Category: Let's talk
Maybe a pointless topic, but oh well.
I was struck with the inspiration for this topic on a mobility lesson this afternoon. We were reviewing street crossings and stuff for my trip to guide dog school this summer, I hope. I was standing at a corner, waiting for traffic to move along, when this man walked out into the middle of the street, stopped a street full of cars and said,
"You can go across now."
I just sort of stood there, not really knowing what to say. lol. Weird.
One morning while waiting for a bus. My guide dog and I were doing traffic checks, cause it was cold and nothing else to do while waiting. When a state cop pulls up and asks me if I need to cross the street, cause he would stop all traffic for me to cross. I just said no thanks, and stopped doing traffic checks for that morning.
I love these topics.
I have two stories I will tell about my college days.
I went to college in Lubbock Texas, where the winters get fierce and frosty.
One day while traveling to class, I was wearing this ski cap, and my nose was frozen. So, I thought, what the heck, and pulled the warm cap down over my face, covering my eyes, ears, nose and mouth.
I had only taken a few steps, when I was surrounded by Lubbock's finest police officers, who had me spread eagle on a wall, while they checked me for deadly weapons.
When they found out that I was blind and just trying to keep warm, they were embarrassed. So, I talked them into giving me a ride to class. I Figured that was the least they could do.
My second story has to do with a class I was taking in extemporaneous speaking. This was a high pressure course where most of the people flunked out.
We had a segment in "maintaining eye contact" which I figured I couldn't win, but I gave it a try.
After I gave my speech, the class was supposed to critique my speech. One of the class said, "of course you know you have a problem with us."
I thought, here it comes, I didn't maintain eye contact. I went into a rambling explanation about maybe exact eye contact wasn't maintained but... on and on... more excuses. Finally, when I had run down, he said, "No, you have a problem with uhs. You say uh uh all the time."
I could have gone through the floor.
Bob
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Bob
This is gonna be a fun topic for us all. I was on a grayhound bus about six or sebven years ago. I have some light perception, but the light bothers my one eye, so I tend to keep my eyes nearly closed. This little boy got on the bus. He sounded like he was about four, but by his question and comment, he sounded like an eighty-yearold. "Well Heloo, sir, and how are you?" He asked. "I'm doing well, and you?" I replied. "I am very well thank you. Tell me something. Why are you asleep?" Before I could answer his mother said "Andrew, come along now." They were off to the back of the bus. Two hours later, he got off the bus. As he passed he said, "Hmmmm. Still sleeping are we?" His motehr said Hurry up! Hurry up! Hurry up!"
Lou
Well, nothing really interesting happened to me during mobility. I did have a lot of situations where a girl or two asked if they could help. lol
When I first became legally blind, I was too embarrassed to use my cane. I would take very slow steps to get to where ever I was going. One day, I was boarding a public bus and I accidentally stepped on a guys foot. He got up and shoved me. When I explained my eye condition and pulled out my cane as proof, I allayed the rage of the man and prevented a storm of blows. Before he was through with me, though, he shamed me into using my cane from that moment on. He said, "Why don't you use your stupid cane idiot? You can get killed by people like me or by a car! Stop thinking you're too cool!" I couldn't be angry at the brutally honest remarks, but that's what I get for trying to be cool.
Well, several things happend to me when I was teaching mobility. This falls under embarrassing, but I choose to think of it as funny. I was explaining to a lady how to use escallators. I was in the middle of this long elaborate, and honestly, well-rehearsed explanation. This elderly gentleman tapped me on the shoulder and said: "Excuse me sir, the lady you're talking to is at the top of the escallator waiting for you, and you are holding up about 20 people."
Lou
Just a couple of brief stories.
Once an old lady helped me across a busy street, but when we reached the other side, she bent down and tugged at my trouser legs trying to lift my foot onto the kerb so I wouldn't trip on it. lol
My favourite of all though is the day I was weighting to cross a busy street, and on hearing someone walk up on my right, asked if they'd mind assisting me across the road. They said, sure no problem. I asked if I could take their arm, and his response was. I'm sorry, I don't have a left one.
I spent the next 5 minutes walking along trying not to laugh in case he was still walking near me.
I could go on and on, but there is only one story that comes to mind right now. I ran out of the office, late for a meeting of some sort, and hurried to the elevator and pushed the button. A few seconds later, I realized someone else had been standing there waiting for the elusive elevator. Only reason I knew is that she turned around and bolted past me for the stairs, not, presumably, wanting to brave the small elevator with the scary blind guy who just came out of nowhere.
I was crossing this quiet road near where I live and this old man came up to me and asked if I needed some help. I said no thank you but he took me under my right shoulder and crossed me over anyway. Despite my contuous objections to this that he didn't seem to hear.
When I was in college, I had a few friends in wheelchairs. We were going to the music building, and it was my job to push the chair. We got it down to a science, and could move at a pretty good clip. Anyway, we got to the crosswalk to into the driveway, and up to the building. Some idiot saw us, and blocked the crosswalk. We both screamed to get his/her attention. No response. This guy from one of the fraternities just picked the girl up, wheelchair and all, and lifted her up the curb, just as agrivated as we were. I asked her to get the license number of the car, as she wa sighted. We went into the building to rehearse, and also, to call campus security. The first phone we saw was high up on the wall. I called the cops, and she repeated the license number. It was a fun example of teamwork.
Lou
That's funny Lou.
I use to date a girl in a wheelchair. It was not unusual for people to see us careening down the halls with me pushing her wheelchair and her yelling "a little bit right" "now a little left"....
Fortunately, we avoided any major disasters, and both found it funny as hell.
Bob
Bob, I meant to respond to your earlier post about the police. I'm assuming you had a slate and stylus. Did they think the stylus was a weapon?
<lol> they didn't search me, thank god or I may have done time for posession of marijuana. (Different times etc.).
Bob
I remember one daygoing out for a walk with my guide dog and I got lost. One man that was helping me go in the right direction said, I am a stranger myself mrs. I thought that was quite funny. I have never had anyone say that to me before.
Hey ther. I can relate to the whell chair. but when I had to puss my frined. I had to pill her along. she had only one arm that she can use. and she wasin you machine moverably chair. so I had to use my can. so yes it was funny a blind person pull some one in a chair in are hallways. the funny part about it was that the pp with visin was more scare then I was. does that make shent.
O, me and a girl I knew in Primary school had a rather amusing but stupid Blind moment. She still lives in quite a big house with a big garden, stable yard and fields. Anyway, she decided we could take this battered old twin doll's pram for a walk, no dolls in it or anything, just us, pushing it down the garden. Now, you'd think she knew where the garden ended and the stable yard began, but she just kept walking straight ahead, down what she thought was still the crazy paving in the back garden, then started to panic because apparently the girls, mum had told her and her sisters not to go down to the yard on their own, but she didn't turn the pram round did she? No! She just went straight on to the field and tried to get one of the horses to come over to the fence. I was confident one of the stable girls would notice us wandering about the yard and set us back on the right track, which luckily, one of them did. I mean, how was I supposed to know we shouldn't've been down the yard? I'd only been down there once before, though that time this girl's mum was with us and that was about the second time I'd been horseriding. Me and Kay (Blairwitch) though, looked back on it recently and roared our flipping heads off with laughter as it was possibly the daftest blind moment I'd ever had, being caught out of bounds in that stable yard with this empty dolls, pram.
Once when I was visiting a friend we got lost together. The friend is blind to. But she new the way or she thought she did. We ended up in the car park. Luckily a member of her family new something was wrong because the girl normaly phones when she gets home and she didn't. I think we were to busy talking and lost consentration.