I propose to talk about the psychology of the disabled. I
am skeptical that there is any such thing because if there were,
society would be justified in stereotyping the disabled. After
all, if they have a certified psychology, then why not stereotype
them? But obviously the handicapped are different for many
reasons. The time of the onset of the disability is very
important. There is a big difference between a child who is born
blind and someone who has led a very active life
for seventy or eighty years before going blind. There is a big
difference between somebody who has visual acuity of twenty over
two hundred and can read print with some help and somebody who
doesn't have any vision at all. So the time of the onset of the
disability is very important, life experiences are important,
socio-economic considerations are important. You really can't
talk about the psychology of the handicapped with so many
variables.
The only thing that the blind have in common is that they cannot
see, and even then there are differences. Consider the
distinctions between a totally blind person and one who has a lot
of vision. So even when you talk about the blind, you are talking
about the legally blind, and what they can see depends a great
deal, not only on the visual acuity, but on the amount of light.
You can talk about tunnel vision or peripheral vision there are
so many differences. It doesn't make sense to me to talk about
either the personality of the blind or the psychology of the
handicapped.
I am going to assume for a moment that the blind have serious
problems requiring counseling. This is not a given; I assume it
only for argument's sake. The reason I have called my talk 
Problems with Counseling the Visually Handicapped  is that I
don't think there is a unique problem  in  counseling the
visually handicapped. As a group, we are not more messed up than
the population at large. The problems we have are  with  the
counseling we receive. I am going to talk about some of the
practical problems of counseling: who is qualified to do it, when
to do it, where to do it, and what to counsel about.  These are
important topics; we could spend a day on each of them.

Let us start with who is going to do the counseling. Believe me,
that is not an easy question. The visually handicapped child
spends a great
deal of time with the regular teacher if he or she has normal
intelligence especially on the junior and senior high levels. And
in my long and varied life
I have dealt with many, many teachers thousands of them. Having
gone through elementary and secondary school myself; having
attended thirteen universities on three continents; having served
as a special education teacher, working with all
exceptionalities; having been a counselor for all
exceptionalities; and having been an education specialist for the
past ten years, it has been my good fortune to
work with many, many regular teachers. And I find that, broadly
speaking, they all fall into one of three categories. None of the
three is qualified to counsel the blind.
The first kind of regular teacher that the blind encounter is
superficially very warm, very supportive, very understanding,
very friendly. There are fringe benefits to being this type of
teacher. The administrators congratulate you on how wonderful and
positive you are with that poor blind child. The parents are
delighted that you have discovered their kid is gifted after all,
you're giving him  A's . And you feel good about yourself for
being such a wonderful human being. What's more, the child is
delighted. Somebody has discovered him and made him feel welcome.
There are advantages for the child in being in such a setting. I
have found over the years that when you get a teacher who is
interested
in you, your classmates become interested. When you find a cold,
rejecting teacher, your classmates will also leave you alone. The
advantage
of that kind of teacher is that your classmates will become more
friendly.  But believe me, the discrimination practiced by this
kind of teacher is as harmful to the child as is any other kind.
There are two reasons for this. First, by being so warm and by
knowing on day 1 that you are going to give the blind kid an  A 
no matter what, you are also giving him an inflated self-image,
and he is going to be very badly shattered once reality hits.
Eventually he will discover that he is not a forgotten genius,
and that is going to hurt.
The other problem with this kind of disguised rejection is that
the child is not going to learn much, and that is going to hurt
him down the road. Because if he feels that he is doing okay, he
will not learn to give his very best. It also gives his
classmates the wrong impression of the blind. The blind child may
be too young to understand the subtleties of discrimination, but
when that child is being treated more like a pet kitten, he is
being told (even if he doesn't understand it) that he is not
equal. No one can ever be both privileged and equal.  Either you
insist on privilege, or you insist on equality. You cannot have
both.
In my own life I have experienced this truth many times, and
sometimes it hurts. Sometimes you cause people to become your
enemies when you really don't want them to. But there are times
when you have to stand and be counted.
I ran into a teacher like this in graduate school. He came to me
one day and said,  You know, you haven't missed a session this
year; all your assignments have been  A's  ; if you don't want to
take the final, don't. I am giving you an  A .  Believe me, that
was a tempting offer. I was living two hours away, and  we were
poor at the time. Traveling on the bus cost money that was hard
to come by, and I was sure of an   A .
For a moment I was tempted. I am sure that man concluded I needed
counseling because I said,  No sir, I don't want to do that. I
want to come and take the exam, and I would prefer a  B  to an
unearned  A .  I went on,  Look, if you really want to do this,
make an announcement that everyone with an  A  average doesn't
have to take the test. Then I will be very happy not to take it,
but I will not be the only one not taking the test and making
an   A .  I am sure that I dropped a few notches in his
estimation, but I didn't care. I was fighting for a principle.
People have to understand: either you insist on fulfilling your
obligations, or you don't. Either you insist on your rights, or
you don't. A man who fights to fulfill his obligations is going
to fight for his rights, too, and deserves to do so. I have
fought for my rights many, many times, but always with the
knowledge that I was equally willing to demand my
responsibilities.
Many of these battles have been private, and I will not bore you
with them. But there have been times when I have had public
fights. Sometimes I won, and sometimes I lost. Twenty years ago,
soon after I got my doctorate and joined the school system and
became an American citizen, I decided that the best way to show
my appreciation, to be useful
to my adopted country, was to offer my services to the State
Department to be sent anywhere they could use me as a Foreign
Service Officer to show the world that this country believes in
the value of the individual, that this country treats people
according to what they can do, not according to what they can
see.
Naively I applied to Civil Service to take the Foreign Service
exam.  The local officer agreed. But then I said,  Look, I need
someone to read the exam to me because I am blind. 
Nonchalantly she said,  Oh, but we don't take the blind.  I said, 
That's nice; who is your supervisor?  She gave me the name of her
supervisor, who at the time was a bit nervous toward political
appointments (it was the early seventies, and civil rights was a
big issue), and she said,  I'm going to pass the buck by sending
you to the Atlanta office. 
I said,  fine,  and I called the Atlanta office.
They said,  Oh no, no, no, that is a Washington decision. 

So I called Washington, and I got someone who sounded
intelligent.  I said,  Lady, I am trying to do something, and
without knowing anything about me you are telling me that I
cannot do it? The Department of Health, Education, and Welfare is
spending hundreds of millions of dollars rehabilitating the
handicapped, and another department in the same government is
telling me that you have no opportunities for the blind? I insist
on taking this test, and if I have to go to a class action suit,
I will. 
She said,  Now just calm down. There is no law that says you
can't take this exam, but I promise that we are not going to pass
you.  I said,  Ma'am, one step at a time.  Let me put a foot
through
that door let me crack open that door, and let me take that exam. 
She said,  You are wasting your time. 
I replied,  Am I not allowed to waste my time? 
She said,  Okay, if you feel that way.  I took the test, and she
kept her promise, and of course, I was rejected. You know, it
took twenty years before a blind person was recently admitted to
the Foreign Service by the State Department.
That was an early disenchantment. I began to lose my idealism
very quickly thereafter.  But to go back to teaching, all this is
why I feel that the teacher who is too warm and too accepting is
subtly rejecting you as surely as any other kind of person. That
is why I told my professor that I did not wish to be privileged.
When I did school counseling, many times blind kids would come to
me and say,  Write me a note for my regular teacher to get me out
of class ten minutes early.  When I would ask why, they said, 
Oh, we don't want to be in the halls between classes. 
I would act horrified and say,  You're telling me it's going to
take you fifteen minutes to get from room to room? Are you blind
or something? 
The child would grin and say,  Okay, not ten minutes, just two. 
I would say,  All right, if you really insist, I will give you
two minutes; but to be honest with you, I would rather give you
no minutes at all. I would rather you go out in those halls
between bells like everybody else. If you need somebody to guide
you, let them guide you. I don't care. I'd rather have you do
that than leave before the end of the class.  I said that for two
reasons.  Every time you get up out of that seat ten minutes or
two minutes or even thirty seconds early, you are alerting the
whole class to the fact that you are different you need special
treatment. This is not why we put you in this class. We put you
there because we believe you can be
an equal. We don't want you gaining notoriety. Besides, in those
last two or three minutes you'll be looking at your watch all the
time
to make sure that you are leaving two minutes early instead of
concentrating on what the teacher is saying.  Many teachers sum
up at the end of the class, reviewing what they have covered that
period and telling you what the assignment will be for the next
time. If you miss that last two or three minutes, you aren't
going to know what the homework
is or when the exam will take place. Is it worth all that? 
Sometimes I would convince them, and sometimes I would not.
That's all right because as a counselor you honestly have to
learn to listen to the child and, if he makes sense, do what he
says.
We should not be playing God with people's lives, not even
children's.  We have to respect their opinions. So that kind of
warm teacher is not going to be able to counsel the blind child.
There is a second type who is more honest about his or her
feelings.  These teachers reject the child outright. On the
junior or senior high school level teachers see about one hundred
fifty youngsters a day. Some of them work six periods a day
because they are needed or they need the money, so they don't
even have a planning period.
Some of them have after-school activities to supervise. Some are
advancing their careers by getting a master's or specialist
degree so they can earn more pay. Some are teaching adult
education. They look at a blind student coming in on top of all
their other responsibilities, and they say,  Oh my God, what did
I do to deserve this?  They say,  We aren't going to take this
out on the child; we are simply going to pretend he isn't here.
We aren't going to flunk him, but
no matter what he does or doesn't do, we are going to give him a 
D .  Out of the goodness of our hearts, we might even give him a 
C .  That child will just sit there tolerated but not accepted.
Proximity does not mean equality. The fact that he is sitting in
that class doesn't mean he is an equal. The year goes by, and
that child does not learn very much. I have had more than my
share of that kind of teacher on college campuses, both
undergraduate and post graduate level. I have sat in classes when
the teacher was passing out papers, and he would give a handout
to the person on my right and to the person on my left, to the
person in front of me, to the person behind me but skip me.
Eventually, you learn to say,  Hey, I paid for the course, too. 
Would you like to have your child counseled by that kind of
teacher? Not me.
The third type of teacher is my favorite. This is the learner,
and I have known some of those. Years ago, I sent a blind student
to a music class. The teacher saw the kid, and immediately he
called the office to have somebody sent to cover the class. He
marched down to
my room and said,  Guess what, they have given me a blind kid! 

I said,  I know, I sent him there. 
He said,  You know it is a music class? 
I said,  I know, and I wish I could help you, but I don't know
the first thing about music. Years ago I took a whole year of
music, and on my best day I imitated a cat fairly well on my
violin. I am not the person to help you; I am sorry. 
He said,  I want this kid out, right now. Put him somewhere else. 
I said,  Sir, you are a teacher, and others are teachers. If I
took him out of your class and put him somewhere else, the next
teacher is likely to feel the same way you do. Do me a favor.
Keep this child in your class for two weeks. Let's find out what
he can do. Honestly, I don't know what he can learn from you if
you feel that way. I don't know what you can teach him with this
kind of attitude. And I don't know anything about music; I don't
even know if I made a wise decision.  But let's give him two
weeks and find out what goes on.  Reluctantly he agreed but
assured me he would be back in two weeks.  A week later he came
back and said,  I apologize to you. I was too harsh last week.
That kid has the best attitude and attendance in the class. He is
no trouble at all. He is eager to learn. I feel so ashamed; I
shouldn't have rejected him that way. I am here for you to advise
me on how I can help this child.  For the balance of that year he
was the kind of teacher who took assignments home
to tape for the student. He worked with the kid productively all
year, and it was a wonderful experience. I wish we had more of
that type of teacher. If anyone could do the counseling, this
third type of teacher would be the one, but of course, he is not
the right one because he is more the counselee than the
counselor. So we have now eliminated regular teachers as
potential counselors.
Who, then, should do the counseling? The guidance counselor? Some
of you work at the junior or senior high level. Let's not tear
down guidance counselors. But you give any man five hundred
counselees and a lot of paperwork, especially on the high school
level, where
the counselor has to make recommendations for college, deal with
crises, schedule classes, advise students about courses, counsel
the kids who got  F's , hold parent conferences, cope with
emergencies, and you have overload. In my experience regular
counselors have as little to do as possible with special
education as a whole, and with the blind in particular. They keep
as far away from these students as they can. They don't have
time, they don't have experience, and they don't know anything
about the speciality.
All right, in our center we have a Special Education
Administrator.  Maybe he should do the counseling. In many of the
centers we have
a hundred, a hundred-fifty handicapped children. The person in
charge is getting the paperwork ready for psychologicals, making
sure that
the IEP's are in place, conferring with parents, and attending
meetings.  The director may well have no time for counseling.
Just because he
or she has probably majored in learning disabilities or
administration, he or she is not necessarily expert in the
visually handicapped either.  So the special education
administrator is not the person to do it.

That by default leaves you, the special ed teacher, the vision
teacher; and the counseling may have to fall on you. Are you
qualified to do this counseling? (Oh dear, here it comes. I have
to stand before an audience and tell you why I don't feel you're
qualified. I am sorry.) Some of you are undoubtedly qualified and
very good. I commend you for choosing to work with the visually
handicapped. Your hearts are in the right place. But some of you
are itinerant teachers. You may have ten or fifteen kids in six
or ten schools. Maybe some of you are luckier and see the kids
more often. But it is not uncommon for the itinerant teacher to
see each student one hour a week. So such a teacher sees each
student thirty-six clock hours a year, assuming the following:
the teacher is never sick, is never absent, does not have a
biologic child who is ever sick or absent, her car never breaks
down, the blind child is never sick, is never on a field trip, is
never at an assembly. Do you believe that all these assumptions
are going to happen? Even if they did, you have only thirty-six
clock
hours to work with that child. How much can you accomplish in
thirty-six hours? How well can the child get to know and trust
you in thirty-six hours?
Not only that, but can you honestly justify to your conscience
chatting with that child when he needs help with English, math,
and science; when he doesn't know what to do with the homework
assignment that is due; when there is a test to be administered?
There are so many other pressing duties for you. Frankly, when I
see a teacher chatting away a few of those thirty-six hours, I
get concerned. Counseling
can so easily degenerate into chatting, and there are many, many
academic needs for that blind child. Counseling may not have the
highest priority.

Now I come to an even more ticklish point. Let me stipulate in
the beginning that I am not including any of you. In the vision
field there is a rumor of a tremendous shortage. We are taking
people cold who do not know the first thing about teaching the
blind or visually handicapped. We are saying,  Okay, here is a
class; go ahead and teach.  I feel bitter about this for a number
of reasons. First of all, I ache for the blind children, who need
all the help they can get, and instead of a knowledgeable teacher
they get somebody who is totally illiterate in their own medium.
That child will not learn much.
I also feel sad because it is a poor reflection on our own
society.  We are told that we have a tremendous shortage of
teachers of the visually handicapped, yet there are hundreds and
hundreds of visually handicapped graduate students who are
working on second and third degrees just to mark time because
nobody will employ them. Wouldn't that blind person with three
degrees be better for the blind child than someone practically
taken off the street? How much more could that visually
handicapped person teach that blind child? Good heavens,
they could teach, not only literary Braille, but music Braille,
mathematical notation, computer Braille. There is a rumor that
Braille is a dying thing, and nobody needs it anymore. This is a
sellout; this is betraying our blind population. The reason that
people tell you that is frankly that they don't know Braille and
they don't want to learn. So they tell the blind that Braille
really does not matter. It does matter;
I assure you that it does matter! I would never have gotten my
degrees without it. I use records and tapes, computers, scanners,
and sighted readers; but when I am really in a jam and really
need to know something, I have to read it in Braille.
Another thing we have done is to take a person who sees at about
five over two hundred and say that he can see some, so we aren't
going
to give him Braille. Never mind that he can read for only five
minutes before getting tired. How many text books is he going to
cover in five minutes? Wouldn't that child be better off with
Braille?
So we are getting teachers who are definitely not able to counsel
with the blind because they don't know anything about the blind.
They just came into the field when they were drafted. Why have we
stopped taking the blind into our classrooms as resource people,
where they could not only teach the blind but serve as
role-models? (if we have time, I want to tell you how important
role- modeling is.) We haven't taken them because we have changed
the rules of the game. In their wisdom, the experts have decided
that it is better for a teacher to spend half her life in the
car, going from school to school, spending an hour with the kid,
instead of having a resource room, where six or seven or eight
children can come to her and spend all day. In that classroom the
blind could have functioned, but they cannot do so when teachers
are required to spend the day on the road in a car. We change the
rules of the game, and then we tell the blind,  I'm sorry, you
are not qualified to teach the blind. 
I have applied to teach at colleges and high schools, and the
argument they give me is,  How can you teach, you can't read
print?  Yet nobody makes the same argument to the sighted teacher
who can't read Braille. This is bad. So I tell you that many
vision teachers are not qualified to do the counseling. I'm
sorry; this is what I believe. Some of you in the resource room
may, of course, be qualified to do this counseling.
This brings me to the question of when to do the counseling.
Okay, you are a resource teacher; your heart is in the right
place; you have chosen the right profession; you're dedicated;
you're wonderful.  All right, you want to counsel the blind? When
do you do it? When you have six or seven kids around, all asking
for your help? When
do you ever get the kid all by yourself to sit down and really
counsel with him? Do any of you have that luxury?
Years ago, we had a serious problem. Somebody wanted me to
counsel a blind youngster; it was an urgent thing. Do you know
when I had to choose to do it? Both of us had to give up our
lunch periods. We gave him another assignment, but my break was
gone. Lunch is the only time a teacher can sit down privately and
talk with a child. As a classroom teacher, you are not often
going to have only that one kid.  You cannot really expect the
kid to open up, and if he does, he might get into trouble because
the other kids might start teasing him about the private issues
they have overheard. So we conclude that you don't have time to
do the counseling.
All right then, let's send him to a qualified psychologist or
psychiatrist for that matter. You know, there are teachers of the
visually handicapped who seldom see a blind child, and most
psychologists have never dealt with a blind child. They really
don't know how to begin counseling.  They want to do it, but
their concept of the blind is no different from that of most of
the rest of the population, and they really don't know what that
kid can and can't do. The psychologist may not be any more
qualified than anybody else to do the counseling, and the same
goes for the psychiatrist, because he has had so little exposure
to the blind.
In other words, there really is nobody to do the counseling. And
if there were a professional who could do it, when could it be
done and where? If you are, let us say, an itinerant teacher, you
are lucky if you can find a quiet place. In a library people are
walking in and out. Maybe in a closet under a stairway? Maybe in
a corner of the cafeteria? I've been in schools; I know what goes
on. Should that child gain your trust and openly start talking to
you in the cafeteria
or in the library or under the stairway? There are problems with
talking where and when and who does it.
Let us assume we have found a psychologist with experience,
willing to work with the blind. Who is going to pay for it? Maybe
the state rehabilitation agency? If that agency pays for it, then
is that counselor working for the client or for the agency? That
is really an ethical problem, and I wish we had more time to go
into it. When the state rehabilitation agency or another agency
sends a blind client to a counselor, it is saying directly or
indirectly, openly or implicitly,  Shape that blind person in our
image.  And knowing what I know about agencies, it is not an
image I want to be shaped in. That counselor is  not  your agent;
he is the agent of the agency, and the blind counselee will view
him as such. He is going to tell the blind person to shape up,
that society is right, that the system is correct, to take that
chip off your shoulder. He's not working for the client because
the client is not paying him. He is working for whoever is paying
in this case, the agency.
I wish psychological counseling were like legal counseling, where
you pay your lawyer, and he is honestly working for you,
facilitating your objectives, giving you what you are trying to
get, not telling you that you are messed up and you are wrong and
you had better shape up.
But let us assume that we have a situation in which the parents
are paying for their child's counseling and the counselor is
going to
be on that child's side and that he is not working directly or
indirectly for any agency that potentially may be sending him
other clients, when is he going to schedule the appointments?
Kids in a metropolitan area like Miami have to get up at five in
the morning to catch a bus at 6 so they can be in school by 7:15
or 7:30. They leave school at 2:30, and they don't get home till
4:00. Many latchkey kids, after that kind of day, go home to an
empty house. When are they going to see a counselor? When do they
have time, and how are they going to get there?
So far, the counseling problems we have discussed are who, where,
when, and how. Now let's talk about  what , and here it gets
worse. I have been a blind person for a long time since the age
of nine months. And the counseling I have gone through with
professionals led me for years to pray every night,  God save me
from the experts.  Let me tell you what I am talking about, and
if I have to be personal to make a point, I will I don't mind.
My parents grew up in a south Lebanese village. As soon as they
got married, they wanted to strike out on their own, go to the
land of opportunity, and really make it big like all young
people. They traveled fifty miles to the south to the port town
of Haifa, in Palestine at the time. They established a home; they
rented a little flat. My father got a job, and within a year of
their marriage I was born.  They thought that their cup of
happiness was full. They had a healthy baby, a home, and a job.
Things had never been better, and they had every hope that things
would go from better to better. Nine months later that child was
blind totally, finally, irrevocably. They were plunged into such
a depression that it took them a very, very long time to recover.
They lost their appetite for food; life had no meaning. For years
any time they heard about a quack anywhere in
two countries, they went to see if he could help me. If they had
received the right kind of professional advice, they could have
saved a lot of time and money and effort and much aggravation.
But they did not mind. No one had trained them to be the parents
of a blind child.
They did not know anymore about it than anybody else, and their
concept of blindness was that of the entire population. Just
because you have a blind child, it doesn't mean that you feel
different about blindness, not initially, at any rate. What were
the experts telling my parents?   Oh, you're twenty-one,
twenty-two; you can make another twelve kids if you want. Forget
about this one, or assume he was born dead; many kids are born
dead. Put him away somewhere, forget about him, and start again. 
That was not the kind of advice they wanted to hear. Finally an
expert came and said,  Look, put him in an institution. True,
it's only an asylum, but at least they will teach him some
Braille.  That was better advice than some we give families
today. At least they did not tell my parents to forget about
Braille.

Anyway, that could have been the end of the story. If I had
survived in that asylum, I would still be there today. The only
reason I am standing before you this morning is that my parents
went to visit me there after two months. They had no degrees,
they had no college education, they were not professionals, they
were not even high school graduates, but they had hearts, and
they allowed their hearts to guide them. They looked at that
place, and they said,  This place is not for our son.  They took
me out. Had they not done that, I know I would still be there,
and any spirit would have been crushed, even mine. My history
would have been totally different. It was only because my parents
allowed their hearts and minds to rule the situation that I have
achieved what I have in life. This was the first pernicious
counseling I received from professionals.
There are many other examples. When I began college, my teachers
were so impressed that one of them came and said,  I want you to
go
on to graduate school in America, where there are more
opportunities.  He thought it would be a good idea to get some
advice from the experts on blindness, so he wrote to one of the
American institutions. He explained that he had a blind student
who seemed to be talented and whom he wanted to help, and he got
a letter from the expert which said,  We don't believe in college
education for the blind. We believe that the blind should go into
open industry.  That man, having heard from the experts, decided, 
Well, what can I do? 
And that was the end of that attempt to give me greater college
opportunity.  God save us from the experts.
I encountered another expert at about this time. I had applied to
an international organization for a scholarship. It was very
interested; in fact, I was the highest applicant on their list.
They ranked people, and I was number 1 in the entire population
of my country, not the blind. I was certain that I was going to
receive a good scholarship and be placed at a good college in
America. The first year nothing happened. The second year nothing
happened. By the third year I had found another way to come to
this country to further my education.  That international
organization never came through. Upon investigating the matter
after I was already here, I learned that an expert somewhere
decided, without consulting me, of course, that I needed a small
community, where I would be given a room and could go to college.
If that had gone through, it would have been the worst thing for
me because what I really needed was a huge metropolitan area,
where I could draw on volunteers, where I could find resources,
where there was variety.  But the experts thought I needed a
small community. Where they got that, I have no idea; they didn't
ask me. What did I know; it was only my life. The expert advice
we get is often poor advice.
Does that mean that blind people don't need counseling at all?
No.  We need counseling, and a lot of it. But the kind we need is
more in the realm of education than psychology. When you walk
around a class of blind kids, you may see one who is sitting
there, rocking back and forth. His hands may be flying all over
the place or he may be twirling a handkerchief. Maybe his head is
shaking side to side.
Do you just call the ambulance and commit him to the psychiatric
hospital?  In an autistic child these are indicative of deep
psychological problems.  Among the blind they may or may not be.
The blind child with a lot
of energy, having to sit still, not seeing what other people are
doing, may develop these mannerisms without being aware of them.
He does not need counseling that will reveal things about his
grandmother.  He needs for a teacher to say,  Look here, this is
not acceptable behavior.  Do it gently; do it firmly; do it as
often as it is needed. If you have done this for a couple of
years without any results, then you know that the problem may be
more deep-seated. At least try the educational approach first; I
have known it to work in many, many cases. Very often it is not
that the blind are messed up; it is that they do not have enough
information.
Maybe I should not talk about this in public, but I will anyway.
Years ago I had contact with a blind student. The principal came
to me saying that he was disturbed about a boy who  was taking
regular courses and was masturbating in class. This problem is,
or can be, serious,
and I was very concerned by it. It could have been indicative of
serious psychological trouble. We had worked for years to build a
positive image of the handicapped, and all we needed was a few
incidents like this to ruin everything we had done.
I told him I would see what I could do. I did not make light of
the situation. I talked to the child, who did have problems.
There were some autistic tendencies. But it turned out to be that
the child, who was born blind and was not particularly bright,
had no idea what vision entailed. And I don't blame him; I'm not
sure that I know what vision entails either. I can't be certain
that any profoundly deaf person understands what hearing entails.
For a deaf person it is very difficult to know what people can
and cannot hear, what hearing people can and cannot do. The same
is true of the blind. Vision is confusing.  If the blinds are
drawn, people outside can't see you, and another
time with the blinds open, they can see you. If the glass is
transparent, they can see you; if it is one-way, they can't. It
is very difficult, particularly for a person blind from birth
really to know what vision involves. After talking with that
young man, I concluded that he honestly believed that because
masturbation was silent, nobody could see him.

[At this point a member of the audience commented that sighted
people have a hard time knowing how much a partially sighted
person can see.  In front of a college class a professor once
indicated his surprise that she could see him at all. She
commented that a tactful person would never have made such a
comment in public. Dr. Haj then continued:] And how many
professors talk about you as if you couldn't see them?  How many
of them ignore you. I wish I could tell you the number of times I
have gone to a classroom that was empty because the teacher
had written on the board,  I am not going to be here next week. 
Or  Next week is a vacation.  Or  We are going to meet somewhere
else next week.  A good teacher would have had the courtesy to
speak while he wrote. I cannot tell you how many midterms I could
have done better on if I had known that the test was coming. A
teacher should have the courtesy to say,  We will be covering
chapters thirteen to sixteen.  Such an instructor should have the
courtesy to say these things even if there were no blind student
in the class.  But, like every other profession, not everybody is
perfect.
So many of the things that seem to be in the counseling domain
may not be. Many of them are more properly in the realm of
teaching. For example, take a blind kid who is unkempt. His hair
is always flying, and his shirt is always hanging out. Frankly,
he is not very clean, and he is not brushing his teeth often
enough. Is that a counseling situation? Maybe it is, but I think
it is more effectively handled as an educational one.
When my own boys were teen-agers, we went through a nightmare.
They wanted to buy the most expensive clothing because it carried
a certain
tag. Surely that was not a personal need. That was an acquired
need just to be like the other kids. It was because their peers
were doing it.  People learn so much from their peers. When you
have a blind child who is not handling his food properly, who is
not dressing himself properly, that doesn't necessarily mean that
he needs a psychologist.
It may do so, but it may simply mean that he never had enough
environmental clues, enough visual clues to be able to imitate
accurately. He doesn't know what is involved. This is why it is
appropriate for the teacher to take the time to teach him how to
cut his meat, to eat spaghetti, to handle all his food. I see
nothing wrong with that. If this is what he needs, then it is an
appropriate educational objective.
A hundred years ago home economics was taught at home. Nobody
went
to school to study the subject. A girl was taught to make her
dresses, set the table, and cook at home. When the need
eventually arose to study home economics outside the home,
students took it in school.  If the blind person needs education
in grooming, eating, or social behavior, why not tackle it in
school what's wrong with that?  This brings me to two points.
Though we may assume that we can give the blind counseling
because they have all the time in the world,
the truth is that they don't. A blind person who really wants to
accomplish a lot has to spend much more time on his or her books
than the sighted.  If a teacher tells you to go to page 153 and
study it, you flip to the page and begin studying. If I am using
tape, and the teacher says page 153, I don't know which tape or
track the page appears on. It might take me fifteen or twenty
minutes to find the right place in that book. A sighted child
reading that book would have a pencil handy, he can mark
important passages. If I want to mark that passage, I have to
play that tape again and again, writing it down in Braille a few
words at a time. If you tell me that I have to spend time in
counseling, too, I don't know when I am going to do it.
Have I ever had a counselor? Yes I have. I have been fortunate to
have very, very good counselors. The ones who had the greatest
influence on my life never said,  Come, I want to counsel with
you.  One of these was a nun. When I finished elementary school,
I returned home, and because a war had just ended and there were
no laws requiring the education of the handicapped, there was no
place for me to go.  My parents applied to one school after
another but were told there was no place for a blind child. I was
cheering the schools on because I didn't want to go to school, so
I hoped my parents would just give up. But they were stubborn;
they didn't. Finally they found a Catholic school for girls which
said they would take a chance as long as I never talked alone
with a girl. I went to that girls' school, and I did my best. Am
I glad I went there! The curriculum was English.  Had I not
improved my English, I don't know how I would ever have studied
because English is one of the few languages in which you can
get all the Braille you want. I have found that, when you are
handicapped, you can turn anything to your advantage. The fact
that no school would have me turned out to be the best thing that
ever happened to me because I was able to go to that English-
speaking girls' school. As a handicapped person I have found in
life that it is necessary to follow the motto:  if you are given
a lemon, make lemonade. Turn everything you can to your
advantage.
The Superior of that school was a very, very wise woman. She had
perhaps completed high school, but she was one of the best
educators I have ever encountered. When I had been there three
years (it was one year before I was to graduate), she called me
down and said,  Look, we need to talk.  In those days in Israel
we still took British degrees. Students received the
matriculation certificate, later called the general certificate
of education, both of which were issued from London. She said, 
Those people don't know you. I am not sure if we can give you the
matriculation certificate that is issued to everyone else. But we
will give you a school certificate of completion stating that you
have finished our program. 
I am not an aggressive person, but there are times when a
principle is involved and I surprise myself by standing up for my
rights. Here I was, in the eleventh grade, talking to my school
principal, who was a mother superior, and I said,  Mother you are
wrong. I am not going to do that.  She was rather taken aback,
but she told me to go on. I said,  I have worked as hard as
everybody else.  A certificate of completion from you will not
have the same weight
as a regular national diploma from London, and I am not going to
accept it. I have worked too hard. 
She asked,  What do you propose that we should do?   I think that
you should write a letter saying that you have a blind student,
who you think deserves to get the regular diploma,
and let them make arrangements. Tell them that I can type my
answers.  She was the kind of counselor I respect because she was
not too big to learn from a child.
She said,  You know, you have a point. Why don't I do that? 
Students were supposed to take exams in three ordinary subjects
and in two advanced ones. I took six ordinary level and four
advanced (double the load of everybody else), and I was the only
one to pass everything that year. I did get the diploma. That nun
was the best kind of counselor one who was willing to listen.
I had already met another counselor like this in elementary
school.  When I was in the sixth grade, I discovered that I had
been retained.  I couldn't understand why. I wasn't brilliant,
but I wasn't that bad.  So I marched off to the principal's
office, knocked at the door, and asked to talk to him. I
surprised myself with my boldness, but I asked him why I had been
retained in the sixth grade. He explained that, because of the
war then going on, he was afraid that, when I completed the
seventh grade, there would be no place to send me afterward. They
could not contact my parents, and they feared I would become a
refugee and that I would be turned out on the streets. His
concern touched me, but I said,  Sir, civil wars have been known
to drag on for twenty years. If we have to face this problem in
two years, why not face it in one?  I guess he thought I was not
so stupid after all. He admitted that he was no wiser than I in
this matter and agreed that, if this was what I wanted, I could
have it.
That man had a greater influence on my life than any other
educator that I have ever had. He was a totally blind man
himself. Fifty years ago in Palestine he was appointed the
principal of a school. Look around you here today. How many
handicapped administrators do we have in Dade County, Florida?
Ten percent of our educational employees (2,000 people) are
employed to help the handicapped. Where are the handicapped in
important staff positions? If we want to influence
the handicapped, their parents, and the legislature, I am
reminded of a song  Don't Speak of Love; Show Me.  We can talk
about opportunities and rights for the handicapped, and in the
meantime we are employing thousands of able-bodied people to help
the handicapped, but wouldn't it be more effective if we had
handicapped people in high positions who could really influence
decisions? This is a disgrace! That man in a third-rate country
fifty years ago was made the principal of a special school, and
he had the greatest impact on all of us blind children and on our
families. My parents, who knew nothing about the blind, thought
that this was the worst thing that could have happened to me,
until they met that man. They saw that he was married, had
children, and held a job that he was living a normal life. His
example, more than any counseling, gave them the courage to go
on, the conviction that something good could happen.  Until they
met him, they had a terrible image of the blind. One day, when I
was about two, they looked out the window during lunch and saw a
blind beggar. They both ran after him to try to give him
something.  Their lunch was never eaten that day.
It's inspiration and role-modeling in counseling that are more
important than any talking we do. Actions always speak louder
than words. If
a picture is worth a thousand words, then an action is worth a
million.                         
LAWYER BEATS MEDICAL ODDS
 Roberta Jensen is an active member of the National Federation of
the Blind. She is also a graduate of the University of Arizona
Law School and has been admitted to the bar in Arizona. In early
December of 1989 she was admitted to practice law in the federal
court system, and on December 9,  The Tucson Citizen  published a
story by Robert C. McCormick about her accomplishments. Because
Ms. Jensen
is blind and has rheumatoid arthritis, which requires her to use
crutches, this story could have been the sloppy sentimentality
that too often signals our accomplishments. Though clearly
admiring, however, the piece is as straightforward and
tough-minded as Roberta Jensen herself.  Here it is: 

Roberta Jensen, 42, is totally blind and has had most of the
major joints in her body replaced after their destruction by
rheumatoid arthritis.
On Wednesday, December 6, 1989, she became qualified to practice
law in the federal court system after being sworn in by Chief
U.S. District Judge Richard M. Bilby.
Jensen, a graduate of the University of Arizona Law School,
opened her law office in Tucson about a year and a half ago and
specializes in juvenile and domestic cases.
 Domestic law includes divorce proceedings, and I had previously
learned about some of the technical problems when I ended an
unhappy marriage of 10 years before going back to school,  she
said.   I was a good wife and mother, but I don't think I was
meant to spend the rest of my life keeping house for a man, and
the stress of that marriage sure didn't help my arthritis, 
Jensen added.  She was born blind and diagnosed as having
rheumatoid arthritis when she was about 3 years old.
Jensen, a native of Montana, has lived in Tucson for about five
years, and her daughter and 7-month-old granddaughter live with
her.   The dry and warm Tucson climate has sure helped me, and I
manage to move along pretty good on my crutches with the help of
a nice man who drives me around town,  she said.
After her divorce Jensen established a phone answering service,
but it didn't last very long, and she decided to go to law
school.
She had previously started work on her master's degree in
individual and family studies at the University of Delaware and
is still working on her thesis.
Many people told her she would never make it through the tough
three years of law school because it was highly competitive, and
professors and other students would not go out of their way to
help her.  They also warned that, unless she finished in the top
ten percent of her class, she would end up being a  starvation
lawyer.   Fortunately, their dire predictions were all wrong, and
all of my teachers and many fellow students helped me as much as
possible because they respected my ambition to become the best
lawyer I could,  she said.
Her most pressing problem right now, she added, is paying back
her student loans.
And how does she prepare her cases without being able to see the
paperwork usually involved in a legal matter?
 I have a talking computer,  she said an IBM computer equipped
with a voice synthesizer.
A paralegal assistant reads the pertinent documents to her, and
she then types the information into the computer's word
processor.   Later, when I need the information to go to court or
request
a ruling from a judge or public official, I just punch the right
keys, and the computer talks to me and tells me what I need to
know about the case,  she explained.
The attorney also takes notes in Braille and sometimes uses a
tape recorder in court, as she did in her classes.
Of the pain that sometimes flares up when she pushes herself too
hard, she said,  I learned to live with it when I was a little
girl.  I
was about 21 before I found out there were such things as pain
pills.  Jensen added that medication and exercise help sometimes
and she hopes to find a swimming pool where she can swim with
supervision.
 But I have a busy and mostly happy life and believe I am
providing an important service for my clients and the rest of the
community, 
she said.  So I don't have much time to dwell on my physical
problems.     I HAVE A RIGHT TO SKATE IN THE MIDDLE
                        by Diane McGeorge
 As  Monitor  readers know, Diane McGeorge serves as the First
Vice President of the National Federation of the Blind, President
of the National Federation of the Blind of Colorado, and
Executive Director of the Colorado Center for the Blind. The CCB
is one of a handful of rehabilitation facilities across the
country which teach the alternative techniques of blindness while
helping students to develop a healthy attitude about themselves
as blind people. All of these centers encourage their students to
take part in activities intended to extend the boundaries of
their expectations of themselves.  Here is what she has to say: 

Students at the Colorado Center for the Blind engage in a wide
range of activities, some of which they enter into gladly, and
some, not so gladly. But they know from the moment they sign up
to come that they have agreed to take part in the whole program
offered here, not just the easy part. Ours is a challenging
curriculum, which teaches valuable skills (see the January, 1990, 
Braille Monitor  story about our technical rock climbing course).
As I tell the students from the time they arrive,  We will ask
you to examine your blindness, and over and over again we will
challenge your notions about the proper role of blind people. You
will probably get sick of hearing about the subject, but learning
all you can about blindness is why you're here. Yes, you'll learn
to use a cane confidently, and you'll learn to read and write
Braille, but most important of all, we hope that you will learn
that you are a valuable person. We assume that you want to assume
your rightful place in society as a participant, not as a
recipient of charity from all those well-meaning people out there
who will tell you how amazing and inspiring you are.  We intend
to teach you ways in which you can change your life; and,
if you will let us, we will teach you what it really means to be
equal. 

In the beginning, of course, students assure me that they want a
challenge.  But when it's snowing and blowing outside with the
temperature far below freezing, and the travel teacher says, 
Let's walk five blocks to the bus,  these same students are not
sure they want quite so much of a challenge. But they learn as
the weeks go by that these experiences begin to change their
outlook and their lives.
Other challenges, however, are not so apparent in the beginning.
Teaching goes on whether students and teachers are in class or
doing something on an evening or weekend. Learning and broadening
personal expectations go on twenty-four hours a day at all of the
centers that employ Federation philosophy. In the beginning
professionals from conventional rehabilitation programs told us, 
You can't expect students in a rehab program to work on weekends, 
but we decided that they were wrong, and repeatedly the students
have proven us right. It was our first group of students who
christened us  a boot camp for the blind,  and we are proud of
the name because it's true.
On a recent Saturday we decided to go roller skating at a nearby
rink.  Altogether there were fourteen of us: ten students, one
girlfriend, and three staff members. Except for one sighted
teacher, all of us were using canes. The students ranged in age
from nineteen to the
late fifties; and, despite the dire predictions of those same
professionals who thought that rehab students would refuse to
continue to learn over weekends, the skating party, like our
other activities, struck everyone as a great idea. I wasn't sure
how the folks at the rink were going to feel when thirteen of us
turned up together, intending to use canes out on the floor, so I
was prepared for almost anything that might happen. When I
purchased the tickets, the woman waiting on me was superciliously
friendly and asked if we were all planning to skate. I said that
we were, and, gathering up my change, I fled before she could say
anything more. We went to pick up our rented skates, and I
continued to wait for the reaction that I knew was coming.

Suddenly the overly friendly woman was at my side. She told me
how glad she was that we were going to skate. I replied that we
were glad, too. Then she said,  I just want to be sure you tell
your people that they have to stay along the wall while they
skate. 
I responded that she didn't have to worry about a thing; we would
be fine. Then she touched my cane, as if to say,  But what about
this?  I decided we might as well clear the air at the start.  I
said,  There won't be any problems. 
With some dismay she said,  You won't be taking your canes with
you, will you? 
I replied that of course we would, and the inevitable discussion
followed.

 You just can't do that. Your canes will be a hazard to the other
skaters on the floor. After all, we have some little kids out
there, and their parents will be worried. You might trip someone. 
Smiling all the while, I explained that we would be very careful. 
We didn't just poke the canes out in front of us but used a
special technique with it. There would be no problems. She kept
saying that she couldn't let us do that, and I kept repeating
that she had nothing to worry about.
While all this smiling and reassuring was going on, the students
were putting on their skates and working their way onto the
floor. The woman decided that she had to consult her boss and
went off to find him, so I joined the students on the rink.
Skating was one thing I could do well as a kid growing up in
Nebraska.  It was one of the activities I could take part in with
the sighted neighborhood children during the summer. At the
school for the blind we were encouraged to skate, not using a
cane, of course, but at least they did urge us to get out there
and move. I was a confident skater at one time, but it has been a
few years since I was growing up in Nebraska.
When my husband Ray and I were raising our two boys, we took them
roller skating occasionally, but that, too, has been a few years
twenty-five or thirty, to be exact. You can understand, then,
that I approached this skating adventure with more than a little
trepidation. I wasn't even certain that I could still stand up on
skates. In fact, I spent the first part of the time clinging to
the wall, trying to rebuild my courage. This meant that when the
next official arrived to discuss his insistence that all of us
had to skate along the edge, I could assure him that he didn't
have to worry about me as far as I could see, I was going to
spend my afternoon hanging on to the wall for dear life. This
seemed to calm him, and he went away. My smiling and reassuring
was directed as much at myself as at him. The difference was that
I was fighting to convince myself that I really could regain my
balance and self-confidence on roller skates. I had no doubt
about my ability to use a cane safely if I could just stay
upright.  The students were gaining confidence, too, some more
quickly than others. Some of them had not been on skates for many
years, and Tony was the only one who had ever skated using his
cane before. He became our role model. Troy and Scott proved to
be the best skaters, and Eileen was good, too. In no time at all
those three were whizzing around the rink with the best of the
sighted skaters, using their canes and having a great time. The
rest of us progressed in confidence and speed, so naturally back
came the officials once again.
This time, however, the man approached Kimberly, the one sighted
member of our party. I'm sure he decided there was no point in
talking to
me; I was blind, so I couldn't know our students were out there
skating in the middle or appreciate the hazard to themselves and
everyone else. He said that Kimberly would just have to tell
those blind people to get out of the middle. She pointed out that
they were good, skating as well as any of the others, and she was
not going to say anything to any of them. There had been no
problems, so why was he worried?  He left in a huff.
We were obviously not going to be the kind of blind people he
wanted.  Interestingly enough, he approached Troy next and talked
to him about how he shouldn't be skating in the middle. Troy
asked him why. Troy is an excellent skater and couldn't see any
reason why he should have to skate by the wall with the
beginners. The man skated with Troy for a bit and decided he was
talking to a non-conformist, so he went away.
But the real test came when only speed skaters were allowed on
the floor. You guessed it. There were Troy and Scott, skating
with the best of them and holding their own. By this time the
management had given up trying to talk with any of us. After the
speed skating, we decided to leave. Troy and Scott came outside,
and we talked about the whole afternoon.  We have a right to
skate in the middle,  Troy said.  When that guy started talking
to me, part of the time I just ignored him. I never went back to
the edge.  Troy came to the Center a month after he graduated
from high school. He had been partially blind since birth and is
now totally blind. He had
a little sight until he was about nine years old. He is now
nineteen.  He is quiet and smart and plans to start college in
the fall.  Scott, twenty-three, is diabetic and has been blind
just a little over a year. He enrolled in our program the first
part of January.  As a sighted person he played basketball,
hunted, and was involved
in a number of other sports activities, one of which was speed
skating.  Here are two blind people with very different
backgrounds. But they both have come to understand that they have
a right to skate in the middle. We talked a lot about the whole
experience. All of us talked, the students who stayed on the edge
and the ones who skated in the middle. Margaret, who is about to
leave the program and who is probably in her late fifties, said, 
Diane, I would never have thought
I could skate at all if you hadn't gotten me to go rock climbing. 
Eddie just started the program. He, too, is between fifty-five
and sixty. Did he skate? You bet he did. Eileen, Brent's
girlfriend, is
not a student but is getting to know all of us well and couldn't
understand what all the fuss was about. Why couldn't she skate
where she wanted to?
One of the regular courses at the Colorodo Center is called
business class. I tell people it is about the business of being
blind and living in society as a blind person. We dissect all the
negative stereotypes about blindness that society and we
ourselves hold. Those classes get right down to the heart of
things.
We talk about the real issues of blindness and the apparent ones. 
Most people get all hung up about this second group. When you
cross the street and miss the crosswalk a little, when you touch
a chair with your cane and someone is sitting in it, when you ask
the bus
driver what number bus it is, these are the apparent issues of
blindness.  These are the obvious signs that you are a blind
person. But the real issues of blindness are whether you can get
a job and convince the employer you can do that job, whether you
can sit where you want to on an airplane whether, in other words,
you can come to terms with your blindness and discover that it is
respectable to be blind.
At this writing our adventure at the skating rink has only just
happened and we are talking about it a lot. For months to come
this experience will give us a hot topic for business class. My
own life first underwent significant change when I became an
active member of the National Federation of the Blind. For the
first time someone taught me by word and by example that blind
people are equal, that blind people have a right to expect the
same things from society that sighted people do. Before that time
I heard the same things most blind people are told: on one hand I
was amazing and wonderful, and on the other hand,
I should be grateful for my job and my limited participation in
society.  But it was the NFB leaders (Dr. Jernigan and, before
him, Dr. tenBroek) who first gave thousands of blind people a
deep and abiding belief in ourselves.
Every day at the Colorado Center, and at all of the NFB training
centers, we pass that belief on to our students: the belief that
we are equal.  We give it by word and by deed; and little by
little they believe it, too. We all have the right to skate in
the middle.                      
 
FOR THE BLIND, BUSINESS OWNERSHIP 
OPENS A CLOSED DOOR: 
Entrepreneurship Rises 
Along With Self-Esteem and Lender Confidence 

 From the Editor:  On Tuesday afternoon, April 17, 1990, I was
sitting in my office writing letters, answering the phone, and
working on the  Monitor  a typical day. Then I was told that I
had a call from Jeffrey Tannenbaum of the  Wall Street Journal. 
It took me back almost a dozen years to the days when the 
Journal  was writing the sheltered workshop articles. That was my
first acquaintance with Tannenbaum. 
 Now he was writing about people going into business for
themselves, and he was specifically interested in entrepreneurs
who were disabled.  I narrowed the focus to concentrate on the
blind, gave him a list of names, and talked with him about what
conditions for the blind
are like these days. The result was one of the most constructive
articles about blindness I have seen in a long time. Appearing in
the April 25, 1990,  Wall Street Journal,  it is unemotional,
upbeat, and factual. Hopefully it is a harbinger of things to
come. Here it is: 

Like many other small-business owners in Houston, Glenn M. Crosby
had to retrench in the wake of the Texas oil slump. Having sold
or closed three restaurants, he is left with only one.
But his Mr. C Sandwich Shop earns a profit, and is the source of
considerable pride.  I have survived, while a lot of sighted
people in the same business have not,  says Mr. Crosby, who is
blind.
Many blind people such as Mr. Crosby are becoming entrepreneurs
these
days. Like other minorities before them, they are finding that
entrepreneurship can create opportunities for people who
otherwise might have found the door shut.


Gaining Credibility


Of the estimated 180,000 working-age blind Americans, some 70%
are unemployed or underemployed, says the National Federation of
the Blind, an advocacy group based in Baltimore. Nobody knows
exactly how many blind people are running their own unsubsidized
full-time or part-time businesses. But Kenneth Jernigan,
executive director of the federation, estimates that the number
has doubled during the past decade, to at least 4,000. Many
sighted people are more inclined to believe in the abilities of
the blind, he says, and the blind also have more confidence in
themselves.
 It's harder to go into business if you can't get credit, if
nobody believes you can do it, and you don't really believe it
yourself,  Mr. Jernigan says. But blind people increasingly are
finding the means to venture into the private sector, he says.
Others say there has been a logical progression: After making
gains in employment in the 1970s and '80s, especially in the
public sector, more of the blind are ready to start their own
businesses.
Diane Starin of Orland, California, runs a business training
horses and giving riding lessons.  People have never questioned
how I go about doing it,  says Ms. Starin, who has been blind
since infancy. She says she frequently asks student riders
questions like.   Are your heels down?  to compensate for a lack
of visual information.
And in training young horses to move to a trot from a walk, she
sometimes ties bells to their legs, so she can hear whether the
gait changed precisely on command. (The bells are unnecessary
when Ms. Starin is actually riding the horse.)
 After the first 15 minutes of being around Diane, I forgot she
was blind,  says Joanne Van Meter, whose daughter, Amy, then 11
years old, took riding lessons from Ms. Starin for six months.
Now Ms. Starin, who keeps three horses, is diversifying. Having
noticed that the Orland area has plenty of people shearing sheep,
she says she  just seized the opportunity  and bought a machine
to sharpen clipper blades for them.  It's really wise for me to
do this new thing,  Ms. Starin says.  Horse training is harder
work for comparatively little money. 
Growing numbers of blind people, such as Tallahassee, Fla.,
lawyer
S. Craig Kiser, are starting their own private professional
practices, too. Mr. Kiser, who had worked for the state of
Florida's controller, says he had no trouble getting a $10,000
bank loan to set up his first private practice, which was in
Naples, Florida.  The banker said he routinely took chances with
young attorneys and wasn't going to treat me any different,  Mr.
Kiser recalls.
Though not all blind people have received such a fair shake, more
are venturing to seek loans.  The blind have come to recognize
their own abilities and right to independence,  Mr. Kiser says.  
That kind of self-confidence wasn't there as little as 10 to 15
years ago. 
In working totally for themselves, the boldest blind people are
going a step further even than those in the federally subsidized
programs, often called enterprise programs, that help many blind
people earn a living through newsstands, card shops and other
retail businesses.  But some owners of subsidized businesses also
are displaying more drive and entrepreneurship than in the past,
authorities on the blind say. Donald J. Morris enjoys a rent-free
lease for his O'Leary's Emporium, on federal property near the
National Fire Academy in Emmitsburg, Maryland. But the store,
which pays a portion of pretax profit in lieu of rent, is
thriving mostly because Mr. Morris broadened its scope. Instead
of selling mostly food and personal-care items, O'Leary's
stresses sales of memorabilia for firefighters.
Mr. Morris became blind in 1967, when he was a telephone-company
salesman.   I was all set to live the life of a blind person to
get into a corner out of life's way,  he says. But he persuaded
himself to attempt more.
As a store owner, he says, his success depends largely on
service.   People are greeted within 30 seconds of walking in, 
he says.   Within a minute they're offered a cup of coffee  made
extra hot so that people will browse while it cools.  None of
these things involve eyesight,  he says of his formula for
success.  He says O'Leary's is profitable, on annual sales of
nearly $400,000.  Blind business-owners say they may lose
business because some sighted people are uncomfortable around the
blind or doubt the blind can do their jobs. On the other hand,
they say, some sighted people want to help a blind person make a
living. In any case, dealing with the sighted can be stressful.
Mr. Morris, for one, says sighted salespeople for suppliers
sometimes tell him,  You're so good at this, I don't think of you
as being blind.  He adds:  I'm sure they intend it as a
compliment, but it's really an offense. 


Psychological Barriers


Some blind people say the hardest problems running a business are
psychological.  As a member of a minority group, you tend to
think you're not going to be able to do the job,  says Peggy
Pinder,
a blind Yale graduate who has her own law practice in Grinnell,
Iowa, where she serves on the city council. Having overcome her
own doubts, Ms. Pinder says she helps counsel others with similar
feelings.  Though she says she requires more secretarial help
than many other lawyers do, Ms. Pinder says there isn't any
aspect of her work that she can't handle. Her practice, she says,
is profitable and as big as she wants it. Moreover, it's her own: 
I can decide my own hours,  she says.  I can set my own rules. 
Not surprisingly, some blind entrepreneurs have made businesses
out
of helping others who are blind. Charles E. Hallenbeck, a blind
University of Kansas psychology professor, started up a sideline
business, called Kansys Inc. The business, housed in his garage
in Lawrence, produces computer software for the blind. Some of
the software helps computers simulate speech; some helps them
generate Braille documents.  There have been setbacks as when
banks refused to lend the company $15,000 to renovate the garage. 
Banks have regarded our business efforts as kind of a joke or a
hobby,  says Mr. Hallenbeck, who managed to get a $7,500
charitable grant and a $7,500 personal bank loan. But Kansys had
about $25,000 in sales in 1989 and expects to be profitable by
1993, Mr. Hallenbeck says.  Our credibility is greatly enhanced, 
he says,  because we're knowledgeable users of our own products. 
                             RECIPES 
 Gintautas Burba, who lives in Brockton, Massachusetts, is one
of our deaf-blind members. He says that these potato recipes are
Lithuanian. 

                         POTATO PANCAKES
                       by Gintautas Burba

 Ingredients: 
7 or 8 potatoes
2 eggs
3 tablespoons flour
1 teaspoon salt

 Method:  Peel and grate the potatoes. Mix in the other
ingredients.  Heat 1 tablespoon of fat (or 1 tablespoon of heated
cooking oil) in a pan. Drop spoonfuls of mixture into pan, and
fry golden brown. Top with sour cream when cooked.

                   POTATO PANCAKES WITH ONION

 Ingredients: 
6 or 7 medium potatoes
1/4 onion
3 eggs
1 teaspoon salt

 Method:  Peel and grate the potatoes and onions. Add the
well-beaten eggs and salt. Mix and fry. Plain or topped with sour
cream. (Pointers for best results: Use old potatoes, and start on
high heat and reduce to low.)

                         POTATO PUDDING

 Ingredients: 
4 raw potatoes
2 boiled potatoes
1 egg
1 cup milk
2 tablespoons bacon fat
1 tablespoon flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
salt and pepper to taste

 Method:  Peel and grate raw potatoes finely. Mash the peeled
boiled potatoes. Combine and mix raw and cooked potatoes with the
remaining ingredients. Pour into a greased tin or casserole. Bake
15 minutes at 450 degrees and 45 minutes at 350 degrees.

                           TACO SALAD
                        by Jane McPhedron

 Jane McPhedron is a Federationist from New Vineyard, Maine. Here
is a recipe which is in the spirit of this summer's Texas
convention. 

 Ingredients: 
1- 1 1/2 pounds hamburger
(or 1 large can red kidney beans, drained)
1 envelope taco seasoning mix
1-2 heads lettuce, shredded
4-6 tomatoes, diced
1 package shredded cheddar cheese
1-2 cups sweet pickles, cut up
2 boxes taco chips, crushed
1-2 bottles Russian or Catalina dressing,
or one jar taco sauce

 Method:  Brown meat and add seasoning mix. Place in large bowl
and combine with all other ingredients. Note: Try to anticipate
servings to avoid soggy chips! Serves 12-18.
             * * * MONITOR MINIATURES * * *  **Sell:
We have been asked to carry the following announcement: Mrs.
Maureen Pranghrer, Handi-Ham Systems, Inc., 3915 Golden Valley
Road, Golden Valley, Minnesota 55422, would like to sell her
classic VersaBraille for the best offer.

**Buy:
I would like to buy a used Kurzweil Personal Reader. Please
contact:  Gayle Compton, 29 Morning Side, Princeton, West
Virginia 24740, by letter or phone (304) 425-9416.

**1990 Book Awards Announced:
We received a news release from the President's Committee on
Employment
of People With Disabilities. It says in part:

Two outstanding books on employment of people with disabilities
today have been chosen to receive Book Awards by the President's
Committee on Employment of People With Disabilities.
The awards will be presented to the authors of the books on May
3, during a Media and Book Awards Luncheon at the Committee's
three-day Annual Meeting at the Washington Hilton Hotel in
Washington, D.C.   Take Charge , By Rami Rabby and Diane Croft.
National Braille Press, Inc., Boston, Massachusetts.  Take
Charge: A Strategic Guide for Blind Job Seekers , promotes the
idea that  it's time for people who are blind to take charge of
their own career exploration and job search campaign.  The self-
help guide uses real-life experiences of persons who are blind as
they searched for and found employment. It proposes strategies
for dealing with a resistant job market.

That's what the news release said, and those who attended the
1989 convention of the Federation of the Blind will remember that
Bill Raeder, of the National Braille Press, presented a Braille
copy of  Take Charge  to Dr. Jernigan at the annual meeting of
the Board of Directors. We join the President's Committee on
Employment of People With Disabilities in congratulating Rami
Rabby and Diane Croft on a job extraordinarily well done.

**Legislative Press Conference:
Rami Rabby, National Federation of the Blind of New York
legislative chairman, reports that on March 6, 1990 the New York
affiliate and state legislators conducted a press conference
jointly, in which they announced introduction of three important
pieces of legislation for blind New Yorkers.  The Legislative
Gazette  for March 12 reported the event in an article which said
in part:

Members of the Legislature have introduced legislation that is
designed to prohibit discrimination against the blind.
The bills would end discrimination against the blind who seek to
work as volunteers, provide minimum wage protection for blind
sheltered workshop employees, and give the blind priority in
operating vending machines in state-operated buildings.
 Currently, there are no anti-discrimination provisions or
protections within the State's Human Rights Law for persons who
perform volunteer services on behalf of an organization, school,
foundation or other group,  said Senator David A. Paterson, DL
Manhattan.   Individuals who give their time and energy to
volunteer work
should not find themselves the target of discrimination for any
reason.  Rami Rabby, legislative chairman for the National
Federation of the Blind, said it is hard for most young blind
people to get paid employment.   There is tremendous
discrimination for paid employment. They are forced to take
volunteer work to prove to an employer that they have experience.

Earlene Hill, D Hempstead, is sponsoring the bill in the
Assembly.  Hill said volunteers will make a difference in  taking
up the slack in a year when services may be cut. 
Paterson, who is legally blind, said,  I was denied access to
volunteer employment three times in my life. I volunteered for
David Dinkins in 1977 and was eventually hired. When I ran for
the Senate, my opponent tried to use my disability against me,
but here I am (in Albany). 
Senator James J. Lack, RC East Northport, and Assemblyman Alan
Hevesi, DL Forest Hills, have also sponsored a bill which would
aid the blind.  Their bill would provide minimum wage protection
to blind workers in sheltered workshops.
Jesse Lee, the workers' leader at the workshop for the blind in
Greater Rochester, said workshop managers are permitted to pay
handicapped workers less than the $3.35/hour minimum wage.
Lee said blind workers earn as little as 38 cents an hour.  The
largest paycheck I've seen is $50 in one week. You should see
some of the paychecks. It's a slap in the face to blind people. 
Under the federal Randolph-Sheppard Act, the blind are accorded a
priority in the operation of vending facilities in federal
buildings.  Now Senator Jay Rolison, RC Poughkeepsie, and Hevesi
have sponsored legislation which would afford blind vendors the
same priority in state-operated buildings.
 Since the public knows that we serve them well in the vending
facility at 26 Federal Plaza, why not give us the opportunity to
provide the same level of quality service at the Harlem State
Building too,  said Carl Jacobsen, chairman of the Vendors
Committee of the National Federation of the Blind of New York
State.
 The Office of General Services will object because they will
lose turf. But we can expand employment by 400 to help depressed
areas of the state. 

**Prairie State Chapter Elects Officers:
At its fifteenth anniversary meeting the Prairie State Chapter of
the National Federation of the Blind of Illinois elected the
following officers: President, Allen Schaefer of Mazon; Vice
President, Gary Jones of Joliet; Secretary, Evelyn Scanavino of
Gardner; Treasurer, Ruth Anne Schaefer of Mazon; and Board
Members, Elaine and Earl Salems of Morris and John Salvatore of
Joliet.  An Action Agenda for a New Decade  was the theme of the
April 21 meeting which was held at the Harvest Table in Dwight.
After being reorganized last year, the three-county chapter has
helped many newly blinded persons and has enjoyed substantial
growth.

**New Calculator Available:
Ramona Walhof reports as follows:  Many of us have been needing a
small talking calculator as good as the one made several years
ago by Sharp Corporation. The NFB now has one available at a cost
of $35.  You can also order it from the W. Bell Catalog. The
keyboard is totally different from that of the old Sharp model,
but it will do the same things. It is slightly larger than the
old Sharp (dimensions) but fits conveniently into a briefcase
along with the documents you need to carry. It will probably not
fit as well into a pocket or purse.  The new calculator has one
real advantage over the Sharp. It uses standard AA batteries,
which are included when you purchase the calculator from the NFB.
Contact the Materials Center, National Federation of the Blind,
1800 Johnson St., Baltimore, MD 21230.

**Sell:
We have been asked to carry the following announcement: For Sale,
VersaBraille II+ BIT Plus, an external disk drive with assorted
software.  This will allow you to hook up to an IBM PC and
perform some VersaBraille functions in the background. Asking
price $4,500 or best offer. Contact:  Isaac Obie, 55 Waverley
Avenue, Apt. 210, Watertown, Massachusetts 02172; (617) 923-2305.

**High Y Enacts Braille Bill:
From the Associate Editor: For some years the YMCA has sponsored
an organization for high school students designed to teach them
about government through direct experience. Each year, members of
High Y chapters, in Ohio high schools at least, research and
write bills
which are then evaluated by a central committee and ranked for
consideration by student legislative committees. Those that are
passed go to the floor of one legislative chamber for debate and
a vote. Finally the student-elected governor, in consultation
with his or her advisors, decides whether or not to sign each one
into law. All this is accomplished during a three- day
legislative session. High school students from
all over the state converge on the capital and are divided into
legislative houses and committees to work on the measures in
ranked order.
My daughter, Margy Pierce, submitted a bill this spring which
would ensure blind students the right to learn Braille if they or
their parents requested it. The bill was ranked number one for
senate committee consideration and was subsequently passed by the
committee to the floor of the senate and approved. The High Y
governor then signed it into law. If only adult legislators could
be as sensible!

**Dies:
 From the Associate Editor:  On May 7, 1990, Ivan Garwood,
President of the Tri-County Chapter of the National Federation of
the Blind of Ohio, died at the age of ninety. When I joined the
NFB in 1974, Ivan had been Treasurer of the state affiliate for
almost ten years; he retired two years later. His devoted sister
Ruth always accompanied Ivan, who was severely hearing-impaired
in addition to being blind.  Ivan was as loyal, devoted, and
hard- working a member as we have.  Ohio conventions will simply
not be the same without him, and all of us are the poorer for the
passing from this world of his gentle kindness and radiant
goodness. All of us who were privileged to know Ivan join Ruth in
mourning the loss of a brother and friend who made this world a
better place than he found it.

**Mississippi Convention:
Sam Gleese writes: On the weekend of March 31, 1990, at the
Holiday
Inn Medical Center located in Jackson, Mississippi, the National
Federation of the Blind of Mississippi held its annual state
convention. Officers and board members elected for the 1990-1992
term are: Sam Gleese, President; E. U. Parker, First Vice
President; Jimmie Moore, Second Vice President; Sarah White,
Secretary; Doris Keith, Treasurer; Mary Reed, Board Member; and
Gwen Stokes, Board Member.

**Toshiba Accessories:
We have been asked to carry the following announcement: For Sale: 
Toshiba 1200FR Computer with two 3.5 disk drives and an external
Weltec 5.25-inch disk drive configured for the Toshiba computer.
The computer contains the Accent Speech Card and an internal RAM
disk that acts as another disk drive. The system comes with the
following floppy disks: MS DOS 3.30, Flipper (demo version of
speech program), Accent Manual, boot up disk to activate the
Accent with Flipper, Sidekick, and PC Quick programs from
Toshiba. Asking price: $2,050, but will also include for an
additional $120 4 unopened boxes of TDK 3.5-inch floppy disks, an
external speaker for the Accent, a case to carry external drive
or other computer accessories. This brings the cost
of the total package to $2,170 if all items are desired. For
information contact: Judy Davidson, 252 Thorncliff Road, Buffalo,
New York 14223-1206.

**National Church Conference:
We have been asked to carry the following announcement:
The 1990 meeting of the National Church Conference of the Blind
will be from Thursday, July 26, to Sunday, July 29, at the
Heart-of-Town Holiday Inn, 1000 Washington Street East,
Charleston, West Virginia 25301, phone (304) 343-4661. The
Conference theme is  Exercising Unto Godliness  (1 Timothy, Ch.
4, Verses 7 and 8). In addition to daily Bible studies and the
Saturday evening banquet, this year's conference will include a
Prayer Breakfast and seminars on  How to Pray  and  Everyday
Practical Evangelism.  For further information contact Reverend
Frank Finkenbinder, Membership Secretary, National Church
Conference of the Blind, Post Office Box 163, Denver, Colorado
80201, phone (303) 455-3430.

**Elected:
Carol Laplante writes: I am writing to inform you of the New York
State Niagara Falls Chapter's election of officers. The new term
began January, 1990, at which time the new officers were inducted
into office at our annual dinner by Ken Feeley. The officers are
as follows: Bill Focazzio, President; Laura Herman, Vice
President; Mike Germele, Treasurer; and Carol Laplante,
Secretary.

**Sell:
We have been asked to carry the following announcement:
For Sale: NEC PowerMate Portable computer which is a 286 machine
running at 10 MHz. The system, which is transportable, includes
640K of memory, 40 megabyte hard disk, built-in 720K internal 3.5
inch floppy drive, external 5.25 inch 360K floppy drive, two
standard AT compatible expansion slots and one NEC proprietary
modem slot, carrying case, and MS-DOS
3.2. The PROVOX screen review software can be included at a
nominal additional cost. Price: $2,000.
Also for sale is an Apple 2E computer with 128K memory, two disk
drives, an ImageWriter printer, 1200 baud modem, and lots of
software, including BEX Version 2.2, ProWords and ProTerm, Lister
Talker, two banking programs, many back issues of AppleTalk
magazine, public domain games, and much more. The system also
includes an Echo synthesizer and all the manuals, many of which
are in Braille. Price: $1,500.
Finally, I have for sale two copies of the integrated program
Microsoft Works for MS-DOS computers, as well as a copy of Andrew
Tobias's  Managing Your Money , none of which has been used. I am
asking $100 for each copy of Microsoft Works and $125 for 
Managing Your Money .  Contact: David Andrews, 906 1/2 Fruit
Avenue, N.W., Albuquerque, New Mexico 87102, or call (505)
841-8847 during the day or (505) 243-5160 evenings and weekends.

**Elected:
Carolyn Ranker writes: I am pleased to write and inform you of
the new slate of officers in our local chapter the Kanawha Valley
Chapter, National Federation of the Blind of West Virginia.
Elections were held Saturday, April 7, 1990. The following
officers were elected:  President, Dennis Ranker; Vice President,
Sharon Nearhoof; Secretary, Carolyn Ranker; Treasurer, Mike
Smith; and State Board Member, Ed Greenleaf.

**White Canes Needed:
Junerose Killian writes as follows: White canes no longer being
used are needed to be sent to blind people in developing
countries. At the moment the supply is very limited. Please send
canes to: Mrs.  Junerose Killian, C.E.I.P., 7 Champlin Hill
Court, Niantic, Connecticut 06357. The Cultural Exchange and
International Program Committee of
the NFB helps to distribute used or donated white canes for
independence to overseas blind friends. Canes have gone to India,
Uganda, Kenya, Ecuador, and Cameroon in the past. Thanks,
Federationists, for your assistance in this project.

**Real Estate Personnel:
Pat Comorato (2340 South 11th Street, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
19148; 215-465-4765) would like blind licensed brokers or other
licensed real estate persons anywhere in the country to contact
him.

**Elections in Virginia:
The National Federation of the Blind of Virginia held its state
convention in Harrisonburg April 6-8, 1990. From the report
submitted to us by Larry Povinelli, it was obviously an active
meeting. Those elected
to state office were: Charles Brown, President; Robert McDonald,
First Vice President; Gwen Nelson, Second Vice President; Larry
Povinelli, Treasurer; Debbie Prost, Recording Secretary; and
Dawnelle Cruze, Corresponding Secretary. A Diabetics Division was
established, with the following people elected to office: Bill
Parker, President; Ed Peay, First Vice President; Geraldine
Burke, Second Vice President; Maxine Oates, Treasurer; and
Dawnelle Cruze, Secretary. The Virginia Association to Promote
the Use of Braille (VAPUB) was also established.  Elected were:
Debbie Prost, President; Billie Ruth Schlank, First
Vice President; Dawnelle Cruze, Second Vice President; Larry
Povinelli, Treasurer; and Marshall Jordan, Secretary.

**Sell:
Frank Brucato of New York has asked that we carry the following
announcement:  For Sale One rarely used (Braille edition) of 
Webster's New World Dictionary of the American Language  in good
condition. If interested, please call (212) 652-1891, anytime
between 6:00 and 10:00 p.m.

**Cecile Paice Dies:
 From the Editor:  This morning (Tuesday, June 5, 1990) I
received a call from Priscilla Ferris, President of the National
Federation
of the Blind of Massachusetts, telling me of the death of Cecile
(Cile as her friends call her) Paice. Cile was Treasurer of the
National Federation of the Blind of Massachusetts, but she was
much more than that. She was a warm, stable, wonderful human
being, who loved our movement and its members and did all she
could to make life better for the blind. She died of a massive
heart attack on Saturday morning, June 2. Her loss will be keenly
felt. Someone else will be found to do many of the things she
did, but Cile can never truly be replaced.

**Appointed:
As  Monitor  readers know, Ken Silberman is an active member of
the National Federation of the Blind of Pennsylvania. Recently he
received a letter from John F. White, Secretary of the Department
of Public Welfare of Pennsylvania, which said in part:
 It is with great pleasure that I write to inform you that you
have been selected to serve on the Department of Public Welfare's
newly established Vocational Rehabilitation Policy Advisory
Committee for the Bureau of Blindness and Visual Services. I
believe that you will make a significant contribution to this
Committee and its role in advising us on how to best implement
services to the Commonwealth's blind and visually impaired
citizens. 

**Elected:
Henry (Hank) LaBonne writes as follows: The Chattanooga Chapter
of the National Federation of the Blind of Tennessee met on April
9, 1990, and elected the following slate of officers: President,
Henry
M. LaBonne; First Vice President, June Grant; Second Vice
President, Reverend Morris Johnson; Secretary, Linda McJunkin;
Treasurer, George Grant; and Board Members Marie Clay, Judy
Carlton, Patricia Coleman, and Norm Bolton.

**Sell:
We have been asked to carry the following announcement:  For Sale
VersaBraille II Model LIC, new, never used, power supply bar,
priced at $2,500
or best offer. Contact Jewel McGinnis (print, Braille, or
cassette) at 2417 Greenwich Street, San Francisco, California
94123; phone:  (415) 931-8734. 
