                       THE BRAILLE MONITOR

                            May, 1996

                     Barbara Pierce, Editor


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


              THE NATIONAL FEDERATION OF THE BLIND 
                     MARC MAURER, PRESIDENT 
 


                         National Office
                       1800 Johnson Street
                   Baltimore, Maryland 21230 

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                National Federation of the Blind
                       1800 Johnson Street
                   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

ISSN 0006-8829

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THE BRAILLE MONITOR
PUBLICATION OF THE NATIONAL FEDERATION OF THE BLIND

                            CONTENTS
                                                        MAY, 1996

TENBROEKIANS GATHER TO CELEBRATE
THE MAN AND HIS IDEAS
     by Sharon Gold. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 

THE PROS AND CONS OF PREFERENTIAL TREATMENT OF BLIND PERSONS
     by Jacobus tenBroek . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 

DIALOGUE IN THE DARK
     by Marc Maurer. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 

FITTING IN:
BLIND STUDENTS HIT THEIR STRIDE. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 

KEEPIN' UP WITH CINDY
     by Sue Bennett. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 

LISTENING TO THE LEAVES
     by Carole Conrad. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 

NEVER TOO YOUNG TO SOLVE PROBLEMS. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 

I DON'T HAVE A VISION PROBLEM; I JUST HAVE GLAUCOMA. . . . . . . 

TAPPING THE CHARCOAL
     by Kenneth Jernigan . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 

BLIND SURVIVAL SKILLS
     by David Walker . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 

CHARLES CHEADLE HONORED AT EAGLE SCOUT CEREMONY. . . . . . . . . 

DEAF STUDENT HAS FULL SCHEDULE AT OLATHE EAST
     by Suzanne Vega . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 

HOW TO GET THERE:
ANAHEIM CONVENTION AIRPORT-HOTEL TRANSPORTATION
     by Jim Willows. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 

ENDURING HOPE
     by William D. Meeker. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 

JOE DEBEER DIES AT NINETY-THREE
     by Barbara Pierce . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 

RECIPES. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 

MONITOR MINIATURES . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 

        Copyright  1996 National Federation of the Blind[LEAD PHOTOS: GENERAL CAPTION: "Come, and trip it as ye go//On the light
fantastic toe." Convention is coming, where the evenings are filled with
laughter and fun. These Federationists show you what to do. Join us in
Anaheim! #1 CAPTION: Niki White and Jeremy Lincicome of Maryland show their
elders how it's done. #2: An adult man is pictured dancing with a little girl
about six who is wearing a frilly dress. CAPTION: Across the generation lines
couples enjoy dancing. This picture was taken at the 1993 convention. #3
CAPTION: Tony and Marie Cobb of Maryland stop dancing long enough for this
picture to be taken at the 1993 convention in Dallas. #4: Five children have
joined hands and are dancing in a circle. CAPTION: Federation children are an
irresistible part of convention dances. #5: A couple is shown in the
foreground with the man swinging his partner around while other couples square
dance in the background. CAPTION: Square dancing was part of the fun at the
1993 convention in Dallas.]

[PHOTO/CAPTION: Sharon Gold]
                TENBROEKIANS GATHER TO CELEBRATE
                      THE MAN AND HIS IDEAS
                         by Sharon Gold

     From the Editor: On February 23, 1996, three Federationists
(Hazel tenBroek, Sheryl Pickering, and Sharon Gold) joined a
group of distinguished and devoted former students of Dr. Jacobus
tenBroek to honor his memory through the exploration of some of
his ideas. Dr. tenBroek's profound impact on the lives of blind
Americans is so central to Federationists' understanding of the
man that it is sometimes easy for us to overlook the significance
of his effect on the larger world of rigorous legal thought. Here
is Sharon Gold's report of this latest gathering of Jacobus
tenBroek's colleagues, friends, and students:

     To the blind of the country, Jacobus tenBroek is remembered
as the founder of the National Federation of the Blind and the
first leader of the organized blind movement in the United States
and around the world. The establishment and leadership of an
organization that has had a profound impact on the lives of a
group of people is a major accomplishment in any man's life;
however, this man's life and leadership have extended to and
continue to reach far beyond the blind community to include
people from all walks of life.
     Blinded by a bow and arrow accident at the age of seven,
Jacobus tenBroek graduated from the University of California and
earned advanced degrees from the University of California School
of Law and Harvard University School of Law and received honorary
degrees from Findley College and Parsons College. He served as a
professor of speech and jurisprudence at the University of
California at Berkeley from 1942 until 1967. He was renowned for
his use of the Socratic method of teaching. His students remember
him for his genius in teaching them the discipline of analytical
thinking and his desire to eliminate prejudice among all persons.
Today his former students can be found working as lawyers; judges
at most levels of the judicial system; sociologists; professors
of law; legislators; and local, state, and federal government
officials.
     Dr. tenBroek was a prolific writer. His articles appeared
almost monthly in the publications of the National Federation of
the Blind. But he also wrote numerous articles for the University
of California Law Review and other legal journals. "The Right to
Live in the World: The Disabled in the Law of Torts," which first
appeared in the California Law Review in 1966, was the foundation
for the statutes known as the White Cane Law and the Americans
with Disabilities Act. Dr. tenBroek's book Prejudice, War, and
the Constitution, which addresses First Amendment rights, altered
forever the way the legal world viewed the mass internment of
Japanese Americans during World War II. This book was the basis
for the legal arguments presented to the United States Supreme
Court and was the direct cause of the reversal in the Court's
decision in Korematsu v. the United States.
     Other articles and books by Dr. tenBroek were published on
the subjects of Constitutional law, family and adoption law,
welfare law, and public assistance and social law. Many of Dr.
tenBroek's writings are still studied in law school courses today
and continue to affect society profoundly.
     In October, 1992, twenty-four years after Jacobus tenBroek's
death, his students held a dinner in his honor and memory. (See
"Jacobus tenBroek: The Man Beyond the Movement," Braille Monitor,
February, 1993.) The participants left the dinner that evening
saying enthusiastically that more should be done to advance the
standards and ideals for which Dr. tenBroek had stood.
Accordingly, the tenBroek Society was formed to promote goals and
activities in the memory and spirit of Dr. tenBroek.
     The "tenBroekians," as the members of the Society call
themselves, held their first dinner in June, 1994. The program
featured a thirty-year retrospective on the Free Speech Movement
in Berkeley, a movement in which Dr. tenBroek had been active at
the University.
     On February 23, 1996, the tenBroek Society held its Second
Awards Dinner at the St. Francis Hotel, one of San Francisco's
most elegant landmark hotels. The topic of discussion for the
evening was "Affirmative Action: A tenBroekian Analysis." The
basis for the discussion was Dr. tenBroek's speech "The Pros and
Cons of Preferential Treatment." Participating in the debate were
former tenBroek students including Leland Selna, Jr., of Feldman,
Walman and Kline, moderator; Ralph Abascal, General Counsel,
California Rural Legal Assistance; Ward Connerly, Regent,
University of California and Chair, California Civil Rights
Initiative; and Robert Daggett of Brobeck, Phlegar and Harrison.
Mr. Daggett, who also serves as a commentator on San Francisco
television station KQED, was Dr. tenBroek's surrogate during the
discussion and presented the tenBroekian analysis.
     During the evening Hazel tenBroek and tenBroekian Robert
Leslie presented two awards. The Excellence in Teaching Award was
presented to Laura E. Nathan, Professor of Sociology and
Anthropology, Mills College. The Outstanding Student Award was
presented to Elizabeth MacDowell, a student at the University of
California Boalt Hall School of Law. Ms. MacDowell was nominated
for the award by her undergraduate school, California State
University of Hayward.
     As a part of the dinner, a moment of silence was called by
tenBroek Society President Frank Winston in memory of two of Dr.
tenBroek's closest colleagues and neighbors, the Honorable Frank
Newman and Bernard Witkin. Frank Newman had been a California
Supreme Court Justice and Dean of Boalt Hall. Bernie Witkin had
been a professor at Boalt Hall and was highly acclaimed for his
Summary of California Law.
     When Dr. tenBroek died in 1968, Dr. Jernigan assumed the
leadership of the National Federation of the Blind and led the
organization to develop in the spirit and with the ideals and
concepts formulated by Dr. tenBroek. Dr. Jernigan has spoken of
the change in leadership as the passing of the torch to a new
generation. First through Dr. Jernigan's leadership and in recent
years through that of President Maurer, the Federation has put
into practice the teachings of Dr. tenBroek.
     But Jacobus tenBroek's leadership is recognized not only by
the blind of the nation but in the academic arena. The purpose of
the tenBroek Society is to "foster and promote the teaching and
advocacy of rigorous, critical, and analytical thought and debate
pertaining to matters of conscience, personal liberty, and civil
liberties. The Society shall strive to acquaint the public with
the ideals and methods of Dr. Jacobus tenBroek as a teacher,
scholar, and leader and to motivate us all as teachers, students,
and citizens to challenge conventional thinking and, with
rational thought and forthright debate, seek truth and honesty in
ideas and action for all of the people." Thus, the influence of
this giant among men continues to be disseminated among all
people, and the leadership of Jacobus tenBroek continues to be
felt beyond the National Federation of the Blind.
     Editor's postscript: In recognition of the seminal nature of
"The Pros and Cons of Preferential Treatment of Blind Persons,"
the speech the tenBroekians took as their point of departure at
their February dinner meeting, we are reprinting the speech in
this issue.


[PHOTO/CAPTION: Jacobus tenBroek]
  THE PROS AND CONS OF PREFERENTIAL TREATMENT OF BLIND PERSONS
                       by Jacobus tenBroek

     An address delivered at the American Association of Workers
for the Blind Convention, Quebec, June, 1955. First printed in
the July, 1976, issue of the Braille Monitor.

     The topic of this discussion immediately suggests the
ambivalence, if not the outright hostility, aroused in most of us
by the idea of preferential treatment. If it implies unwarranted
favors and advantages, as it sometimes seems to, how is such
treatment to be justified with reference to the blind or, for
that matter, with reference to any group? If the blind are
normal, as they claim, why do they need to be treated
differently? If their objective is really social equality and
integration, is it not true that preferential treatment serves to
perpetuate special status, with all its connotations of
inequality and inferiority? Is there anything about the problems
of the blind or of blindness which makes necessary or desirable
some form of preferential treatment?
     "Any class," wrote one blind man, "which demands special
privileges soon finds itself a dependent class," and "the blind
of America have developed a progressive disease--that of
dependency."
     We espouse the principle, wrote another blind man, "that the
blind are normal and competent people, capable of making their
own way, on a basis of equality." At the same time we ask
"special concessions and privileges on the basis that we are
helpless and unequal." "We cannot have our cake and eat it too,
and such measures and propaganda stressing the inequality of the
blind are bound to have a most damaging effect upon our primary
goal of equality."
     Let us begin our analysis of the pros and cons of
preferential treatment of the blind at the beginning: that is, by
defining the terms used.
     Preferential treatment of the blind is treatment which
singles out the blind for special favors, advantages, or
benefits. In short, it is any special treatment. Preferential
treatment may be based on an irrational whim, prejudice, or
taste--as when one prefers strawberries instead of blueberries,
or when it is said "gentlemen prefer blondes." On the other hand,
preferential or special treatment may be based on the possession
by the group receiving it of some distinctive talents or unique
qualities or peculiar needs having a relationship to a proper
public policy or socially desirable objective.
     There are no pros, there are only cons, with regard to the
preferential treatment of the blind which is founded in
irrational whim, prejudice, or taste; and the blind cannot
rightly claim, nor do they generally want, mere favoritism,
public or private, any more than they claim or want the opposite:
discriminatory disadvantage, guilt- or shame-motivated rejection,
kindness-inspired overprotection, or unthinking exclusion. The
pros and cons of preferential treatment founded in special
qualities or needs of the group depend in each individual
instance upon three factors: (1) upon a faithful determination
and accurate evaluation of the special qualities or needs of the
blind; (2) upon a correct appraisal of the public policy or
social objective sought to be achieved by the particular
preferential treatment; and (3) upon the adaption of means to
ends, that is, upon whether the means are proper and there is a
close and substantial relationship between the special qualities
and needs of the blind, on the one hand, and the policy or
objective, on the other.
     The other term that must be defined is "the blind." Who are
the blind? What is blindness?
     The term blindness in its literal denotative sense means
loss of eyesight; the absence of visual acuity. It refers to a
strictly physical condition. The blind, then, are simply those
who cannot see. Nothing more, nothing less!
     The term blindness, however, also has a wider connotative
sense. In this sense it refers to restricted social and economic
contact, opportunity, and activity. To be stripped of eyesight is
to be shorn of full-fledged membership in society.
     The difference between the denotative and connotative
meanings of blindness is exactly that between disability and
handicap. Disability refers to a physical deprivation; handicap
to the social consequences of that deprivation. The distinction
may be seen in the fact that there are many disabilities which
carry little or no handicap, such as the chronic laryngitis of
Andy Devine, the undersize of jockeys, or the oversize of
basketball players. Likewise, there are handicaps with no
disability, such as the black skin of American Negroes or the
religion of the Jews in Nazi Germany. Disability is properly the
concern of medical science. We can do little about the physical
fact of blindness except to cure it or live with it. But it is
not blindness alone that we live with. We live with other people,
which is to say we live in society. It is society which creates
and imposes the handicap of blindness, for it consists of the
misconceptions of the sighted about the nature of the physical
disability. The principal misconception, the one that embodies
and epitomizes all the rest, is that blindness means
helplessness--social and economic incapacity; the destruction of
the productive powers; the obliteration of the ability to
contribute to or benefit from normal community participation; in
short, the lingering image of the helpless blind man.
     Three comments about the social handicap of blindness are
particularly in order: (1) To place responsibility for it upon
the sighted is not to speak in terms of blame or recrimination.
Far from it! The misconceptions are sanctioned by a society
motivated mainly by benevolence, wishing above all else to be
kind and helpful. (2) Wherever, as happens with increasing
frequency, an individual blind person breaks through the social
barriers, his success is likely to be attributed to his
possession of special genius or compensatory powers (either
superhuman or supernatural) which leave the overall image of
blindness intact. (3) Public attitudes about the blind inevitably
become the attitudes of the blind. The blind see themselves as
others see them. They accept the public view of their limitations
and thus do much to make them a reality.
     Most people exaggerate the physical and underemphasize the
social aspect of blindness. Our distinguished and able chairman,
Father Carroll, has defined blindness in terms of twenty lacks
and losses. I am one of Father Carroll's numerous admirers. But I
admire him more for his willingness to prepare a list than for
the list he has prepared. It seems to me that he falls prey to
the common fallacy. Note what a large percentage of the items on
the list refers to the physical fact of blindness and its
immediate physical and personal consequences; what a small
percentage refers to the broadly social. What may be known
hereafter as Father Carroll's Lacks and Losses reads as follows:
(1) loss of physical integrity; (2) loss of confidence in the
remaining senses; (3) loss of reality contact; (4) loss of visual
background; (5) loss of "light"; (6) loss of mobility; (7) loss
of visual perception: beautiful; (8) loss of visual perception:
pleasurable; (9) loss of ease of written communication; (10) loss
of ease of spoken communication; (11) loss of means for
informational progress; (12) loss of recreation; (13) loss of
technique, daily living; (14) loss of career: vocation, goal, job
opportunity; (15) loss of financial security; (16) loss of
personal independence; (17) loss of social adequacy; (18) loss of
obscurity, anonymity; (19) loss of self-esteem; (20) loss of
total personality organization.
     I would not have you believe that I underassess the
importance of the physical disability. Without sight the range of
perception is narrowed. Objects which can be seen from afar must
be near at hand to be discernible by other senses. And the blind
person who has not scuffed his shins on low-lying implements and
toys carelessly left on the sidewalk or stumbled over a curb, or
bumped his head on an overhanging awning or branch has never left
his armchair. These are undeniably embarrassing or uncomfortable
experiences; but they are properly to be classified as minor
annoyances or distractive nuisances, like shaving in the morning
or removing your glass eyes at night. In my experience, blind
people who are willing to move and put one foot out in front of
the other always somehow get where they want to go.
     In any event, the main point is that the real affliction of
blindness is not the physical disability or its immediate
consequences but the social handicap. It therefore becomes most
important to analyze the precise nature of the handicap. Of what
does it consist? What are the elements which compose it? What
does it mean to be excluded from society? What are the rights of
membership of which the blind are thus deprived?
     To answer these questions, one must identify the main
features of American society, for it is denial of participation
in these which constitutes the handicap of blindness. The process
of answering the questions therefore is one of resurveying
American social and political thought and constitutional ideals,
one of restating the principles, doctrines, and concepts that are
contained therein.
     The task of restating American social and political
assumptions and goals is complicated by a number of facts and
factors. Major American social and political principles, such as
the dignity of the individual, liberty, equality, and private
property, are so intermingled and overlapping that it is
difficult to separate any one of them for single treatment.
     Emphasis on the various elements has shifted at different
periods in our history, in the documents which have embodied and
expressed different movements, forces, and times, and among the
prominent political writers and speakers. Equality was the
dominant note in the Declaration of Independence. Property
assumed relatively a stronger position in the Constitution.
During the nineteenth century, when fortune and geography gave
the nation military safety and free land and the open frontier
gave individuals a sense of economic safety, security was assumed
and liberty was elevated into a primary position. Today, as Ralph
Henry Gabriel writes, "When the traditional foundations of
culture crumble,...when government by law gives way to government
by irresponsible force, the preoccupation with liberty as an end
in itself is replaced by a new search for security, mental,
social, economic, and even physical."1
     Sometimes, indeed, going far beyond mere shifts in emphasis,
the elements are presented as irreconcilably contradictory. Read
for example this passage from William Graham Sumner: "Let it be
understood that we cannot go outside this alternative: liberty,
inequality, survival of the fittest; non-liberty, equality,
survival of the unfittest. The former carries society upwards and
favors all of its best members; the latter carries society
downwards and favors all its worst members."2
     Finally, the task of stating American social and political
principles is made difficult by the fact that they are not fixed
and immutable, as the laws of the Medes and the Persians were
reputed to be. To the extent that they are a living reality in a
developing democracy, they are constantly growing, maturing, and
changing. Every generation, every decade is a formative period in
the constitutional life of the nation. In our generation the
creative interpretation and application of American social and
political principles in the sphere of international organization
and in the social and economic sphere are in process.
     Yet, despite these difficulties in stating them, the major
elements in the set of widely accepted and persistently enduring
political principles and social ethics are identifiable and
subject to description and characterization. The "easily
remembered" formulations can be found in the landmark documents
of our history. These documents not only express and embody
movements and periods of the past but are as well basic forces of
government in the present and for the future. They include the
Declaration of Independence, the Northwest Ordinance, the
Preamble to the United States Constitution, the state
constitutions, the Civil War amendments to the United States
Constitution, and the more famous pronouncements of the United
States Supreme Court.

     (1) Liberty. In American political thought, liberty has many
aspects and sources. It is both positive and negative. It is
political, economic, personal, and, in a broad sense, social. It
is founded by some in positivism; by others in natural law; by
still others in moral law. It sets in equilibrium
constitutionalism and democracy.
     In part liberty consists in protection against the will of
the majority, no matter how regularly manifested and how lacking
in oppressiveness or arbitrariness. In this aspect it is embodied
in an array of restraints on governmental action and the
organized power of society. The existence of a constitutionally
arranged governmental structure and distribution of powers, in
fact the existence of a constitution at all, implies a system of
limited government. The Constitution, too, contains many explicit
prohibitions on government. Though some exist elsewhere in the
Constitution, the Bill of Rights and the other amendments are, of
course, a catalogue of these. Among them are the protection given
life, liberty, and property, the requirement of established and
regular procedures by government, and the guarantee of immunity
from unreasonable intrusions into the privacy of one's person,
house, papers, and effects. The many safeguards against improper
conviction for crime refer not only to the technical aspects of
criminal justice, but bespeak the basic right of personal
freedom: i.e., freedom to move about as one pleases and to be not
subject to surveillance and custodialization by the agents of the
state. Likewise, freedom from slavery and peonage is decreed,
implying not only self-ownership but free labor and the right to
the rewards of labor.
     A dominant part of American social and political thought has
always been a notion that these rights, thus fixed in the
Constitution, are the indivestible possessions of individuals
even when not so guaranteed. Whether derived from natural law,
moral law, higher law, or various other concepts about the
fundamental nature of man and society, this notion has found
constant expression throughout our history. Its standard
formulation is in the Declaration of Independence: "[T]hat [men]
are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights,
that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of
happiness." These rights governments were instituted to secure
and protect, not to create and confer.3
     The concept that rights which are regarded as very important
are somehow natural rights or derive from a higher law results
from a philosophic view which has lost much of its persuasion and
support in recent decades. The Founding Fathers, however, and
most American statesmen down through the Civil War period, made
it their starting point. Natural rights thus became inextricably
woven into the fabric of American social and political thought
and popular belief. They lurk just below the surface of many of
our state papers, judicial pronouncements, and political orations
of today. Of those Americans who do not accept this particular
philosophical concept, most still insist upon the great
importance and basic character of the rights proclaimed.
     So far I have spoken of the constitutional side of
constitutional democracy. The democracy side is a positive aspect
of liberty. It has to do with the individual's right to
participate in government, in the determination of social
direction and policy. Its foundation is the doctrine of popular
sovereignty and the consent of the governed. Its implementations
are the right of suffrage, the right to seek and hold office, and
the right of the majority to rule. Its indispensable conditions
are freedom of speech, press, and assembly.4
     Liberty is positive in another phase besides that of the co-
sovereignty of citizens of a republic. Government is responsible
for the protection of the rights of the individual. This cannot
be wholly achieved by the government itself refraining from
invading them. It must prevent others from invading them. It must
eliminate and control the conditions which nullify them or make
their exercise impossible. It must foster, promote, establish,
and maintain the conditions which nullify them or make their
exercise impossible. It must foster, promote, establish, and
maintain the conditions which make their exercise possible and
significant. This is especially true if the right is active
rather than passive; if it involves doing and not just being;
acquiring and not just having; speaking and not just listening.
Congress, as Webster declared in his famous debate with Hayne, is
under an obligation to exercise the powers delegated to it in the
Constitution for the purpose of achieving the objectives set
forth in the Preamble of the Constitution--to "establish justice,
insure domestic tranquility, provide for the common defense,
promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty
to ourselves and our posterity. . . ."5
     Men have a right to life, personal freedom, and personal
security. They have the right to marry, have and rear children,
and maintain a home.6 They have a right, so far as government can
assure it, to that fair opportunity to earn a livelihood which
will make these other rights possible and significant.7 Men may
not be bound to the place of their poverty and misfortune; they
may move freely about the country in search of new opportunity.8
They have a right freely to choose their fields of endeavor,
unhindered by arbitrary, artificial, and man-made impediments.9
They have a right to enter the common trades, callings, and
occupations of the community. They have the right, if they are
free, to manage their own affairs as they see fit, unless and
until there is interference with the equal rights of others to
manage their affairs or there is injury to the welfare of the
community.
     "It is not enough," wrote the President's Committee on Civil
Rights in 1947, "that full and equal membership in society
entitles the individual to an equal voice in the control of his
government; it must also give him the right to enjoy the benefits
of society and to contribute to its progress. . . . Without this
equality of opportunity, the individual is deprived of the chance
to develop his potentialities and to share the fruits of society.
The group also suffers through the loss of the contributions
which might have been made by persons excluded from the main
channels of social and economic activity."

     (2) The Dignity of Man. Deeply imbedded in this concept of
liberty is a democratic view of the individual, of his role in
society, relation to the state, essential dignity and worth. It
is the individual who possesses rights which are fundamental and
inalienable. He is at the beginning and the end of the state. He
organizes it and gives it authority. Its powers are conferred to
protect his rights and to assure the conditions necessary for
their maximum expression. The state exists for his benefit, not
he for its. "In democratic society," wrote Charles Merriam,
"regard for the dignity of man stands behind the throne of public
order, a constant reminder of the need for liberty and justice as
well as order, a constant plea that the human personality shall
not be forgotten in the multiplications of laws, in the
ramifications of administration, or in the antiquarianism of
formal justice."10
     Democracy breathes respect for all men and seeks to preserve
their individuality and autonomy. This spirit is violated
wherever men are alienated or sheltered from the mainstream, not
only in the overt gestures of rejection but in the sentimental
embrace of patronage and protection. Humanity is degraded and
individuality disparaged by treatment of the person as a unit in
a category determined by irrelevant traits, defined and measured
not in unique terms of personal character and achievement but in
the stereotype terms of physical or national or racial
difference.

     (3) The Rights of Property and to Contract. The rights to
property and to contract have likewise been regarded as
fundamental in the American system. The right to property along
with life and liberty is listed as one of the three great rights
of all free men in Chapter 39 of the Magna Carta. It appears thus
also in the American state constitutions, early and late, in the
Northwest Ordinance of 1787, in the United States Constitution,
Amendments V and XIV, and elsewhere.11
     The rights to liberty, property, and contract are
interlocking if not interchangeable concepts. The right to
contract is sometimes stated as an incident to the right to
property; sometimes as an independent aspect of liberty. Property
is described by some as sufficiently broad to incorporate all
other rights of individuals, including liberty; and liberty is
often regarded by others as broad enough to encompass the right
to acquire, use, and enjoy property. The three rights of liberty,
property, and contract are thus intimately associated in American
thinking.12
     Property and contract rights are not unlimited but, on the
contrary, are subject to public control in the public interest.
They may be abridged and, in some cases, destroyed altogether, if
that is necessary to protect the community against injury or
danger in any form, against fraud or vice or economic oppression
or serious public inconvenience or depression or other disasters.
The power to control is coextensive with the social and economic
activities of men. It finds its limit in the nature of the acts
forbidden or required and its justification in the direct
relation of these acts to the public welfare or to the equal
property rights of others.
     The power of the state over property and contract rights,
however, is not merely negative or incidental to the power to
legislate for the health, safety, morals, and general welfare of
the community. The basic character of the right and the purpose
of government regarding it cannot be minimized or ignored. That
purpose, as in the case of liberty, is to protect and preserve,
maintain, and nurture the right. The power to regulate the use of
property and contract, consequently, may not, save in very rare
and special circumstances, be converted into the power directly
to take property and contract rights. And in discharging its
primary and affirmative duty with respect to these rights, the
state must keep constantly in view the essential values of
private property in our system. It is a central factor in the
organization of society. It is an impelling source of motivation.
It is a principal incentive for productive activity. It is a
reward for labor and contribution. It is at once the object of
individual enterprise and success and the means of achieving
success. And contract is the form of expression and governing
instrument, not only of most business activity, but as well of
most of the transactions of daily life.

     (4) Equality. Only second to liberty itself in our history
has been the ideal of equality. In fact, equality has always
conditioned liberty and determined its character just as liberty
has always conditioned equality and determined its character. In
the Declaration of Independence, the first of the "self-evident
truths" is that all men are created equal; and all men are
equally "endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable
rights," "among which are life, liberty, and the pursuit of
happiness."
     Alexis de Tocqueville, in 1835, described equality in
America as "the fundamental fact from which all others seem to be
derived and the central point at which all my observations
constantly terminated." In his view it gave "a peculiar direction
to public opinion and peculiar tenor to the laws; it imparts new
maxims to the governing authorities and peculiar habits to the
governed." It "extends far beyond the political character and the
laws of the country, and...has no less effect on civil society
than on the government; it creates opinions, gives birth to new
sentiments, founds novel customs, and modifies whatever it does
not produce."13
     Equality, even more than liberty, stood in the forefront of
the historic struggle in the nation to abolish property in man
and the institution of slavery; and, along with liberty, emerged
in the Civil War amendments to the Constitution. The Thirteenth
Amendment, freeing men from slavery and nationalizing the right
of freedom, nationally guaranteed what slavery denied: the equal
right of all to enjoy protection in those natural rights which
constitute freedom. The Fourteenth Amendment, in the three
redundant clauses of Section 1, re-embodied these same objectives
and added an explicit guarantee of the equal protection of the
laws, thereby adding another confirmatory reference to the self-
evident truth that all men are created equal and are equally
entitled to the protection of government in the enjoyment of
their natural and inalienable rights.14
     Like liberty, equality has many phases. One of them relates
to the doctrine of proper classification. The laws must be aimed
at the achievement of a public and constitutional purpose. They
may not be motivated by hatred, vengeance, favoritism, or private
gain. Legislation framed with a discriminatory purpose,
manifesting "an evil eye and an unequal hand," contains an
elementary antagonism to the idea of the equality of men. Once
legislation is endowed with a public and constitutional purpose,
it still must meet other tests. Because there are real
differences among men, regulation would be altogether ineffective
if it had to apply to all or none. The law must therefore be
selective. But to be equal, it must treat all those similarly
situated alike. The differences between men that underlie
selection must be real differences and must bear an intimate
relationship to the purpose of the law and valid social goals.
All other differences are irrelevant and must be ignored. "Class
Legislation," said Justice Field in summing up this doctrine,
"discriminating against some and favoring others, is prohibited,
but legislation which, in carrying out a public purpose, is
limited in its application, if within the sphere of its operation
it affects alike all persons similarly situated, is not within
the amendment."15
     Another phase of the idea of equality is the rule of law. If
all men are created equal and equally possess certain rights, and
if governments are instituted to secure and maintain those
rights, and men therefore are equally entitled to such
protection, the protection can only be afforded by uniform rule,
that is, by law. One way of putting this is the expression:
"Equality before the Law." Another way is in the celebrated words
of the Massachusetts Bill of Rights: "That the government of the
Commonwealth may be a government of laws and not of men." Thus,
in this aspect, the doctrine of equality is in effect a command
that the government act by established and regular procedures and
by uniform rules. It is a command that the purely personal,
arbitrary, capricious, and whimsical be reduced and eliminated
from the exercise of power. It is a command that the rules be
fixed and announced in advance in a way which will make them
freely and publicly available. It is a requirement of a degree of
certainty and predictability in government action and of a system
of rights growing out of uniform rules. It is finally an order
that administrators as well as legislators act within these
confines.
     In still another phase, equality is not negative and
procedural but positive and substantial. Anatole France referred
to "the majestic equality of the laws which forbid rich and poor
alike to sleep under the bridges, to beg in the streets, and to
steal their bread." But the demands of equality are not met by
the equal treatment which results from the absence of the laws or
from the indiscriminate application of the laws to those who are
dissimilarly situated. Moreover, the demands of equality are not
exhausted by the doctrine of classification and the rule of law.
The equal protection of the laws refers to the quality of the
laws as well as to the mechanics of their operation. The reign of
equal laws involves as well the reign of just laws, and the
maintenance of equality in the enjoyment of rights is at the
heart of the system of justice. Equality thus must be the very
purpose of governmental action and policy as well as a test and
measure of its means. It must "give direction to public
opinions," determine the "tenor of the laws," impart "maxims to
the governing authorities," and modify "whatever it does not
produce."
     Particularly is the government under a duty to guarantee
equality of opportunity. Without that, freedom itself cannot last
and becomes an illusion. The only aristocracy that a system
founded upon equality can tolerate is an aristocracy of personal
merit and achievement. Uniformity and regimentation, on the one
hand, and status, influence, and power based on birth, social
position, or inheritance, on the other hand, are equally
incompatible with equality. Equality of all men presupposes
respect for the rights of others. In a society of equals,
therefore, men are free to be different. All limitations on
opportunity, all restrictions on the individual based on
irrelevant differences of race, color, religion, national origin,
sex, and the like, are in conflict with equality and must be
removed and forbidden. Access to the mainstreams of community
life, the aspirations and achievements of each member of society,
are to be limited only by the skills, energy, talents, and
ability he brings to the opportunities equally open to all
Americans.
     From what I have said so far, a number of propositions
emerge:

     (1) Preferential treatment of the blind based on favoritism,
privilege, whim, prejudice, patronage, pity, charity, self-
interest of others, or feelings of like or dislike cannot be
justified and indeed does a great deal of harm. On the other
hand, preferential treatment which takes account of the special
qualities or needs of the blind or aspects of their situation not
shared by others, which is aimed at a desirable social objective
and which employs proper means properly adapted to this purpose,
is not only justifiable preferential treatment but is treatment
which should be at the foundation of all public and private
policy toward the blind.

     (2) Blindness has a dual aspect: the physical and the
social. The first is the disability; the second is the handicap.
Treatment of the disability is a medical task. Overcoming the
handicap is the function of rehabilitation.

     (3) The handicap consists mainly of the misconceptions of
the sighted about the physical disability which result in social
exclusion. In all but the physical sense, and even to some extent
in that, it consists of a loss of full membership in society; a
denial to the blind of the rights and goals which others share--
liberty, equality, property, dignity.

     (4) Overcoming the handicap of blindness, therefore, means
removing the bars, exclusion, and denials of which the handicap
consists: conferring on the blind the title deeds of social
freedom and membership; the rights of liberty, equality,
property, and dignity; in short, their reintegration into
society.

     (5) Programs which address themselves to this purpose or
which move in this direction, while they necessarily involve
preferential treatment, meet all the tests and standards set up
for good policy. Such special arrangements might better go by the
name of equal treatment. Indeed, to lift from the backs of the
blind the special, heavy, and unnecessary burdens which society
has caused them to bear and to call this preferential treatment
can hardly be regarded as anything but the bitterest irony.
Programs which move in the opposite direction, which accept and
build upon the public misconceptions about the nature of the
physical disability, which presuppose the incapacity and
abnormality of the blind, and which institutionalize that
presupposition in segregation and custodialization--all programs,
in other words, which continue or intensify social exclusion or
which are motivated by patronage, charity, whim, prejudice, or
self-interest--involve preferential or special treatment which
increases the handicap. They perpetuate the very attitudes and
conditions which they should be designed to prevent.

     (6) Preferential treatment is also justified which: (a)
tends to ameliorate the immediate physical consequences of the
physical disability of blindness; or (b) pending the day when
integration has been achieved, mitigates the financial and other
consequences of social exclusion or offsets the disadvantage
resulting therefrom by means which do not further entrench the
public misconception or which do so as little as possible.

     (7) To be consistent with the standards dictated by the
basic principles of our social, political, and constitutional
system, programs for the blind must:

     (a) Allow the blind to manage their own personal affairs and
proceed on the assumption that they are capable of doing so.
     (b) Not only permit the blind, but stimulate and encourage
them to develop their potentialities, share in the fruits of
society, and contribute to its work and progress.
     (c) And to do this, not only permit, but stimulate and
encourage the blind to work, to engage in individual enterprise,
to exercise free judgment and free movement in the search for
opportunity, freely to choose their fields of endeavor and to
enter the common callings, trades, occupations, and professions
of the community.
     (d) To stimulate and encourage the blind to do these things
by relying on the normal incentives, principal among which are
financial remuneration and the improvement of one's economic lot
and social status.
     (e) Permit, stimulate, and encourage the blind to acquire,
enjoy, and use property (real and personal), not just for
immediate consumption purposes, but as a motivational source of
endeavor and a means of economic improvement.
     (f) Protect the essential dignity of the individual: by
recognizing the worth of the human personality and treating it as
a community asset rather than a community liability; by supplying
aids and services without humiliation, without undue intrusion
into the privacy of the recipient, without imposing upon him the
badges and indicia of a needy and special status, without
subjecting him to the personal judgments of social workers
influenced by humanity, charity, approval, or other emotions; by
making possible a standard and circumstance of living not
conspicuously different from that enjoyed by the rest of the
community; by leaving recipients free to make their own decisions
as to spending, living arrangements, and personal matters.
     (g) If the demands of equality are to be met, public
financial aid must be granted as a matter of right, the element
of personal discretion exercised by administrators and welfare
workers must be eliminated, the amount and conditions of the aid
must be specified in uniform rules made accessible to recipients
and prospective recipients and sufficiently exact so that
recipients may determine to what they are entitled and what their
responsibilities are. Legislative and administrative standards
must be established which are uniformly applied, which treat all
welfare recipients alike who are similarly situated with respect
to a valid purpose of the welfare law, and which vary the amount
and the condition of the grant when there are real differences
among recipients in terms of their relationship to the welfare
program. Finally, equality requires--as does liberty, the dignity
of the individual, and the essential notion of property--that the
purpose of the welfare law be opportunity as well as security.
Relief rolls should provide relief; but they must also provide
the means of escape from them. Reintegration into society through
open and equal access to the mainstream of community productive
activity must be an object of welfare law and a measure of its
adaptation if the fundamental political and constitutional
principles of our system are to be honored in the fact as well as
held out in the promise.

     Measured by these standards, evaluated in the light of these
considerations, how do our programs and provisions for the blind
prove out? The answer must be mixed. Some programs are well
adapted to these principles; others poorly; and still others are
in flat contradiction of them. Unfortunately, some of the most
important programs fall into the latter two categories.
     The rapidly growing and recently created system of
orientation and adjustment centers--focusing on mobility
training, personal care, prevocational manual skills, and the
development of attitudes which make these other activities
possible and fruitful--are properly oriented and adjusted to
reduce the immediate physical consequences of the disability of
blindness, to uproot the conviction of incompetence, and to
impart self-confidence, hope, and a zest for living.
     The home teacher system, though hampered by the need to deal
with the blind person in his home and then only in occasional
short visits, substantially moves in the same direction as the
orientation center. It is most effective when used as a case-
finder for the center and otherwise works in close collaboration
with it. It is least effective when it emphasizes handicraft as
mere busy work or when it teaches Braille to clients who will
never have any use for it.
     White cane laws, now enacted in almost all the states, by
giving the blind a legal position in traffic and moderating the
discriminatory harshness of the contributory negligence rule,
make meaningful for the blind the human and constitutional right
of free movement, just as the cane itself makes more meaningful
the physical capacity of free movement.
     What about good vision requirements established in many laws
and regulations dealing with jobs, licenses, and the like? Some
of these are, of course, perfectly in order. Where sight is
indispensable to the performance of the task--as in hunting with
a gun, driving a truck, or working as a photographer of wildlife
for the National Park Service--the blind are legitimately
excluded. Where sight is not indispensable, as is the case in
thousands of jobs public and private from which the blind are now
barred--the continued exclusion of the blind can have no special
justification. In many of these cases the bars remain up because
those who tend them have only their misconceptions to guide them.
     Laws and regulations giving preference to blind persons with
respect to jobs are not mere favoritism if they are based on the
special qualifications of the blind to perform the tasks
assigned. This is clearly so when the blind are called upon to
work in or administer programs affecting the blind. In that
circumstance blindness is an enabling asset endowing the worker
with special knowledge, experience, and the confidence of his
clients which probably cannot be secured in any other way than by
being blind. Of course this enabling asset should be given
determinative weight only when other things are equal. For the
blind to be given preference in other situations in which
blindness does not contribute to the ability to do the work would
be as unjustifiable as to discriminate against the blind in jobs
in which blindness does not detract from the ability to do the
work.
     What about vending stands for which the blind are given
rent-free locations on public property, in connection with the
establishment of which they are given a preference and protection
against vending machine competition, and with respect to the
operation of which blindness is not an enabling asset? These
special arrangements will not withstand merited criticism once
the blind have achieved a footing of complete economic equality.
Until that time arrives, however, the vending stand program is
preferential treatment which is justified as a small offset to
almost universal economic discrimination against the blind; and
one in which bona fide jobs are provided for qualified blind
workers at comparatively negligible cost to the public; and one
in which the blind are presented to the public in an aspect of
competence and normality.
     If the management of the vending stand programs is to be
consistent with the standards above discussed, it must keep
supervision and control at an absolute minimum; allow the
operator to purchase his stand and equipment with only an option
to repurchase by the public; give the operator complete
independence in the management of his business affairs, retaining
only the power to revoke the license if the operator proves
incompetent or becomes publicly obnoxious; protect the operator's
profits against confiscation for the support of supervisory
personnel or submarginal stands which the administrators have
mistakenly established in unprofitable locations. The control
system, on the contrary, reflects the custodial attitude toward
the role and the abilities of the blind, a conviction that the
blind are incapable of running their own business and incompetent
to lead their own lives.
     Let us turn next to public assistance. Liberty in the
direction of one's affairs, the whole basic principle of self-
management, is violated by the means test. Under it, the
individual recipient soon loses control of his daily activities
and the whole course and direction of his life. The capacity for
self-direction presently atrophies and drops away. With each new
item budgeted or eliminated, with each new resource tracked down
and evaluated, the social worker's influence increases. This is
an inevitable concomitant of the means test. It results from the
nature and extent of the system. It is bred and nourished by the
provisions of the statutes and the rules issued under them. It is
in the flexible joints of the cumbersome machinery. It is in the
detail and intimacy of the investigation. It is in the
inescapable confinements of the budget. It is in the idleness,
defeatism, and waning spirit of the recipient. Whatever the
social worker's wishes and intentions, her hand becomes the
agency of direction in his affairs. The "concern of assistance
with the whole range of income," wrote Karl DeSchweinitz, "always
contains a threat to the freedom of the individual. Even when
there is no conscious intent to dictate behavior to the
beneficiary, the pervasive power of money dispensed under the
means test may cause the slightest suggestion to have the effects
of compulsion. `Whose bread I eat, his song I sing.'"16
     Not only is liberty violated by the means test, but so also
are dignity and equality--and for many of the same reasons.
Dignity is jeopardized by the initial financial investigation; by
the searching inquiry into every intimate detail of need, living
habits, family relations; by the setting up of a detailed budget
of expenditures subject to repeated examination and review; by
the continuously implied and often explicit threat that if
behavior is uncooperative or unapproved, aid will be reduced or
stopped, by the wholesale substitution of agency and social
worker controls for the personal direction of personal affairs;
by the unwarrantable intrusions into privacy involved in each of
the foregoing and the galling humiliation of the whole process;
and, finally, by the constant tendency of the whole system to
push living standards down below a minimum of decency and health.
     The excessive individualization of the whole design and
process of means test aid is fundamentally antithetical to the
idea of equality. A system which makes so much depend upon a
minute examination of every aspect of the individual's situation
necessarily involves personalized judgments by officials and
invites arbitrary and whimsical exercises of power, prevents the
enforcement of a uniform rule even when the legislative
provisions and administrative regulations are detailed and exact,
renders it impossible for the recipient himself to determine to
what he is entitled, constitutes the very thing intended to be
prevented by the idea of "a government of laws and not of men,"
and flies in the face of basic requirements of proper
classification. Since with respect to the purposes of public
assistance law most individuals are parts of groups standing in
the same relationship, those who are similarly situated are not
treated alike and real differences are frequently disregarded.
     Means test aid also violates the notion of individual
opportunity, access to the mainstream of community productive
activity, and normal incentives. Since means test aid requires
that all income and resources of the recipient be applied to meet
his current needs and since the public assistance grant is
reduced by the amount of any such available income or resources,
the usual financial motive for effort and endeavor is removed
from the recipient unless the recipient can gain enough and with
sufficient certainty to be independent of the relief rolls.
     Granting aid as a matter of right contradicts practically
all of the tendencies inherent in the means test and produces a
system more consonant with the political and constitutional
assumptions and goals of American democracy.
     Aid as a matter of right requires the establishment of fixed
and uniform rules specifying the terms and conditions of the
grant. Thus the principal features of the system must be laid
down by the legislature. This contrasts with the means test
variable grant, based on individual need individually determined
by the administrative agency under discretionary authority
conferred by the legislature. Those who are similarly situated
are therefore necessarily treated alike and under standards
comparable with those governing assistance to other groups in the
community.
     Granting aid as a matter of right protects the liberty of
the individual to manage his own affairs and conduct his daily
life free of authoritarian controls and caseworker supervision.
It protects the dignity of the individual. He is treated as a
member of a class entitled to be dealt with in a manner
determined by law, not by individualized administrative
discretion. The occasion is eliminated for invasion of the
individual's privacy, supervision of his personal behavior, and
humiliating probing into the intimacies of his life; and a
seminal principle is established which stands as a barrier to all
such actions.
     Finally, rehabilitation. The primary task of vocational
rehabilitation, as I have said, is the overcoming of the social
handicap--not the physical condition. It consists in the creation
of an environment within society, within public programs, and
within the blind themselves, which will be in the fullest sense
conducive to normal livelihood and normal life. It involves
opening up the channels of social participation, that is,
enabling the blind to enjoy the benefits of socially determined
standards of liberty, equality, property, and dignity. Its time-
tested tools are vocational orientation, vocational training,
counseling, and guidance which stimulates and opens up horizons--
and finally, of course, placement in remunerative employment in
the common callings, trades, pursuits, and professions of the
community.
     In the proper conceptions of its function as well as in the
use of these time-tested tools, the vocational rehabilitation
program of the United States must in large measure be pronounced
a failure. The hope and opportunity are to be measured in miles;
the actual accomplishment must be measured in inches.
     Rehabilitation so far as the individual rehabilitant is
concerned is a complex process in which mental and emotional
elements are predominant. It involves myriad adaptations not
merely physical in nature but social and psychological. In
effect, the entire personality must undergo reconstruction; the
blind person's conviction of his own incompetence, accepted from
the public misconception, must be uprooted; a rebirth, a new act
of creation must be wrought. In this process ambition, hope, and
self-reliance are essential ingredients. Consequently,
rehabilitation by the command of the counselor or submission to
his attitudes and preferences or by the coercion which results
from conditioning public assistance upon it is a contradiction.
It is therefore futile. It is as futile as ordering a person to
restore his emotional balance while adding to the very factors
which cause the unbalance.
     Since the objective of rehabilitation is restoration to a
normal useful role in society, the standards of success are in
large measure culturally determined. The rehabilitated person,
thus, is one for whom the assumptions and goals of the community
have become as significant as for others, who has in fact
achieved equal opportunity to enter the calling of his choice, to
acquire, use, and dispose of property, to exercise the right of
personal independence, and to operate on the other assumptions
and principles before listed. Just as the habits of freedom are
not learned by experiencing slavery, so ambition is not learned
by destitution, self-management by authoritarian controls,
incentive by denying the hope of gain, or self-respect by second-
class citizenship. Rehabilitation by command or coercion
cultivates the very traits which frustrate and prevent
rehabilitation. A rehabilitation program which continually
impresses upon the client a sense of his helplessness and
dependency; which enshrouds him in an atmosphere of disbelief,
doubt, and defeatism; and which exhibits attitudes of
guardianship and custodialism must inevitably sap the fibre of
self-reliance, undermine hope, deter self-improvement, and
destroy the very initiative which is indispensable to
rehabilitation.
     Rehabilitation by stimulation, by opening up new horizons,
by assisting the client in the achievement of goals of his own
choice, by incentives carefully planned to encourage productive
activity by the expectation of normal rewards--retention of
earnings, improvement of standards of living, accumulation of
real and personal property--places rehabilitative effort in
conformity with the political assumptions, economic impulses, and
behavioral standards imposed by democratic thought and current
social knowledge.
     Optimistic and skillful counseling, built on personal
experience with the handicap and its problems, is required to
accomplish this delicate work. Under the present program such
counseling has not been supplied. On the contrary, too often
rehabilitation officers have themselves subscribed to the
conviction of the incompetence of the blind. Little has been done
under the present program to halt the tendency of shunting the
disabled into a limited series of stereotyped occupations, to
provide a staff which will have and exhibit full confidence in
the blind, and which will aid the blind to enter fields of their
own choosing. Little has been done under the present program to
strengthen placement as an inescapable function of the
rehabilitation agency. For the blind this is the arduous
culmination of a long and arduous process. It cannot be
accomplished by automatic referral to employers. It can only be
accomplished by the application of highly specialized and
individualized techniques of affirmative contact with employers,
aggressive seeking of employment opportunities, personal
demonstration, and follow-up.
     Little is done under the present program to remove the
obstructions to employment of the physically handicapped which
exist in the public mind, in the statutes, ordinances,
administrative rulings, judicial decisions, and institutional
practices. Above all, the true nature of the handicap and the
elements which compose it, particularly the social and the
psychological as distinguished from the physical and medical
elements; the proper functions and goals of rehabilitation; the
relationship of disability to dependency, especially economic
dependency; the part presently played and properly to be played
by public financial aid under social insurance and public
assistance in the process of rehabilitation; the determinative
character of the reintegrative objective and the bearing upon it
of liberty, equality, property, and dignity--these basic and
urgently pressing questions have never been sufficiently analyzed
by the responsible officials in vocational rehabilitation.
     Until this whole pattern is changed, until a great deal is
done to reorient the training and functions of rehabilitation
workers; to strengthen guidance and counseling services; to
improve techniques and focus rehabilitation attention on the
placement of rehabilitants in competitive employment; and to
remove legal, administrative, and other obstacles to the
employment of the blind in the public service, the trades,
professions, and common callings of the community--until that
happy day, rehabilitation of the blind is likely to continue to
be measured in inches and not in miles.
     Americans are familiar with the unhappy divergence between
creed and conduct in many phases of our national life. Myrdal's
observation of the disparity between social equality as a
cherished political norm and our unequal treatment of the Negro
is but one instance of a pattern that is all too pervasive. The
field of blind welfare provides another, one which has been less
noticed but is not less conspicuous or significant.

                            Footnotes

     1. Gabriel, The Course of American Democratic Thought 22
(1940).
     2. Sumner, The Challenge of Facts and Other Essays 25
(Keller ed., 1914).
     3. For illustrative statements of this doctrine see Johnson
and Graham's Lessee v. McIntosh, 8 Wheat 543,572 (U.S. 1823);
Story, Misc. Writings 74 (1835); Justice Matthews in Yick Wo v.
Hopkins, 118 U.S. 356 (1886); Justice Cordozo in Palko v.
Connecticut, 302 U.S. 319,325,328 (1937); see also Justice Murphy
dissenting in Yamashita v. Styer 327 U.S. 1, 26 (1946).
     4. Winston Churchill speaking at Fulton, Missouri, March
1946.
     5. Under the general power of the states, often called the
"police power," wrote Justice Barbour in City of New York v.
Miln, 11 Pet. 102, 139 (U.S. 1837), "[I]t is not only the right,
but the bounden and solemn duty of a state to advance the safety,
happiness, and prosperity of its people, and to provide for its
general welfare. . . ." Said Justice Field in Barbier v.
Connolly, 113 U.S. 27, 31 (1884), "[N]either the [Fourteenth]
amendment--broad and comprehensive as it is--nor any other
amendment, was designed to interfere with the power of that
state...to prescribe regulations to promote the health, peace,
morals, education, and good order of the people, and to legislate
so as to increase the industries of the state, develop its
resources, and add to its wealth and prosperity."
     6. See Meyer v. Nebraska, 263 U.S. 399 (1923).
     7. Truax v. Raich, 239 U.S. 33, 41 (1915). Justice Hughes
there said, "It requires no argument to show that the right to
work for a living in the common occupations of the community is
of the very essence of the personal freedom and opportunity that
it was the purpose of the amendment [Fourteenth] to secure."
     8. Edwards v. California, 314 U.S. 160 (1941).
     9. Truax v. Raich, supra note 7; Allgeyer v. Louisiana, 165
U.S. 578 (1897).
10. Merriam, The New Democracy and the New Despotism 84-85
     (1939).
     11. Justice Chase in Calder v. Bull 3 Dall. 386 (1798);
Chancellor Kent, 2 Kent Comm. 1 (1827).
     12. Braceville Coal Co. v. People, 147 Ill. 66 (1893).
     13. DeTocqueville, Democracy in America 3 (1945 ed.).
     14. tenBroek, Antislavery Origins of the Fourteenth
Amendment (1951).
     15. Barbier v. Connolly, 113 U.S. 27 (1885).
     16. DeSchweinitz, People and Process in Social Security 56-
57 (1948).


[PHOTO/CAPTION: Marc Maurer] 
                      DIALOGUE IN THE DARK
                         by Marc Maurer

     When I first heard of "Dialogue in the Dark," I suspected
that it was the common variety effort to blindfold sighted people
for the purpose of gaining recognition and raising funds. Such
experiences often convince the sighted public that blindness is
the terrible tragedy they had always imagined it to be. However,
I was told by individuals who had been through the exhibit that
the result was not negative but positive. Consequently I traveled
to Montreal to try the exhibit myself.
     "Dialogue in the Dark" is housed at Rozon Museum in downtown
Montreal. It is based upon similar exhibits that had been created
in several cities in Europe. The creator of the exhibit is
Andreas Heinecke. The exhibit is precisely what it says--a
dialogue in a completely darkened space. The guides for the
exhibit are blind, and all of the experiences inside the exhibit
occur with no light or assistance.
     Participants proceed through four different areas. The first
is intended to represent a garden with a gravel path, a wooden
bridge, and a fountain. The second contains items to be
identified by touch, including Braille, items of wearing apparel,
ordinary household products, the mounted heads of animals, and a
replica of Michelangelo's David. The third area is a street
corner with cars parked along the street and parking meters. The
sound of traffic in this area is pronounced. The guide directs
that you wait until the traffic has diminished before crossing
the street. There is of course no traffic, only a tape recording
of traffic.
     The fourth and final stop on the tour is a cafe. Here a
totally blind bartender sells soft drinks and other libations.
Customers step to the bar, buy their drinks, and seat themselves
for the dialogue in the dark. The conversation flows from
questions of the participants, but the guide encourages
discussion of the feelings of those who have examined without
sight the artifacts in the exhibit. The emphasis in this
discussion is on the ability of the blind and the alternative
techniques used by blind people rather than the deprivation and
tragedy that blindness is sometimes thought to represent.
     It is clear from the responses to this "Dialogue in the
Dark" that the public has considerable curiosity about the
techniques used by blind people and about the perceptions that
blind people have of the world around them. If this curiosity is
to be satisfied, it is far better that the guides conducting the
tour be knowledgeable about the techniques used by the blind and
be well grounded in a positive philosophy of blindness. In fact,
it is worth pondering whether the National Federation of the
Blind should establish such a "Dialogue in the Dark." It is
probably not possible to establish such an exhibit without some
negative feedback. On the other hand, the questions about how
blind people perform and what blind people perceive will remain
unanswered unless we try to provide this information.
     A number of the experiences of the dialogue are primarily
positive. Here is an example from the Chicago Tribune, February
18, 1996. It is written by David Andrews, but not the Dave
Andrews who until recently directed the International Braille and
Technology Center for the Blind. Here is what Mr. Andrews has to
say:

                     "Dialogue in the Dark"
       Journeying into the World of the Blind in Montreal
                        by David Andrews

     For nearly two weeks I had been attending the Montreal World
Film Festival, drinking in visual images from cultures as diverse
as contemporary Iran, medieval Norway, and a community of Italian
immigrants in early twentieth-century Brazil. Saturated with
celluloid and in need of a respite, I headed off to the Just for
Laughs Museum. I had no idea that what I'd find would not be
humorous but rather profoundly moving, or that it would offer an
opportunity to empathize, as film does--but without the use of
one's eyes.
     Housed in the Just for Laughs Museum at 2111 Saint-Laurent
Boulevard is "Dialogue in the Dark," an exhibit imported from
Europe and designed to give sighted people a glimpse into the
world of the blind. I was fortunate there was space available,
because the tours are limited to eight people and reservations
are usually required.
     Somewhat reluctantly, I exchanged my attache case for a
slender white cane with a red tip and a handle that curved into a
hook. It would become my eyes for the next forty-five minutes.
After being shown how to hold the cane and swing it in a sweeping
arc in front of my feet, I was ushered into a room so dark that I
couldn't see anything, not even the proverbial hand in front of
my face. The last time I had been in such darkness was years
earlier, deep in the heart of a cave. My eyes expanded until they
felt as big as an owl's, seeking unsuccessfully for a glimmer of
light.
     A voice spoke out of the black, first in French and then,
for my benefit, in English, introducing himself as our guide. He,
like all who guide visitors through the exhibit, was unsighted.
We were meeting without having a chance to see him first, just as
he was meeting us.
     His voice would become a beacon to me, repeating over and
over in thickly accented English, "No steps, no danger,"
encouraging me to be less tentative. Farther on where there
actually were several shallow steps, he carefully pointed them
out.
     The special coordinator of the exhibit, Michael Kelley,
explained later: "Every guide knows that they have to inform the
visitors about those steps. We don't want to make it dangerous,
but at the same time we don't want to make it too easy, because
it would be less realistic."
     It was startling to be stripped of sight, suddenly to have
to learn a whole new way of orienting oneself to the world. It's
an experience that most of us really don't have much basis for
imagining. Our travels often take us to lands that are different
from our familiar surroundings, but it's the same us doing the
touring. Very rarely do we have an opportunity to explore what
it's like to be changed ourselves, to have our means of
perception radically altered, forcing our hearing and sense of
touch to take over the work of our eyes.
     As we explored an area patterned on a park, the darkness
seemed to have swallowed up all points of reference. So when I
reached into a pool of water that I didn't know was there, I
found myself laughing out loud with delight. Here in the midst of
what seemed like a vast emptiness was something familiar, even
comforting. Feeling the water against my hand was a moment of
recognition every bit as satisfying as seeing a beautiful
fountain on a hot summer day.
     This was an entirely new world. A wall was a friend that we
could put our hand on and follow as it twisted and turned. We
called out the names of objects with the delight of children, as
we discovered them with our fingers, and our guide would tell us
if we were right or wrong. I bumped into fellow visitors, people
I didn't know, in a way that would have been awkward or
embarrassing in the sighted world. Other people's canes knocked
into my feet, as my cane knocked into theirs. But it was easy to
be forgiving of each other.
     After the park environment with its pool and bridge and the
chirping sound of birds, we explored a tactual gallery with
various objects hung on the wall for us to identify. (When I had
a chance to see the room in light after the tour, the objects
looked fairly ordinary, but to my fingers in the dark they had
tremendous meaning.) From there we explored an area modeled on a
city street corner. Behind these three environments was an
overriding purpose: to prepare us for a fifteen- to twenty-minute
conversation with our guide about his life as an "unsighted
person." We would talk in a cafe-bar after ordering and paying
for a cold drink--all still very much in the dark.
     Because our guide's English was limited, one of the
unsighted waiters came to talk with me. With so many barriers
dissolved by the tour, the conversation flowed as it might only
if one had known a blind person for years. I was able to ask
questions that I wouldn't have dared to raise under other
circumstances, but here it was possible because I had entered
into an environment in which he, not I, was clearly the expert.
     The special coordinator, Kelley, who lost his sight in a
hunting accident at the age of fourteen, later said: "Often it's
the first time any of us have talked to people on an equal
footing, where we're not talked down to, patronized, or
mollycoddled. And the people talk directly to us like human
beings. It's wonderful. It's good for us. The guides' confidence
has been boosted by this type of contact we have with our
visitors. It's a great, great human journey. It's not just a
handicap-awareness thing. It's almost like a piece of theater
where the visitors and the guide are the actors. We're all
participating. We're all living this experience."
     At the end of the exhibit, we stepped out of total darkness
to see a bench, dimly lit. It was a gentle transition for the
eyes, but a shock to be seeing again. Involuntarily my hands
continued to feel everything around them, as if they were not yet
ready to surrender their newfound responsibility. To know a bench
through one's fingers is very different from knowing it with
one's eyes.
     I left the exhibit with a feeling that apparently is very
common among visitors--that I was okay, I was still me, even when
I wasn't able to see. It caused me to realize that there was much
more to a person with a white cane than the fact that he or she
can't see.
     But forty-five minutes in the dark also made it obvious that
those who live without sight face enormous challenges. I was
amazed that there was no self-pity in the people with whom I had
spoken.
     "Pity doesn't sustain itself for a long period of time,"
Kelley told me. "There may be self-pity in all of us when we
first go blind. But I don't think it's a normal emotion just to
feel sorry for yourself for a long period of time. I don't think
it's a particularly special quality we have. It's just a quality
of all human beings: We endure, we survive, we move on, and we
become that new person. You find new ways around your obstacles.
You overcome. That's the bottom line."


[PHOTO: The picture at the beginning of this article is of a little girl
seated on playground equipment in her yard.  CAPTION: Rachel Becker]

                           FITTING IN:
                 BLIND STUDENTS HIT THEIR STRIDE

     From the Editor: On December 27, 1995, the Frederick News
Post in Frederick, Maryland, ran two stories about blind students
in the local school system. The reporter, Karen Gardner, had
worked on the project for months. She interviewed Barbara
Cheadle, President of the National Organization of Parents of
Blind Children, for background and spent hours with the children
about whom she was writing. Articles about blind children at the
Christmas season will inevitably be tinged with sentimentality,
but the underlying tough-mindedness of the youngsters and their
parents shines through. Not surprisingly, Dan and Danielle
Becker, parents of five-year-old Rachel, are active members of
the NFB of Maryland's parents organization, and fifteen-year-old
Christina Shorten is also a Federationist. Here are the two
articles as they appeared in the Frederick News Post:

              A Sense of Normalcy in a Blind World
                        by Karen Gardner

     Rachel Becker doesn't see the green wreaths festooned with
bright red ribbons decorating the homes in her Frederick
neighborhood. She doesn't see the fat red bows topping sleds that
herald the holiday season and winter at the same time.
     Rachel didn't see the early snow that fell last month. And
she doesn't see the strings of Christmas lights on the houses in
her neighborhood, nor does she see the lights on her own family's
tree.
     But she can hear the bark of a neighbor's dog, the hum of an
airplane above the din of the neighborhood children playing. She
can hear the chirps of a bird in a tree. She can hear the crunch
of snow under her shoes and feel its icy, grainy texture on her
hands.
     Rachel, five, has been blind since birth. Her parents, Dan
and Danielle Becker, who have normal vision, try to make life
much the same for their oldest child as it is for their other two
children, who also see normally.
     Inside her house one recent afternoon, Rachel was listening
to Tales of Beatrix Potter on the VCR as she picked up the toys
she and her little brother and sister played with. She stopped
running around long enough to talk with a visitor.
     "I like to play ring-around-the-rosy," she said. Her
favorite movies are those that have songs she can sing along
with. Cinderella and Snow White top the list.
     She attends morning and afternoon kindergarten at Waverley
Elementary School to allow extra time for Braille and mobility
instruction. After a full day she comes home thinking of food. "I
always get hungry in school," she said.
     "When she comes home from school, she likes to get with
other kids," Mrs. Becker said. If she gets too restless, Rachel
bounces on the trampoline in the basement.
     "When I get mad, I throw things on the floor," Rachel said.
But in a moment of tenderness she said, "I like touching Mommy's
face with my face."
     Rachel has bilateral optic nerve hypoplasia, a condition
that causes nearsightedness in some and blindness only in its
most severe form. She has some light perception. She knows when
the light's on, and doesn't like to be in a dark room. At the
same time, she won't sleep with the light on, her mother said.
     "I'm blind, but I can see my feet," Rachel said proudly.
Whether she is imagining or can genuinely see her feet is hard to
tell, her mother said. Rachel made another surprising observation
not long ago. She knew when she was walking across a sprawling
map in the schoolyard.
     At other times her eyes itch or hurt. "Ouch, ouch," she
said, rubbing her eyes. "My eyes are itching." It was a motion
she repeated sporadically over two hours one evening recently.
     Rachel takes karate, learning by touch. Her mom's thinking
about signing her up for Girl Scouts, if Rachel hasn't started
too many other activities when she starts first grade.
     "She wrote a thank-you note to a friend the other day," her
mother said proudly, as proud as any mother of a kindergartner
who's learning to write. "I helped her compose it, but she told
me what to write."
     Soon Rachel will be writing her own notes on a slate and
stylus, a Braille machine. Several years from now, she'll get a
computer system that has a Braille keyboard with the capability
of printing in Braille and in print.
     Rachel's dad, Dan Becker, said he and his wife and the
school are learning by experience about raising and educating a
blind child.
     "They don't always know how much they can push her," he
said. "We say, `Treat her like every other kid.'"
     Knowing what to expect is a challenge for the Beckers. "It's
something they don't have a lot of data on," Mr. Becker said.
"But overall the teachers are really trying."

[PHOTO/CAPTION: Christina Shorten]
                 Visually Impaired Students Are
                Mainstreamed into Regular School
                        by Karen Gardner

     Rachel Becker, like many five-year-olds, takes karate
lessons, is learning to read, and loves to play games.
     She doesn't stand out from her kindergarten class at
Waverley Elementary School. But when the class heads out to the
playground, the cherubic blond child picks up her white cane.
     Rachel is blind. But for Rachel and the forty-five other
blind and visually impaired students in the Frederick County
school system, life is pretty close to normal.
     "There's no reason why she can't go to regular school," said
Charleen Evans-Thomas, visually impaired teacher for Frederick
County schools.
     That's the attitude most educators, and most parents, now
take toward blind children. While these children were once
shipped off to special schools far from home, today's blind
children go to public schools, ride the school bus; take karate,
dance, or other lessons; participate in Scouts; and watch
television.
     Yes, watch TV, and movies too. Rachel wears "Pocahontas"
shoes, carries a "Lion King" backpack, and has favorite TV shows
she listens to.
     In school, while the other kids are learning to distinguish
letters, Rachel is learning the Braille counterparts. When the
other kids learn sign language, the teacher simply makes the sign
in Rachel's hand, and Rachel learns it too.
     She was talking as she walked into kindergarten class the
week before school started. This was the school's meet-the-
teacher day, and Rachel was an eager student.
     This wasn't her first experience at school, however. She
spent the previous school year in a pre-kindergarten class. At
age three she began taking speech and mobility lessons two days a
week.
     "I need a place to put my cane," she announced as she walked
in. Rachel is a verbal child who is not afraid to express
herself. When she was shown where to put it, she placed it in the
slot and listened as the teacher aide described what she'd do in
the coming school year.
     "We get to meet friends, play games, learn songs, and the
pledge of allegiance," she said when asked what she was looking
forward to.
     She went school shopping like any other eager kindergartner.
"We went and got her hair cut and went and had lunch and picked
out a backpack and a dress," said her mother, Danielle Becker.
"It was a pretty exciting day."
     Blind children experience a much more normal life than they
did as recently as twenty years ago, when the majority left home
at a young age to attend state schools for the blind.
     "I couldn't be separated from her," Mrs. Becker said.
"People suggested that I send her away, but she's my first baby."
     "Federal law makes provisions for the visually impaired,"
said Celia Kirby, one of two vision specialists at the Frederick
County Board of Education.
     The law, passed nearly twenty years ago, specifies that
blind and visually impaired students be included in regular
public education wherever possible. Today most blind children are
taught in public schools.
     "The teacher does a lot of repeating, a lot of
descriptions," said Connie Banes, assistant principal at
Waverley.
     Christina Shorten, fifteen and a sophomore at Brunswick High
School, has spent her entire school career in the public schools,
and can't imagine ever having gone away to school.
     An A student, Christina entertains thoughts of becoming a
diplomat or a business owner. For now she has set aside her
ambition of becoming a lawyer, although in a real moment she
admits that may change.
     Her best friends are Melissa and Jocelyn, two students who
sometimes interpret for her in class. Not that Christina needs
much help. She is taking college-level biology, is a member of
the school's debate and its academic teams, and on the student
council.
     "My favorite thing to do is read," Christina said. She's
competent in Braille but prefers books on tape. Tapes of her
favorite books, which are usually fantasy and science fiction,
arrive via mail from the Enoch Pratt Free Library in Baltimore
and the Library of Congress. Postage is free.
     "I'm not a sports person," she said. But she likes to swim,
walk, and ride inner tubes.
     Her past is checkered with academic awards. There's one for
creativity that she's especially proud of. For a middle school
project she drew plans for a computerized cookbook with a talking
program. It's an invention she would someday like to see
manufactured.
     Christina cooks and helps with housework. General Electric
provides Braille panels for free with any GE appliance, and her
mother, Terri Shorten, said those have helped Christina do her
share of chores.
     She also babysits her brothers and the neighbor's children.
And she'd like to get a part-time job proofreading Braille books.
"So she can have her own spending money," her mother said.
     Christina and Rachel get a few special services, but they
spend as much time in regular classrooms as they do getting
special education.
     This dates back to the 1950's, when a large number of blind
children became school age. Many of these children had been born
prematurely. While these children would have died had they been
born before World War II, technology was such that they could
survive, but many were blind. Incubators were blamed, but the
exact cause was never found.
     Schools for the blind couldn't accommodate this swell of
children. Most of these children were middle class, because
poorer families often couldn't afford the medical treatment that
saved these children.
     "There was no way these parents were going to let their
children go uneducated," said Barbara Cheadle, spokeswoman for
the National Federation of the Blind in Baltimore and the mother
of a blind son.
     Most of these children were sent to public schools, making
blind and visually impaired children among the first disabled
students to be mainstreamed into regular education, she said.
     Today, 85 percent of all children with vision problems go to
public schools, Mrs. Cheadle said. While some visually impaired
children can see with magnifying glasses, the truly blind learn
to read by the Braille system. In Frederick five of the county's
forty visually impaired students read totally by Braille. Others
use a combination of magnifying glass and Braille or a magnifying
glass.
     "Braille is just a coded English," said Bill Van Buskirk,
mobility specialist for vision-impaired students.
     Christina and Allen Huffman, another blind student, use the
Braille 'n Speak, a word processor that has Braille keys but
allows the student to print out an essay in either Braille or
print.
     Christina's $6,000 word processor was purchased through
donations made to the school system. Rachel will be getting a
Braille 'n Speak several years from now.
     Large-print and Braille books also come from the school's
Vision-Impaired program. Most Braille texts are more than $1,000.
For instance, Christina's advanced placement biology text is
$1,300. It takes up several volumes.
     The Braille American Heritage Dictionary, all thirty volumes
of it, is placed in each school with a blind child.
     Blind students get more than help with reading skills in the
schools. They learn how to cross a room, use the bathroom, walk
the halls, and run on the playground. Younger children like
Rachel will play beep-ball, listening for the beep to locate the
ball.
     Older children like Christina learn how to negotiate city
streets, traveling to downtown Frederick to cross busy streets
and to the malls to learn how to shop.
     Shopping is nothing new to Christina, however. She shops
with friends and is pretty adept at matching outfits, as long as
she's told the color.
     Eventually Christina will learn train and subway travel.
These students learn through public schools, but often spend a
week or two in the summer at the Maryland School for the Blind in
Baltimore.
     There girls learn makeup skills; they also learn social
skills that teach them how to get along in a sighted world. While
many blind people use guide dogs, they are normally limited to
adults.
     "We try and work with the classroom teacher," Mr. Van
Buskirk said. "Occasionally we'll pull a student out for Braille
lessons, but they do not spend much time out of the classroom. At
most, it's one hour, one period, out of a day."
     Celia Kirby, another vision-impaired specialist who works
with Mr. Van Buskirk, will attend Christina's biology lab class
with her. "If something needs to be described for Christina, I
can do it," she said.
     Ms. Kirby and Mr. Van Buskirk also make sure teachers are
aware of their students' needs. "You don't tell Rachel to line up
over here," Ms. Kirby said. "Or you don't say look at the person
in the blue dress."
     "I had a visually impaired student in auto-body (class),"
Mr. Van Buskirk said. "He ended up working on my car."
     Allen Huffman, a seventh grader who lives in Frederick and
attends Gov. Thomas Johnson Middle School, enjoys science,
language arts, and chorus and has a typical adolescent's hunger
for sweets.
     Over a plate of brownies at his home, he said his goal is to
learn Spanish and travel abroad. He also likes history and thinks
he may become a history professor, if he doesn't become
President.
     His ten-year-old sister Emilie reads books to him, and he
likes to listen to sports events on TV. He also listens to books
on tape. Science fiction is his favorite.
     He doesn't get out of doing chores. "I don't want to be a
slob," he said.
     Allen has been in public schools since kindergarten, in
regular classes for every subject but math. This is his first
year in a regular math class.
     "At school a lot of my teachers will be scared because they
don't know how to teach a blind person," he said. "After I
explain it to them, they understand I want to be treated like
everybody else."


[PHOTO/CAPTION: Cindy Bennett]
                      KEEPIN' UP WITH CINDY
                         by Sue Bennett

     From the Editor: Mothers exhibit a widely recognized
instinct for helping their children master new skills. Tying
shoes, jumping rope, learning their letters--these are only a few
of the important jobs moms take on to help their youngsters
develop the skills they will need to succeed socially and
scholastically. But what happens when the child is blind and the
mother is not? When the letters are in Braille, what is a mom to
do? Sue Bennett wrote the following cheerful little story as a
report from the front line. Here it is:

     It has been five years now since we were told that our
daughter was blind. I was determined to learn Braille. I couldn't
imagine being asked, "What is this word?" and having to say to my
child, "I don't know." So I ordered the course "Just Enough to
Know Better" and plunged in. I hung up the alphabet card over my
kitchen sink and soon finished the first lesson. Only a short
time later I felt discouraged. It seemed like I couldn't remember
anything. At the ripe old age of thirty-three, I thought my
memory was shot. Cindy was two years old then, and there seemed
to be so many other things about her development which occupied
my time. Learning Braille seemed impossible. I was frantic!
     Fortunately, I mentioned my frustration to her preschool
teacher at the Alabama Institute for Deaf and Blind, Jayne
McDaniel. She wisely told me, "You have some time now...just wait
and see how much you'll learn along with Cindy."
     This is exactly what has happened since September of 1995.
Cindy began kindergarten at Estes Elementary in Buncombe County
School District, Asheville, North Carolina. Under the fantastic
instruction of the Braille teacher, Mrs. Carolyn Shorkey, we have
both been extremely busy. They are using the "Patterns"
curriculum and modifying it somewhat to fit into the whole
language approach. I can assure you that together we work hard.
Cindy began reading words by the second month of kindergarten. I
wish you could have seen the huge smiles on both of our faces
this January, after spending forty-five minutes reading Green
Eggs and Ham and finishing. What fun.
     One night I was sitting next to Cindy on the sofa, and I
thought of practicing the Braille alphabet on her leg using my
fingertips. Letter by letter I gently pressed the Braille shape
into her leg. Cindy loves this game. It was especially exciting
for me that night, because I realized that I knew all the letters
by heart. All this time I had kept my cheat sheet close at hand
for reference, but now I didn't need it anymore. At least, not
for letters and numbers. (Will I ever learn all those
contractions and rules?) Later I practiced over and over on the
Perkins Brailler, proud that my memory was still in good working
order.
     Cindy has been very bold about telling me what I don't know.
Recently she corrected me with the reminder that an "f" was
"from." I thanked her, of course. In early October she said in an
exaggerated tone to Mrs. Shorkey, "My mother doesn't even know
Braille." She doesn't say that anymore. She assures me, "I'll
keep teaching you some more, Mom." And she has been pleasantly
surprised to find out that I know a little more Braille than she
does at this point and can actually teach her a thing or two.
She's bound to catch up, however, and zoom ahead. But I'll be
right on her heels!


                     LISTENING TO THE LEAVES
                        by Carole Conrad

     From the Editor: This week the President of the Ohio Student
Division called to inquire about the resources available in
another state for parents of blind children. She explained that
friends of a friend had just given birth to a blind infant. I
made a recommendation about whom to call for support and
information, but since that conversation I have been thinking a
good deal about the journey this young couple has just embarked
upon.
     The first and most difficult stage will be shock, disbelief,
anger, and heartbreak. The pain of this period is intense, but it
passes, usually fairly quickly for those, at least, who come in
contact with the National Federation of the Blind. The next phase
is usually a determined intention to do everything humanly
possible to make up to the child for what he or she will miss
visually throughout life. Then, as parents begin to discover that
their blind child really can learn and do and enjoy life, there
comes a period when it is easy to believe that this small person
is truly remarkable, has extraordinary powers of observation or
recollection, or is especially sensitive and understanding. The
final step is the recognition that the blind child is by and
large a normal youngster, complete with individual abilities and
shortcomings.
     These stages are not a neat series of plateaus; they are all
part of an evolutionary process. In one moment a mother can
discover that her blind child has just taken note of something in
the audible environment that she herself has never before taken
the time to listen to, and in the next she can circle back to
attribute extraordinary powers of observation to that child for
making sense of the familiar world without benefit of sight. Such
moments of discovery can be life-changing in their very
simplicity, because they hold out the promise of fulfillment and
normality. Never mind that having stretched to catch a glimpse of
one's child as a normal person, the parent slips back into wonder
at her extraordinary gifts. The breakthrough has been made. The
child is free to develop and grow normally.
     For parents of blind children as well as for the children
themselves, life is filled with such moments of discovery and joy
as well as with the frustration and pain of being different. But
it is rare for a mother to capture one of these moments and
commit it to paper. Carole Conrad of Michigan managed exactly
this last fall and sent the result, a letter to her daughter
Sara, to Barbara Cheadle, Editor of Future Reflections, the
quarterly magazine of the National Organization of Parents of
Blind Children. Because the magic of this moment of discovery as
Mrs. Conrad described it seemed to have a universal quality,
Barbara Cheadle passed the article on to the Braille Monitor for
publication. Here it is:

     Sara, the most exciting thing happened to me today! I want
so much to tell you all about it and share my excitement with
you, but at three years of age you wouldn't understand the
significance of my discovery. So I'll share it with you in
writing now--and perhaps in reading when you are older.
     You were right, Sara; I heard the leaves fall today. I was
sitting right here on our cement front steps, looking over our
large front lawn, when I heard it. The autumn breeze was stiff,
and the giant oaks that line our yard let go of their first dry,
brown leaves of October. This they have done for hundreds of
years--but today was different--at least for me--because I heard
it.
     Ever since we learned how seriously impaired your beautiful
blue eyes were, I have tried to teach you more about our world.
I've struggled to explain what clouds look like and why I can see
across a pond but not across Lake Michigan. I've tried to tell
you about the beauty of trees and the rich green of spring time.
And oh, how we've argued. You say the trees are fighting; I say
the wind moves them so that their branches bump into each other.
You say the summer leaves are brown at the tree tops and green
further down. I say all the leaves are green until fall, at which
time they all turn to brown. And I've tried to explain that we
don't hear leaves fall; we see them.
     Today, as I sat alone on the step, I shut my eyes and
listened. It was one of those rare moments when I didn't need to
be anywhere or do anything. I just listened. And then I heard
them. I heard the leaves rustle in the air as they fell--bumping
into each other. When they reached their destination, they
tumbled across each other as the breeze stirred them. They
skidded stiffly across the paved driveway--scraping their thin
yet rigid points. And acorns dropped from the sky to land on the
grass with a soft but audible thud. I can hear without straining
now. I just needed to tune down my own thoughts so that I could
hear. My closed eyes filled with tears as I listened.
     I have tried, oh so hard, to see as you do so that I can
help you understand things as they really are. I have shut one
eye and squinted the other nearly closed to try to experience
what you see. But I can't. And I realized today that my objective
was to teach you the difference between the incorrect perceptions
you acquire and the reality that the rest of us observe. But
today, when I heard the leaves fall (much as you probably hear
them), I understood something. You have a lot to teach me, little
girl. You hear things, feel things, and experience things in ways
different--yet not always less correct--than I do.
     I will never experience what you do. You always hear trains
coming before anyone else. You continually amaze me when you
identify the voices of individual children as they play together
in our backyard. And only you can tell those neighborhood
identical twins apart. You have something special, little Sara.
You don't see much anymore, but God has given you perceptions
that I can't understand. Thank you for sharing a little bit of
your gift with me. Thank you for insisting that I listen...to the
leaves.


                NEVER TOO YOUNG TO SOLVE PROBLEMS

     From the Editor: Warren Figueriedo of Louisiana drew Barbara
Cheadle's attention to the following story, which had appeared on
the Internet October 30, 1995. Mrs. Cheadle, who edits Future
Reflections, the quarterly magazine of the National Organization
of Parents of Blind Children, was intrigued and contacted Bonnie
Nyce, the teacher who had just won EconomicsAmerica's National
Award for Teaching Economics and whose second-grade class made
such a difference in one blind child's life.
     According to Ms. Nyce's letter to Mrs. Cheadle, "Operation
Care was an economics unit designed for a heterogeneous class of
second graders. It evolved from the children's desire to raise
money to purchase Brailled books for the Plains Elementary School
Library.
     "During the semester the students learned firsthand about
many economic concepts: scarcity, opportunity, cost, resources,
production, revenue, profit, interdependence, and specialization.
They also became familiar with the concepts of earning, spending,
and saving money. In addition, the students learned a good deal
about sharing, individual differences, and community. Throughout
the unit they had many opportunities to practice their math
skills and become stronger readers and writers.
     "Operation Care began when one student expressed concern for
a fellow classmate. In the end it touched the whole community.
None of us involved in this project will ever be the same as we
were at the beginning, including the teacher," Ms. Nyce
concluded.
     "Knowing that twenty students now feel good about economics
is very satisfying. My hope is that the children who participated
in Operation Care will pursue further experiences in economics,
assured that it is not a frightening topic but an interesting,
relevant one that deserves attention at every level of learning."
Here is the story that appeared on Business Wire, October 30,
1995:
                        [Internet story]
     A school library that couldn't afford books for a visually
impaired second-grader sparked a remarkably effective economics
lesson for his class and led to a prestigious award for the
teacher.
     Bonnie Nyce, whose project was one of five top winners of
EconomicsAmerica's National Awards for Teaching Economics,
teaches second grade at the Plains Elementary School in
Timberville, Virginia. When one student pointed out that
classmate Zach Shifflett, blind since birth, could only stand
around during the class's weekly visit to the library, she saw an
opportunity. Through her Operation CARE program (children
learning about Braille reading and economics) the class raised
more than $2,000 for the purchase of Braille books.
     Operation CARE received one of five first-place awards in
the thirty-third annual competition, sponsored by the
International Paper Company Foundation and administered by the
National Council on Economic Education. A total of seventy-five
teachers from eight states won recognition for programs in
primary, intermediate, junior high, senior high, and an open
(multi-grade) grouping.
     Zach and his classmate Ryan Long accompanied their teacher
to the EconomicsAmerica awards luncheon here today. The awards
were presented by Dr. Joseph E. Stiglitz, chairman, President's
Council of Economic Advisers, who also explained why economic
education should play a crucial role in the educational process.
     Through Ms. Nyce's Operation CARE economics curriculum, her
students learned--among other things--to distinguish goods from
services and needs from wants. The proceeds of the school
calendars they ultimately created and sold went toward the
purchase of more than 200 books with both Braille and print text
for their school and local libraries.
     In addition to recognizing outstanding teachers, the awards
program enables educators to share their creative and effective
practices with others and encourages a growing number of teachers
to include economic concepts in their classes.
     Teachers who would like more information on the awards
program can call the National Council on Economic Education at
800-338-1192, extension 388.

First Place Awards: Primary, Bonnie L. Nyce, Plains Elementary
School, Timberville, Virginia

                         Operation CARE

     When the second-grade students at Plains School discovered a
problem affecting a classmate, they used economics to solve it.
Every week, nineteen of the twenty pupils checked out books from
the school library to take home--but one student could not do so.
Blind from birth, he could only "read" Brailled books, which the
library did not have. The class produced and sold a school
calendar, netting a profit of more than $2,000. They then
purchased 200 double vision books that combine print and Braille,
so that both sighted and blind children may use them.
     Nyce integrated the project into every area of teaching:
math, art, reading, writing and spelling skills improved, and the
opportunity to use Braillers and fax machines provided
technological experience. Teams of seven-year-olds gave scripted
talks to the PTA, the school board, and even a class from a
nearby college. They learned about goods and services, how to
handle a bank account and pay bills and even the value of taxes
in providing for citizens' needs. Most important, though, was the
concern they demonstrated in assisting another student to become
a full participant. "Children learning About Braille Reading and
Economics (CARE) was a success from start to finish," said Nyce.
"They learned to appreciate differences"--a perspective that will
be of value for the rest of their lives.


       I DON'T HAVE A VISION PROBLEM; I JUST HAVE GLAUCOMA

     From the Editor: In the blindness field the notion that
sighted employers frequently discriminate against blind job
applicants is a widely recognized reality. But few things in
human interactions are simple, and distressingly often the blind
job-seeker compounds the problem without meaning to do so. The
following story demonstrates this point with painful clarity. It
also illustrates what a determined rehabilitation counselor with
strong ties to the National Federation of the Blind can do to
rescue the situation. The author's name has been withheld in
order to disguise the identity of the young woman whose job was
at risk. Here is the story:

     This is the story of what eventually happened to a little
girl whose family denied her blindness and, by so doing, taught
her to deny it. Anne is not her real name. "When I was a child,
my father always told me I was clumsy," Anne recalled. It had
never occurred to her that there might be a connection between
her supposed clumsiness and her limited vision and that her
family could have obtained assistance for her in learning the
techniques to help her move more gracefully. "Now, I wonder how
long my eyes were this bad," she concluded her brief, painful
reminiscence.
     When she first entered college, she did not know that she
was blind. Therefore, she had no reason to know anything about
services which might have helped her. She knew no blind college
students or mature blind adults who could have given her the
benefit of their experience. Not surprisingly, before long she
was suspended for academic insufficiency.
     When Anne tried again, "My family did not support me," she
admitted. "They couldn't see why I would do any better the second
time around."
     "It took me eight years to graduate," she continued, because
reading small print was virtually impossible for her and she knew
no alternative techniques. Her student teaching was an extremely
negative experience.
     Toward the end of her college education, her campus minister
suggested that she might be eligible for vocational
rehabilitation services and insisted that she apply. Her first
counselor retired shortly after opening her case. Contact with
her second counselor, who was blind, was equally brief. He was
promoted to a managerial position in another office, and after
graduation Anne too moved to another part of the state.
     Armed with her bachelor's degree in early childhood
education, she began interviewing for teaching positions in day
care centers, which was the work she wanted. She liked children
and enjoyed working with them.
     She did not consider herself blind. Consequently she saw no
reason to think through issues such as whether to disclose her
disability, how to do so, and what reasonable accommodations she
might request. "I don't have a vision problem," she told school
administrators; "I just have glaucoma."
     In May of 1995 she accepted a teaching position at a day
care center. She did so with some reservations--reservations she
did not share with her new employer. "I wasn't sure about working
with two-year-olds," she told me. "I would have been more
comfortable with children a little older."
     Shortly after she began working, I established telephone
contact with my customer, as the governor mandates that
rehabilitation counselors call those we serve. "This will be a
very easy case," my supervisor assured me. "Anne has already had
a low-vision examination, and the specialist recommended a
binocular bioptic system. The decision was to order it locally so
that she wouldn't have to go back and forth for appointments. All
you have to do is authorize the follow-up examination and the
bioptics. Once you do that, you can close the case in sixty days,
if all goes well." Although at that time I had had my job with
the state agency for less than eight months, I had been a
vocational rehabilitation counselor for more than six years.
Determinedly I pushed to the back of my mind a well and often
learned lesson: beware when anyone tells you the case will be
easy!
     My new customer was anything but eager to meet me. Under no
circumstances would she take work time for our meeting, and she
absolutely did not want me on her work premises. I thought I
understood. I had never been willing to give my vocational
rehabilitation counselor an instant of my work time, and he had
certainly been unwelcome on my work premises.
     Although I thought I understood how Anne felt, I was
unwilling to authorize any services without meeting her at least
once in person. The length of her work day made it impossible to
schedule either an early morning or late afternoon appointment at
work. Reluctantly she agreed to meet with me during her lunch
hour but insisted that she would leave the building for the
meeting. She said she was afraid that the children would be
either afraid of or allergic to my guide dog. It never occurred
to me that she was actually afraid of her employer's learning
about the meeting. She did not want anyone to see me and ask
questions about my presence. She did not want her colleagues to
know that she was receiving blindness-related services.
     Anne did not refuse to go for her follow-up examination.
However, she did remind me that she was a brand new employee and
really could not afford to take time off from work, even when she
had enough leave to do so. She added that she would be limited to
times when enough other staff were available to assume her
duties. She would let me know when it was convenient. She asked
me not to call her at work. I respected her wishes, and as a
result I waited too long.
     Once she began work, problems started occurring. The staff
turned to a behavioral consultant to assist Anne because
discipline problems were occurring with alarming regularity in
her classroom. She paid no attention to the consultant's
suggestions, however, and the situation deteriorated. Despite
numerous warnings, she repeatedly left dangerous objects--sharp
scissors and toxic substances such as bleach and other cleaning
solutions--within easy reach of curious two-year-olds. She
tripped over and stepped on little children as she moved around
her work space. Sometimes, when she put down cots so the children
could take naps, she bumped them or even hit them on the head.
Also she made no attempt to familiarize herself with her employee
handbook. As a result, without recognizing that she was doing so,
she frequently failed to adhere to the center's rules, policies,
and procedures. Most of the administrative staff viewed this
behavior as a combination of total incompetence, immaturity, and
complete disregard for the safety and welfare of the children.
     Five months after she began work, a crisis occurred. One
eventful day, when Anne was unable to wear her contact lenses,
three children escaped from her supervision and proceeded, each
in his own way, to seek his fortune. The first one's idea of fun
was to lock himself in the classroom and make all his buddies
wait outside until the teacher located a key. The second fugitive
chose an unauthorized elevator ride for his adventure. Another
staff member caught him and thwarted his bid for freedom. The
third decided this was an opportune time to play with the
telephone. He succeeded only in interrupting an important
telephone call the director was making.
     The administrative staff was outraged. These incidents were
merely the last in a long line of concerns parents had been
expressing. The director, who appears to be a genuinely caring
woman, did not want to believe this crisis stemmed from
deliberate carelessness or neglect. She asked the teacher if
these things were happening because she could not see the
children. Anne denied the allegation.
     Still unwilling to believe that she had deliberately
neglected the children in her care, the director requested a
letter from Anne's ophthalmologist. The director wanted to know
if, in the ophthalmologist's opinion, Anne had any visual
limitations which would negatively affect her ability to work
safely with children. Anne urged her ophthalmologist to write a
letter assuring the director that no such limitations existed. He
complied.
     The combination of Anne's denial and this letter convinced
the entire administrative staff that Anne had deliberately
violated safety policies. They placed her on probation for three
months. She was demoted to the rank of assistant teacher, and her
salary was decreased by 20 percent. The administrative staff then
reminded her orally of the center's specific prohibition against
communicating salary information to any of her coworkers.
     Initially Anne confided in no one. However, when she
returned for a visit to her former college, she confided in her
campus minister, who encouraged her to investigate her legal
rights.
     Anne had still not learned whom she could trust.
Consequently, after her visit with her campus minister, she told
several coworkers of her intention to investigate her legal
rights. She also told them about her salary decrease and how she
felt about it. Four of them reported to the administrative staff
that Anne intended to sue. That was how her coworkers interpreted
her remarks.
     The administrative staff then questioned Anne about this
intention, and she chose not to be forthcoming. As a result, the
administrative staff disbelieved everything she said, including
her truthful assurance that she had no intention of suing anyone.
In December the administrative staff put Anne on probation for
the second time. This time her offense was "negative, non-
supportive behavior."
     Anne finally called me in mid-December to request a meeting.
"I want to tell you some things that have been happening on my
job" was all she would say.
     We met shortly after Christmas, but she did not tell me
everything because she did not know all the facts, let alone how
to put them together. Since she did not consider blindness an
issue, I still do not know why she decided to tell me as much as
she did. I, however, was convinced that her blindness was the key
issue. The facts she could tell me posed too many questions that
I could not answer. Was she a competent teacher? I did not know.
Observing her in her classroom and talking with her supervisors
would reveal the answer.
     Was this an employment-discrimination case? I would have to
consult a competent attorney. Fortunately, I knew several lawyers
who could advise me, at least in general terms. The most helpful
of these was Charlie Brown, Assistant General Counsel at the
National Science Foundation. He defined the possible issues in
terms I could easily understand and communicate to Anne.
     Was this situation blindness-related? I was inclined to
believe that much of Anne's problem stemmed from her ignorance of
alternative techniques. I knew they existed, but I did not
personally have specific suggestions for working with small
children. I recognized that I would have to consult an expert,
and fortunately I knew of one. I had not actually met Carla
McQuillan, President of the National Federation of the Blind of
Oregon; but I knew that she directed a day care center and had
been involved in the day care profession for many years. I also
knew she had had to fight to achieve a place for herself in the
field. I consulted several people I knew, and they all assured me
that she would do what she could to help.
     When I contacted Mrs. McQuillan, her generosity overwhelmed
me. She took time to talk on the phone with Anne and me. She
offered to build extra time into an upcoming business trip to
meet Anne in person. I considered it extremely important for Mrs.
McQuillan to meet Anne's supervisor and hear from her what she
perceived the problems to be. Mrs. McQuillan felt strongly that
the best way she could help Anne was to observe her teaching.
Anne's initial response was totally negative. Eventually,
however, Mrs. McQuillan and I persuaded her to allow me to
contact the director. I promised to make the visit appear to be a
routine agency requirement. I knew my supervisor would back me up
when I explained to the director our requirement to check with
the employer before closing a case.
     But Hell hath no fury like an employer scorned. In accord
with Anne's request, I called the day care center and asked to
speak with the director. Although she picked up the phone, so did
her ultimate supervisor, the owner of the day care center. He
introduced himself and participated in most of the ninety-minute
discussion that followed. He was not merely furious; he was
livid. As far as he was concerned, Anne had been lying to
everyone for eight months. She had never told anyone that she was
blind; and, as far as he was concerned, she had been hired under
false pretenses. "The day care field is no place for a blind
person," the owner insisted. "There is too much liability. I'm
too old to be sued. If something happens to one of the children
because Anne can't see, no matter how understandable it is, no
jury would see it that way."
     At one time that attitude would have confounded me. I might
have put day care workers into the same category as drivers and
pilots. In other words, I might have accepted the owner's
contention that day care was an impossible profession for a blind
person. More recently I might have questioned his assertion, but
would have had no answers for him. I still had no answers for
him, but I now refused to be outmaneuvered. I told him that Anne
and I had been in contact with a blind person who taught in and
directed a day care center. "I do not have the specific answers
you require because I am not a day-care professional," I
admitted. "However, Mrs. McQuillan will have concrete solutions
for specific situations, and she is the expert."
     We then spent a considerable amount of time discussing the
distinction between lying and denial. Finally I succeeded in
planting the possibility in the owner's mind that Anne had not
been lying, that she had told him the truth as she saw it.
Grudgingly he began to entertain the possibility that it might
have been a case of denial rather than lying, but that did little
to diminish his hostility. Work was not a place to waste time
struggling with denial and other emotional problems, he pointed
out. "We're just about out of time," he continued. "If you cannot
propose an immediate solution, Anne is going to have to start
over somewhere else."
     He made it clear that he wanted no meetings. He was
unwilling to negotiate at all because, he maintained, Anne
planned to sue him. "She's not negotiating in good faith," he
insisted. "She's saying, `I want to negotiate, but if I don't get
everything I want, I'll sue.'"
     I decided to pursue the notion of good faith. "It works both
ways," I suggested. "My honest impression, based on what I know
so far, is that she would rather take any other action than sue.
However, if she decides to sue, your willingness to meet with us
will inevitably be regarded by the court as a good faith effort."
I elaborated on that theme and, I admit, had a good time being
convincing on that point. I was on safe ground because this was
an issue I had already discussed with Mrs. McQuillan.
     Never had I played for such high stakes. I love advocacy. It
is exciting, even thrilling, to help a customer get the right
training, money for transportation, or the right equipment to do
a job. But this was different. I had never helped a customer
fight to keep her job. Anne had a lot to lose, and I was afraid
emotionally. Intellectually, however, I had strong reason to
think we would win. I believed in Carla McQuillan. I believed in
Anne. And I believed that the entire situation was salvageable if
all of us could agree that there was reason to work together.
     Mrs. McQuillan and I met with Anne, the director, and the
administrator (the owner's wife). Initially the hostility was so
intense even Mrs. McQuillan, a seasoned negotiator, had to
struggle to penetrate it. My plan was to listen and let Mrs.
McQuillan work her magic. But what actually happened was that I
brought up each issue, which she then addressed in detail.
     By the end of the meeting Anne had agreed to use check lists
to make certain she had completed all daily required routine
procedures. She agreed to put away cleaning solutions immediately
after using them, even if the children were not in the room. She
agreed to check her classroom surfaces much more carefully, even
if that meant walking through the entire work area and tactilely
examining each surface. She agreed to receive mobility training
so that she could use her cane to move through her work area more
safely. She agreed to be honest about her blindness and ask for
help with tasks requiring vision. She agreed to read her handbook
and adhere to the center's policies, rules, and procedures.
Finally, she agreed to complain about her job only to people not
associated with the day-care center.
     The director and administrator agreed to give her important
reading material either by enlarging the print or reading it onto
tape. They also agreed to give her medical leave to get her
visual aids and allow mobility instruction to occur on the work
premises. In addition, they agreed not to make any further issue
of the cot problem. It did not occur frequently, and sighted
staff also occasionally bump the children when putting the cots
down. They agreed to give my customer more frequent information
about her performance. Finally, and most important, the director
and administrator agreed not to require instant miracles.
     I agreed to schedule the low-vision follow-up as quickly as
possible and did so before leaving the day-care center that day.
I also agreed to send in the orientation and mobility specialist
on an emergency priority basis and to monitor the situation
closely. Mrs. McQuillan agreed to devote an extra day entirely to
working with Anne in her classroom and making recommendations to
improve her performance. She also agreed to send the
administrative staff some literature and to be available in the
future by telephone for consultation.
     "I think this is an excellent move," the administrator said
to the director at the end of the meeting. "Carla is an
exceptional person." I do not know if I was intended to hear that
comment. I was on the telephone arranging the low-vision
appointment, but I certainly agreed with the sentiment.
     Mrs. McQuillan spent the promised day with Anne and her
supervisors. Originally she and I had mixed feelings about the
outcome. Anne's behavior disappointed us in several ways. She was
unwilling to accept an assignment from her supervising teacher to
lead a group activity so that Mrs. McQuillan could observe her.
This proved to be a case of genuine nervousness. It also appeared
at first that she was unwilling to sit down at the end of the day
and listen to Mrs. McQuillan's criticisms. However, once she
settled down, her attentiveness and genuine interest were
apparent.
     After Mrs. McQuillan's visit Anne surprised us by following
through with her agreement to accept mobility training. We feared
she would back out because her former mobility training
experience had been so embarrassing. "I've been working my butt
off the last two weeks," she told me the day we went to her low-
vision appointment. "I think the best thing that happened because
Carla came is that I can now say `I'm blind,' just say it," she
said. "I used to say that I had a visual impairment."
     Anne continues to receive no support from her family. Her
father, who lives in her area, does not want her to use a cane or
any conspicuous visual aids such as bioptics, which according to
him would make her look blind. I do not think she looked forward
to her low-vision follow-up examination because her first visit
to such a specialist had not been a particularly pleasant
experience. However, I requested and received support from her
employer to take a little more work time so that we could visit a
specialist who might make her feel more comfortable. He was
genuinely interested in her situation, and her response to him
was extremely positive. I think she is looking forward to
receiving her bioptic system. We hope it will allow her to keep
better track of the children and what they are doing as they move
around their classroom. She really wants to read normal print,
and the close-work lens being put in her bioptic system appears
to make that possible.
     "Have you talked to Charlie since our meeting," she asked on
the way back from the low-vision exam. When I answered
affirmatively, she wanted to know what he thought. I suggested
she might want to meet him herself and find out. "I'll keep in
touch with you at least once a week now," she said as she got out
of the car. "Now I don't have to be afraid to call you, even when
I'm at work."
     I understand that the director is pleased with Anne's
efforts since our meeting. When Mrs. McQuillan last spoke with
the administrator, they discussed the staff meeting in which Anne
disclosed her blindness. The administrator described it to Mrs.
McQuillan as an incredible bonding experience for everyone
involved.
     Will Anne retain her job? I don't know, but thanks to Carla
McQuillan she has a fighting chance. Have we changed any
attitudes about blindness? That, too, is impossible to answer
with certainty, but my inclination is to say that we have given
Anne's employer cause for reflection. At least the situation is
clearer and more honest than it was, and that is a big step in
the right direction.


[PHOTO/CAPTION: Kenneth Jernigan]
                      TAPPING THE CHARCOAL
                       by Kenneth Jernigan

     From the Editor: The following article is the title story in
the NFB's newest book in the Kernel Book series of paperbacks.
Here it is:

     When you come right down to it, most people give more
attention to food and things related to eating than to almost
anything else. At least that's the way it is with me. My wife
Mary Ellen and I live in a big house, and the biggest room in it
is the dining room. We like to entertain, and I like to cook on
the charcoal grill.
     My wife is sighted, and I am blind; but that hasn't changed
the fact that our roles in the food department are what once
would have been called "traditional." She generally takes
responsibility for organizing the kitchen and doing most of the
cooking, and I handle the barbecuing and related outside chores.
I also have a number of specialty dishes that I like to prepare--
a mean kettle of butter beans, a unique homemade salad dressing,
and an occasional stew or soup.
     As to setting the table, she probably does more of it than I
do, but either of us will take care of it as needed. The point is
that we do a lot of cooking and have a great many guests and that
blindness (except for a few specialized techniques we have
devised) makes relatively little difference in how we function.
     But you might think otherwise if you heard some of the
conversations that occur. Not long ago, for instance, a sighted
friend of mine was at our home for dinner; and, before we went to
the table, I was putting batteries into a talking clock. I use
the clock (which will tell me how many seconds have gone by) to
time the burgers on the charcoal, and its batteries were dead. As
will sometimes happen in such cases, the plate that covers the
batteries was acting as if it didn't want to slide back into
place. My friend said:
     "Here, I'll do that." Saying this, he reached for the clock.
     "That's okay," I said. "I'll take care of it."
     Up to that point, my friend's behavior was, at the very
worst, maybe a little pushy. But his next comment was more than
that.
     "All right," he said, "I'll let you do it. I know how
independent you like to be."
     What kind of response should I have made? Certainly I
shouldn't have become upset or angry, and I didn't. In fact, I
passed off what he said with a smile and a general flow of
conversation. But I wonder how he would have felt if the
circumstances had been reversed. Suppose I had gone to his home
and behaved exactly as he did in mine.
     He was a guest in my house, a house I had demonstrated the
competence to buy and pay for. We were dealing with my clock and
my batteries, a clock and batteries I had bought and paid for.
The task was not difficult. The cover went on almost immediately,
but even if that hadn't been the case, my friend's conduct was
inappropriate.
     Even though he knows me quite well and often almost
embarrasses me with his praise of my ability when we are talking
with mutual acquaintances, he still thought that my blindness
meant that I couldn't put a simple cover-plate on a clock.
Moreover, I am sure he felt that there was no impropriety in his
statement about my "liking to be independent." But if I had been
in his home and had reached for his clock as he did for mine, and
had then said to him, "All right--you do it; I know how
independent you like to be," he would have thought I was losing
not only my manners but also my mind.
     On another occasion that same friend (and he is a friend)
was having dinner at my home, and when I started to pour the
coffee, he reached for it, saying: "Here, let me pour that."
     Suppose I had been in his home and he had started to pour
the coffee, and further suppose that I had reached for it without
so much as a by your leave. He would have felt that I was
overstepping the bounds of the relationship between guest and
host, and he would have thought it doubly inappropriate since I
am blind.
     His tone and words were those you might use in dealing with
a small child, but he was in no sense trying to put me down. He
is fond of me, and we're the best of friends. Incidentally, if
you wonder how I pour coffee, how I know when the cup is full
enough, I do it by listening and by long experience in knowing
how heavy the cup feels as the liquid goes into it. It's a simple
matter, just one more technique that has become automatic with
time and use.
     My friend's behavior (not just what he said but also the
attitude behind it) illustrates to perfection the dilemma we as
blind people face. Very often our friends and associates treat us
as if we were children, and not very competent children at that.
If we object, we appear to be proving the point of our
immaturity. And if we do nothing, we permit the misconception to
remain unchanged. But the situation is not static.
     We are making steady progress. Day by day and step by step
we are changing what it means to be blind.
     The public misunderstandings with which we deal are often
not grim. In fact, they can be downright funny. I think of the
time when I went to a cafeteria where you carried your tray
through the line but a waitress then took it to your table. I was
with a sighted associate, and both of us had put iced tea on our
trays. When we got to the table and the waitress had put our
trays down and was turning away, I reached out toward my plate
and turned my tea glass over. It made a mess.
     The waitress was very gracious about it and said she would
bring me another. She did--but just as she turned around and was
leaving, my sighted friend reached across my tray (probably to
get salt or pepper) and hit my tea glass and turned it over. The
waitress heard the splash and turned around.
     In a very solicitous voice she said: "I'm sorry. I'll get
you another glass."
     Do you think I told her that I hadn't spilled that second
glass of tea, that it was my sighted friend who had done it?
Certainly not. She wouldn't have believed me and would probably
have thought that I was just embarrassed.
     "No," I told her, "I think I'll just drink this glass of
water. I think I wasn't meant to have tea today." Still insisting
that she would bring me more tea, the waitress left--but I am
sure that she was puzzled by our prolonged laughter. Explanations
wouldn't have helped. The incident brightened our day.
     I remember an evening almost twenty years ago when a sighted
professor of journalism and his six-year-old son were my dinner
guests. We were cooking on the charcoal, and I was explaining to
the professor that you can tell when your hamburgers are done by
timing them and by how hot your fire is.
     I was showing him how the burgers are put into a wire rack
with a handle on it, which makes them easy to turn. When they are
done on one side, you simply lift the rack and turn it over.
     He wanted to know how I could keep the rack straight on the
grill, and I explained that I do it by touch. You can even touch
a hot stove without burning yourself if you do it quickly. I
illustrated by touching the top of the hot grill, hitting it
lightly and then quickly taking my fingers away. The professor
seemed thoroughly convinced that the technique would work. After
all, he was watching me do it. But when his six-year-old son
decided to try it, he wasn't so sure.
     "That grill's hot!" he said. "Be careful! Don't do that!
You'll burn yourself!"
     The boy (such are the ways of children) was ecstatic.
     "Chicken!" he cried to his dad. "Chicken!" He danced to the
other side of the grill and kept tapping the top of it with his
fingers. I was laughing and doing the same thing, and by and by,
the professor was trying it too. I then said to him, "Now, let's
tap the glowing charcoal."
     The boy was all for it and skipped out of his father's
reach. I hoped he was mature enough not to burn himself, and he
was. It wasn't long before he, his dad, and I were playing the
game of quickly and lightly tapping the glowing coals.
     There is no great virtue, of course, in tapping a hot grill
with your fingers, but it does make the point that visual
techniques are not the only ones that can be used in the
activities of daily living. There are many others that work just
as well. And, by the way, I doubt that my friends (the professor
and his son) will ever forget the experience. Most alternative
techniques are not as dramatic as tapping the charcoal, but they
can be just as effective.
     The real problem of blindness is not the blindness itself--
not the acquisition of skills or techniques or competence. The
real problem is the lack of understanding and the misconceptions
which exist. It is no accident that the word "blind" carries with
it connotations of inferiority and helplessness.
     The concept undoubtedly goes back to primitive times when
existence was at an extremely elemental level. Eyesight and the
power to see were equated with light, and light (whether daylight
or firelight) meant security and safety. Blindness was equated
with darkness, and darkness meant danger and evil. The blind
person could not hunt effectively or dodge a club. In our day
society and social values have changed.
     In civilized countries there is now (except perhaps in
certain American cities) no great premium on dodging a club, and
hunting has dwindled to the status of an occasional pastime. The
blind are able to compete on terms of equality in the full
current of active life. The primitive conditions of jungle and
cave are gone, but the primitive attitudes still linger.
     Even so, we who are blind have come farther in the last
thirty or forty years than ever before in all of recorded
history. This is so largely because of the work of the National
Federation of the Blind, which has done more than any other
single thing to help make life better for blind people. And we
are only at the threshold.
     For the blind of this country tomorrow is bright with
promise. We believe in the future; we believe in ourselves; and
we believe in the goodwill of our sighted friends and associates.
We will put the batteries in our clocks; we will pour coffee for
ourselves and others; and we will tap the charcoal--but we will
do it quickly and with a light touch.


[PHOTO/CAPTION: David Walker]
                      BLIND SURVIVAL SKILLS
                         by David Walker

     From the Editor: The following article is taken from the
Winter, 1996, edition of The Blind Missourian, a publication of
the National Federation of the Blind of Missouri. David Walker,
who lives in Jefferson City, is an active member of the Missouri
affiliate and a deeply committed Braille user. Like many others
of us who were not given an opportunity to learn the code as
small children, he knows from painful experience the advantages
of Braille and the problems caused by having poor or nonexistent
Braille skills. This is what he says:


     When listening to Patricia Morrow's speech at our 1995
convention and reading it again in The Blind Missourian, I felt
compelled to write about my own experiences with developing
skills for use in college and in adult life. As I listened to her
comments on the disadvantages of recording classes, I wondered if
Patricia had been sitting behind me in class at Michigan State
University.
     I grew up as a legally blind child with Retinitis Pigmentosa
(RP) in Michigan, and my brother and I did not attend a
residential school for the blind. Jim and I would not have been
taught Braille at that time, anyway, because we had too much
usable vision. We went through school as sighted kids with a more
difficult task in reading. We tracked many miles of ink print on
the ends of our noses and faced much ridicule when walking up to
the board to read what was written on it. Nevertheless, we stuck
it out, probably because our ophthalmologist gave my parents good
advice regarding our development and growth. He told my parents,
"Don't take them by the hand and lead them, because you'll never
let go." That was fairly advanced thinking about blindness in the
late forties. I'm glad my parents took that advice to heart and
mind and launched us on a positive path in life. I hope parents
of blind children today will read that statement and nurture in
their children a sense of personal responsibility and not give
them a hand to depend on.
     In high school I did most of my reading as I have described,
but when the lessons got too long and my eyes became fatigued,
reliable classmates appointed by teachers took over. Large print
texts were rare, and Braille was not offered, so standard print
was what I dealt with. At home reading was always encouraged, and
I enjoyed reading books and playing educational games. When my
eyes got tired, my parents or sister would help by reading the
rest of the assignments or reading a while to allow my eyes to
rest so I could continue. The basic approach was to encourage me
to read until I needed visual back-up: independence first, then
intervention when absolutely necessary. This was the case whether
it was school or leisure reading.
     I also wrote out assignments independently with soft lead
pencils or dark pen and ink. In school this was sometimes a help
to a nearby classmate who was looking for the right answer and
could easily read my large and dark writing. I was not a
spectacular student, but I did get the right answers now and
then. Once in a math class I got the highest score on a test
(ninety-four), and the guy sitting at the table to my right got
the second highest score of eighty-six, although he was not a
good math student. He grinned and said, "Thanks" when he got his
test back. At home I did my own writing, but for long reports
when my eyes tired, I would have to dictate to my sister or
mother and they would write on the faint blue lines of the paper.
     Mom did not cut any slack on neatness or spelling. This was
very good discipline for me. In sixth grade I was in the top six
spellers in the school. I also loved to play Scrabble with my mom
and sister, but Mom and I usually faced off since we usually
powdered my sister. I usually looked up words on my own with a
magnifying glass, but if my eyes couldn't handle the strain, I
would ask my sister, Dad, or Mom to do it, but I had to spell the
word out: no free words.
     In school I had to give book reports, read from the
textbook, and do chalkboard work like everyone else. Teachers and
students had to tolerate my slow reading, but we did it.
Sometimes I got teased or downright abused verbally for being
nearsighted, but not too often.
     Because of my great difficulty with reading large amounts of
material in high school, I never aspired to attend college. I
liked biology and entertained the idea of studying biochemistry,
but the thought of all that reading and writing discouraged me.
My first semester of ninth grade I wanted to take a wood shop
class, but my parents and counselor prearranged a typing class
for me without my agreement. I resented that plan then but now
appreciate the skill I learned. That was my first protest against
custodial treatment. True, it was done with my interests and
future in mind, but I was not included in the decision. However,
the skills I learned in the class came in handy when I finally
went to college, needed typing for doing NFB work and for jobs,
and eventually took up computer training.
     My high school courses focused on industrial arts, but when
I learned about recorded books, I decided I would go on to
college. At this point I was told that I would never need
Braille, but my first year at a community college I learned how
wrong the experts had been.
     I was on my own that first year. Through the use of the
local reading service for the blind, special glasses, and legal
pads with dark markers, I managed to earn a position on the
dean's list. It was during that year, as my vision started
decreasing more rapidly, that I realized I was facing a change in
my future which could not be avoided. I would need to learn
Braille. Although I could still read visually, albeit with great
limitations, the progressive nature of RP would inevitably bring
me to the day when I would have to use a different method of
reading and writing. I did not want to get caught in a void in
which I could no longer read visually and did not know Braille. I
decided it was best to learn Braille before I got caught in that
void.
     I applied for Braille lessons through the Michigan
rehabilitation agency and learned Braille in three months. Then,
right after that, I got my typing skills tuned up again while
continuing to take classes. It was fun. I would take my Braille
books with me to class. I would practice reading on the bus and
between classes. As soon as I had Grade II Braille in place in my
mind, I began using it for more and more things. I wanted to
learn it as quickly and thoroughly as possible so I would be as
proficient in Braille as I could be when I got to Michigan State
University, where academic demands would be greater.
     I actually enjoyed learning Braille. It was a challenge, and
students at college were interested in what it was and what could
be done with it. I started out labeling tapes, then writing short
notes for classes, then complete texts of speeches. I remember
feeling incredibly slick when I gave a speech using brief notes
on index cards and not putting my nose on large print notes. That
speech earned me high marks on eye contact.
     By the time I reached the campus of Michigan State, I had my
Braille skills well in place. I was not a rapid reader of
Braille, probably because of my late start in learning it and
perhaps some loss of sensitivity due to industrial work, but I
used it as much as I could. Despite my slow reading speed, I
could really bang Braille out on a Perkins. All of my drafts for
reports, term papers, and letters to my brother and fiancee were
done in Braille. But despite my determined effort to use Braille,
my reading and note-taking skills were below survival level. Just
as in community college, I recorded all my classes, then listened
to them again in my room. I did devise a method of reducing re-
listening time by patching cassettes to open-reel while doing
something else, then playing them back at a faster, variable
speed. But that took up three tape recorders and set-up time.
     My only justification for doing all this was that I read and
wrote too slowly to handle the course work efficiently. I had to
survive with what I had. If I had learned Braille at an early
age, I could have been a rapid reader, but I didn't have those
skills back then. Nevertheless, I used Braille to the maximum
wherever I could, and that helped me survive in college. I
remember turning in a final term paper by handing my twenty-three
pages of Braille to the professor and telling him he would have
to get a blind person to read it to him just as I got a sighted
person to read his handouts to me. It was a great kick to see him
stammer and say, "I guess I can empathize with you now." He
grinned and sighed when I handed him the eight-page print version
he had requested of all students.
     I remember doing an oral report on the Civil Rights Act for
a labor economics course. When I showed up at the professor's
office with 120 pages of Braille notes from research, he gasped
an expletive and said that, if I had put that much time into the
research, he would give me an automatic "A." I respectfully
declined and said I would rather be graded on my presentation
than on a thick notebook. I received a 3.5 on the oral report.
Those notes were taken in Braille from tape recordings I made
with a reader at the library. Again, had I learned Braille
earlier and developed better speed, I could have eliminated the
double listening time and enjoyed a more active social life. Many
projects did evolve to straight Braille note taking without
recording which in turn developed into Braille skills on the job
after college.
     Today Braille is a primary part of my life. Even though I
read most of my magazines and books in recorded form, I get many
of my reference manuals and catalogs in Braille. I keep records
of equipment and addresses in Braille and keep a slate and stylus
at each phone in our house. I label all important papers with
Braille to indicate topic and date and maintain our checking
account records in Braille.
     I am very disappointed by the attitude among many educators
and rehabilitation specialists about Braille these days. So many
people think the tape recorder is the answer to all information-
gathering problems for blind people. It is a handy medium for
reading, but it has many drawbacks such as the inability to find
an item quickly as one can with Braille. The computer diskette
stores an enormous amount of data in a very small space, but one
doesn't always have a computer in one's pocket. I keep all my
addresses in Braille instead of in a computer database. Since I
refer to these while typing or on the phone, it is easier for me
to use Braille instead of jumping in and out of files or booting
the computer, especially if it is not turned on. Recorders and
computers have their place, but nothing takes the place of good
old-fashioned Braille for communication and ease of access.
     I also know several illiterate blind persons--that is, they
do not have the ability to read and write independently. These
people use a tape recorder because they cannot see to read print
and cannot read Braille. As a result, they are dependent on
sighted people whenever they have anything to be read, so they
cannot compete on terms of equality. What lies ahead of them when
they begin looking for jobs is all too obvious. How will they
maintain records for quick and independent action on the job? How
will they find specific documents without a reader if they don't
use Braille labels? And how will they maintain a phone directory
without Braille if print is not an option? These are the
practical and fundamental questions which many parents, rehab
counselors, and educators do not consider when working with blind
students, but unfortunately employers must address them when they
consider employing a blind person.
     When I worked as an employment specialist in Detroit, I had
a co-worker who knew Braille but who was so dependent on his
reader that I once overheard him say to an employer over the
phone that he couldn't get the information to answer a question
because his reader wasn't there and everything was in print. What
impression could that statement have made on the employer, and
what impact would it have on his future consideration of blind
job candidates? If that had been an employer on my phone, I would
have read the information from Braille data I maintained on my
clients. I also kept names, addresses, and basic information on
clients and employers in Braille, which allowed me to make my
contacts independently, even while traveling.
     On my job here in Missouri I always used Braille to keep
records, label important documents, and maintain equipment
specifications. That way I was able to conduct business
independently. Layouts of vending facilities were important, and
I made Braille layouts so I could configure equipment into the
plans.
     I was disappointed to discover so many blind persons unable
to communicate independently. I had managers who could not use
Braille proficiently and could not read print. I worked with
clients who could not use print extensively but could not use
Braille, and I know too many blind people who cannot use either
Braille or print and who use recorders to keep addresses and
other basic information but who have no real way to keep
important records independently. I know blind people who depend
on family to do most of their reading and writing. Unfortunately,
these people cannot type letters or make a mail order for
themselves.
     This communication disability is unfortunate for blind
people who must face higher education and employment without the
alternative techniques they need. They have been seduced into
believing that Braille is bulky and outdated and that they can
get by depending on a tape recorder and people to read for them.
Blind people and even those who think they are not blind but read
at a snail's pace should learn Braille and use it in all facets
of their lives. Also, it may seem harsh, but I believe that blind
people receiving services through state rehabilitation agencies
and unable to use print efficiently should be required to know
and use Braille before applying for the Business Enterprise
Program so that they can survive independently as business
persons. Blind clients should be required to have Braille skills
in place when asking the agency to support them through college.
Otherwise, putting the client through a vocational or college
program without Braille skills may very well be assisting him or
her to fail.


[PHOTO: Charles Cheadle in his Scout uniform stands holding a copy of the book
he Brailled for his Eagle Scout community service project. CAPTION: Charles
Cheadle]
         CHARLES CHEADLE HONORED AT EAGLE SCOUT CEREMONY

     From the Editor: When Charles Cheadle was eleven, he joined
Boy Scout Troup 456 in the greater Baltimore area. He has
continued to be a member ever since. On February 18, 1996, his
family and friends, including his parents Barbara and John, both
members of the national NFB staff, and President Maurer, joined
250 others at a ceremony honoring the three troup members who had
completed the rigorous requirements for becoming Eagle Scouts.
Both the Catonsville Times and The Catholic Review covered the
event. We are reprinting the February 21, 1996, story by Tina
Vardaro that appeared in the Catholic Review. The tone of the
piece is particularly gratifying because, though Charles's
blindness is mentioned by the reporter, no particular fuss is
made over the fact. Here is the story as it appeared on February
21:

          Cardinal Helps Celebrate 50 Years of Scouting

     For fifty years Boy Scout Troop 456 at St. Mark's parish,
Catonsville, has helped turn boys into men. The troop combined
its fiftieth anniversary celebration with its Eagle Scout Court
of Honor February 18 in St. Mark's Hall.
     Three Scouts achieved the rank of Eagle and were honored by
dignitaries, including Cardinal William H. Keeler, himself an
Eagle Scout.
     Two of the Scouts coordinated improvement projects at the
Patapsco Valley State Park for their Eagle Scout service
projects.
     Kevin Dolan, a senior at Mount St. Joseph High School,
planned and directed other Scouts of Troop 456 in an erosion
control project in the Glen Artney area of the park.
     Jacob Wilson, a senior at Catonsville High School, led
Scouts, Explorers and friends in improving handicapped access to
the Avalon area of the park.
     Charles Cheadle, also a Catonsville High School senior,
based his service project on his experience of being legally
blind. Along with his fellow Scouts, Charles transcribed,
produced, and bound a Braille version of the children's book, To
Annabella Pelican from Thomas Hippopotamus, written by Maryland
author Nancy Patz. The book contains both regular text and
Braille, so it can be used by sighted and blind persons together.
     In honor of Cardinal Keeler's attendance, Troop 456
presented him with a red baseball cap bearing the troop's
insignia. Other gifts included a fiftieth anniversary
commemorative patch and a denim blue Troop 456 neckerchief
specially trimmed in red to signify the cardinal's position.
     Cardinal Keeler called Scouting "a call to bravery, a call
to reverence." He recalled his Scouting experience as an
opportunity to live out his faith and to learn about the faith
lives of other people.
     "It helps bring out the very best in the potential of a
young person," he said.
     State delegates Donald Murphy and James Malone of Baltimore
County presented the new Eagle Scouts with a resolution from the
House of Delegates congratulating them on their achievements.
     Mr. Murphy commented that, as a member of the House
Judiciary Committee, he hears the "worst of the worst" of what
people do to each other. He said he was honored to attend the
ceremony and hear about the good things the Scouts had done for
their community.
     Father Ross LaPorta, pastor of St. Mark's, said the rank of
Eagle Scout is a "call to achieve excellence," and that Scouting
experiences in the outdoors "attempt to tell almighty God his
creation is marvelous."
     "There's no greater thing to tell a creator than that you
love what he's made," Father LaPorta said.




     If you or a friend would like to remember the National
Federation of the Blind in your will, you can do so by employing
the following language:

     "I give, devise, and bequeath unto the National Federation
of the Blind, 1800 Johnson Street, Baltimore, Maryland 21230, a
District of Columbia nonprofit corporation, the sum of
$__________(or "______ percent of my net estate" or "the
following stocks and bonds: ________") to be used for its worthy
purposes on behalf of blind persons."




          DEAF STUDENT HAS FULL SCHEDULE AT OLATHE EAST
        Keri Ann Ruemmler Doesn't Let Physical Handicaps
             Get in the Way of Being a Good Student
                         by Suzanne Vega

     From the Editor: The following story appeared in the
November 22, 1995, issue of The Hawk's Eye, the monthly newspaper
at Olathe East High School. Keri Ann Ruemmler is deaf-blind; she
is also a busy, normal teenager carrying a full academic load in
high school and an after-school job. Her mother, Sally Ruemmler,
chairs Parents in Partnership, an enthusiastic new group in the
National Organization of Parents of Blind Children working to
solve the particular problems that face deaf-blind children and
their families. Here is the story:

     Thinking about giving up at school? Read this, then think
again.
     Keri went to the Kansas School for the Deaf for one year
when she was very young. Then she attended a blind school for a
year.
     Her favorite school, however, was the Central Institute for
the Deaf in St. Louis. It's an oral school for the deaf. There
Ruemmler learned to talk better.
     Ruemmler enjoys school at OE and hasn't had too many
problems adapting to high school.
     "The kids talk to me," she said, indicating that friendly
students have helped her. "But, it's loud at break," said Keri.
It might sound contradictory for a hearing-impaired person to
comment about it being too loud during break. However, background
noise is a big problem for Ruemmler.
     If someone is talking to her when there is a high level of
background noise, she can't understand very well.
     Ruemmler wears a cochlear implant to help her hear better,
and she's taking classes to read Braille because of her vision.
     On top of her hearing problem, Ruemmler has tunnel vision.
To her, objects appear very small, almost the size of a dime; and
she can't see at night very well.
     Despite her handicaps Ruemmler appears to be doing well in
her classes.
     "She really is an exceptional young lady. She comes into a
hands-on class and competes with the students. She's getting a
B+, and that's the grade she has earned," said Sandra Keating,
computer teacher.
     Ruemmler is very exceptional. She has a wonderfully
optimistic attitude; she doesn't give up at school. If she
doesn't understand, she just tries again until she can do it.
     "Keri is very outgoing. She tries to communicate with me a
lot and with the kids in the class, and that amazes me," said
Keating.
     Ruemmler even has a job at Treasury Drug. She stocks the
merchandise and cleans. Ruemmler is a very normal teenager with
normal hobbies and activities. "I like to go to the movies, watch
TV, talk on the phone," said Ruemmler.
     Luck explained that Keri's telephone is equipped with a TTY
device. It's a phone designed for the deaf.
     Terry Luck is a great help. She is an interpreter who is
assigned to accompany Ruemmler to all of her classes.
     After high school Ruemmler plans to become a teacher.

[PHOTO/CAPTION: Jim Willows]
                        HOW TO GET THERE:
         ANAHEIM CONVENTION AIRPORT-HOTEL TRANSPORTATION
                         by Jim Willows

     Our California affiliate is looking forward to seeing you at
the Anaheim Hilton and Towers for our 1996 National Convention.
But before we can greet you at the Hilton, we have to get you
there from the airport.
     I have been told that many Federationists will be coming
into Los Angeles International Airport (LAX), because of cheaper
fares or a more convenient flight schedule. We have found good
prices for ground transportation to our convention hotel from
both LAX and Orange County's John Wayne Airport. Travel time to
the Hilton is about twenty-five minutes from John Wayne Airport
and fifty minutes from Los Angeles International.
     The Anaheim Airport bus runs at half-hour intervals from
either airport. We can send you discount coupons for fares of $8
one way or $14 round trip from John Wayne or $11 one way and $19
round trip from LAX. These are per-person fares.
     These airport bus coupons may be obtained from the bus
driver at LAX or from the company's booth just outside the doors
from the baggage area at John Wayne Airport. Tell them you are
attending the NFB Convention at the Anaheim Hilton. The LAX buses
leave from under the red sign at each terminal. You will find
these signs over the shuttle/bus pickup areas located at the
center divider island outside each baggage area.
     If you need more coupons than the one appearing at the end
of this article, send a self-addressed, stamped envelope to NFB
of California, Bus Coupons, 3934 Kern Court, Pleasanton,
California 94588. Be sure to let us know how many coupons you
will need and from which airport you will be coming. Do not
include payment with your coupon order. You will pay your shuttle
driver at the airport.
     If several of you will be traveling together, you might do
better to reserve a van or car from one of the companies listed
below. The prices listed are those at the time of this writing in
the middle of March. They could rise by convention time.
     Also, I have found that some shuttle companies do not
guarantee airport pickups if your plane is late. Check the
company's policy when you call to make your reservation.
     Here is information about several shuttle services in the
Anaheim area.
     Advantage (714) 557-2465. One way fare: $30 for John Wayne
and $54 for LAX. Up to five passengers for these fares.
     Alternative Transportation (714) 630-3367. One way fares:
$65 for LAX and $35 for John Wayne. Six-passenger vans or four-
passenger cars.
     Dani's Shuttle (800) 500-3264. One way fare: from LAX, $30
for first person, $7 for each additional person in your party in
eight-passenger vans. No service to John Wayne Airport.
     L.A. Xpress Airport Shuttle. (800) 427-7483. One-way fare
$10 per person from both LAX and John Wayne (with coupon provided
for our convention--as with Airport Bus, send a self-addressed
stamped envelope for a coupon).
     Orange County Shuttle. (714) 773-0765. One-way fare: from
LAX $10 per person or $55 for van holding up to seven persons.
From John Wayne $10 per person or $45 for van.
     Prime Time Shuttle. (800) 733-8267. One-way fare: From LAX
$11 for first person and $10 for each additional person. From
John Wayne $9 per person. These prices must include a discount
coupon, which I can send to you. Again, include a self-addressed
stamped envelope indicating the number of coupons needed.
     Super Shuttle. (714) 517-6600. One-way fare: From LAX $13
per person or $65 for seven in van. From John Wayne $10 per
person or $47 for van. (We have coupons for a $2 reduction per
person from LAX and a $1 reduction per person from John Wayne.
Here again, send a self-addressed, stamped envelope and indicate
the number of coupons needed and the name of the shuttle
service.)
     Shuttle 2000. (310) 352-3550. One-way fare: $10 per person
from both LAX and John Wayne.
     We will do our best to have folks at the airports to greet
you and help you to locate your ground transportation. If you
haven't made your hotel reservation, do it today. the phone
number is (714) 750-4321. Convention rates are singles, $45 per
night; doubles, $47; triples, $54; and quads, $57 (no charge for
children who do not require additional beds). Tax was just under
15 percent at the time these rates were negotiated. See you in
Anaheim.



[PHOTO: Bill Meeker bends down to guide his son Christopher, who is using an
NFB cane. Christopher is such a tiny child that the 24-inch cane is quite long
for him. CAPTION: Christopher Meeker may be only one, but he already knows the
value of a long white cane. His father Bill supervises his cane technique
closely.]
                          ENDURING HOPE
                      by William D. Meeker

     From the Editor: All parents face the challenge of passing
on what they hold most dear to their children. Tangible
possessions comprise the simplest part of this universal
inheritance. Hopes, dreams, values, convictions: these intangible
treasures are infinitely harder to pass on. Will we communicate
them clearly? Will our children learn to value them as we do?
Will other forces dilute or destroy what is precious to us before
our children come to appreciate it?
     Blind parents deal with a special and poignant version of
this perennial struggle. In the following little article Bill
Meeker, one of the leaders of the National Federation of the
Blind of Wisconsin and the thoughtful father of a baby son,
explores this struggle and its challenge. This is what he says:

               The ocean wild like an organ played
               The seaweed's woven strands,
               The crashing waves like cymbals clashed
               Against the rocks and sands.

     With a shout of pure joy and exhilaration, the little boy
steps out of his house and into the sunshine of a Wisconsin fall
day. He walks slowly down the front walk. At the intersection
with the sidewalk, he hesitates, then follows his parents to the
right. He moves his cane from side to side like Mom and Dad. He
stops to touch the grass and examine a fallen leaf in the next-
door neighbor's yard. He stops again to plumb a tiny water-filled
hole in the concrete, then again to watch a squirrel bounding
through the grass of a lawn across the street. Further along he
holds his cane still, frozen by the sight and roar of a city
truck vacuuming curbside leaves.
     At his parents' coaxing he moves forward, swinging his cane
until he breaks into a run at the approach of his day-care
playmates. Technique is forgotten, but the cane never leaves his
hand.
     "He carries it with such dignity," says Gail, his day-care
mom. "Christopher brought his cane!" shouts Jason to the boy's
parents. "It makes sparks on the ground. Does yours make sparks
too?"
     At this moment, four blocks from Lake Michigan's shore, life
flows without question or division. The sighted one-year-old
child uses a cane because Mommy and Daddy do, and it makes him
feel good to be like them. His playmates like it because the
moving tip sparks on the concrete, and it's something not
everyone has.
     But the moment is bittersweet, for the time of unlearning
will come: when the world will insinuate its own symbol and
twisted metaphor between the boy and his life experience to break
its flow. The child will be told that personal qualities and
accomplishments depend on vision. His independent blind parents
will then become different from other moms and dads, and he will
be told he must treat them differently. He must take care of them
because, since he can see, he is the only family member capable
of responsibility and accomplishment. The cane he once carried so
proudly may become a stigma.
     His parents' challenge will be to live in such a way that he
does not come to believe these timeworn falsehoods as truth.
Their lifelong challenge will be to remind him through their
actions of the secret told by Saint Exupery's fox to his little
prince: "It is only with the heart that one can see rightly. What
is essential is invisible to the eye."

               Lay down your weary tune, lay down,
               Lay down the songs you sung,
               And rest yourselves `neath the strength of strings
               No voice can hope to harm.
                              "Weary Tune," by B. Dylan


[PHOTO: Joe Debeer and Julia Bohmbach are in the classic ballroom dancing
position with hands clasped and his arm around her waist. CAPTION: Joe Debeer
and Julia Bohmbach take full advantage of the dance at the 1995 convention of
the National Federation of the Blind.]
                 JOE DEBEER DIES AT NINETY-THREE
                        by Barbara Pierce

     Long before Jacobus tenBroek called the National Federation
of the Blind into being on November 16, 1940, those interested in
the welfare of blind people in Minnesota knew the name of Joe
Debeer. Born in the Netherlands in 1902, he traveled alone to the
United States to seek his fortune when he was eighteen. He came
to work on his uncle's farm in Minnesota, leaving his parents,
sisters, and twin brother behind. Several years later he became
suddenly and totally blind.
     After three months at the School for the Blind in Fairbault
and a little rehabilitation training, Joe picked up life again,
working to support himself doing whatever he could find to do. He
eventually married, and he and his wife Lucille lived happily
together for fifty-one years, raising one son, Robert.
     Joe instinctively recognized the necessity for blind people
to band together if they were ever to win their rights. When, at
the age of almost eighty-eight, he addressed the golden
anniversary Convention of the National Federation of the Blind in
1990, he told with relish of the time in 1939 when the Governor
of Minnesota announced that he intended to cut the pension for
blind citizens from $31 to $21 a month and that he had no
intention of discussing his decision with representatives of the
blind. Joe and his colleagues organized blind people to picket
outside the state capitol for three days. They passed out flyers
and began contacting the wire services and radio stations to tell
their story of deprivation and the governor's refusal to meet
with them. During these days Joe had also been talking with
organized labor and members of the League of Women Voters who
were sympathetic to what the blind picketers were protesting.
     Suddenly the governor announced that he was ready to talk
with Debeer's committee. Joe rallied a hundred members of the
League, twenty representatives of organized labor, and seventy
blind people for the meeting. Instead of cutting the pension $10,
the governor eventually raised it $12.
     Joe Debeer was unable to take part in the Wilkes-Barre
meeting when representatives from California, Illinois,
Minnesota, Missouri, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin gathered
to establish the Federation, though Joe's wife was present. His
first convention was in 1941, but from the very beginning of the
tiny organization Joe was a tireless worker--writing letters;
organizing protests; and articulating the views of blind citizens
who insisted upon their rights to rent apartments, walk the
streets in safety, and compete for jobs like everyone else.
     Joe Debeer never lost his zest for life or his passion for
justice.
     He attended the 1995 convention in Chicago and had a
wonderful time. He was the oldest Federationist present and among
the liveliest. In December he suffered a stroke, and on January
3, 1996, Joe slipped away with his son and two grandchildren at
his bedside. Joe's life was long and productive. He knew what he
believed and was never afraid to stand forth to be counted. He
embodied the founding spirit of the National Federation of the
Blind; we will remember him with love and admiration.


                             RECIPES

     This month's recipes are contributed by members of the NFB
of South Dakota.


                 LOW-CALORIE APPLESAUCE COOKIES
                         by Lavera Peta

     Lavera Peta is a member of the NFB of South Dakota's
Members-at-Large Chapter.

Ingredients:
1 3/4 cups cake flour
1/2 teaspoon nutmeg
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon ground cloves
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 cup butter
1 tablespoon Sucaryl solution
1 egg
1 cup applesauce
 1/3 cup raisins
1 cup All-Bran

     Method: Pre-heat oven to 375 degrees. Sift together flour,
salt, spices, and baking soda. Set aside. Beat butter, sweetener,
and egg until light and fluffy. Add dry ingredients alternately
with applesauce, raisins, and All-Bran. Drop by level
tablespoonfuls onto greased cookie sheet, about one inch apart.
Bake twenty minutes or until golden brown.


                        SWEDISH PANCAKES
                        by Min Quarnberg

     Min Quarnberg is a member of the Black Hills Chapter.

Ingredients:
4 eggs, beaten until light
2 tablespoons sugar
1/2 cup melted butter
1 scant cup flour
1 cup whole milk

     Method: Grease griddle. Combine all ingredients to form a
thin batter. Pour batter by quarter-cupfuls onto greased griddle.
Turn cakes over when bottom side is set and browned. Remove from
griddle when second side is golden brown. Serve rolled or flat.
Sprinkle with sugar and spread with jam. Half this recipe will
serve two.

[PHOTO/CAPTION: Noble Melegard]
                           POTATO SOUP
                        by Noble Melegard

     Noble Melegard is the President of the Black Hills Chapter
and a Board member of the NFB of South Dakota.

Ingredients:
1/2 gallon 2% milk
8 ounces Philadelphia cream cheese
1 can cream of chicken soup
24 ounces Ore-Ida frozen hash brown potatoes
chopped onion (optional)
salt & pepper to taste

     Method: Heat milk, cream of chicken soup, and cream cheese
until cheese is melted. Add rest of ingredients. Cook until
potatoes and onion are at desired softness.


                      TIGER STRIPE BROWNIES
                       by Kathleen Nelson

     Kathleen Nelson is a charter member of the National
Federation of the Blind of South Dakota. She lives in Brookings.

Ingredients:
1 8-ounce package cream cheese, softened
1-1/2 cups sugar
1-1/2 tablespoons vanilla
5 eggs
1 square chocolate
1 cup butter
1 cup flour
 1/4 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup nuts (optional)

     Method: To make filling, combine cream cheese,  1/4 cup
sugar, 1/2 teaspoon vanilla, and one egg, then set aside. To mix
batter, microwave unsweetened chocolate and butter for one-and-a-
half to two minutes or until melted. Add four eggs, one cup
sugar, flour, remaining vanilla, salt, and nuts. Mix and pour
three-fourths of the batter into a floured and greased 13-by-9-
inch cake pan. Pour filling over top. Spoon remaining batter on
top of filling. Swirl the mixtures together by cutting into the
batter with knife. Bake at 350 degrees for thirty to thirty-five
minutes. Do not over-bake.


                    MOM'S CHOCOLATE CARAMELS
                       by Dorothy Crawford

     Dorothy Crawford is a member of the Black Hills Chapter.

Ingredients:
3 cups sugar
6 tablespoons cocoa
1 cup butter
1-1/2 cups Karo syrup
1-1/2 cups milk
1 teaspoon vanilla
walnuts (optional)

     Method: Combine all ingredients except nuts in a heavy
saucepan. Bring to a boil, stirring, and cook until mixture
reaches the hard-ball stage, when a little of the syrup forms a
firm ball when dropped into a cup of clear, cold water. Remove
from heat and add one teaspoon vanilla. Pour into a buttered 9-
by-13-inch pan. You may sprinkle chopped walnuts in pan before
pouring in candy.


                         SUE'S CARAMELS
                       by Dorothy Crawford

Ingredients:
2 cups white sugar
1 pint cream
 3/4 cup corn syrup
1/2 cup butter
1 teaspoon vanilla
1 cup nuts

     Method: Combine all ingredients, except half of cream, and
stir until sugar has completely dissolved in hot liquid. Allow
mixture to boil a few minutes. Slowly add the rest of the cream,
making sure that candy continues to boil. Cook until candy is
brown and forms a hard ball when a little is dropped into cold
water. Add nuts and vanilla and pour into buttered pan.


[PHOTO/CAPTION: Karen Mayry]
                            PASTITSIO
                         by Karen Mayry

     Karen Mayry is the President of the NFB of South Dakota.

Ingredients:
8 ounces uncooked elbow macaroni
1/2 cup egg substitute
 1/4 teaspoon ground nutmeg
 3/4 pound lean ground lamb, beef, or turkey
1/2 chopped onion
1 clove garlic, minced
1 8-ounce can tomato sauce
2 tablespoons grated Parmesan cheese
 3/4 teaspoon dried mint leaves
1/2 teaspoon dried oregano leaves
1/2 teaspoon ground black pepper
 1/8 teaspoon ground cinnamon
2 teaspoons reduced calorie margarine
3 tablespoons all-purpose flour
1-1/2 cups skim milk

     Method: Cook pasta according to package directions, omitting
salt. Drain and transfer to medium bowl. Stir in egg substitute
and nutmeg. Lightly spray bottom of 9-inch square baking dish
with non-stick cooking spray. Spread pasta mixture in bottom of
baking dish. Set aside. Pre-heat oven to 350 degrees. Cook lamb,
onion, and garlic in large non-stick skillet over medium heat
until lamb is no longer pink. Stir in tomato sauce, mint,
oregano, pepper, and cinnamon. Reduce heat to low and simmer ten
minutes, spread over pasta. Melt margarine in small non-stick
saucepan over medium heat. Add flour, stirring constantly for one
minute. Whisk in milk. Cook, stirring constantly, until
thickened, about six minutes. Spread over meat mixture. Sprinkle
with cheese. Bake thirty to forty minutes or until set. Makes six
servings.


                 ** ** MONITOR MINIATURES ** **

** Correction:
     In the miniature about airfare discounts that appeared in
the March issue, the toll-free telephone number for Singer Travel
was incorrect. The actual number is (800) 248-3929. Remember that
tour reservations must be made no later than May 3, and orders
will be filled on a first-come, first-served basis. No tour
tickets will be for sale at the convention unless there happen to
be unfilled seats still available.

** Elected:
     The Austin Chapter of the National Federation of the Blind
of Texas elected officers at its January meeting to serve a one-
year term. Elected were Wanda Hamm, President; Mary Ward, First
Vice President; Ron Lucey, Second Vice President; Norma Gonzales
Baker, Secretary; Margaret (Cokie) Craig, Treasurer; and Jim
Shaffer and Mike Waddles, Board members.

** Tips for Tough Times Now Available:
     We recently saw the following notice in the Winter, 95-96,
issue of The Braille Spectator, the publication of the NFB of
Maryland. Other attorneys general should be encouraged to produce
equivalent publications. In the meantime here is the information
about this useful publication:
     Tips for Tough Times is a monthly newsletter published by
the Consumer Protection Division of the Maryland Attorney
General's Office. It contains a wide variety of consumer
information. Some examples from previous issues include "What
consumers should know when stores go out of business" and
"Changing your long distance company without your permission."
This newsletter is available on the National Federation of the
Blind Bulletin Board, NFB Net. It is also available on computer
disks, which can be obtained by contacting Patrick Gormely, 3507
Jefferson Street, Hyattsville, Maryland 20781, (301) 864-4694.
You must provide your own blank disk. Contact Mr. Gormely for
further information.

** Diabetics Division Drawing:
     The Diabetics Division of the National Federation of the
Blind provides support and information to thousands of people.
Because operating this valuable network and producing the Voice
of the Diabetic cost money, we must generate funds to help cover
these expenses. Our Diabetics Division has elected to hold a
drawing, which will be coordinated by our treasurer, John Yark.
     The Grand Prize will be $500! The name of the winner will be
drawn on July 4, 1996, at the annual banquet of the National
Federation of the Blind.
     Tickets cost $1 each, or a book of six may be purchased for
$5. Tickets may be purchased from state representatives of our
Diabetics Division or by contacting the Voice Editorial Office,
811 Cherry Street, Suite 309, Columbia, Missouri 65201, telephone
(573) 875-8911. Anyone interested in selling tickets should also
contact the Voice Editorial Office. Tickets are available now.
The names of those who sell fifty tickets or more will be
announced in the Voice.
     Please make checks payable to the National Federation of the
Blind. Money and ticket stubs must be mailed to the Voice office
no later than June 17, 1996, or they can be personally delivered
to Drawing Chairman John Yark at this year's NFB convention in
Anaheim, California. This drawing is open to anyone, and the
holder of the lucky ticket need not be present to win. Each
ticket sold is a donation helping to keep our Diabetics Division
moving forward.

** NBP Children's Book Club:
     We recently received the following press release:
     Where can you purchase a print-Braille children's book for
the same price as the print edition? Where can families enjoy the
same children's book regardless of whether they read print or
Braille? The National Braille Press Children's Braille Book Club
offers a new title each month. Membership is free: just call the
800-number listed below. Literacy begins at home. Send orders to
National Braille Press, 88 St. Stephen Street, Boston,
Massachusetts 02115, (800) 548-7323.

** For Sale:
     We have been asked to carry the following announcement:
     For sale, Braille 'n Speak 640 in excellent condition,
asking $1,000. Unit will be sold with AC adapter and carrying
case. Contact April Enderton, 711 Gray, Des Moines, Iowa 50315,
(515) 282-0049.

** Correspondents Wanted:
     We have been asked to carry the following announcement:
     I would like to correspond with anyone who has congenital
cataracts. If you have congenital cataracts yourself or know
someone who does, please write (print, Braille, or tapes
accepted) to Carmen Linda Conklin, P.O. Box 67, Nashua, Iowa
50658.

** National Church Conference for the Blind:
     We have been asked to carry the following announcement:
     The National Church Conference of the Blind will meet in
Oklahoma City. Celebration begins Sunday night, July 21, and ends
with the annual banquet on Thursday evening, July 25. Hotel
reservations should be made with La Quinta Inn Airport, 800 S.
Meridian, Oklahoma City, Oklahoma 73108, (800) 531-5900. Rates
are $48.56 per night for up to four people per room, including
tax. For more information contact National Church Conference of
the Blind, P.O. Box 163, Denver, Colorado 80201, or call (303)
825-5857.

** Perkins Brailler Repairs Available:
     Barbara Staniewski requests that we carry the following
announcement:
     The Selective Doctor, Inc., is a repair service for all IBM
typewriters and now Perkins Braille writers. Located in
Baltimore, the service has done work for the Maryland School for
the Blind and a number of other organizations in Maryland. They
now accept Perkins Braillers sent to them from around the
country. They advertise top quality service at yesterday's
prices. They also request a phone call before shipment of
Braillers and ask that equipment be insured in the mails. For
more information contact the Selective Doctor, Inc., P.O. Box
28432, Baltimore, Maryland 21234, or call (410) 668-1143.

** For Sale:
     We have been asked to carry the following announcement:
     Blazer Braille printer for sale, asking $1,000 or best
offer. Wanting to upgrade to interpoint for Braille business.
Call Sharon Bishop at (817) 294-2369, or write in Braille, typed,
or on cassette to 7314 Kingswood Circle, Fort Worth, Texas 76133.

** BANA Election Results:
     We recently received the following information:
     Dolores Ferrara-Godzieba was elected as Chair of the Braille
Authority of North America at its annual meeting, November 13 and
14, 1995, held in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Dolores Ferrara-
Godzieba represents Associated Services for the Blind (ASB),
where she is the Director of the Braille Division, as well as of
the Radio and Recording departments. Also confirmed were Vice-
Chair, Frederick Sinclair, California Transcribers and Educators
of the Visually Handicapped (CTEVH); Treasurer, Charlotte Begley,
the Clovernook Center: Opportunities for the Blind (CC); and
Secretary, Phyllis Campana, American Printing House for the Blind
(APH).
     The BANA Board approved the "Clarification and Expansion of
Rule VII Section 28 c., d., f." to be included in the English
Braille, American Edition, 1994 immediately.

[PHOTO/CAPTION: Charles Brown]
** Appointed:
     We are pleased to report the following federal appointment:
     On December 5, 1995, the Director of the National Science
Foundation appointed NFB National Board Member Charles S. Brown
to serve as the Foundation's "Designated Agency Ethics Official."
Each federal agency is required by the Ethics in Government Act
to name such an official to coordinate and manage the agency's
employee ethics programs, administer the legal requirements for
employee financial disclosure, and serve as the agency's liaison
with the U.S. Office of Government Ethics.
     Mr. Brown has served as Assistant General Counsel at the
National Science Foundation since 1991. Before coming to the
Foundation, he was Counsel for Special Legal Services at the U.S.
Department of Labor. Mr. Brown is a graduate of Harvard College
and the Northwestern University Law School. He is married, has
two children, and lives and works in Arlington, Virginia.

** Oregon Shakespeare Festival Provides Audio Description
Service:
     We recently received the following press release:
     The Oregon Shakespeare Festival has adopted new programs for
people with disabilities: audio description for blind patrons and
four sign-interpreted performances during the 1996 season.
     During audio-described performances--which are available
upon request in all three theaters--a trained describer will sit
in the control booth and talk to the visually impaired patron
through a headset during pauses in the stage dialogue. To request
audio description, call Gwen Wright, OSF's director of services
for persons with disabilities, at (541) 482-2111, ext. 224. Two
weeks' advance notice is necessary.
     The four sign-interpreted performances being offered during
the 1996 season are The Winter's Tale on April 14 at 2:00 p.m. in
the Angus Bowmer Theater, Molire Plays Paris in the Angus Bowmer
Theater on March 19 at 1:00 p.m. and on September 7 at 2:00 p.m.,
and Romeo and Juliet on September 7 at 8:00 p.m. in the
Elizabethan Theater.
     OSF's other services for people with disabilities include
wheelchair-accessible seating; Sennheiser Listening Assistance
Devices; audio program notes and tape recorders; and large-print
playbills. For tickets call the box office at (541) 482-4331 or
TDD (541) 488-1780. Box office hours are Tuesdays through
Sundays, 9:30 a.m. to 8:00 p.m.; Mondays, 9:30 a.m. till 5:00
p.m.

[PHOTO/CAPTION: Steve Benson]
** Recovering:
     We regret to report that on Thursday, March 7, Steve Benson,
President of the National Federation of the Blind of Illinois and
a member of the Board of Directors of the National Federation of
the Blind, slipped on a sheet of ice about a block from his house
on his way home from work. In the resulting fall Steve broke his
left leg in two places. He underwent surgery the following day to
repair the damage and then spent a further week in the hospital
developing his skills with a walker and crutches. He will be
using these or a wheelchair for three to four months. We all wish
Steve a speedy recovery.

** Newsletter Available:
     Loren and Teresa Wakefield have asked us to carry the
following announcement:
     TLC Distribution is offering a free three-month subscription
to a monthly newsletter about nutrition and environmental
concerns. The newsletter is available in Braille or on cassette.
Please send inquiries to TLC Distribution, 722 Denver St.,
Waterloo, Iowa 50702, or call (319) 234-5215.

** In Memoriam:
     Gene Cavna was a quiet, reliable man. His wife Janet has
served as a member of the National Federation of the Blind of
Pennsylvania Board of Directors, but Gene was always content to
roll up his sleeves and work unobtrusively in the background. He
was a vendor who lived and worked in the greater Philadelphia
area, and he frequently made sure that Federation activities and
programs were supplied with the food and drink required. When the
word went out for calls to legislators, Gene not only made the
calls he had agreed to but reported the results speedily and
accurately. People like Gene are the very backbone of the
Federation; they can never be spared.
     On Saturday, March 9, 1996, the NFB of Pennsylvania held a
special meeting to do important organizational planning for the
future. The group broke for lunch and walked to a nearby
restaurant. On the way Gene, who wouldn't have missed an
important meeting that he could get to, apparently suffered a
massive heart attack. Though he received immediate cardio-
pulmonary resuscitation and rapid attention from an emergency
medical service team, he could not be revived. Gene's death was a
shock and grief to everyone who knew him and a deep loss to the
entire Federation family.

** GW Micro Moves:
     We have been asked to carry the following notice:
     GW Micro, Inc., manufacturer of Vocal-Eyes, Window-Eyes,
Sounding Board, Speak-Out, and other adaptive computer products
primarily for those that are blind or visually impaired has moved
into a new, larger facility. The building provides much more
space for their existing needs and provides additional space for
training. Please note the following address and telephone
changes: GW Micro, Inc., 725 Airport North Office Park, Fort
Wayne, Indiana 46825, (219) 489-3671 (voice), (219) 489-2608, or
(219) 489-5281. Their Internet address, support@gwmicro.com, has
not changed.

** Organ Donation Reminder:
     We have been asked to carry the following announcement:
     Organ and tissue transplants save thousands of lives every
year, but many people do not receive the transplants they
desperately need because there simply are not enough donors.
     The New Jersey Organ and Tissue Sharing Network (the Sharing
Network), a non-profit organ-procurement agency, urges everyone
to sign donor cards and discuss their views about donation with
family members. If more people sign organ donor cards and discuss
their wishes to donate with their families, more life-saving
transplants could be performed.
     Signing an organ donor card does not mean that, when a
person dies, his or her organs are automatically donated. Consent
must be given by the person's next-of-kin in order for donation
to take place. That's why it is so important to discuss the
matter with one's family.
     More than 40,000 people nationwide are on waiting lists for
transplants. And more than 2,500 of them die each year while
waiting for the miracle of life.
     "The majority of people in the United States favor organ
donation, but many do not sign donor cards or discuss donation
with their families," said Marc Smith, executive director of the
Sharing Network. "The organ and tissue shortage is a health
crisis that we can all help cure, but to do so, each of us must
take action."
     The Sharing Network is a federally-designated, state-
certified procurement organization responsible for recovering
organs and tissue for New Jersey residents in need of
transplants, as well as those on waiting lists nationwide. For
more information on organ and tissue donation or to obtain a
donor card, contact the Sharing Network at (800) 742-7365.

** For Sale:
     We have been asked to carry the following announcement:
     Choco-Braille, Braille greeting cards in chocolate: "Happy
Birthday," "Thank You," "Have a Nice Day," etc. Cards sell for
$2.25 each. To place an order, call Chocolates Unlimited at (718)
359-4466.

** Instructional Materials Needed:
     We recently received the following letter from Grand Bahama
Island:
     Two years ago a small group of American and European
volunteers started a project under the name of Integration of
Visually Impaired Persons in Society. The ultimate goal of our
work is to give as many people as possible the opportunity of
employment.
     When we began, only about ten individuals had been
identified who were said to be visually impaired. No records
about blind and other handicapped persons existed, so we had to
search for them. Today we have found more than forty blind people
who desperately need help.
     Our intervention to the authorities has been successful with
regard to the installation of a teacher for the blind. This
teacher, blind herself, arrived without any teaching or learning
books or materials. Without outside help, we are not in a
position to assist the little school for the blind which we are
trying to establish and would very much be obliged if you could
help us in our efforts to support the children with sight
problems.
     I am sure that somewhere in the United States schools for
the blind have some materials which might be outdated or obsolete
but suitable for our needs. What we need most are the following
in Braille: English language series, grade K through 4; reading
series, grades K through 4; and specific skills, getting the
facts, K through 4. Various large print materials are also
needed.
     In case there are some individuals or institutions wanting
to support our efforts, we would be very glad to receive any
information or materials. Send to Unit for the Blind, The Centre
for Deaf Children, c/o Mr. Cecil Thompson, P.O. Box F 42595,
Freeport, Grand Bahama, BAHAMAS.

** New Chapter:
     Julie Deming, President of the National Federation of the
Blind of Nevada, proudly reports the formation of the new Las
Vegas chapter. The new officers are Gloria Chaffe, President; Joe
Perdon, Vice President; Michelle Wright, Secretary; Carol Floyd,
Treasurer; and Evelyn Fleet, Board member.

** Braille Books Needed:
     We have been asked to carry the following request:
     I would like to buy the following books in Braille: Godel's
Proof by J. Newman and E. Nagel, and any books on quantum
mechanics in Braille. Please contact Amir Rahimi at 425 South
Oak, #208, Arlington, Texas, (817) 460-5005.

[PHOTO: Barbara Walker is walking through a convention meeting room using her
white cane. CAPTION: Barbara Walker]
** Recovering:
     We are delighted to report that Barbara Walker, Past
President of the National Federation of the Blind of Nebraska, is
recovering well from a broken right leg and left shoulder after
being struck by a car while crossing a street on her way to the
Lincoln Chapter meeting on March 16. Barbara was most of the way
across the street when she was struck. The driver told the police
that "The pedestrian came out of nowhere," at the intersection,
with no traffic light. Since Barbara was wearing brightly colored
clothing on a sunny day and was using her white cane as she
crossed the street, she has retained an attorney to represent her
in resolving the insurance question. We all wish Barbara a speedy
recovery.

** Pen Friends Wanted:
     We have been asked to carry the following request:
     My name is Arslanhan Islamov. I'm from Daghestan in Russia.
I'm totally blind from birth and want to find pen friends from
the United States. I am thirty-four years old. I finished my
education at the School for Blind Children, and then I got
rehabilitation at the Institute of Rehabilitation of the Blind. I
have a family. We are four, my wife, two daughters, and I. My
older daughter's name is Rabiat. She is six. My younger
daughter's name is Raziat. She is one-and-a-half. My wife is a
housekeeper. We live in the south of the country in Daghestan. If
somebody wishes to be my friend, I'll tell him or her more about
me.
     I will appreciate all letters. Send to 368205 Daghestan,
Bujnakskyi raion, selo Nizhnee Kazanische, Vostochnaya 1,
Arslanhan, Islamov.

** For Sale:
     We have been asked to carry the following announcement:
     Old Apple //e (2e) system with Echo speech card. Boxes of
software and documentation. Contact Del Wachter at (301) 916-
3992.

** For Sale:
     We have been asked to carry the following announcement:
     I have the following computer equipment for sale: 1) The
Xerox Kurzweil PCKPR model 35 scanning system. Includes true Book
Edge Xerox Fugi SA4 scanner, both PCKPR text reading software and
the Discover text and graphics reading software. Will run on IBM
compatibles such as models PC, XT, AT, etc. Manuals in print,
tape, and Braille. Asking $2,000. 2) Artic Business Vision speech
package, includes internal Synphonix speech card, turbo pedal,
Business Vision 3.04 program, Sonix TTS program to run other
screen readers with Synphonix synthesizer, manuals on disk and
tape. Works in PC and higher-class IBM compatibles, $300 for
separate package or can be included with the above scanner setup.
Contact Doug Rose, 207 Dickenson Ave., Newbury Park, California
91320-4327, (805) 499-8377, Internet e-mail address,
drose@rain.org

** Recovering:
     Joel Fernandes is the seventeen-year-old son of Joanne
Wilson, President of the National Federation of the Blind of
Louisiana and a member of the NFB Board of Directors. This winter
Joel contracted encephalitis and became gravely ill. He was life-
flighted from Ruston, Louisiana, to Johns Hopkins Hospital in
Baltimore for a stay of several weeks. We are pleased to report
that Joel is once again at home in Ruston, where he is receiving
outpatient rehabilitation therapy. It is not yet clear how much
permanent damage may have been done, but everyone who knows
Joanne and her family is hoping and praying for Joel's complete
recovery.
