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                       THE BRAILLE MONITOR

                            May, 1997

                     Barbara Pierce, Editor


      Published in inkprint, in Braille, and on cassette by

              THE NATIONAL FEDERATION OF THE BLIND

                     MARC MAURER, PRESIDENT


                         National Office
                       1800 Johnson Street
                   Baltimore, Maryland  21230
                   NFB Net BBS: [phone]
              Web Page address: http://www.nfb.org



           Letters to the President, address changes,
        subscription requests, orders for NFB literature,
       articles for the Monitor, and letters to the Editor
             should be sent to the National Office.




Monitor subscriptions cost the Federation about twenty-five dollars
per year. Members are invited, and non-members are requested, to
cover the subscription cost. Donations should be made payable to
National Federation of the Blind and sent to:


                National Federation of the Blind
                       1800 Johnson Street
                    Baltimore, Maryland 21230


                               =20


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





ISSN 0006-8829

THE BRAILLE MONITOR
PUBLICATION OF THE NATIONAL FEDERATION OF THE BLIND

                            CONTENTS
                                                        May, 1997

U.S. Senators Scramble for Cover
     by Barbara Pierce

One Woman's War
     by Mary Van de Kamp Nohl

Reaching for the Stars
     by Julie Hunter

Cancun Reflections
     by Michael E. Baillif

Valuing the Blind Child's Independent
Movements and Travel
     by Joe Cutter

The Blindfold as a Useful Instructional Tool for Seniors
     by Chris Cuppett

Pride Costs: Hiring Readers Pays
     by Patrick A. Barrett

Climbing the Acropolis
     by Susan Povinelli

My Swim Around Key West
     by Sharon Luka

Job History of a Working Mom
     by Beth Finke

Of Vision and Voting
     by Jolene Boshart

Speaking About New Orleans
     by Jerry Whittle

A Note from the Canine Concerns Committee
     by Ed and Toni Eames

Recipes

Monitor Miniatures

       Copyright (c) 1997 National Federation of the Blind

[LEAD PHOTO: A nine-year-old girl wearing a plaid outfit and black
patent leather shoes stands in the East Mall at the National Center
for the Blind. She is stapling sheets together.=20
CAPTION: April 24 this year was "Take Your Daughter to Work Day."
President and Mrs. Maurer's daughter Dianna Marie is in the fourth
grade, and she thought that a day at work with her parents would be
more interesting than a day in school. Among her other duties, Mrs.
Maurer directs the activities of volunteers at the National Center
for the Blind, so she was delighted to have another volunteer to
help. Dianna is addressing tapes containing the most recent issue
of the Job Opportunities for the Blind bulletin. After a day of
hard work Dianna was overheard to say that the work was interesting
but that in school she didn't have to dress up.]

                U.S. Senators Scramble for Cover
                        by Barbara Pierce

     According to one Senate staffer, "Pick any three letters of
the alphabet, and a camera crew answering to that name was on
Capitol Hill filming Moira Shea and her guide dog Beau," on April
15, 1997. The media free-for-all occurred following a frantic
twenty-four hours which saw a number of senators scrambling to be
seen on the right side of the question of whether or not a person
not actually employed as a member of a senator's staff could be
accompanied by her guide dog onto the Senate floor. At a time
when guide and other service dogs are routinely allowed into
hospitals, restaurants, and taxis driven by people afraid of
dogs, one might have assumed that there would have been no
question about admitting a guide dog to the Senate floor. But
nothing is ever simple in the protocol-laden upper chamber of
Congress.
     Moira Shea is an employee of the Department of Energy, where
she has worked for several years. For the second year she is a
Congressional Fellow on loan to the Senate, where she was
assigned to the staff of Senator Wendell Ford of Kentucky last
year and to the staff of freshman Senator Ron Wyden of Oregon
this year to help with his work on the Senate Energy Committee.
She has Usher's syndrome, which has resulted in both a
significant hearing loss and blindness. Her guide dog is an
important part of Ms. Shea's ability to function independently in
a demanding job.
     The only people allowed on the Senate floor without seeking
permission to enter the chamber from a member of the sergeant at
arms's staff are the members themselves and, by courtesy, the
members of their actual staffs. Everyone else must receive
unanimous permission to do so. The senator asks if there are
objections, and, as long as no member says anything, the person
may come in. The procedure is almost always quick and
uncomplicated. Late last year a question about the dog's presence
on the floor arose, and Senator Ford introduced a resolution
about the problem. But the session ended before it could be acted
upon. So it was pretty clear that this session Beau was
eventually going to trigger an incident. April 14, 1997, proved
to be the day it happened.
     The Senate Committee on Rules and Administration establishes
all of the regulations that stipulate behavior and actions on the
Senate floor. No one, including senators, may smoke or bring a
laptop computer onto the floor, for example. We were told that
women have been banned from the floor because their dresses were
too short and men because their attire was too informal. If a
doorkeeper believes Senate decorum or a rule is about to be
breached, the question goes to the floor for a decision.
     When Senator Wyden showed up accompanied by Shea and her dog
on April 14, the appropriateness of Beau's presence was
questioned, and the fat was in the fire. According to news
stories the next day, none of the four senators then on the floor
objected to the dog's presence, but Robert Byrd of West Virginia,
a member of the Senate Committee on Rules and Administration and
a man perennially concerned about the unconsidered ramifications
of waiving Senate rules without due reflection, sent in word that
he objected to Shea's use of the dog on the floor until the
Committee on Rules and Administration had considered the matter.
Senator Wyden, disturbed at the decision to bar Beau from the
floor, rose to comment on the situation and offer a resolution.
This is what he said:

     Congressional Record: April 14, 1997 (Senate), [Page
S3126-S3127]
From=20the Congressional Record Online via GPO Access.

     Mr. WYDEN: Mr. President, the resolution that I submit today
would change the Senate rules that deny floor access to those
individuals who are visually impaired and need to use guide dogs
to carry out their official duties. By denying floor access to
Ms. Shea and her guide dog, the Senate, in my view, is violating
the Congressional Accountability Act, which requires that
Congress abide by the requirements and intent of the Americans
with Disabilities Act. A guide dog is a person's vision. A guide
dog is a working dog, not a pet. This guide dog is with Ms. Shea
all the time. He is with her in meetings in my office. He goes
with her to energy committee hearings and has even gone with her
to nuclear weapons facilities.
     Mr. President and colleagues, I had hoped that there would
be no need to offer this resolution, but I am forced to because
discrimination still persists here. Ms. Shea is being treated
differently simply because she is visually impaired and needs to
use a guide dog.
     Now some may believe that the Senate fulfills its
obligations under the Americans with Disabilities Act. . .=20

     Mr. REID: Will my friend yield for a unanimous-consent
request?

     Mr. WYDEN: Yes.

     Mr. REID: I ask unanimous consent that I be added as a
cosponsor of the Senator's resolution.

     Mr. WELLSTONE: Mr. President, I also ask unanimous consent
that I be made a cosponsor.

     Mr. MURKOWSKI: I ask unanimous consent that I also be added
as a cosponsor to the resolution.

     The PRESIDING OFFICER: Without objection, the Senators will
be added as cosponsors.

     Mr. WYDEN: I thank my colleagues.

     Mr. President, some believe that the Senate is fulfilling
its obligations under the Americans with Disabilities Act if they
provide someone to accompany Ms. Shea to the Senate floor. But
let me say that an unknown staff person is no substitute for a
working guide dog.
     The relevant language from the Americans with Disabilities
Act says that an employer must provide reasonable accommodation
for an individual with a disability. The Equal Employment
Opportunity Office has said, "Reasonable accommodation [is] when
an employer permits a person who is blind to use a guide dog at
work."
     Let us put ourselves in Ms. Shea's situation. Imagine that
you need to go on the Senate floor to carry out your official
duties, but, wait, you must first check your ability to see with
the doorkeeper, or go to the Committee on Rules and
Administration to get a resolution. I fail to see the logic of
this, and I fail to see the justice behind it. Miss Shea's
situation doesn't require extra financial resources nor special
treatment. She just wants to do her job as a professional.
     A large part of the problem seems to be a lack of
understanding. So let me tell the Senate a little bit about what
guide dogs do. They are working dogs, not pets. A guide dog is
that person's vision, an integral part of that person's essential
activities and professional responsibilities. A blind person or a
visually impaired person, such as Ms. Shea, has learned to turn
over her diminishing sight to her dog and trusts that dog with
her safety. This guide dog has blocked Ms. Shea from oncoming
traffic. He knows his left from his right. He is a marker to
others that Ms. Shea is visually impaired. She has gone to the
Senate Energy Committee hearings and nuclear weapons facilities.
This dog has even met more just access with respect to the Soviet
Union.
     Yet here in the United States, on the Senate floor, where we
passed the ADA and the Congressional Accountability Act, we are
refusing access to someone who needs to use a guide dog. This
guide dog has a serious job, and, I might add, the dog performs
it very well. This is the tool that Ms. Shea uses to be a
productive member of the work force, and today we are denying her
the ability to do her job to the best of her ability. Ms. Shea is
part of a growing work force of persons who want to be
independent, who want to be productive, and who have been raised
with a can-do attitude.
     Let me conclude by describing how the guide dog would work
on the floor. Ms. Shea would most likely tell him to "follow me,"
and as they walked down the aisle, the dog would alert Ms.Shea to
each step by stopping. Then Ms. Shea would say to him "find the
chair," and then Ms. Shea would sit down and the dog would lay
right beside her. We would all forget that the dog was even here.
In leaving, Ms. Shea would tell the dog to "find the door" once
again, and the dog would alert her to where all the steps are and
take her right to the door.
     Mr. President, that is all there is to it. It seems to me
that the Senate should change its rules to ensure that there is
justice for people like Ms. Shea. To tell someone like Ms. Shea
that she cannot come to the Senate floor with either a white cane
or a guide dog and only with an escort is demeaning. You take
away her right to decide what is the best method for her to carry
out her job as a professional. You take away her sense of
independence. You take away her dignity. You make her dependent
on others. That is not what the Americans with Disabilities Act
is all about.
     Ms. Shea has Usher's syndrome. That is the leading cause of
deaf-blindness in the United States. She has struggled and worked
hard to get where she is today as a professional. She is
independent and self-sufficient, and she told me that she can
cope with losing her eyesight, but she should not be forced to
face blatant discrimination.=20
     It is time for the Senate to change its rules. I look
forward to working with my colleagues on the Rules Committee to
do this. It is time to ensure that the visually impaired in our
country have justice, and have justice in the way that Congress
envisioned with the Americans with Disabilities Act and the
Congress Accountability Act. I thank my friends from Minnesota,
Nevada, and Alaska for joining me as cosponsors this morning on
this resolution.

                      Senate Resolution 71
        Relative to the Congressional Accountability Act

Mr. WYDEN (for himself, Mr. Reid, Mr. Wellstone, Mr. Murkowski,
and Mr. Bryan) submitted the following resolution; which was
referred to the Committee on Rules and Administration:

     Resolved That:
(A)  An individual with a disability (as defined in section 3 of
     the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990 [42 U.S.C.
     12102]) who has or is granted the privilege of the Senate
     floor may bring those supporting services (including service
     dogs, wheelchairs, and interpreters) on the Senate floor the
     employing or supervising office determines are necessary to
     assist the disabled individual in discharging the official
     duties of his or her position.

(b)  The employing or supervising office of a disabled individual
     shall administer the provisions of this resolution.

     Those were Mr. Wyden's remarks and the resolution he
introduced for consideration by the Senate Committee on Rules and
Administration. Tuesday morning, April 15, the Senate unanimously
passed a motion stating that, until the Committee on Rules and
Administration decides on a general policy with respect to
assistive tools for people with disabilities on the Senate floor,
the sergeant at arms, who is the officer charged with enforcing
the rules of the Senate, is to make individual decisions in each
case in which a person seeking entry uses a mobility aid. The
sergeant at arms was asked to rule on Ms. Shea's request to enter
the Senate chamber that morning, and to no one's surprise with
the media lined up waiting for the answer, he announced that she
could use her dog while she was on the Senate floor. At 1:15 p.m.
Tuesday, April 15, Moira Shea and Beau were given unanimous
permission to enter the Senate, and the event was replayed by all
the television networks that evening.
     It was certainly gratifying to find virtually everyone in
America lined up in support of a blind woman's right to use her
mobility method of choice. It was valuable positive publicity to
have the woman in question be a Congressional Fellow assigned to
the Senate of the United States. It is even an indication of
progress that a woman who has steadfastly refused to affiliate
herself with the organized blind movement is still prepared to
stand up for her rights and conduct herself with dignity and
restraint under pressure. It was particularly refreshing to have
the media turn immediately to the National Federation of the
Blind rather than an agency spokesperson for comment and
perspective in a case of discrimination against a blind person.
     It is regrettable, however, that so many reporters covering
this story and average citizens talking about it came away with
the impression that Moira Shea, and by extension, all blind
people, are dependent on dogs or human guides. A member of
Senator Wyden's staff assured the Braille Monitor with tears in
his voice that he doesn't think of Beau as a dog; "He is a
person, a member of this staff!" Senator Wyden himself referred
in his speech to a guide dog as the blind person's "vision." The
subtext of most of the commentary that came out of this event
seemed to be that Senator Byrd was picking on a poor blind woman
just because she needs a dog to take her where she's going.
     In fact, Senator Byrd was distressed and dismayed to find
himself portrayed as the heavy in this event, according to a
member of his staff. On April 15 Senate Resolution 72 was
introduced and has also now gone to the Senate Committee on Rules
and Administration for its consideration. Senator Byrd has
requested that consideration be expedited. Here is the text:

                      Senate Resolution 72

     To allow disabled persons or Senate employees seeking access
to the Senate floor the ability to bring what supporting services
are necessary for them to execute their official duties.

               In the Senate of the United States
                         April 15, 1997

     Mr. Kerry (for himself, Mr. Wyden, Mr. Reid, Mr. Wellstone,
Mr. Murkowski, and Mr. Bryan) submitted the following resolution;
which was referred to the Committee on Rules and Administration.

                           Resolution

     To allow disabled persons or Senate employees seeking access
to the Senate floor the ability to bring what supporting services
are necessary for them to execute their official duties.
     Resolved, that an individual with a disability who has or is
granted the privilege of the Senate floor may bring such
supporting services on the Senate floor, which the Senate
Sergeant at Arms determines are necessary and appropriate to
assist such disabled individuals in discharging the official
duties of his or her position until the Committee on Rules and
Administration has the opportunity to fully consider a permanent
rules change.

     Until the Committee on Rules and Administration determines
appropriate rules to govern the use of assistive tools allowed on
the floor of the Senate, the sergeant at arms will be making the
decisions. From off-the-record conversations with staff members
in that office, it seems pretty clear that, had Ms. Shea been
using a white cane or wheelchair, no problem would have arisen.
Once again it seems to have been the guide dog, which appears to
some people to resemble a pet, that caused the confusion and the
questions.
     Some people expressed anger and frustration because this
incident seemed to be a clear infraction of the Americans with
Disabilities Act and the Congressional Accountability Act, which
makes the Congress subject to the ADA. But as Dr. Jernigan said
to NBC News when they called before dawn Tuesday morning, April
15, "We have to get beyond the question of whether or not an
incident like this one is illegal. Everyone must come to
understand that denying a blind person the use of a guide dog is
simply wrong. Incidents like this one will continue to occur
until people recognize and respect the right of disabled people
to equal access."
     Now that the excitement has subsided, it is reasonable to
ask what has been accomplished. Moira Shea got a great deal of
media attention, and a lot of Americans now know that a blind
woman who uses a guide dog works for a United States Senator. An
unfortunate inequity in the rules of the Senate has been exposed,
and one can hope that the Committee on Rules and Administration
will address this and similar questions of reasonable
accommodation for those working around the Senate. The media
demonstrated again that injustice, even inadvertent injustice,
makes a dandy story for a day, and the National Federation of the
Blind emerged as the voice of the nation's blind community
providing comment and background in matters of civil rights for
blind citizens. Senator Robert Byrd has again learned the hard
lesson that he who fights to preserve proper procedure frequently
incurs wrath from all sides. Senator Byrd's press office assures
everyone who asks that he was not discriminating against Moira
Shea. His actions and intentions were misunderstood. When Ed
Mcdonald wrote a letter taking him to task for preventing a blind
woman from using her chosen method of mobility on the Senate
floor, Mr. Byrd wrote a letter to the West Virginia affiliate,
which was conducting its annual convention. This is what he said:

                                                 Washington, D.C.
                                                   April 17, 1997

National Federation of the Blind
     of West Virginia
Mr. Edgar McDonald
Keyser, West Virginia

Dear Friends:
     On April 15, the Senate agreed to accommodate, on a case by
case basis, the special needs of the disabled Americans who may
be required, as part of their Senate duties, to be present in the
Senate Chamber during Senate debate. Such an arrangement allows
access to the Senate Chamber to disabled Senate employees and
Congressional Fellows, while also following the usual procedure
for altering Senate rules and regulations. In my view it is
important to carefully examine all changes regarding Senate floor
access, and such changes are properly the responsibility of the
Senate Committee on Rules and Administration, on which I serve.
It is important that the Senate comply with the letter and the
spirit of the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) and make
reasonable accommodations to allow disabled Senate employees and
fellows to do their jobs. The action taken by the Senate, with my
support, on April 15 achieves this essential goal.
     I regret that my concern that the Senate follow appropriate
procedures with regard to changing its rules has been
misconstrued. I would be truly saddened should this incident
cause West Virginians and Americans with disabilities to believe
that the Senate as a body, and this Senator in particular, are
insensitive to, or ignorant of, issues of concern to the disabled
and the requirements of the ADA law. Please be assured that this
is not the case. I have long been, and continue to be, a
supporter of programs to assist the disabled and the blind. I
voted in support of the Americans with Disabilities Act in 1990.
The Senate has put forth important legislation for people with
disabilities and has been home to a number of outstanding
Senators with disabilities. These include former Senators Robert
Dole and John Stennis and current Senators Daniel Inouye, Max
Cleland, and Robert Kerry, to name a few. Disabilities do not,
and should not, prevent any American from serving the nation in
the U.S. Senate. It is my hope that you have a successful
convention. With kind regards, I am

                                                 Sincerely yours,
                                                   Robert C. Byrd

     It is probably unrealistic to hope that a United States
Senator would apologize to his blind constituents for his actions
when all he had done was insist that the Senate's own rules be
followed, but one can hope that he has learned to pay more
attention to the discrimination of all kinds facing blind
Americans. Despite the media feeding frenzy on April 15 and the
probable modifications in the Senate rules, it is hard to see
that this episode accomplished much. Unfortunately,
discrimination still flourishes in our society and the public
still views blind people as victims who always seem to need to be
rescued. The fight for first-class citizenship with all its
attendant rights and responsibilities has been advanced a little,
but there is still plenty of opportunity for all of us to join
the battle.

[PHOTO: A woman in a black suit is seated in a captain's chair. The
scene is lit by an antique lamp, and a draped window is behind her.
She holds her long white cane.
CAPTION: Bonnie Peterson with her long white cane in the living
room of her home on Milwaukee's Southwest side (Copyright 1997,
Chris Corsmeier, Milwaukee, Wisconsin).
PHOTO: A little girl wearing a western hat and vest sits on a pony
holding the reins.
CAPTION: Young Bonnie Szortyka poses on a visiting pony.
PHOTO/CAPTION: Bonnie Szortyka on confirmation day
PHOTO/CAPTION: Portrait of Bonnie Szortyka at the Miss West Allis
Pageant.
PHOTO/CAPTION: Bonnie with her mother as they register for the
pageant.
PHOTO: A bride and groom in wedding attire sit holding hands at a
table.
CAPTION: Bonnie and Joel Peterson on their wedding day in 1973.]

                         One Woman's War
                    by Mary Van de Kamp Nohl

     From the Editor: Last fall Bonnie Peterson, President of the
National Federation of the Blind of Wisconsin, mentioned to me
that Milwaukee Magazine was working on a story about her and her
work with the Federation. It was clear from Bonnie's comments
that the interviews were painfully personal but that the reporter
was very bright, perceptive, and thorough. Bonnie thought that
the results would be uncomfortable for her personally but helpful
in educating the public about the true problems blind people face
and the poor quality of the services available to them in
Wisconsin.
     At the Washington Seminar Bonnie gave me a copy of the
article and mentioned that it was raising quite a rumpus in the
state. One member of the State Assembly had sent the story to
every one of her legislative colleagues. Members of the ACB
affiliate had circulated it in Braille and on cassette to blind
people they knew in the hope apparently that they would complain
to the magazine at the unfairness of devoting so much space to
the life story of a Federationist.
     The magazine staff told Bonnie that they had received many
letters in response to the piece, only a handful of which were
negative in tone, and these were nearly impossible to make sense
of. Perhaps the most startling tribute paid to Bonnie Peterson
was the action taken by Member of Congress Gerald Kleczka, who
had a large part of the article placed in the Congressional
Record at a reported cost of $12,000 paid by his office. Bonnie
was dumbfounded; the magazine staff were thrilled; and I was
impressed. The story is lengthy, but I decided I had better sit
down and read it. I found it profoundly moving. It is at once the
unique account of one woman's life and recognizably the story of
each of us who have come to recognize that working with the
National Federation of the Blind is the one certain way to make a
difference in our own lives and those of the blind people around
us.
     Mary van de Kamp Nohl has done a remarkable job of writing
this story. It first appeared in the February, 1997, issue of
Milwaukee Magazine. It is reprinted here with the permission of
the magazine, Copyright, Milwaukee Magazine, 1997. We are
reprinting the version that Representative Kleczka submitted to
the Congressional Record because it is significantly shorter than
the original story. Here are Mr. Kleczka's remarks followed by
the story about Bonnie Peterson:

        Congressional Record, Thursday, February 13, 1997
                  Extensions of Remarks Section
                    [CR page E-261, 21 lines]

              SALUTE TO AN OUTSTANDING MILWAUKEEAN
                   HON. GERALD D. KLECZKA (D)
                          OF WISCONSIN

                 IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
                   Thursday, February 13, 1997

     Mr. KLECZKA: Mr. Speaker, I want to take this opportunity to
salute one of Milwaukee's outstanding citizens, Bonnie Szortyka
Peterson.
     Ms. Peterson is featured in February's Milwaukee Magazine in
a story called "One Woman's War." It's an appropriate title for a
remarkable woman. The article calls Ms. Peterson "the State's
staunchest advocate for the blind" and "the toughest critic of
the system built to help them." I'm sure those who read the
article will agree.
     I ask that the article be included in the Record.

Text Inserted by KLECZKA (D-WI): One Woman's War
                   [CR page E-262, 692 lines]

     The state's staunchest advocate for the blind is the
toughest critic of the system built to help them. How Bonnie
Peterson became a rebel, "the blind bitch," and the last hope for
those who are about to give up hope.

     Long after the other teens at the sleepover party had
stopped talking about the job fair at New Berlin High School and
dozed off, fifteen-year-old Bonnie Szortyka lay awake. It was
1968, and Bonnie had dreamt of becoming an airline stewardess,
but now the dream was dead. A stewardess had to have perfect
vision.
     She thought of becoming a teacher, but no, a teacher had to
see a student with his hand raised, and Bonnie could see a hand
only if it was held a foot from her face. A teacher had to keep
up with all of the paperwork, and Bonnie could not.
     As hard as she had worked to hide her blindness, the truth
was catching up with her. Her Herculean effort to eke out passing
grades by putting in three times the hours her classmates did,
writing with her nose scraping across a page until the headaches
became intolerable, the endless hours spent with her mother
reading schoolwork to her--all of it was for naught.
     Visions of careers, husbands, and children filled the heads
of the slumbering teens around her, but as dawn approached,
Bonnie could not imagine any job that would allow her to leave
home and have a life of her own. Just taking up space and air and
food without giving anything back, she thought, was no life at
all.
     The next night, knowing that it was a sin that would send
her straight to hell and disgrace her family but unable to
pretend anymore, Bonnie Szortyka choked down the contents of a
giant economy bottle of aspirin. She went to bed and waited to
die.
     Her body began to shake uncontrollably, but it was the
sudden deathly silence, the nothingness of death that terrified
her, and she dragged herself to the living room where her parents
were watching TV. Bonnie didn't die, but the girl released from
West Allis Memorial Hospital the next day to her sobbing father
had changed. She didn't want to die anymore; she wanted to fight.

     Born of despair and nurtured by anger, the seed planted that
night would grow into a lifetime crusade. Today, at age forty-
four, Bonnie Szortyka Peterson, an adjunct public speaking
professor at the University of Wisconsin-Parkside and president
of the National Federation of the Blind of Wisconsin (NFB),
battles negative attitudes toward blindness and the low
expectations and wasted lives that grow out of them.
     Yet those negative attitudes--held by both the sighted and
the blind--are the bedrock of the system Wisconsin has built to
help this state's 50,000 legally blind individuals, Peterson
says, "a system that makes the disabled more dependent instead of
independent."
     Says Peterson: "What happens to blind people in Wisconsin
today is just like what happened to the black slaves. We're being
kept in our place. . . . kept from reading, writing, and
connecting, from moving up."
     Peterson's personal war has taken her to testify before the
state Legislature and U.S. Congress. It has made her an enemy of
the state teachers' union and a critic of Wisconsin's school for
the blind. She has targeted the state's vocational training
programs and battled sheltered workshops for the disabled. Her
candor has made her both villain and hero. Civil servants call
her "the blind bitch"; members of the blind community call her
their "last hope."
     It's said that blindness and death are the things people
fear most, but Peterson says blindness need not be any more
limiting than shortness or obesity. "It just requires alternative
ways of doing things: Braille instead of print, a cane instead of
using your eyes to get around." With her long white cane she
navigates the maze of state offices with such finesse that less
skilled visually impaired civil servants suggest she is faking
her blindness. "It is so hard for them to imagine a successful
blind person, they have to think that," she says.
     A person is legally blind when his vision is 20/200; that
is, he has one-tenth the visual acuity of a normal sighted
person. Medical records show Peterson's vision, at 20/300, is
worse than that. There are 6.4 million visually impaired
individuals in the United States: 27 percent are legally blind
like Peterson. Only 6 percent have no vision at all. For most,
blindness is not a black-and-white issue, but a shade of gray.
     Like the country's revolutionary founders, Peterson believes
that an overbearing government eats out the substance of a man.
Last fall, when state agencies staged a seminar for
rehabilitation workers and their clients, one session was called
"Sexuality and Disabilities." Says Peterson: "Most people have
sex with their eyes closed anyway, but these people think we're
so helpless we can't even make love without them helping us. It
makes me want to cry."
     But Peterson doesn't want compassion. When an area charity
offered to raise money for the Federation by showing helpless
blind children in order to "tug at the heart-strings and loosen
donors' purse strings," she turned it down. "We don't need more
pictures of pathetic blind people."
     Peterson vowed to fight her war without them. But she is
fighting a battle against entrenched special interests. She is
battling bureaucratic arrogance and incompetence at a time when
the public has become so numb to government scandal it may barely
notice. But none of this will make Bonnie Peterson stop fighting.

                        Birth of a Rebel

     Bonnie Szortyka was only a few months old when her parents,
Chet and Adelaine, realized that their baby's eyes did not follow
them when they moved. When Bonnie was three years old, a doctor
at Mayo Clinic gave them no hope. "You have to consider her
totally blind and send her away to a school for the blind.
Period. That's it," her mother recalls the doctor saying. The
Szortykas could not bear to send the eldest of their three
children away. They raised her the only way they knew, like a
normal child who just happened to have very bad vision.
     It was the 1950's,and Milwaukee Public Schools faced an
epidemic of blind children. Most, like Bonnie, had been born
prematurely. The oxygen that had helped their underdeveloped
lungs function was blamed for destroying their fragile optic
nerves. Bonnie was legally blind, but she had enough vision to
keep her from getting into the Milwaukee Public Schools' school
for blind children immediately. At age five she was on a
three-year waiting list.
     Adelaine worried about what her daughter's future would be
if she didn't get a proper education. "Is there a Braille class I
can take to teach her?" she asked MPS officials. "They said, `Not
here, maybe in Iowa.'"
     The Milwaukee Catholic Archdiocese's schools had no
special-education classes, but the nuns at St. Stanislaus School
were willing to help. By second grade Bonnie was reading with a
book pressed to her face, focusing laboriously on one word, then
the next. Bonnie drank gallons of carrot juice; she visited a
faith healer. Doctor after doctor told her parents, "I've never
seen a girl with this bad of vision [who is] this well-adjusted.
She doesn't act like a blind person," her mother recalls.
     Bonnie was the great pretender. On the Polish South Side of
Milwaukee, First Communion Day was a family event. The Szortykas'
living room was crowded with relatives when an aunt insisted that
Bonnie read her Communion cards aloud. But when Bonnie held the
card to her eye to see it, the aunt berated her, "Don't make fun
of people like that!" Bonnie burst into tears. Alone in her room,
she thought, "I am one of those people. Why don't they know
that?"
     By sixth grade severe eye strain caused constant headaches.
"I didn't even know that everyone didn't have this pain until I
was thirty years old," she says. Eye strain led to nystagmus, a
continuous jerky involuntary movement of Bonnie's eye muscles,
making reading even more daunting. Bonnie slept with her nose
pressed into the pillow, hoping to flatten it and thus get closer
to her books.
     When Bonnie was twelve, a Milwaukee doctor told her parents
he could make a special pair of eye glasses. Bonnie eagerly
donned the thick lenses and began to read the eye chart. Her
mother was ecstatic. The doctor seemed delighted, but then, as
she read further, his voice changed. "What's wrong?" her mother
asked. "She's memorized the chart," the doctor said.
     "My mother was so mad at me. I was only trying to make her
happy. She was always so sad when the doctors couldn't help,"
Bonnie remembers. "I said, `Why can't you just love me like I am
now?'"
     Her father said there would be no more eye exams. Still
Bonnie was expected to do chores like everyone else. She scrubbed
the floor, and if she missed a spot, her mother would say, "`You
missed something. Rub your hand over the floor to find the spot
or wash it all over again until it's done,'" Bonnie remembers.
"You don't find excuses, you find a way to get it done right. . .
=2E My mother told me, `You can do anything you make up your mind
to do.'"
     But at school that wasn't enough. "They'd praise me for
being able to write my name--that's how low their expectations
were for me," she says. "The other kids knew I was getting praise
for things everyone did. They called me `blindy.'" The only way
to get her teachers to demand as much of her as they did from her
sighted peers, Peterson says now, was to "get them mad." By
eighth grade she was a master at that.
     Remembers her teacher, the former Sister Dorothy Roache: "We
had constant terrible, I mean really terrible, arguments. I told
Bonnie she needed to learn Braille. She wouldn't consider it. She
wanted to be like everyone else, and she insisted on keeping up
with the class, earning good grades in spite of herself."
     In high school Bonnie made friends, dated boys, won gold
medals for her singing. She was a finalist in the Miss West Allis
pageant. A girlfriend who sold makeup taught her how to apply it.
"That girl didn't have any special training in teaching the blind
=2E . . but no one ever told her blind people can't use makeup."
Bonnie soon sold Vivian Woodard cosmetics, too. "I couldn't tell
people what colors looked good on them, so I said, `You can
experiment.' It turned out no one liked being told what to do,
and I sold so much I kept winning sales awards," she says.
     But as well-adjusted as Bonnie appeared outside, the suicide
attempt left her parents with lingering fears. During the summer
of 1971 a counselor from the Wisconsin Department of Vocational
Rehabilitation (DVR) told the Szortykas that Bonnie needed to
attend a three-week residential college prep program at the
century-old Wisconsin School for the Visually Handicapped (WSVH)
in Janesville. The counselor was blind himself. "I could hear him
writing Braille as fast as my mother could talk, and for the
first time, I thought, `I might want to learn this,'" Bonnie
remembers.
     But when the Szortykas arrived at the school, "students were
groping around, making weird, undignified gestures, bumping into
things," says Bonnie. Her mother didn't want her to stay, but
Bonnie shouted over her shoulder, "These are my people now."
     Bonnie asked about Braille but was told she didn't need it.
Many of the students at the school for the blind were doubly
disabled. Coddled by their parents and teachers, they had never
been expected to observe even rudimentary rules of decorum. The
boy across the table from Bonnie ate with his hands, making loud
slurping sounds. "Can't you teach him to use silverware?" Bonnie
demanded. "He was a smart guy, but how was he going to have any
friends at college if he ate like that?"
     Bonnie noticed another dichotomy. There were two classes of
students: the "partials," who had some sight, and the "totals,"
who were completely blind. The partials had more freedom; they
were the leaders. Totals, like a woman Bonnie befriended named
Pat, spent their days in their rooms. "They only led her out to
eat, just like a dog," she says.
     "All they cared about was how much people could see, not how
much they could learn," says Bonnie, who refused to let anyone
know just how bad her vision was. She couldn't see the steps in
front of her, but she marched up the staircase with the totals
hanging onto each other behind her. She carried serving dishes to
the dinner table, where one of the totals banged her fork on her
plate, demanding Bonnie serve her some peas. "I couldn't believe
it," she says. "These were adults, and they were treating them
like babies, then sending them out in the world. No wonder they
can't make it."
     Bonnie's college prep classes turned out to be "easy pseudo
college stuff." She decided to get a suntan instead. No one
complained. "I had never even thought of skipping a class
before," she says, but expectations and standards were different
at WSVH.
     Students warned Bonnie that the principal liked to get girls
alone in his office. "They said he had sex with them," she says
now. "I thought it was a joke or a scare tactic until the house
mother and the nurse warned me, too. It didn't make sense that he
would still be there if everybody knew." But one day he cornered
her. "He was talking about how pretty I was . . . trying to rub
himself against me," says Bonnie. "I said, `If you touch me, I'll
have your job.' He moved away and said he could see me in ten
years, with a baby in my arms and two tugging at my skirt,
implying that I'd never move up. I said, `Well, at least they
won't be yours,' and I hurried out of there." (Years later the
principal was charged with sexually assaulting another
seventeen-year-old student, then acquitted.)
     Bonnie told another student about her encounter, and the two
of them took a cab to a liquor store and bought the biggest
bottle of Mogen David wine they could find. That night, on the
schoolyard grounds, they drank it all. "I had never had a drink
before . . . but I was scared I'd end up being led around like
these people, without a job, without any purpose in life. I had
more doubts about my future than I had ever had," Bonnie says. "I
knew then I would never let anyone know I was blind and have
people talk down to me like I was a moron. I'd die first."
     The police found the pair drunk and returned them to the
school. The summer program was drawing to a close, Bonnie
recalls, and "they told us to leave and never come back."

                         Blind Ambition

     In the summer of 1972, after her freshman year as a music
major at (the now-defunct) Milton College near Janesville, Bonnie
fell in love with a twenty-three-year-old Milwaukee police aide
named Joel Peterson. Bonnie didn't want to go back to college,
but if she stayed home, her father said, she had to have a job.
She had twenty-four hours. Bonnie phoned the DVR counselor. He
landed her a job assembling pens at Industries for the Blind.
Congress had established sheltered workshops like this in 1939 as
a stepping stone for the disabled. Because they offer "training,"
workshops are allowed to pay less than minimum wage and they get
priority on government contracts. But the truth is, few of the
blind ever leave sheltered workshops for better jobs. Even today
most spend their entire working lives at substandard wages.
     Industries for the Blind was a union shop, so the pay was
better than most workshops and more than minimum wage. Bonnie
married Peterson the next year. By 1979 she was determined not to
spend the rest of her life "in a job where management treated me
in the same condescending tone I heard at the school for the
blind." She told her DVR counselor she wanted to go to Alverno
College and major in professional communications. He laughed.

     "Then he told Bonnie, `You're not dealing with your visual
impairment,'" remembers Joel, now a Milwaukee police detective.
"And he said Bonnie should go to MATC and learn how to keep house
first." That prompted Joel to stand up, displaying the full girth
of his six-foot-four-inch frame, and he asked, "Do I look like a
guy who hasn't been fed well?" Bonnie baked homemade bread and
made fresh pasta, trading some of it for rides and bartering the
services of readers who would record printed matter for her.
     The counselor told Peterson the DVR would send her to the
University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee because it had services for
disabled students. "I said I was going to Alverno [even] if I had
to work or get school loans to pay for it, and I would major in
communication," she says now, "but deep inside, I wondered
whether he was right, that maybe I couldn't do it."
     For three years Peterson boarded a city bus five days a week
at 5:30 a.m. to go to her forty-hour-a-week job to earn money for
college. At night and on weekends she was a full-time student at
Alverno. She spent her lunchtimes at Industries for the Blind
studying on the floor of the women's restroom, her co-workers'
guide dogs helping themselves to the lunch beside her.
     On the day her first daughter, Candice, was born, Peterson
worked for eight and a half hours, took an exam, then went home
and wrote a paper. "I made a deal with the baby that she wouldn't
come until I finished," says Bonnie, who made it to the hospital
just in time for a nurse to deliver the baby.
     Bonnie graduated from Alverno in December, 1983. By then she
had worked at Industries in every position on the pen and pencil
line, including quality control, so when the plant superintendent
retired and his job was split into two positions, production
manager and sales manager, Peterson applied. "The president of
the company said, `We'll call you.'"
     No one did. Two white non-handicapped males got the jobs.
One was the son of the inspector who approved the workshop's
government work. In its thirty-two-year history, the
$18-million-a-year 112-employee Industries for the Blind had
never employed a handicapped individual in any supervisory,
managerial, or even clerical position, Peterson discovered.
"Maybe I'm not qualified," said Peterson, "but certainly someone
in all those years was qualified to be a janitor, a secretary, or
something besides a laborer."
     Peterson hired an attorney and filed a complaint with the
federal government, but she was becoming a pariah. Rumors
circulated that, because of what she'd done, blind people would
lose their jobs. Peterson reread the recommendations her Alverno
professors had written, testimonials to her problem-solving
abilities, communication skills, and "spirited determination,"
but she was losing faith.

     "I think Bonnie believed that, if she filed that suit,
they'd wake up and give her a chance at that job. We all thought
she'd be great at it, but they just ignored her," recalls Carol
Farina, a supervisor at Industries.
     Peterson knew she was in over her head and turned to the two
national organizations that advocate for the blind. An attorney
with the American Council for the Blind phoned, asking for
Peterson's attorney's name and sent a letter indicating modest
support. The National Federation of the Blind responded with
boxes of documentation involving similar cases and asked Bonnie
to testify before Congress on the lack of upward mobility for the
disabled in the workshops intended to help them.=20
     In January, 1985, the U.S. Department of Labor found that
Industries for the Blind had violated federal affirmative action
rules by failing to recruit and advance women and blind people.
It found no evidence that the firm had discriminated against
Peterson personally.
     Within a year Peterson left Industries. She earned a
master's degree in organizational communication from Marquette
University, formed a production company, and created the first
cable access television show produced by an entirely blind crew.
But the newest challenge would come from her own daughter.

                        The "Blind Bitch"

     Candice wanted her mother to read Dumbo, but when Bonnie
held the book to her eye then showed the picture to Candice, the
three-year-old pulled the book away, saying, "No, Daddy read."
     "I still remember what I heard in her words. It was, `You
are stupid. . . .' It hurt so bad. I didn't care what all those
professionals who were trying to help me kept telling me,"
Peterson says. "I knew I had to learn Braille."
     It took only two months with the help of the National
Federation of the Blind, which had already taught her to travel
with a cane. "It was a turning point," she says. "I learned to be
proud of being blind once I had something to be proud of."
Peterson's confidence was growing, and in 1986 she was elected
president of the Wisconsin NFB. Appointments to the state
advisory Council on Blindness and other boards followed, and
Peterson became an advocate for others.
     For six years a teacher of the visually impaired had worked
with a nine-year-old Burlington girl whose vision was 20/400 and
deteriorating, but the girl was falling further and further
behind. Peterson and the child's mother sat on one side of the
table, the special-education experts on the other. When the woman
said she wanted her daughter to learn Braille, the vision teacher
shook her fist in the mother's face. "`It's almost like you want
your child to be blind!'" the mother remembers the teacher
saying. "`Don't you know? Blindness is like a cancer! It's the
worst thing that can happen to you.'"
     The teacher's remark took Peterson's breath away. "No. No,"
she said, "the worst thing that can happen to a child is for them
to be uneducated." Bonnie remembered the incident years later
when Sandy Guerra phoned with a similar case. A Racine School
District teacher of the visually impaired had worked with
Guerra's twelve-year-old daughter, Melissa McCabe, since she was
three. Yet the teacher had never taught the girl Braille.
     "She kept trying to make Melissa see. If she stares a long
time, five minutes on a word, Melissa can see almost anything,
but for only a few seconds, and it hurts her eyes so bad, she
gets terrible migraines," Guerra says. Melissa was already two
and a half years behind her fifth-grade classmates. The vision
teacher had read standardized exams to Melissa, helping her get
the right answers, so her test scores never revealed just how far
behind she was--until Melissa's regular fifth-grade teacher ended
the charade. "In good conscience I could not pass Melissa on to
sixth grade," says the teacher, Rose Mikaelian.
     Up until then no one had ever expected much of Melissa. She
was given half the class's spelling words, though when Mikaelian
recruited a volunteer tutor, the girl could do them all. By
middle school the tutor was gone, and Melissa was getting F's
again. Her new vision teacher suggested giving Melissa "ten free
bonus points on everything to make her feel better."
     At a meeting with school officials Bonnie urged that the
girl be taught Braille. "You'd have thought the district would
have thought of that," says Mikaelian. "No one challenged Bonnie.
She was always in charge." But Peterson could not guarantee that
Melissa would be taught Braille, and there are many others like
her.
     In 1965 48 percent of Wisconsin's blind children could read
Braille, but by 1993 the literacy rate had plummeted to 4
percent, less than half the national average. No wonder, thought
Peterson, that the unemployment rate for legally blind
individuals between the ages of twenty-one and sixty-four in
Wisconsin was 74.4 percent, the worst of any minority group. And
nearly half of those working were underemployed. "When sighted
people can't get around independently, can't read or have poor
social skills, we know that's poor training. When the blind can't
get around independently, can't read, or have poor social skills,
we think that's the way blind people are," she says.
     With the rush to embrace new technology, like giant
magnifiers and machines that can read a printed page, there was a
philosophical shift, and many teachers felt children could manage
without Braille, says Marsha Valance, librarian at the Wisconsin
Regional Library for the Blind and Handicapped. "Unfortunately,
that was not always true."
     The NFB had looked into the illiteracy of the blind and
concluded that many teachers didn't know Braille well enough to
teach it. So Peterson asked state Rep. Fred Risser (D-Madison) to
introduce a bill requiring all teachers of the visually impaired
to pass a test proving they knew Braille. Risser expected it to
be a cakewalk. State Senator Alberta Darling (R-River Hills), a
former teacher herself, called it "common sense." But the Braille
Bill ran into a blitzkrieg.
     The Wisconsin Association for the Education and
Rehabilitation of the Blind and Visually Handicapped and the
larger state teachers' union had a myriad of arguments against
it: it discriminated against teachers of the visually impaired
because other teachers did not have to prove their competence;
they didn't like the Library of Congress's National Braille
Literacy Test; kids don't like learning Braille; and it's
difficult to teach.
     The unions insisted the state's 825 teachers of the visually
impaired had already learned Braille in college. "Asking teachers
of the visually impaired to take courses in Braille is like
asking teachers of the sighted to take courses in the alphabet,"
scoffs Charles Siemers, an MPS teacher of the visually impaired
who fought the bill. He calls Peterson "the blind bitch" and says
she "slandered me and my profession by saying we're poorly
prepared. Besides," insists Siemers, who is legally blind
himself, "if we can get people to use what vision they have, it's
always much, much better."
     It might be easier for the teachers, Peterson says, but not
for kids who, being functionally blind, cannot hope to compete
with their sighted peers, even working endless hours and
straining what little sight they have.
     The Department of Public Instruction, under whose watch
blind literacy sank so low, hired an outside firm to evaluate the
proposed legislation. "The bureaucrats wanted it their way or no
way, and Bonnie Peterson wouldn't budge," says Andrew Papineau,
administrator of DPI's visually impaired programs. "So I brought
in a neutral person."
     "The so-called independent consultant had some interesting
findings," says Sen. Darling. They argued that children are
"better off with an aide and a computer than to be able to use a
$5.50 slate and stylus [the plastic ruler-sized implement and
point that allows the user to punch out a code of raised dots
that can be read using the fingertips]. "If you give people
fish," says Darling, "they have food for a day. If you give them
a fishing rod, they have food for life. That's Braille. But they
told me kids shouldn't learn Braille because then they'd `look
blind,' " Darling remembers, "and they said a lot of kids had
multiple disabilities so they couldn't learn Braille." The blind,
deaf, and mute Helen Keller must have been spinning in her grave.
     Peterson told the Legislature: "If only 4 percent of sighted
children could read print, no one would dispute the severity of
the problem." Opponents of the Braille Bill stumbled and tripped
on their way up to the podium to testify. Siemers had broken his
glasses and couldn't read his speech. "Those who were in favor of
the bill walked to the podium perfectly with their canes, and
they had their notes in Braille--nothing could stop them," says
Darling.
     Few legislators missed the little irony that had been played
out before them. The bill passed, but the bill's opponents
lobbied DPI and undercut it. Only new teachers would have to pass
the test. Existing teachers could take a Braille refresher course
or attend a teachers' convention instead. There was one victory.
Now, when a legally blind child is not taught Braille in
Wisconsin, the school district must put the reason in writing.
     But Peterson had made enemies. Says Siemers, who took early
retirement last year: "Bonnie Peterson and her Federation members
are like dogs who bite the hands that feed them, the
professionals who try to help them." Ironically, it was that
attitude--"How dare you question me when I'm here to help
you"--that Peterson had set out to eradicate.

               Return to the School for the Blind

     Even before the Braille Bill took effect in 1995, Peterson
was engaged on another battlefront. In the fall of 1994
Wisconsin's school for the blind, WSVH, faced the budget cuts
affecting all of state government, but the school's staff was
painting a picture of suffering blind children. In truth the
school would only have to close one of its under-utilized
cafeterias and put younger children in the same half-used
educational building with other students.
     The school had come under fire before; the preceding June,
the Legislative Audit Bureau pointed out that WSVH maintained a
staff/student ratio of almost one to three--even when students
were sleeping. The school was operating at less than 40 percent
capacity, with a staff of 110 to care for just 80 students.
(Enrollment is now 75.) [Since this article first appeared in
Milwaukee Magazine, school enrollment has apparently fallen by a
further twenty students; at least that is the figure one parent
who withdrew her child was given.]
     While picketers prepared signs saying the governor didn't
care about poor blind kids, Peterson and the NFB cut through
their sad refrain. "What does WSVH offer that's worth paying ten
times more per student than school districts spend?" Peterson
asked. "You could hire a private tutor for each of these kids for
$68,200."
     The Federation didn't want the school to close--parents
needed options, Peterson said--but it had to operate more
effectively. Too many of its graduates end up unemployed or
underemployed and "socialized for dependency," she said,
describing WSVH graduates as "fodder for government-supported
workshops."
     William S. Koehler, the school's superintendent, accused
Peterson of trying to destroy WSVH, complaining, "She takes
direct shots at the school without ever being here." Peterson
admits she has not been at the school since Koehler took office
in 1992. "I don't need to, I have all kinds of parents and
children who have been there. They're my eyes and ears." Peterson
relies on people like the mother of a seven-year-old boy, left
with 20/2200 vision after surgery to remove a tumor, who withdrew
her son because WSVH insisted he use a magnifier instead of
teaching him Braille.
     Koehler says the school did an "extensive" telephone survey
in 1993 that proves its graduates are successful, but when
Milwaukee Magazine asked for a copy, repeatedly, from Koehler,
his assistant, and even from DPI, it was promised but never
forthcoming. "If WSVH is doing such a great job making kids
independent, why does the state pay tens of thousands of dollars
to send so many of its graduates to programs to help them adjust
to their blindness?" Peterson asks.
     Milwaukee Magazine's own investigation included extensive
interviews with parents and students and a day-long visit to
WSVH, which revealed some students learning Braille but more
struggling to read, some with giant magnifiers. Koehler offered a
score of excuses why kids can't or don't want to learn Braille or
use a cane, but no ideas on how to get students motivated and
excited about learning.
     He stressed that the school's goal was producing independent
graduates, but subtle signs gave a different message. In
classroom after classroom students waited to be helped. In the
first- to third-grade classroom, for example, three staff members
supervised just seven students, who were painting a rubber fish
and pressing it onto a T-shirt to make an impression. Yet the
students spent most of their time waiting to be helped, teacher's
hand over their hand, instead of learning to do the project
themselves.
     Koehler supplied the names of two graduates who, he said,
would demonstrate just how well WSVH prepares its students. One
was Steve Hessen, the school's 1996 valedictorian. But Hessen was
hardly the model of an independent blind person. He had just
dropped out of the University of Wisconsin-Whitewater because he
couldn't manage the financial aid application process. Without
the money, Hessen, whose vision is 20/1500, could not hire the
tutor he needed or rent equipment like a talking Braille
calculator. He had fallen hopelessly behind. Worse yet, the
scholarship he'd won required him to enroll last fall or it would
be canceled. Hessen had asked a WSVH counselor to argue that it
should carry over to next year.
     The school's previous valedictorian was Shannon Gates, now a
student at Northcentral Technical College in Wausau. Gates, who
was born without optic nerves in her eyes, reads Braille at 250
words per minute, but she dropped courses this year because she
couldn't get Braille texts.
     State taxpayers pay Northcentral's Visually Impaired Program
(VIP) to help students like Gates. The program supplied her with
audio tapes of textbooks and hired tutors, but "I can't get a
Braille text. It's like asking a print reader not to use print,"
she says. "I threw a fit the first year, but the VIP says, `It's
easier to use tapes or large print.' Maybe it's easier for them.
=2E . but if I had Braille texts, I wouldn't need tutors. I could
take a full class load."
     Gates was at WSVH for ten years, under three different
administrators. In the end, she says, "There were so many rules,
you had to do what you were told and not ask questions. I wasn't
even allowed to cross the street alone. . . . The school doesn't
encourage independence, that's for sure . . . they were dragging
me down."
     Twenty-year-old Brian Brown attended WSVH in 1991 and 1992,
then returned to his local school, and now runs his own business.
"They say they strive to make the students independent, but they
don't allow you to do anything alone. The bathroom stalls don't
even have doors on them in the education building. The house
parent enters your room without knocking . . . they walk right in
to verify you're in the shower. . . .
     "There are two castes at WSVH," he says, "kids who still
want to be somebody and have a life and those who've given up and
would rather be told what to do. I was lucky. I left before that
happened to me." Milwaukee Magazine talked to ten WSVH alums. All
gave anecdotes substantiating Peterson's claim that students are
"conditioned to be even more dependent."
     Observes Peterson: "Like most of these professionals for the
blind, they run a program into the ground, then move on. In
Koehler's case, he's already applied for the position of
superintendent of the New Mexico School for the Blind, but he
didn't get it." [In early April, however, a member of the
teaching staff at WSVH told a parent that Koehler was leaving
both his position at the school and the state of Wisconsin.]

                     Brad Dunse's Liberation

     Peterson had a long history of dissatisfaction with the
state's two post-high school vocational training programs for the
blind: the Visually Impaired Programs (VIP) at Northcentral and
Milwaukee Area Technical College (MATC). She prompted a state
audit of the Milwaukee program by leading picketers protesting
its "low standards" and curriculum focused "on housekeeping and
grooming skills" instead of on the skills needed to live
independently, "like Braille and independent travel." (The state
is currently looking for proposals to run that program.)
     In 1990 she had fought to get DVR to send a blind man named
Bob Raisbeck to a program started by the Federation in
Minneapolis called Blindness: Learning in New Dimensions (BLIND,
Inc.). Newspapers there described BLIND, Inc.--one of only three
programs of its type in the country--as the "Harvard of
rehabilitation" and a "boot camp" where the blind learned "to
believe in themselves and to be truly independent."
     Taxpayers had already sent Raisbeck to the VIP at
Northcentral three times and to MATC once, but he still had no
job skills. Peterson lobbied legislators. The Madison Capitol
Times reported on Raisbeck's story, and still DVR refused.
Eventually, Raisbeck moved to Minnesota, and that state sent him
to BLIND, Inc. He found a job and never returned.
     All of this was history when Peterson received a phone call
in early 1995 from Brad Dunse, who had expected to inherit his
father's roofing business until retinitis pigmentosa left him
legally blind. DVR helped Dunse set up a home business, but for
five years he sat in his Green Bay home, terrified of using the
power woodworking equipment DVR had given him.
     Finally, in 1994, DVR sent Dunse to a program to help him
"adjust" to his blindness. He moved into a motel in Wausau, where
his meals were prepared for him and he was bused to
Northcentral's VIP. "It was like an expo where you'd just wander
around. But I didn't know what I needed. I've never been blind
before," he says.
     Dunse sat in on a Braille class, but at the end of two weeks
he didn't even know what a slate and stylus were; the teacher in
the computer class was too busy to answer his questions. Says
Dunse: "He kidded one man about being there as much as he was. .
=2E . The VIP teaches you just enough to get by, but then this
guy's vision would get worse and he'd have to come back. There
were a lot of people like that."
     Dunse didn't want to spend the rest of his life as a repeat
customer, dependent on the state. He called the Federation,
asking, "Isn't there something better?" Peterson told him about
BLIND, Inc. Dunse and his wife Brenda went for a visit. He was
impressed, he says, by the confidence of the blind travel
instructor whose students were so well trained they could be left
blindfolded (so they could not rely on any residual vision) five
miles from the school and get back on their own.
     "At the VIP, they do stuff for you; at BLIND Inc., you do
things for yourself," Dunse told a supervisor, but DVR was not
convinced. Peterson helped Dunse petition for a special hearing.
Remembers Peterson: "The DVR supervisor said, `I can't understand
why anyone would want to go to a school run by the blind. That's
like the mentally retarded asking the mentally retarded for
help.'"
     The tone of the meeting was "very condescending," adds
Dunse. "It was me telling them why I wanted to go, and they were
telling me all the reasons I didn't."
     With his petition rejected, Peterson told Dunse he had only
one option. Dunse kissed his wife and two young sons goodbye,
gave up his Wisconsin residency, and moved to Minneapolis for
five months of training. When he graduated from BLIND, Inc., he
had higher aspirations than a home woodworking business that
would never get him off Social Security Disability Insurance. He
continued his education and took over a vending machine business.
     The cost of BLIND, Inc. is "a little more than the VIP--a
few hundred dollars," says Joe Mileczarek, who runs
Northcentral's VIP program. Tuition at BLIND, Inc. runs $2,495
per month, plus $32.50 per day for housing in an apartment, where
students prepare their own meals, then travel to classes on their
own. For Northcentral's program, hotel, prepared meals, and
transportation costs another $50 per day. DVR will spend an
average $2,333 in tuition per student sent to Northcentral this
year, though many of those students will stay just one day. "A
lot of people don't want to be away from their families that
long," says Mileczarek, noting that DVR recently signed a
$280,000 contract to send up to 120 more clients to Northcentral.
     Peterson says Wisconsin taxpayers aren't getting their
money's worth. But Ole Brackey, supervisor of the Milwaukee
District DVR office, insists, "You can't measure the
effectiveness of VIP programs. There are so many variables, so
much is going on in these people's lives." Yet Brackey insists
that "out-of-state programs [like BLIND, Inc.] have to prove they
work."
     In 1993 Peterson bet John Conway, director of DVR's Bureau
of Sensory Disabilities, $100 that BLIND, Inc. provided better
training than either MATC or NTC's adjustment-to-blindness
programs. Using a study of the Wisconsin programs prepared by the
DVR's own Office for the Blind and another conducted by the state
of Minnesota, Peterson showed that 86 percent of BLIND, Inc.'s,
graduates said they could "do what sighted people do." None of
the MATC's grads answered the same question affirmatively, and
only three of those from Northcentral did. Without that kind of
confidence, Peterson argues, blind individuals can't succeed.
     Still, Conway says, it's more important that 35 percent of
Northcentral's VIP grads were employed; only 14 percent of those
from BLIND, Inc., (and MATC) were. Peterson argues that many of
those jobs are in sheltered workshops. In contrast, graduates of
the ten-year-old BLIND, Inc., are more than twice as likely to
pursue higher education than VIP graduates, she argues.
     Peterson fired off a searing letter when Conway refused to
see her point and welched on the bet. It said, "Given your past
record for honesty, I have always believed you would renege . . .
In the unlikely event that you have acquired a conscience . . . I
shall give you my terms of payment. I do not accept food stamps.
=2E . ." It might have worked in grade school, but this time,
getting someone mad did not produce the desired result. Conway
ignored Peterson's offer to have an impartial investigator
analyze the reports on the three programs and dropped the matter.
     Peterson says Northcentral's VIP doesn't get scrutinized
because "the people advising the state on how it should allocate
funds to help the blind are the main beneficiaries of that
spending." Mileczarek is chairman of the Governor's Committee for
People With Disabilities. Asked whether that is a conflict of
interest, Mileczarek says, "Geez, I hope not. Everyone on the
committee has something to do with disabilities."
     As for proof his program works, Mileczarek says, "It's not a
researchable thing . . . besides, Bonnie Peterson is like a John
Bircher. Real conservative . . . she believes there's only one
way to do things, and that's with a real structured program. . .
=2E The Federation believes some ridiculous things--like that you
can have a totally blind mobility instructor."
     Most rehabilitation programs work on a medical model, where
goals are set and the program is designed to achieve them, he
says. "But people don't want to be told you're going to be
proficient in this when you leave, like it or not," says
Mileczarek, who describes his program as "more like a
smorgasbord."
     Copies of Peterson's inflammatory letter circulated
throughout the disabled community, bringing calls from more
desperate individuals. One, Lisa Mann, had been legally blind
since birth. She had spent her entire school life at WSVH, except
for two years as an MPS high school student. Her MPS teacher (an
opponent of the Braille Bill later) decided Mann didn't need
Braille. Especially, he says, since the attractive black girl was
"more interested in fashion and boys."
     Mann could not meet MPS's graduation standards, so she
returned to WSVH and graduated in 1992. DVR then sent her to
MATC's VIP program. "They told me I'd never be able to travel
alone," says Mann. When MATC failed to provide the skills needed
for an independent life, Mann wasn't surprised, she says. "I met
one girl there who was going through the program for the fifth
time."
     Next DVR sent Mann to Northcentral's VIP, then to Western
Wisconsin Technical College in La Crosse, where, using large-type
texts, she was slowed down so much, she says, she couldn't even
earn C's. When a DVR counselor told Mann about BLIND, Inc., she
visited the school. But when she said she wanted to go there, DVR
sent her to Waukesha County Technical College instead.
     Peterson enlisted Rep. Leon Young's (D-Milwaukee) office to
help Mann get copies of her DVR records, and she accompanied Mann
when she filed an appeal. "Before I met Bonnie Peterson," says
Mann, "I was ready to give up hope." In November twenty-
three-year-old Lisa Mann, who had never walked around her Sherman
Park block alone because she didn't believe a blind person could
do that, arrived at BLIND, Inc. One week later she took a bus
across Wisconsin and found her way to the state Federation's
annual meeting--and she did it alone.
     Says DVR supervisor Brackey: "Lisa Mann's case is an
anomaly." Says the DVR's top administrator, Judy Norman Nunnery:
"If there was anything wrong in Lisa Mann's case, it was that we
tried too hard to help her." The fact that DVR eventually sent
Mann to BLIND, Inc. "has nothing to do with Bonnie Peterson,"
says Nunnery. "She uses the tactics of the civil rights and
women's movements. . . . She says blind people were being treated
like the slaves. As an Afro American, that offends me. . . . She
doesn't have credibility with this office."

                           Blind Alley

     When DVR moved into new offices in November, 1995, the sign
on the door to the department's Office for the Blind read "Blind
Alley." It might have been "the first case of truth in labeling"
on DVR's part, says Peterson. DVR chief Nunnery laughs off the
sign, saying, "It was just one of those silly things."
     "How out of touch do they have to be not to know that would
be offensive?" Peterson asks, repeating her frequent call for a
separate office overseeing all state services for the blind.
Federal law provides for as much, and many states, including
Minnesota and Michigan, have them, but disrupting the status quo
will be difficult.
     Pat Brown, director of the Badger Association of the Blind,
the state contingent of the American Council for the Blind, says
Peterson is "a role model for all people--not just the
blind--because of her convictions and diligence. She doesn't let
obstacles get in her way." But, he adds, "The Council doesn't
approve of the Federation's methods--it believes you should work
through the system."

     But Milwaukee Mayor John Norquist praises Peterson.
"Bureaucrats don't like her," he says, "but she has credibility,
absolutely, with my office." Says Sen. Darling: "Bonnie Peterson
appears to have a hard edge because anger gives her energy, but
it is the same kind of energy that fueled the civil rights
movement and the American Revolution. I wish there were more
people like her."
     When the phone rings now in Peterson's office at the South
Side bungalow she shares with her husband and daughters, Candice,
now sixteen, and nine-year-old Lindsay, the answering machine
says, "This is the National Federation of the Blind of Wisconsin,
where we're changing what it means to be blind." Already Peterson
has brought about a revolutionary change, making it impossible
for people to say "a blind person can't do that." Over and over
again, she has proved otherwise.

     That was the text of the Milwaukee Magazine story, and it
took the state by storm. As we reported at the beginning of this
article, the Wisconsin Council of the Blind, which is a coalition
of several blindness-connected organizations including the Badger
Association of the Blind (the Wisconsin affiliate of the ACB),
bestirred itself to write a letter of protest to the magazine.
The Editor wrote back saying that, if the group could condense
its text into a paragraph or two for publication, it would be
printed. As far as we can tell, the group has not yet done so.
But they have now circulated the original text of their letter in
all its wandering obscurity. No wonder the Editor was unwilling
to print the entire letter; though we have corrected some of the
punctuation in the hope of increasing its comprehensibility, it
still speaks for itself. Here it is:

                                                February 26, 1997
                                               Madison, Wisconsin

John Fennell, Editor
Milwaukee Magazine, Inc.
Milwaukee, Wisconsin

Dear Mr. Fennell:
     Your magazine's recent negative article, "One Woman's War,"
was irresponsibly written and filled with inaccuracies, including
describing Helen Keller as mute. It is unfortunate that your
senior editor used a person who is blind, by portraying the
Milwaukee woman profiled as the only blind advocate or martyr, to
try to strengthen your own agenda of attacking special education.
     Personalities, needs, and choices are as diverse in the
blindness community as any other sub-culture. Thus, it is
imperative that we consider these ideas when we discuss the
erosion of state services for the blind and the need for special
education in our schools.
     People who are blind come in all shapes and sizes,
ethnicities and faiths, socio-economic backgrounds, and, of
course, different degrees of visual ability. Take for example the
Wisconsin Council of the Blind (WCB).
     You don't hear much about WCB in the paper or on the TV
news. It is a private, not-for-profit agency comprised of people
from throughout the state who are blind. It has been diligently
working since 1952, advocating for, and providing services to,
the people of Wisconsin.
     WCB has never received any government assistance or funding.
Recently WCB has picked up the slack for decreasing state
services, including hiring David Ballmann, a rehabilitation
teacher who happens to be blind. Dave provides in-home,
independent living skill services, and Braille instruction to
visually impaired state residents. In addition, WCB provides
grants to state-hired rehabilitation teachers for funding used to
give items like magnifiers and talking clocks to state residents.
     It is important to understand and accept that blind people
can help blind people. This agency of nineteen blind council
members help its own in a big way. From providing free white
canes and educational scholarships to acting as a referral and
resource link and educating the public and legislature. WCB
recognizes the importance of personal choice and diversity of
needs. Few people know about one of its greatest contributions to
society, its loans program.
     Low-interest loans from WCB to Wisconsin residents who are
legally blind have helped hundreds of people become established
in business, maintain or upgrade their home, or purchase adaptive
technology. Over $7,247,447 in low-interest loans have been
provided in the past thirty-two years. Loan recipients have
started many types of businesses, including construction firms
and real estate agencies. Many of these people needed and
received state services at one time or another in their life and
became self-sufficient tax-paying citizens.
     A scientific study was commissioned in December, 1996, by
WCB. Seven-hundred-fifty Wisconsin residents who are blind and
visually impaired were contacted to verify needs and future
direction of services. The number one issue for respondents was
the need to educate the general public about blindness and visual
impairment. Transportation, employment training, and improved
education services were also high on the list.
     It appears self-evident that systems, however they operate,
give us what we wish to take from them. Independence has to be an
inner force to some extent--it isn't just going to happen. Thus
any facility evaluation must look at both the center and
participants.
     If you are a Wisconsin resident and blind, you have five
potential "schools or instructional centers" to attend, depending
on your age, to increase your independence. These centers have
played an important role in the lives of thousands of state
residents in their quest to increase personal independence.
     One example is Wisconsin School for the Visually Handicapped
(WSVH), a school which has undergone many changes in its 150
years of educating students. Typically, students are taught
Braille and provided skills to ready them for life. In addition,
an adult summer education program is available.
     In the past twenty years the school has experienced a
significant change in student population. Many students whose
only disability is blindness are remaining at home and in their
respective school district. Changes in laws and societal
attitudes have created this opportunity or challenge, depending
on how you look at it.
     The typical student in the 1990's at WSVH has multiple
disabilities. Visual impairment is accompanied by physical or
mental challenges (a different student from the type you would
have seen at WSVH from 1847 to 1980's). Presently, school
districts and administrations decide who attends the school, not
parents or students. Most alumni, under the current decision-
making process, would not be able to attend WSVH today.
     Most alumni, like any other school, have gone on to live
productive lives, some unique and some quite ordinary. Take for
example the case of Helen Cutler, a 1965 graduate of WSVH. Helen
earned a Bachelor of Arts degree from UW Eau Claire. And then a
Master's degree in art and Spanish from the University of Iowa.
For the past twenty-five years has been teaching Spanish and
Portuguese to missionaries and their families in Brazil.
     Joyce Scott is another Wisconsin resident who benefitted
from state facilities. Joyce became blind after retirement. She
attended WSVH summer school. Initially it was difficult adjusting
to living with blindness, but after attending a summer program at
WSVH, things changed. The classes helped her recognize what she
could still do, instead of focusing on what she couldn't. Joyce
now coordinates a low-vision support group, helping others in her
northern Wisconsin county cope with vision loss.
     Providing examples helps us recognize the diversity which
exists and the merit of having excellent services for all
students, be they blind, deaf, wheelchair users, cognitively
impaired, white, black, red, yellow, or pink.
     Dialogue helps everyone understand the average person who is
blind in Wisconsin. Not all people who are blind need adjustment
services or a place to help them adapt to being blind, as your
magazine suggests. Some people get their adjustment needs met
through family, friends, and blind role models. But some do need
services. For them it is important to receive services in
orientation and mobility, Braille, independent living skills, and
coping with blindness.
     State services for people who are blind or visually impaired
have eroded in the past two decades. It is easy to point and
blame. But we must recognize that services are needed, that
diversity exists in the types and levels of needs, and people
must be free to choose the type of service which will best serve
them. The very nature of life is diversity, and that includes
people who are diversely blind. Choice is part of being human.
     When you discuss or make decisions about services for the
blind or special education in our schools, remember when it comes
to human services, for those who need it, want it, and have a
personal desire to improve, choice is a key determining factor in
one's success.
     It is essential that your readers understand the benefit and
importance of services provided by WCB and other agencies. People
who are blind are diverse and have diverse needs.
     We, the undersigned, are all residents of Wisconsin who
happen to be blind.
                                   Karen Perzentka, President WCB
                            Ann Schroeder, President, WSVH Alumni
               Ed Weiss, Member, Midwest Association of the Blind
          Jeff Spantikow, Member, Badger Association of the Blind

[PHOTO/CAPTION: Julie Hunter]
                     Reaching for the Stars
                         by Julie Hunter

     From the Editor: The following story appears in Beginnings
and Blueprints, our latest Kernel Book. Beginning with Dr.
Jernigan's introduction, here it is:
     Bob and Julie Hunter rejoiced at the birth of their new baby
daughter--perfect in every way. Aglow with anticipation, they
brought her home from the hospital. Then, as their baby's vision
faded, so did their hopes and dreams for her future. Here Julie
relates the heartwarming story of how she and her husband Bob not
only rekindled those dreams, but learned to reach for the stars
as well.

     Fifteen years ago on a warm June morning my husband Bob and
I drove to the hospital for our appointment with destiny. Because
of delivery problems with our first child, we had the luxury of
choosing the day and time of our second child's surgical
delivery. Later that morning we were overjoyed to welcome a baby
girl into our family--finally, a girl where for generations (on
my husband's side) there had only been boys!
     She was a perfect baby--healthy, dark hair, big blue eyes,
and a pretty little face. We couldn't have been happier! Little
did we know that this tiny, innocent babe in arms would turn our
world on its ear.
     Our new daughter Lauren thrived in her first few months at
home. She was begrudgingly accepted by her two-year-old brother
Mark, and gradually our family life fell into a happy new
routine. But as she grew, some little concerns tickled the backs
of our minds. She squinted when she was out in the sunlight--
typical of newborns, we were told.
     She didn't smile when someone came to her crib, but she
would smile when held or spoken to. Finally, a jerky eye movement
that we assumed would pass with her infancy became more and more
obvious.
     Then came that fateful day when the doctors' tests concluded
that our daughter's retinas were not functioning properly. She
would have visual impairment, but no one knew to what extent. She
might even be able to drive, we were told.
     Of course we were optimistic and clung to the best-case
scenario--that the condition wouldn't worsen, that she would be
mildly visually impaired, but not (God forbid) blind. As the
months passed, it became obvious that this was not a stable
condition. Her visual acuity was gradually fading. We mourned for
every lost dream. We felt guilty that we had unknowingly passed
on what we were told was a recessive genetic defect. We felt
depressed about the future.
     But it's no fun living in depression, so something had to
give! That something was our first change in attitude about
blindness. This was our child! She was bright and charming, and
we vowed that vision or lack of it would not define her life. We
didn't want to hear any more sympathetic words from well-meaning
neighbors and friends. Give up your dreams? Not on your life!
     So we were inaugurated into a whole new world--a world which
has caused us to re-examine our values and broaden our horizon--a
world which has brought us support, friendship, and a cause we
believe in. Who would have thought that such a tiny baby born on
a warm June morning would be responsible for all of that?
     At what point do we move from seeing the glass as half-empty
to seeing it as half-full? For us it came gradually as we
learned, through the National Federation of the Blind, that the
possibility was there that our dreams for Lauren could be
fulfilled. That foundation was in place for us when we sustained
our second blow--discovering that Lauren also has a progressive
hearing loss.
     As with the vision loss, which is now total, the hearing
loss has been gradual. Lauren is now fifteen years old. She got
her first set of hearing aids when she was eight. Her hearing
loss has progressed from mild to moderate, and now hovers on the
line between moderate and severe. Again, doctors are no help to
us. They don't know why and can't predict what the future holds
in store. We just live our lives and take what comes.
     But one thing we have learned over the years is that fear
about the future results from ignorance and failing to take
control. If you do all you can to learn about your nemesis, never
lose sight of your goal (which in our case is to achieve maximum
independence), and stay in charge of your destiny, then the
future is not so frightening. The more we learn, the less scary
the future seems.
     As we meet and talk to other parents with deaf/blind
children and with deaf/blind adults, we are reassured that a
quality life is possible for an individual who is blind and deaf.
Our job is to make sure that Lauren has the adaptive skills
necessary to remain an interactive member of society. There is
work to do, but I feel confident that my daughter will achieve
her potential, and no matter what the future brings, we will
never stop reaching for the stars.


[PHOTO/CAPTION: Michael Baillif]
                       Cancun Reflections
                      by Michael E. Baillif

     From the Editor: Michael Baillif spent a number of months
touring the United Kingdom and Europe on a fellowship following
college. He still has sand in his shoes, and he still knows how
to make his own fun. Here he is to talk about his recent trip to
Cancun, Mexico:

     I had money in my pocket, and I knew where I wanted to go.
All things considered, the venture was shaping up to be a good,
though uncertain one.
     I was vacationing in Cancun, Mexico, with some friends from
law school. Earlier that afternoon they had decided that they
wanted to enter a go cart race. Being blind, I was not in a
position to join in that activity, nor was I about to sit in the
hotel and wait while they went off and had fun. Of course, I
could relax on the beach and drink margaritas, but I had been
doing enough of that already. As a result, when my friends headed
off to the go cart race, I decided that it would be fun to try
bunji jumping.
     In order to undertake this venture, I had to overcome two
obstacles, neither of which had anything to do with blindness.
First, I had no idea where in Cancun the bunji jumping was
located, and second, I did not speak more than a few words of
elementary Spanish. Notwithstanding these minor difficulties,
however, I knew what I wanted to do, and that was to go bunji
jumping.
     I began the journey by going to the front desk of my hotel
and saying several times very distinctly, "taxi" and "bunji
jumping," while pointing to my chest. Finally, the man behind the
desk made several affirmative-sounding noises, and we walked
outdoors, where he flagged down a taxicab and carried on a
dialogue in rapid Spanish. He turned to me and said, "okay." I
took this as a sign that all was going well.
     I climbed into the cab, and we began to drive. From time to
time I would look at the cab driver and say, "bunji jumping,"
sometimes very affirmatively, sometimes with a question in my
voice.
     The driver would nod and say, "Si, si." He began calling me
"amigo" and seemed to become more and more cheerful the farther
and farther we drove. As we traveled along, I consoled myself
with the thought that, even if I never made it to bunji jumping,
I would undoubtedly encounter something of interest.
     Finally we arrived at the Marina just outside of Cancun,
where they did, in fact, have a version of bunji jumping. One was
strapped into a device called the rocket, blasted off 150 feet
into the air, flipped over backwards, and then dropped straight
down. It sounded like great fun.
     After saying farewell to my amigo, the cab driver, I went in
search of the entrance line, which I located by asking questions,
making gestures, and generally following the flow of the crowd.
Once I had proceeded through the line and made it to the front
desk, where tickets were sold, one of the employees came running
up to the man at the front desk saying, "No vista, no vista."
Even I understood enough Spanish to realize that he was raising
the issue of blindness.
     I put the price of admission on the counter and said
cheerily but decisively, "no problem." The man behind the desk
looked at me and looked at the admissions price and looked at his
colleague and echoed, "no problem."
     From there I walked to the rocket, was strapped in, and
blasted off. As promised, the experience, which involved going
from zero to sixty miles an hour in under one second was an
exhilarating one.
     After regaining my equilibrium, I headed back to the main
office, where I caught another taxicab. On the way back to town I
reflected upon how easily and enjoyably I had accomplished the
excursion.
     The key was knowing what I wanted and taking affirmative
steps to achieve it. I did not necessarily need to know how I was
going to proceed each step of the way; I could figure that out as
I went along. What mattered more was knowing where I wanted to
end up and having a general strategy for getting there. Because I
conducted myself in a sensible, decisive, and amiable fashion,
people and circumstances generally cooperated with me.
     As the taxicab neared downtown Cancun, I decided to stop at
a sports bar which, rumor had it, was going to broadcast a
basketball game from the States. My friends would be back at the
hotel soon, but I could meet them later. For the moment I was
having too much fun exploring Cancun on my own.


[PHOTO/CAPTION: Joe Cutter]
              Valuing the Blind Child's Independent
                      Movements and Travel
                          by Joe Cutter

     From the Editor: The following remarks to parents of blind
children appeared in the Winter, 1997, edition of The Observer, a
publication of the Montana affiliate. The editor Rik James found
it in the October, 1996, issue of The Sounding Board, the
publication of the National Federation of the Blind of New
Jersey. The author, Joe Cutter, is an outstanding professional in
the field of orientation and mobility for young blind children.
He was named the Distinguished Educator of the Year in 1994 by
the National Federation of the Blind. His words are helpful to
everyone who has any occasion to work with blind children. This
is what Joe Cutter said:

     In my work with blind children in New Jersey and other parts
of this country, it has become clear to me that the value parents
place on their child's independent movement and travel has a
great deal to do with how he or she will move in the world. It
has been said that "believing is achieving." Therefore to the
extent parents and other educators, specifically blindness
professionals, believe in the independent movement of blind
children, the child usually achieves up to these expectations.
What will the movement be like--passive or active, dependent or
independent? This is not to disregard how developmental delays
may impact upon the movement of multiply handicapped blind
children. But it is to say that the value parents and
professionals place on the blind child's movement, multiply
handicapped or not, may be the most significant factor
contributing to the child's reaching his or her full potential.
     During this stage of development blind children are
vulnerable to having their movements restricted and interrupted.
They often have the world brought to them, hands descending upon
them, doing more for them than they are allowed to do for
themselves. They may learn very early that the responsibility for
movement and travel belongs to someone else. Promoting and
valuing their going to the world develops a sense of autonomy,
self, and self-esteem. The foundation for independent movement
and travel is being established.
     If valuing the blind child's independent movement and travel
is simple to understand, why do so many parents find it so
difficult to achieve? In my experience the most formidable
obstacle to valuing independent movement and travel in the blind
child is negative attitudes. There is a long history of negative
attitudes and erroneous assumptions about the blind.
     For example, the cartoon character of Mr. Magoo was an
example of erroneous assumptions pushed to the absurd. He bumbled
his way through his home and environment. Comedy was achieved at
the expense of blind people. If Mr. Magoo had gone to an NFB
orientation center, like the one I visited in Louisiana last
year, he would have emerged valuing independence and having
independent travel skills. Perhaps it's time to see a new
cartoon--Mr. Magoo goes to rehab, NFB style.
     In society ignorance becomes the foundation for erroneous
assumptions and sighted bias. The model blind person is depicted
as less than capable, to support society's negative mindset. Dr.
Richard Mettler in his book Cognitive Learning Theory and Cane
Travel puts it succinctly when he writes, "the visual dominant
model is not a useful orientation for blind persons" and "visual
orientation does not have an exclusive claim to skillful human
performance."
     As parents, where do you go to get positive information
about blindness? Well, one answer is where you are right now.
Certainly you can count on the NFB to supply you with clear,
reliable, and useful information. At NFB meetings you can meet
blind people who value independence. They can be role models for
you and your child. They are living proof that your positive
values and beliefs are reality-based. As a professional I have
gotten many reality checks about blindness from blind persons,
parents of blind children, and of course the children themselves.
     You can benefit from all the support you can get because
dealing with negative attitudes is energy-depleting. There are
programs and services that value independent movement and travel,
and there are those that do not. The latter are deficit models
that are custodial in their practices--they set low expectations
and stress limitations for the child. Those in charge of these
deficit-model programs are not hurt by their practices, but you
are. And your child is hurt the most. Blind persons raised on
negative attitudes and custodial practices may not easily
perceive the limitations imposed upon them. The use of the
deficit model is the norm. That is why it is important to
identify such negative thinking and programming and to have an
organization like the NFB to set a standard of high expectations,
valuing a promotion model, serving as models themselves, and
practicing a can-do approach. Some day this new standard will be
the norm.
     We are not just talking about differences in philosophies
that drive each model, as if they were preferences in choosing
flavors of ice cream or tastes in beer. We are talking about a
mentality, a way of thinking and living. The deficit model says,
"You can't," and the positive model says, "You can." So that you
can more precisely identify custodial practices that devalue
independence, let me give you some examples:

     1. There is a private school for blind children nearby, in
which you will rarely hear a cane tap or slide in its halls. It
is not unusual for a blind child to spend an entire school year
or longer in the assessment-and-readiness phase of orientation
and mobility. The O&M staff will spend considerable time on
pre-cane skills, implementing pre-cane devices. During this
extended readiness-skill phase, the blind child loses valuable
time that could have been spent learning to use the cane and
learning about independent travel. To make matters worse, there
are blind pre-schoolers who have gone to this school already
knowing and using the cane, only to have it taken away from them
in favor of the pre-cane.
     2. Perhaps the most overused method of travel for the blind
child is the sighted guide. When it becomes the primary way for
the child to move about, it becomes a custodial practice.
Multiply handicapped blind children are even more vulnerable
since many professionals are even more apprehensive about giving
them responsibilities for their own travel. Learning to use the
cane is a process that develops over time. Gradually parents and
professionals will need to monitor the child's travel less and
less. But how can the blind child engage in this process if we do
not place a cane in his or her hand? And when we do, the most
interesting thing happens--adults and sighted peers are less
likely to lead the blind child. The cane sends a message of
independence. As one parent once said to me, "The cane answers
the questions most people are afraid to ask and answers them in a
positive way."
     Professionals who subscribe to deficit models such as these
often get very defensive when their negative thinking and
devaluing of the blind child's movement and travel are
challenged. Those of you who have called them on it know the
price you have paid.=20
     As a professional I know the price I've paid for questioning
the custodial model from the inside. For example, one
administrator suggested that I have "crossed the line" and that I
should "carefully think about what I do and how I do it." But,
when I ask, "what line?" the response is unclear and a bit dusty.
Well, I think it's necessary to tell you what line I think it is.
     It is the line formed by those who care about and value
independence in blind children. What's on the line is self-esteem
and independent lives for blind children. We say to the child,
"You are worth it; value your movement and independent travel. Go
to the world, visit it, make it your home as we believe you can."
It is the line of parents and professionals working together to
raise expectations for blind children, to secure for them equal
opportunity as first-class citizens. The way I see it is simply
this: those professionals who will not or can not change their
negative mind-set will go the way of the dinosaur because
eventually common sense and good judgement will prevail.
     Ultimately the person who matters most is you, the parent.
Get all the positive and useful information to make your informed
choices about independent movement and travel. Seek out
professionals who will share your values and work with you. Get
tips on independent travel from a blind person you respect. He or
she will be only too glad to share them with you. Read articles
and books by blind persons like Thomas Bickford's The Care and
Feeding of the Long White Cane. It is an excellent account and
resource of how-to's regarding independent travel.
     Whatever your child's potential, your valuing independent
movement and travel will greatly affect his or her self-esteem.
Your positive beliefs and values will fuel your child every day
for developing skills that will last a lifetime.=20


[PHOTO/CAPTION: Chris Cuppett]
    The Blindfold as a Useful Instructional Tool for Seniors
                        by Chris Cuppett

     From the Editor: Chris Cuppett teaches the alternative
skills of blindness to seniors in Minnesota. The following speech
is the one she gives to her students when they first come to the
adjustment to blindness training program. She wants them to
understand just what they are going to be doing and why, so that
there will be no rude surprises. This is what she says:

     I would like to welcome you to this introductory meeting of
the Adjustment to Blindness Training Program. Many of you are
here because you feel that you may have to give up many simple
daily activities as a result of having lost much of your vision.
You may have stopped pouring coffee, threading a needle, handling
your money, walking downtown by yourself, or reading your mail.
You may be experiencing more difficulty with cooking, grocery
shopping, and leisure activities. Maybe you have some fears about
how you will continue to manage in your home or apartment.
     Most of us have relied primarily upon our vision to
accomplish just about everything we do each day. Many of us
believe that the only way we can carry out any task successfully
is by doing it visually. This way of thinking is not surprising
since the majority of us are visual people. If we have had our
vision all of our lives, most of us will receive about 85 to 90
percent of the information we process through our eyes.
     The human body can be compared to a wonderful and elaborate
piece of engineering like a rocket ship. The main engine is our
vision. But any sophisticated piece of engineering has backup
systems that kick in when the main engine isn't working properly.
Our classes will help you make full use of your backup systems,
your remaining four senses--hearing, touch, smell, and taste--as
well as your memory, imagination, experience, and ability to
learn new things.
     Maybe some of you have had difficulty admitting to others
that your main engine isn't working up to speed. You may try to
continue to make use of that main engine, even when you know the
results aren't very satisfactory. Perhaps you have noticed that
you are expending more energy and accomplishing less work because
you are straining to see everything. You may be afraid to think
about how you will manage if this main engine loses more power.
Since you really can't determine how well your main engine will
continue to function in the future, it is a good idea to learn
several different ways of operating your machine. Then you can
make an informed choice about when it would make sense to use
your main engine and when it would make sense to use your backup
systems. You may be surprised to discover that in many instances
it will be wiser and safer for you to give your main engine a
rest and to let your backup systems take over.
     The best way we have found to help you learn to use your
backup systems to the max is to give you a blindfold to wear
throughout the class. By doing this, you deliberately shut off
your main engine so you can train yourself to listen more
effectively, to get more information through your sense of touch,
and to improve your memory. You will have the opportunity to work
out solutions to potential problems while you are in a safe and
comfortable environment.
     In the past we have found that, when we tried to teach
people to use their backup systems without having them wear
blindfolds, many of them automatically fell back on the familiar
and continued to struggle to use their remaining vision. We also
found that some people who had stronger main engines would not
take certain aspects of their training seriously. They would say
things like, "My sight is still pretty good, so I don't need to
learn this. But poor so-and-so over there in the corner should
learn it because her sight is worse than mine." Some of our
students have also been known to say something like, "I won't
bother to use my backup system as long as my main engine is still
working even a little. I will wait to use it when I absolutely
have to." If they take that approach to their training, "when I
absolutely have to" is usually too late. When the time comes,
they feel panicky or discouraged and can't remember how to fall
back on their remaining faculties. The blindfold acts as an
equalizer for all of our students. You will all be given equal
opportunities to learn to use everything you have.
     At first you may feel uncomfortable, so we will be sure to
give you several breaks and lots of encouragement. It may seem
difficult to believe right now, but as you get further into your
training, you will forget that you are wearing the blindfold, and
you will be able to concentrate fully on whatever project you are
doing. You will find yourself saying more frequently, "Hey, I
really can dial the telephone or pour my coffee without seeing. I
really can tell what things are by touching them. I really can
walk safely and confidently with my white cane." You may find
yourself thinking without panicking, "How could I work through
this situation by using my other senses?" We hope and expect that
the problems you encounter will begin to seem more like puzzles
to solve instead of obstacles to fear. We also hope that learning
to use your wonderful backup system will help you to continue to
lead a productive and fulfilling life.

Advantages of Wearing a Blindfold:
1.   I will learn to use my remaining four senses, my memory and
     imagination, and my reservoir of life experiences more
     fully.
2.   I will not be constantly comparing myself to other students
     and feeling either a sense of superiority or a sense of
     despair about having more or less sight than others. We will
     all be learning to do things by using faculties other than
     sight.
3.   I will have the opportunity to discover for myself that I
     can accomplish a great deal without relying upon my vision.
     It is much more empowering for me to discover this truth for
     myself than for someone simply to tell me that this
     principle is true.
4.   I will have the opportunity to solve problems while I am in
     a safe and comfortable environment.
5.   My instructors will become better at their jobs because they
     will need to explain concepts more precisely.


                Pride Costs: Hiring Readers Pays
                      by Patrick A. Barrett

     ***From the Editor: The following essay first appeared in the
Winter,
1997, Minnesota Bulletin, a publication of the National Federation
of the
Blind of Minnesota. The Metro Chapter conducted an essay contest in
1996, and
this piece was the winner. Pat Barrett is a long-time Federationist
and a
leader wherever he goes. Here is what he says about the value of
readers:

     Why use readers? When I was in college, I more or less made
the decision
not to use them rather than considering the possibility of doing
so. At the
time I was dating my wife Trudy, who is blind and used readers. She
encouraged
me to use them too. Trudy knew how much time I was spending at the
special
resource room at the library using the Visualtek machine to read
books that
had not yet been recorded.
     I was getting books from Recordings for the Blind. I knew
Braille, but
at that time I felt I was too slow at reading it to apply it to
college work.
I told myself that I had reading covered.
     Trudy kept insisting I try readers. I finally relented. She
gave me the
name of one of her readers who did well. The person did. I got the
assignment
read in less time than I would have using the print enlarger,
experienced no
eyestrain, and had time to take Trudy out--a heck of a deal.
     Pride prevented me from recognizing the real value of
employing readers
until years later. All of us grow up with the formidable conviction
that it is
better to see, even a little, than not to. Five senses are
certainly better
than four. The strong emphasis placed on relying so much on a
partial sense of
sight eclipsed my consideration of more efficient alternatives. I
regret to
admit that this partial--and I know I speak for others of you out
there--has
mentally put down totals for having no sight and depending on
readers. Puffed
up with pride, we unwittingly blind ourselves to better ways of
doing our
reading. The truth is the totals had it covered all along.
     Ten years after college I was working at an independent living
center in
Idaho. I had had two long-term jobs before this one and had not
used readers.
But, working out reasonable accommodations for that job, I
requested readers
in preference to a print enlarger. I cannot recall what made me
make that
commitment. Perhaps it was having friends and role models in the
NFB who did
their jobs successfully and efficiently using readers.
     I enjoyed the flexibility and lack of eyestrain using a reader
with
20/20 vision. Depending upon what needed to be read, my assistant
could read
verbatim, scan, or skip material. I have hired readers on the job
ever since.
I also apply synthesized speech, Braille, large print, and the
enlarging
machine--only if a reader is not immediately available. Using
readers has
helped me become more informed about the best alternative for a
given facet of
the job.
     Enrolled as a student at BLIND, Inc., in 1994, I realized that
the
python of pride had not been pried sufficiently loose. Pam Iverson,
my life
skills teacher, urged me to complete the class goal to start using
a personal
reader at home for mail and other print. My main concern was the
intrusion
into my privacy. But like Trudy, Pam kept at me until I agreed. I
can honestly
say now that, after employing readers for the past two years, I
would not be
without them. Examples of personal reading made easy are the
none-too-brief
government documents, bank statements, information from our
landlord, and
handouts connected with our church classes and jobs. Also there are
my
daughter Raeann's school papers, reports, teacher's notes, and
field-trip
permission slips. What has worked best for Trudy and me is to find
a reader
who can come the day after the school material arrives home with
Raeann
because of the short turnaround time needed for that material.
     Sharon Menlove is our current reader and has worked for us for
two
years. We met Sharon through our church and knew her to be
responsible. The
privacy issue has never been a concern. Just as if I had been
hiring her on
the job, I let Sharon know what the job would entail and how she
would do it.
I have been flexible. If there is a day when she cannot come and if
she lets
me know a day ahead, we can reschedule. If something needs to be
read
immediately, I arrange for a substitute.
     As of this writing, I am looking for work. [He found it as a
salesman
for a drug company.] I have hired a second reader, Doug Christy,
who had
worked with me on my previous job at State Services for the Blind.
Doug has
read Job Service handouts, filled out job applications, and helped
with
library research on employers. It has paid off. In a recent
interview I was
told that I knew more than most applicants about the company.
     Another matter that is somewhat related to readers is customer
service.
I cannot believe that I was so stubborn as to spend forty-five
minutes or more
trying to find two items in a store by myself! Trudy cannot believe
that I
have cast my pride aside and now routinely ask for customer
assistance.
     More often than not, the clerks know the store better than the
customer
does. Not only do I now ask for customer service at stores, but I
more readily
ask for the server's help in reading menus at restaurants if a
Braille menu is
not available.
     Relying on readers and customer service saves time. All of us
complain
about not having enough hours in the day. Hire readers and enlist
customer
service personnel, and you will find that you are buying time to do
fun or
productive things. The alternative is to waste time feeding your
pride. Which
investment gets the greater return?


[PHOTO/CAPTION: Susan Povinelli]
                     Climbing the Acropolis
                       by Susan Povinelli

     From the Editor: The following story first appeared in the
Summer, 1996, issue of the Vigilant, the publication of the NFB
of Virginia. Susan Povinelli is an engineer by training. She
works for the United States Navy. She, her lawyer husband, and
their children live in the Virginia suburbs of Washington, D.C.,
and are active in the Virginia affiliate. This is what Susan
says:

     As I climbed the multitude of steps to the top of the
Acropolis in Athens, Greece, I thought of all the ancient Greek
philosophers who climbed this path to the summit to sit and
contemplate the meaning of life. I reflected on the wisdom of
those ancient philosophers. Now I reflect on how I took that
opportunity to travel to Greece.
     In April, 1993, I was offered a job with my agency's
training group as a training system manager to support one of our
foreign military sales programs. I remember spending one
sleepless night contemplating two great philosophical ideas. The
first was the general public's philosophy of blindness: that
because of helplessness a blind person cannot travel
independently and conduct business in a foreign country. The
other was the National Federation of the Blind's philosophy that
a blind person with the proper skills and training can travel
independently and accomplish a multitude of jobs. I recalled a
blind colleague's struggle to enter the foreign service, and I
decided that, if he could travel abroad independently, so could
I. So I accepted the position. That sleepless night was not the
last time these two competing philosophies would come into
conflict around me.
     About a month after I started the new job, a discreet effort
was made to transfer me out of it. The old philosophy of
blindness had reared its head again. Questions were raised. How
would the customer perceive and react to a blind manager? How
would a blind person be able to interpret nonverbal
communication? I assured them, as I had done many times before, a
blind person using good management and blindness skills could do
the job efficiently. As for nonverbal communication, there would
be others available to advise me on any matter I had missed--
nonverbal communication or technical issues.
     Let me briefly describe what I do as a training system
manager. When a customer (foreign government) procures an
aircraft, its personnel need to learn how to maintain and fly
that aircraft. The training team and I develop a training program
and then implement it. I incorporate the following techniques in
my job:
     I use Braille throughout my work. Pricing data are developed
with a computer spreadsheet program, which I then translate into
Braille using the Duxbury translation program on my MacIntosh
computer. This allows me to reference the data while on the phone
or in a meeting. I use Braille briefing sheets that correspond to
the printed view graphs. These are notes for my brief.
     My job requires that I travel to the customer's country and
assess the facilities where the training will be conducted. This
survey is usually conducted by a team of technical experts. The
experts and I look at the facility. The expert points out what is
wrong and what is right. We then discuss items needing correction
and develop a plan to remedy the problem.
     One of the management tools used is a milestone chart. This
graphically displays each event by its duration. For years I was
baffled about how to make raised-line drawings quickly and
inexpensively. I learned to use a child's screen board (a piece
of cardboard with wire window screen placed over it). A member of
my support staff places the milestone chart on top of the screen
board, traces the milestone chart with a crayon, and labels the
events in Braille. This same technique could be used for floor
plans, engineering drawings, or any diagram which has few
details.
     Now that you know what I do and how I conduct my job, it is
time to catch an airplane and fly to Greece. I remember the first
time I went. The rest of my team was already there, and I had to
make the trip alone. Once again the two philosophies clashed.
Airline personnel, especially in foreign lands, believe that a
blind person cannot travel independently and find the boarding
gate. Most airlines have policies to escort the blind person to
an assist lounge or to chairs outside the boarding gates. The
questions that plagued me were, would accepting assistance impede
my independence? Would I miss my connection and spend the night
in John F. Kennedy Airport? Could I catch a taxi in Athens if no
one met me at the airport?
     I realized that the real problem was not my blindness but my
lack of Greek. I was more frightened of not being able to
communicate than of getting lost in an airport. I frequently use
the airport assistance services when I travel alone because I
know it is the most efficient way to travel through large
airports, especially in Frankfurt, where I know there are no
chairs outside the boarding gates and the airport is so large
that dragging around carry-on luggage is difficult.
     I can proudly claim that I have made that trip across the
Atlantic several times alone. As I was standing next to the rock
from which Saint Paul was supposed to have preached Christianity
to the ancient Greeks, I wondered what important message I had to
share. At the time nothing came to mind. But a few weeks later,
as I was giving a presentation on blindness to my children's
school, I recognized it: being blind is not a tragedy. With the
proper skills and alternative techniques, a blind person can live
a successful and productive life.


                     My Swim Around Key West
                         by Sharon Luka

     From the Editor: The following article first appeared in the
September, 1996, Freestate News, a publication of the NFB of
Kansas. Sharon Luka is a long-time member of the Kansas affiliate
and a staunch Federationist as you will see from her
determination to succeed. Here is her story:

     Born three months premature and blind, Sharon Luka, forty-
one, of Saline, Kansas, took up swimming because she liked the
freedom she found in the water. With the support of her family
Sharon began swimming regularly after college, making real
demands on herself. When you're blind, Sharon says, nobody wants
to push you in sports because they don't know what you can do,
and they are afraid you will fail. On Saturday, June 1, 1996,
Sharon competed in the twentieth annual Swim Around Key West, a
grueling 12.5-mile swim at the southernmost tip of the
continental United States.
     Sharon, who was expected to take up to ten hours to complete
the swim, finished at 7:57:19. With corporate sponsorship from
Pfizer, Inc., Sharon was the first blind swimmer to compete in
this marathon event and fulfilled her goal of proving that
blindness is nothing but a physical nuisance.=20
     Several months before I competed in the Swim Around Key
West, I had a dream about the event. It was a nightmare, really,
because in it the race had begun, all the other swimmers were
churning up the water, and I couldn't move since I couldn't find
the boat that was supposed to guide me. Luckily, this was one
nightmare that did not repeat itself, even on the eve of the
marathon when I had a good case of pre-race jitters. Truth be
told, I had little chance for any sleep, let alone dreams, the
night before the race. All in all, it was a relief to get up and
get into the waters of the Gulf of Mexico.=20
     Having trained only in a swimming pool, little did I know
what I would face that day. If I had known, I would have stayed
in bed and not done battle with tireless waves, stinging salt,
oozing mud flats, clinging seaweed, submerged sea walls, and
more.
     I got my first big surprise when I arrived at the beach and
felt a tremendous gust of wind that practically blew me over. I
stood on the shore with 250 other swimmers, my feet planted in
the sand to keep my footing. As waves slammed the beach, I could
hear flags whipping in the air and caught fragments of
conversations: "Oh boy, it's really going to rain.... Looks like
hurricane weather." I made my final preparations in silence.
First, I put on my receiver cap--the radio-equipped swim cap that
would allow the guides in my escort boat to act as my eyes during
the marathon. Then I gave my last good-by hug to my sister June,
who trembled as we embraced. I knew she was scared as I headed
off toward the wind-tossed waves.
     Anita Allen, a marathon swimmer who served as my chief guide
in the escort boat, took my hand, and we started into the water.
I plunged forward to get started, caught a mouthful of water, and
choked in surprise. How will I ever begin this race, I wondered,
let alone finish it? I decided right then that, if I could
swallow salt water, I could swallow my pride as well and, rather
than swimming out to the starting line on my own, got towed out
by my escort boat to avoid the hazardous surf near shore.
     Once at the starting line, I knew I had to get through the
next dozen and a half miles all under my own steam.
Navigationally, however, I had to depend on others. My special
receiver cap would enable me to get directions from Anita and be
warned of any obstacles in my path. Since the cap is wired for
sound, I sometimes use it back home in Kansas to play music and
movie soundtracks when I'm practicing long-distance swims in the
pool. On this day my guide Anita had selections from Peter, Paul,
and Mary and the soundtrack of National Velvet ready just in case
I wanted it. But I wound up too busy dodging waves and trying to
breathe without inhaling seawater to listen to even a single
chorus of "Puff the Magic Dragon." I did benefit from one bit of
movie inspiration: Echoing The Wizard of Oz, Anita kept spurring
me on with "You're not in Kansas anymore!" True enough, I
thought.
     The first part of the race was the hardest, because I swam
headlong into constant waves for three miles straight. With no
visual clues to help me, I had a hard time synchronizing my
breathing so that my head hit the trough, not the peak, of the
waves as I inhaled. Throughout this stretch I kept heading to the
left trying to avoid the waves and get air while Anita kept
radioing me to come back to the right.("You're heading to Cuba?")
The best thing I can say about this tug-of-war is that it was so
aggravating I wasn't bored for a moment.
     Somewhere along the way, I'll confess, the salt spray
started to get to me. By that time my sinuses were so irritated
that my head was buzzing as if I had gotten nitrous oxide at the
dentist. This, I decided, was a situation that urgently needed
help from above. "God, I know that you can stop these waves," I
prayed. "But if you choose not to, then please just give me the
patience to put up with them."
     Well Plan B seemed to suit the Almighty just fine. While the
waves and spray kept coming, I gained not only the patience to
put up with them but also the creativity to turn them into a
game. I'd stretch out my arm and try to decide which side was
getting hit harder by rain. This told me which direction the wind
was coming from, and that in turn told me which side to avoid
when inhaling. Certainly not the world's greatest game, but it
did keep me busy!
     The irony was that Anita told me I was starting to look like
a real ocean racing pro! But I'm sure I didn't look so great
when, about halfway through the race, I ran into a mud flat. I
probably could have walked, not swum, this part of the route. But
since getting up on your feet during the race is strictly
prohibited, I just oozed right on through, wriggling my way
across the smooth silt and seaweed like a tadpole until I hit
deeper water again. The experience was surprisingly not
unpleasant, but you would surely have to try it to believe me.
The ocean holds many mysteries, even when you have sharp-eyed
guides trying to spot the hazards for you.
     At one point, supposedly in clear water, I hit a submerged
sea wall and got stung by a jelly fish or some other creature at
the same time. I felt fortunate, nonetheless. Since other
marathon swimmers got badly stung all over their bodies that day,
I was pretty lucky to get away with just one tingling spot on my
wrist.
     The last and best surprise of the day was that I finished
the race sooner than I expected to; in fact, I completed the
12.5-mile course forty-five minutes faster than it took me to
complete the 9.5-mile swim I'd done in rehearsal. So, when Anita
radioed me that the buoy marking the finish line was just a mile
ahead, I didn't quite believe it. At that point, I felt I could
swim forever and had just one thought in my mind: I'm going to
make it. When I finally touched the giant buoy that marked the
end of the race, I heard a lot of whistling and commotion in the
background and thought, "I wonder what all the excitement is. I
must really be missing out on something." When I got to shore, I
found out from my sister that the excitement was me. I was the
last swimmer to finish, and what I'd heard was people cheering me
on.
     I can honestly say this was one of the happiest moments of
my life. I had trained nine months for this moment. I had wanted
to test my limits and see how far I could go. Looking back on the
experience, I realize how important it was for me to prove to
myself and other people that being blind is not a reason to hold
back on your dreams. I hope that my experience will inspire
others to challenge themselves.
     Believe me, there is no greater satisfaction than meeting a
tough challenge, especially when it is a tough challenge you have
picked for yourself!


                  Job History of a Working Mom
                          by Beth Finke

     From the Editor: The following little article first appeared
in JOB Bulletin, a cassette publication of the Job Opportunities
for the Blind Program, which the NFB conducts jointly with the
U.S. Department of Labor. The piece is highly instructive because
it so clearly demonstrates that effective job hunting is
comprised in large part of common sense, solid preparation, and
determination to do a good job. This is the way Beth Fink
describes her employment history:

     When I lost my sight ten years ago, I also lost my job as
the assistant director of the Study Abroad Office at the
University of Illinois. The job required a lot of counseling of
undergraduate students and a lot of phone work. It was reasonable
to think that I could have kept that job even while I was
learning new Braille, orientation, and mobility skills. But I
wasn't thinking reasonably at the time. When my boss said I
couldn't do the job without being able to see, I figured she must
be right.
     During my involuntary unemployment, I finished
rehabilitation at the Illinois Visually Handicapped Institute,
had a baby, volunteered on a local suicide prevention hotline,
ran a small-time day-care program in our house, and played the
piano in an old-time fiddle band.
     After a few years of this, my son started preschool, and I
got antsy and started looking for a job outside the house. While
visiting a nearby church one Sunday, I asked the person sitting
next to me to read the bulletin out loud. Among the notices was
one explaining that the church was looking for a volunteer
coordinator.
     I called and asked for an interview. I didn't tell anyone
over the phone that I was blind. The receptionist told me what
the job entailed: about ten hours a week of work rounding up
volunteers by phone or in person at Sunday services. She gave me
a time for my interview, and I started thinking about how I could
do the job without being able to see.
     I had a talking computer at home. I figured I could use it
to keep track of church members and their telephone numbers. I
could stand up at church services and make announcements about
volunteer opportunities and ask interested people to seek me out
after church. I could record their names and interests on tape or
Braille them for my records.
     I arrived at my interview with these ideas. The co-pastors I
talked with were very warm and friendly, but I could tell they
were skeptical. I made a suggestion: try it for three months, and
if after that time I was unhappy with the position or was
unqualified, they could let me go with no hard feelings. They
agreed, we shook hands, and I was hired.
     I passed the three-month audition and worked as the church's
volunteer coordinator for over a year. I had a desk at the church
office, but I chose not to use it, preferring to work from home
with my talking computer. I was not by nature a churchgoer, but
every Sunday I'd get up early to use a guided clipboard to print
out by hand the events and times for which volunteers were
needed. I'd make an announcement at church, pass the clipboard
around during the service, and later have a volunteer read me the
results.
     I used my white cane to walk to weekly staff meetings, and I
started doing something former volunteer coordinators hadn't
thought of: I attended church committee meetings. My attendance
at these meetings served as a reminder that I was there to help
find volunteers for committee work too. Another new thing I did
was write an article about volunteer opportunities in each
monthly church newsletter.
     I had worked at the church a year when I decided to go to
the Seeing Eye and get a guide dog. The church board allowed me
the month off work for training, but they said they would really
miss my work while I was gone, and they meant it.
     Shortly after I returned to work with my new guide dog, I
found out that one of the church office assistants was leaving to
take a job at the university in town. I asked her to lunch so
that we could brainstorm about who could fill her position. She
interrupted me soon after I started going over a list of
potential candidates. "This is silly," she said; "You're the one
who should take this job." The idea had never occurred to me; her
job seemed too complicated and way over my head. But once we
talked it out, I realized she was right. I should apply for her
position.
     I wrote a proposal explaining how I would supervise college
student interns, oversee the rental of the office and theater
space the church owned, answer the phones, and take messages for
other staff members. The new job would require me to work at the
church rather than at home, so I offered to buy myself a laptop
computer with speech output. I could use it both at home and at
the office. I would need it especially to keep track of rental
space at the church.
     The Board accepted my proposal, and soon after they saw what
a good job I could do, they reimbursed me for the laptop
computer. Years later, when the church decided to use Macintoshes
in each office, they provided speech synthesis for the computer
in my office. This job paid well, especially for part-time work.
The part-time aspect was good for me, allowing me time at home
with my son when he needed me.
     In 1995 my husband's job transferred us to the Chicago area.
I gave myself three months to get used to our new house, enroll
my son in school, and teach my guide dog our new town. Then I
started looking for work.
     We subscribed to the local paper, and my husband was happy
to read the classified ads out loud onto a cassette for me to
listen to again and again if I needed to. I applied for a job
baking bread at a local bakery, but I'm afraid Pandora (my guide
dog) scared them off. Next I applied for a position in the ticket
office of a local minor league baseball team. I sent a letter
explaining who I was and my resume detailing all the duties I'd
performed at my last job. I also included a page of Braille, just
to get their attention.
     It worked. I got an interview and was hired on the spot.
I've worked in the ticket office at the Kane County Cougars for
over a year now. Again, my work is part-time, allowing me time at
home with my son when he's not in school or summer camp.
     At work I'm responsible for keeping track of groups coming
to games for special outings. Each day, before I come to work, my
supervisor fills a cassette tape with names and numbers of groups
to be called. The cassette recorder is waiting for me at my desk
when I get to the office, and I get right to work on the phone.
Most often it's a simple call to remind group leaders that they
owe us money for tickets. Sometimes groups need information about
where to gather before singing the national anthem, where to line
up to throw out the first pitch, that sort of thing.
     This job doesn't pay particularly well, but the benefits
suit me: free tickets to home games, free admission to a local
recreational center. (The team has a bartering agreement with the
center. I go there almost daily to swim laps in the indoor pool.)
There are also free giveaways if there are any extras after
games. Our closets at home are full of inflatable bats, mini-
coolers, even whoopee cushions--all adorned with the Kane County
Cougar logo. You can't imagine the money I save on birthday
presents for nieces and nephews this way!
     To sum up, if someone were to ask me how I managed to find
jobs without being able to see, I'd have three main answers:
     1.   I was prepared for my interviews. I found out as much
          as I could about the job duties and came to each
          interview already equipped with ideas about how I would
          fulfill the duties of the job.
     2.   I had a track record. Even when I applied for the
          volunteer-coordinator job, I had my work on the
          suicide-prevention hotline under my belt. I reported to
          my potential employers how I had used my talking
          computer and Braille to keep notes and fill out
          required forms as a volunteer. It made them feel more
          comfortable hiring me once they knew someone else had
          already worked successfully with me.=20
     3.   I made it easy for people to employ me. I never
          threatened employers or make them feel obligated. I
          just arrived at the interview well dressed, open to
          questions, and equipped with answers. I made it obvious
          that I was eager to work, even at a low salary. I liked
          leaving interviews with employers wondering why they
          wouldn't hire me.
     One more thing about that low salary. My husband is
employed, so I have the luxury of surviving on a small salary. In
the case of my volunteer-coordinator job, however, it wasn't long
after I started working that a small salary became a large one.
This could happen at my current job as well. I think once you do
a good job for a while, employers are reluctant to let you go.
They'll pay you more to stay.
     I do feel underemployed since losing my sight, but I figure
that I'm just one of millions of part-time workers who feel this
way. Once my son is older, I hope to find a more challenging
full-time job. I anticipate that this job search will be more
difficult than my search for low-paying, part-time work has been.
I am hopeful, however, that recommendations from my former
employers will be a big help--can't hurt.


                      Of Vision and Voting
                        by Jolene Boshart

     From the Editor: Jolene Boshart is a member of the Lincoln
Chapter of the National Federation of the Blind of Nebraska. This
is what she writes:

     Like many other blind people, I have voted in every election
since I was eighteen (and that's a lot of elections!). Sometimes
the voting went smoothly, and sometimes I was hassled about using
a reader or getting privacy in the polling place. When the
National Federation of the Blind finally secured the right of
blind people to vote using the reader of our choice, it was a
great victory in Nebraska. I thought at that time that we had
gone as far as we could go in achieving equality at the polls.
     However, I'm happy to say that I was mistaken. This time it
was not blind people working to secure greater freedom. Our
champion was Lancaster County Election Commissioner Patty Hansen,
who is fully sighted. Patty had the idea; I had the expertise;
together, we provided a vehicle which enabled blind citizens of
Lancaster County to cast secret ballots for the first time.
     It all began on January 1, 1995, when a new company
specializing in Braille translation was born in Lincoln,
Nebraska. I called it J. B. Translations, and for me, a lifetime
user of Braille, it was a step of faith and a dream come true.
Its main purpose is the provision of accurate, affordable Braille
translation to both private and public customers. I also provide
custom typing and consultation on ways to bring blind people into
the first-class status we deserve. In the spring of 1996 a couple
of my clients called and asked me if I was interested in getting
the contract to produce Braille ballots for Lancaster County for
the November, 1996, election. I was interested, of course, but
didn't exactly know how to go about getting the information
necessary to facilitate this project.
     Then I received a call from Patty Hansen, the Lancaster
County Election Commissioner, and we started talking about the
ballots. I have to admit that at first my mind wasn't completely
on the subject (I was preoccupied with the deadlines for a large
contract), but all of a sudden Patty said something which caught
my attention and held it. "There's no reason," she said, "why
blind people shouldn't be able to vote by means of a secret
ballot, just like everybody else. They're Nebraska voters, too."
     Hold on, I thought, and suddenly the enthusiasm switched on.
We talked a little more; and, much to my surprise, I didn't even
have to think about how it could be done. Patty already had the
answers.
     The voting process, she said, would be simple enough. The
election office would provide a template into which the ballot
would be inserted. The template would have circles punched out in
the appropriate spots beside the names of the different
candidates and a long rectangle cut out for the names of write-in
candidates. I would then prepare a Brailled booklet of
instructions, along with the information on the ballot. In this
manner it would be possible for blind people who read Braille to
vote absolutely independently.
     "Yes," I finally said, "this will work!"=20
     The rest is history. In the November election this option
was provided to Lancaster County voters. Unfortunately the word
didn't get out very well, although we had some local news
coverage. During that election two of us took advantage of the
templates. At that time we offered only absentee ballots.=20
     We have recently held the April primary election here in
Lancaster County. This time we expanded the procedure so that
people could vote either by absentee ballot or by going to the
polling place. Also the instructions are now available on tape.
This time, too, the advertising was better. Two local news
stations covered the story as well as the local newspaper. We
even had a small blurb in USA Today.
     During the April election six voters took advantage of the
process (most of them Federationists), and I have received very
positive feedback from several of them. One side benefit occurred
because many polling places are located in schools. When the
article came out in the local newspaper, several teachers saw it
and discussed the Braille ballots in their classrooms. Then later
the children saw the voters (among them Christine Boone and
Barbara Walker) using the Braille ballots. "It's a great way to
educate people about using Braille," said Chris. Like Chris,
Barbara votes in each election, but said about the Braille
ballots, "Knowing that the Braille ballot would be there waiting
for me and that I could do it completely by myself made this
election just that much neater." Christine's comment was, "It was
the coolest!"
     To me voting has always been important and exciting. Equally
exciting, though, was the thought that in Patty Hansen we had
found someone with the vision to help us realize our dream of
equality, security, and opportunity--someone willing to recognize
us as first-class citizens who will never go back to the tenuous
existence to which we were relegated for such a long time.


[PHOTO/CAPTION: Jerry Whittle]
                   Speaking About New Orleans
                        by Jerry Whittle

     From the Editor: This is the final pre-convention article
about New Orleans and the 1997 Convention of the National
Federation of the Blind. Begin getting ready for the experience
of a lifetime by learning what the locals are talking about.
Here's what Jerry Whittle has to say:

     New Orleans has many features that set it apart from all
other American cities. One of the most distinctive differences is
the colorful street jargon. When visiting the Crescent City,
perhaps it would be helpful to know these unique terms. After
all, Federationists should find the time to visit the French
Quarter since it is only a few short blocks from the Hyatt-
Regency Hotel.
     Banquette: A term meaning sidewalk, derived from a time when
the walks were made of wood.
     Batture: The land between a levee and the river. It is often
covered by the river's high water from late winter through
spring.
     Bayou: A marshy, sluggish tributary of a river or lake.
     Beignet: A hole-less French doughnut sprinkled with powdered
sugar. A local tradition, beignets are generally served with cafe
au lait.
     Cajun: One who descends from the Acadians. French people who
were exiled from Nova Scotia and who settled in southern
Louisiana in the 1760's. The word applies to the people, a form
of French dialect spoken by these people, and the food and music
they popularized.
     Chicory: A root roasted and ground to flavor Louisiana
coffee. It is said to counteract the bitter taste often imparted
by pure java.
     Crawfish: Sometimes spelled crayfish, but never by locals,
and nicknamed mudbugs, crawfish are common, edible freshwater
crustaceans.
     Etoufee: A savory concoction of Creole origin with a roux
(flour and butter) base; the holy trinity (celery, onions, and
green peppers); plenty of spices; and either crawfish or shrimp.
Considered an elegant dish, etoufee is traditionally served over
rice.
     Flambeaux: Before the advent of electricity and automotive
transportation, men carrying large frames of lighted torches
called "flambeaux" once illuminated the way for horse- or mule-
drawn vehicles. Carnival organizations still feature flambeaux in
their evening parades.
     Go-Cups: Plastic cups into which a bar's patrons may pour
unfinished portions of their beverages before heading for the
streets. You can take liquor almost anywhere in New Orleans, but
not in anything glass.
     Gumbo: A soup, thickened by either okra or fil`e. It usually
includes everything but the kitchen sink. Staples include shrimp,
crab, oysters, fish, chicken, and sausage. All New Orleanians
argue that their grandmother makes the best.
     Hurricane: An alcoholic beverage concocted of rum, fruit
juice, and sugar. Its original home was Pat O'Brien's bar in the
french Quarter.
     Jambalaya: A rice version of "the kitchen sink," this local
dish always starts with rice and includes various meats, seafood,
and seasonings.
     King Cake: Traditionally served during Carnival, this cake
resembles a large sweet roll and is decorated with purple, green,
and gold sugars and white icing. Hidden inside is a small,
plastic doll. The recipient of the doll is supposed to host the
next king cake party.
     Lagniappe: A little something extra, like a "baker's dozen."
     Laissez Les Bons Temps Rouler: "Let the good times roll," a
popular expression among Cajuns.
     Mint Julep: An alcoholic beverage of crushed mint leaves,
mixed with sugar, laced heavily with bourbon, and finished with a
little water.
     Muffaletta: born in the French Quarter's Italian markets as
a hearty meal for seamen, this large, round sandwich features a
variety of meats and cheeses and is dressed with olive salad on
soft, seeded Italian bread.
     Nutria: A beaver-like, fur-covered rodent that's eating the
marshes and levees of Louisiana's swamps. Many have migrated into
the city through the canals and bayous. They look like giant rats
with long, orange teeth. You should avoid them, but some locals
cook them.
     Picayune: Once a common Spanish coin in New Orleans, the
picayune was worth 6.25 cents. It was originally the cost of a
daily newspaper now called the Times-Picayune.
     Pirogue: A small, flat-bottomed boat invented by Cajuns for
maneuvering through shallow water.
     Po-Boy: Originally filled with inexpensive, filling fare
(such as French fries) and served on long loaves of French bread,
this sandwich was first offered to the poor by local merchants
either free or at a very low cost. Now it is a delicacy
overflowing with meats, seafood, and more.
     Praline: A disc-shaped candy traditionally made of pecans,
vanilla, butter, cream, and sugar. The creation has evolved to
include several versions, including chocolate and chewy.
     Sazerac: This cocktail was make famous at the turn of the
century. It incorporated rye whiskey, Angostura and Peychaud
bitters, and sugar. This mixture is strained over ice and served
with a twist of lemon. It's not for the weak-hearted.
     Shotgun: A common architectural style of small, linear,
wood-frame houses on narrow lots in old neighborhoods--so named
because most consist of two parallel sides with consecutive
rooms, arranged like the barrels of a shotgun.
     Veranda: A balcony usually covered and often surrounded by
ornate wrought iron or cast iron railings--the perfect place to
consume a mint julep.
     Vieux Carre: The original city, now called the French
Quarter, was first dubbed Vieux Carre, which literally means "Old
Square" and was so named because the city was initially laid out
in a perfect square.
     Where Y'at: Direct translation, "Where are you at?" is a
typical New Orleans neighborhood greeting. It means the same
thing as, "How are you?"
     Zydeco: The dance music of southwestern Louisiana's black,
French-speaking Creoles. The music is produced with a variety of
instruments, including washboards, spoons, accordions,
harmonicas, washtubs, and floor boards.


[PHOTO/CAPTION: Ed and Toni Eames with their guide dogs]
            A Note from the Canine Concerns Committee
                      by Ed and Toni Eames

     From the Editor: Those who attended the 1996 Convention of
the National Federation of the Blind will remember what a fine
job Ed and Toni Eames did organizing the dog-relief areas and
otherwise assisting guide dog users. They have styled themselves
the Canine Concerns Committee and are moving forward to insure
that arrangements for dogs will be as good in New Orleans this
year. Here is their good advice for users:

     Preparations are underway to make the 1997 Convention in New
Orleans the best ever. As co-chairs of the National Canine
Concerns Committee (CCC), we have been working with the national
and state leadership to ensure the experience will be as pleasant
for our canine partners as it will be for us. The indoor relief
areas at the Hyatt and Radisson are modeled after last year's
pattern developed in Anaheim. A group of volunteers will be
available to greet you when you first arrive and escort you and
your guide dog to the designated relief areas. Specific
information about local veterinary care and other canine concerns
will be provided in the pre-convention information packet.
     Arrangements have been made to provide a dog sitting service
for those wanting to leave their dogs in the hotel while taking
advantage of the many wonderful New Orleans tours.
     Convention time can be stressful for us and our guide dogs.
We have developed several techniques to diminish this stress
while attending conferences. Many of us need time out from the
hectic pace and excitement of convention activities, and our dogs
may need equivalent time to relax and play with toys in our hotel
rooms.
     Keeping to a busy convention schedule frequently resembles a
juggling act, but we try to keep our dogs on their regular relief
schedules. Before eating breakfast, our first priority is getting
Escort and Echo to the designated relief area. To avoid the rush
of the crowds, we try to arrive at scheduled sessions early. This
also gives us the opportunity to talk with friends and other
members of our state delegation. To avoid the crush in elevators,
we try to use stairways whenever possible, which also provides
needed exercise for us and our dogs. Although our mealtimes may
be irregular, we try to keep our dogs on a feeding schedule
resembling the routine we have at home. When we travel, we
measure each meal into a plastic bag. After the dogs eat, the bag
can be used for pick-up. In case of lost or delayed luggage, we
carry a day's supply of dog food in our carry-on bag.
     Part of the fun of convention time is meeting old friends
and making new acquaintances. However, this excitement may be
stimulating for our dogs, so we take time to put them at a "sit
stay" before becoming engrossed in deep conversations. This is
particularly useful in the exhibit area, where our attention is
on the exhibits rather than on our dogs. To ensure the dog's
safety as well as the comfort of other Federationists, we place
our dogs at a "sit stay" between us and the exhibit tables.
     The Canine Concerns Committee, with the encouragement of
those responsible for the National Convention, is doing its part
to plan for the needs of guide dog users, but we as guide dog
users have to play our part as well. Please use the designated
relief areas and always pick up after your dog. Assistance will
be available for those who need to learn the technique of picking
up. Accidents can and do happen. If your dog should have an
accident outside the relief area, please stay nearby and have
someone contact the hotel housekeeping staff.
     New Orleans is known for gourmet food, great music, and gobs
of fleas. Fortunately, in the last few years a number of
effective flea control products have become available. Your
veterinarian can assist you in selecting the most appropriate
treatment for your dog. Starting your dog on a flea control
program before convention will avoid problems during your stay in
New Orleans and after your return home.
     Comments, concerns, and complaints should be reported to Ed
and Toni Eames, Canine Concerns co-chairs, or Pam Dubel,
convention guide dog contact person for Louisiana, all of whom
will be staying at the Hyatt.


     Have you considered making a gift to the National Federation
of the Blind through a living trust? Such a trust can offer you
more flexibility than a will. Although similar to a will, it is a
repository for assets, which can be distributed to a charity and
heirs. This method might well provide you with significant cost
savings and asset protection. A living trust is also beneficial
to people concerned with complete privacy since none of the terms
of trust are part of the public record. Unlike a will, from a
living trust asset distribution is almost immediate, avoiding
extensive probate delays.=20
     For more information contact the National Federation of the
Blind, Special Gifts, 1800 Johnson Street, Baltimore, Maryland
21230-4998, [phone], fax [phone].


[PHOTO/CAPTION: Ed and Karen McDonald]
                             Recipes

     This month's recipes are contributed by the members of the
National Federation of the Blind of West Virginia.

                        Hickory Nut Cake
                         by Ed McDonald

     Ed McDonald is the President of the NFB of West Virginia. He
says, "This McDonald family recipe goes back at least as far as
my great-grandmother. On the farm where my grandparents and
great-grandparents lived in Headsville, West Virginia, there is
still a big old hickory tree. Every two years this tree bears an
abundant crop of nuts. As a kid I remember helping my family
gather these nuts off the ground and remove the thick outer
shell. They were an important ingredient for a lot of fall and
Christmas baking, including my birthday cake. I suppose some
other type of nuts could be substituted in this recipe, but the
hickory nuts give the cake its distinctive, even unique flavor.
Hickory nuts may be hard to find nowadays, but they are worth
looking for."

Ingredients:
1 cup broken hickory nut meats
1-1/2 cups sugar
1/2 cup butter
2 cups sifted all-purpose flour
 3/4 cup milk
2 teaspoons baking powder
1 teaspoon vanilla
4 egg whites

     Method: Cream butter, add sugar gradually, and beat until
fluffy. Sift dry ingredients together. Mix a small amount of the
flour with nuts. Alternately add dry ingredients and milk. Mix
after each addition. Add vanilla. Stir in nuts. Beat the egg
whites until they are very stiff and carefully fold them into the
batter. Pour into greased and floured tube pan. Bake one hour at
325 degrees. Remove cake from the oven when a toothpick inserted
in center comes out clean. Place cake on cooling rack and allow
it to cool ten minutes before removing from the pan.


                 Baked Frankfurter Potato Salad
                         by Ed McDonald

     In 1970 this recipe was included in the Centennial Cookbook,
collected and published by the Alumni Association of the West
Virginia School for the Blind. It was submitted by J.J. Ambler,
an Episcopal minister who, at the time, also taught math and
science at the school. (He is now a public school teacher in
Virginia.) Mr. Ambler was one of those teachers who had an impact
on me that extended beyond the content of the course he taught.
When I went off to college and began doing some cooking for
myself, this is one of the first real recipes I tried--partly
because it sounded good and partly because it came from Mr.
Ambler. Karen and I still enjoy it.

Ingredients:
4 tablespoons margarine
 1/4 cup soft bread crumbs
3 tablespoons flour
1 teaspoon salt
 3/4 teaspoon dry mustard
 1/4 teaspoon pepper
1-1/2 cups milk
 3/4 cup salad dressing (I use Miracle Whip)
6 medium-sized potatoes, peeled, cooked, and diced
1 box frozen cut green beans, cooked
1 medium onion, chopped
1 pound frankfurters, cut in  1/4-inch slices

     Method: Melt margarine in saucepan. Remove 1 tablespoon and
mix with crumbs. Set aside. Blend flour and seasonings into
remaining melted margarine. Gradually add milk and cook, stirring
until thickened. Remove from heat and blend in salad dressing.
Reserve  1/4 cup of this sauce for topping, and fold potatoes,
green beans, and chopped onion into mixture. Add all but six
slices of frankfurter and spoon into shallow baking dish. Garnish
with reserved frankfurter slices and top with reserved sauce.
Sprinkle surface with crumbs. Bake in moderate oven, 350 degrees,
for thirty to forty minutes. Serve hot or cold. (Serves six.)


                           Taco Chili
                        by Karen McDonald

     Karen and Ed McDonald were married at the West Virginia
convention last summer. Karen is a former president of the
Morgantown-Kingwood Chapter. A talented musician herself, she has
become increasingly involved in promoting the awareness and
availability of Braille music. Karen modified this recipe from a
winning recipe in a Texas chili cook-off. It can be served in a
bowl as traditional chili, but she prefers to serve it as the
main ingredient for tacos or taco salads. It has been a long-time
favorite of her four children. If you can't take the heat, this
recipe is not for you.

Ingredients:
2 tablespoons salad oil
4 pounds lean ground beef
2 8-ounce cans tomato sauce
2 medium onions, finely chopped
2 teaspoons garlic powder
1/2 cup chili powder
4 teaspoons cumin
1 tablespoon red pepper or Tabasco sauce
1-1/2 teaspoons salt (to taste)
1 teaspoon oregano
1/2 teaspoon ground red pepper
1 12-ounce can beer

     Method: In large saucepan or Dutch oven heat oil over medium
high heat. Add beef and cook until browned. Stir in tomato sauce,
onions, and garlic. Reduce heat to medium low; cover, and simmer
thirty minutes, stirring occasionally. Stir in remaining
ingredients and simmer one hour. Cool and refrigerate overnight.
Reheat over medium low heat. Taco accompaniments: shredded
lettuce, chopped tomatoes, shredded Cheddar cheese, chopped red
onions, jalapeno peppers, taco shells, tortilla chips or taco
salad shells, and salsa--whatever kind you like.

                          Spanish Stew
                       by Victor Gonzalez

     Victor Gonzalez is a long-time leader of the National
Federation of the
Blind of West Virginia. He is a member of the Clarksburg chapter,
which
celebrated its fortieth anniversary in February. Throughout those
forty years
Victor has represented the chapter on the NFB of West Virginia
Board of
Directors. He also established the committee of Federationists
which meets
three times each year with representatives of state agencies that
provide
services to the blind. He has chaired these meetings since the
early 1960's.
His wife Joyce currently serves as treasurer of the West Virginia
affiliate.
Victor is the son of Spanish immigrants who settled in central West
Virginia
during the early part of the century. There are still folks in the
area who
make what they call Spanish sausage--a sort of link sausage
containing a
variety of spices. About this recipe Victor writes, "During the
Depression we
had a lot of one-pot meals. Joyce and I have this meal once a week.
I prefer
less water than she does."

Ingredients:
2 sticks of Spanish sausage, sliced (if unavailable, substitute 2
six- to
eight-inch sticks of pepperoni, sliced)
4 large potatoes or 8 small ones, diced
2 15-ounce cans chopped kale greens
1 or 2 15-ounce cans great northern beans

     Method: Place sausage, kale, and beans in a medium to large
sauce pan or
dutch oven. Add enough water to cover ingredients. Cook for fifteen
minutes.
Add potatoes and cook for an additional half hour or until potatoes
are fully
cooked. This recipe will serve two meals to four people. A small
head of
cabbage may be substituted for the kale. The amount of water will
depend upon
how much liquid you like in your stew. Just make sure you use
enough to insure
that the ingredients do not burn or stick to the pan.

[PHOTO/CAPTION: Abby Hensley]
                       Mexican Corn Bread
                         by Abby Hensley

     Abby Hensley has been treasurer of the Huntington Chapter
for nearly forty years. She and her late husband Guy Sebert
became active sighted members early in the history of the
Huntington Chapter. Now, in her early 80's, Abby continues to
lead the chapter's fundraising efforts. At state conventions she
often shares with us an interesting recollection about a person
or event from the early days of the affiliate.

Ingredients:
1 cup self-rising cornmeal
1 cup self-rising flour
 1/4 cup sugar
1/2 cup oil
1 cup sweet milk
1 cup whole kernel corn
1 cup cheese, grated
1/2 cup onion, diced
3 or 4 hot peppers, chopped
1 green bell pepper, diced

     Method: Mix cornmeal, flour, sugar, oil, and milk. Place
half of mixture in bottom of 9-by-13-inch baking pan. Sprinkle
the corn, cheese, onion, and peppers over the cornmeal mixture.
Spread remaining cornmeal mixture on top. Bake at 425 degrees for
twenty to twenty-five minutes or until done. (You may wish to add
a little more cheese. Also cornmeal mixture may be increased to
make a larger pan of bread.)


                            Cavatini
                        by Barbara Olive

     James and Barbara Olive are active members of the Charleston
Chapter. Barbara is chapter secretary, and James has become
increasingly active in support of the NFB of West Virginia's
Braille literacy legislation. Both are veteran employees of Bell
Atlantic in West Virginia. Barbara is a fine cook, and the
following are some of their favorite recipes.

Ingredients:
2 cups dry pasta (trio package)
1 large onion chopped
2 medium green peppers, chopped
1 large can mushrooms
1 large package pepperoni, thinly sliced
1 large jar spaghetti sauce
1 pound ground beef
1 pound sausage
 3/4 pound mozzarella cheese, grated

     Method: Cook pasta according to package directions and
drain. Brown the ground meat and sausage until cooked and drain
well. Saute onions, peppers, and mushrooms in a little of the
drippings or in oil. Combine vegetables, meat mixture, pepperoni,
pasta, and spaghetti sauce and place in a 9-by-13-inch pan or
four-quart casserole dish. Sprinkle grated cheese on top and bake
thirty-five to forty minutes at 350 degrees. You may add other
pizza toppings if you like.


                        Mexican Casserole
                        by Barbara Olive

Ingredients:
1 pound ground beef, cooked and drained
1 cup thawed frozen corn=20
 3/4 cup Miracle Whip
1 tablespoon chili powder
1 package taco sauce
1 12-ounce jar chunky salsa
1 cup taco chips, lightly crushed
1 cup shredded cheese (Monterey Jack or Colby)

     Method: Mix together all ingredients except cheese and taco
or corn chips. In baking dish layer half of meat mixture, half
the broken taco chips, and half the cheese. Repeat these three
layers. Bake at 350 degrees for twenty minutes.


                        Basic Salmon Loaf
                        by Barbara Olive

Ingredients:
1 15=AB-ounce can salmon
2 cups soft bread crumbs
 1/3 cup minced onion, finely chopped
2 eggs
2 tablespoons minced parsley
1 tablespoon lemon juice
 1/4 teaspoon salt
 1/4 teaspoon dill weed
dash pepper
2 tablespoons reserved salmon liquid

     Method: Drain and flake salmon, reserving two tablespoons
liquid. Combine all ingredients, including reserved salmon
liquid, and shape into a loaf. Place in a well-greased loaf pan
or on a greased baking sheet. Bake at 350 degrees for forty-five
minutes. Makes four to six servings.


                       Monitor Miniatures

One More Convention Tour:
     Louisiana Coach Services is offering a special tour to the
Casino Magic in Bay St. Louis, Mississippi, at the 1997 National
Convention. On Thursday, July 3, at 1:00 p.m. a bus will take all
interested convention attendees to Bay St. Louis, Mississippi,
(about one hour from New Orleans) to the Casino Magic. The bus
ride is free, and the group will have five hours to gamble on
board one of the great gambling casinos in Mississippi on the
Gulf of Mexico. This tour also features a free buffet on board
ship. The bus will return to the hotel at 9:00 p.m. If interested
in participating in this gambling excursion to a boat anchored on
the Gulf of Mexico, please contact Suzie Yost after 6:00 p.m. CDT
at [phone].

[PHOTO/CAPTION: From left to right Joel P`erez Ort=A1z, NFB of Puerto
Rico
member; Jos`e=C2Rodr=A1quez, affiliate Board of Directors member;
Alpidio Rol=A2n,
NFB of Puerto Rico President; Vanessa Torres, the bride; Tom=A0s
Cintr=A2n, groom
and Secretary of the NFB of Puerto Rico; Lydia Usero, NFB-PR First
Vice
President; Vanessa Delgado, affiliate Treasurer; and Carmin
Brigantti, NFB-PR
Second Vice President]=20
Wedding Bells:
     We are delighted to report that on December 14, 1996, Tom=A0s
Cintr=A2n, Secretary of the NFB of Puerto Rico, and Vanessa Torres,
a member of the affiliate, were married in San Germ=A0n, Puerto
Rico. The ceremony and celebration that followed were shared by
many Federationists as demonstrated by the accompanying
photograph. Congratulations to the newlyweds. May their life
together be long, joyous, and filled with Federation activity.

New Travel Agent:
     We have been asked to carry the following announcement:
     Lelar Gravatt, a Federationist from Idaho, reports that
despite the discouragement of naysayers she has opened her own
business as a travel agent. She is prepared to offer itineraries
and travel information in Braille or on cassette tape to blind
travelers interested in receiving such information in alternative
format. For more information contact Lelar Gravatt, Your Travel
Consultant, 227 East South Fifth Street, Grangeville, Idaho
83530-2119, [phone].

For Sale:
     We have been asked to carry the following announcement:
     One Optacon II, which has barely been used and works like
new. I am asking $1,500 or best offer. Contact Leah Zamora at
[phone].

Free Large-Print Megilas Esther and Haggadah Available:
     We have been asked to carry the following announcement:
     The Jewish Heritage for the Blind is pleased to announce
that the large-print Megilas Esther is available to individuals
who have difficulty reading regular print. As in past years, they
will make available a large-print Haggadah as well. Forward your
request, along with a copy of a letter from your eye care
specialist indicating your condition, to the Jewish Heritage for
the Blind, Department of Large Print Publications, 1655 East 24th
Street, Brooklyn, New York 11229. Fax your order to (718) 338-
0653 or call [phone].

For Sale:
     We have been asked to carry the following announcement:
     IBM DOS Screen Reader package, including Braille manuals and
two keypads (one for use with a pentium and the other for a 386
or 486 computer). Best offer. Also DECtalk external speech
synthesizer, $900. Call Cheryl Fischer at [phone], day or
evening.

IBM Braille Writer Wanted:
     We recently received the following request:
     I would like to purchase an IBM Braille writer, which
(unlike the Perkins with only six keys) has a standard keyboard
which anyone could use without knowing Braille. Contact Mrs. Ina
Mae Enzor, 308 Power Street, Cumberland, Kentucky 40823.

New Chapter:
     On Thursday, March 20, 1997, the fifty-sixth chapter of the
NFB of South Carolina was established. The Easley Chapter's new
officers are Ann Hall, President; Joyce Scott, Vice President;
Karl Burns, Secretary; and Diane Camp, Treasurer.

Elected:
     The Clark County Chapter of the National Federation of the
Blind of Washington held its annual election on December 21,
1996. We recently received notice of the new officers. They are
Kaye Kipp, President; Mike Freeman, Vice President; Alco
Canfield, Secretary; and Nancy Martin, Treasurer.

New Internet Group Discussion List for Lawyers:
     The National Association of Blind Lawyers, a division of the
National Federation of the Blind, has established a list serv on
the Internet. The purpose of this list serv is to provide a
medium through which blind lawyers, legal professionals, and
other interested people can share information about the law and
related topics. Even though the list serv is in its infancy, a
number of interesting messages have already been transmitted
through the virtual ether of the Internet. Questions about White
Cane laws, ADA cases, and blind lawyers trying to do their jobs
on terms of equality have already been hot items for discussion.
The list serv allows us to share information and news with each
other almost instantaneously.=20
     Anyone with a computer and an e-mail account can join the
list. There is absolutely no cost. The service is sponsored by
the National Association of Blind Lawyers and the National
Federation of the Blind.
     To join the list, send an e-mail message to
"[e-mail]." (Leave out the quotation marks and the
second period.) When you send the message, leave the subject line
blank, and in the body of the message type "subscribe blindlaw"--
again without the quotes. Within a few minutes you should receive
a return message confirming that you are on the list. Then you
will start to receive all the messages written by list members
throughout the nation and the world. Feel free to respond to the
messages and join the fray as legal beagles hash out the hot
legal issues of the day. We hope to see you on the list soon.
     You can also find older messages from the list on NFB NET,
the official bulletin board system of the NFB. The messages can
be found in Message Area 8. You can reach NFB NET on the Internet
by Telneting to nfbnet.org or by calling [phone] using
your modem.
     If you have further questions, contact Scott LaBarre,
President, National Association of Blind Lawyers, 1830 South
Acoma Street, Denver, Colorado, 80223, [phone], e-mail
[e-mail]

[PHOTO/CAPTION: Richard Edlund Receives the Distinguished Service
Award from
Kevin Gillmore, President of the Kansas State Board of Education.]
Honored:
     We recently learned that the Board of Directors and staff of
Accessible Arts, Inc., and the Kansas State Board of Education
honored Richard Edlund, Member of the NFB Board of Directors, as
a recipient of a 1996 Distinguished Service Award. The
presentation was made Wednesday, March 12, 1997, at the Kansas
State School for the Blind in Kansas City, Kansas.

Braille Publication for Diabetics Available:
     We have been asked to carry the following announcement:
     Exchange Lists for Meal Planning, published by the American
Diabetes Association and the American Dietetic Association, is
available in Braille. The publication contains exchange lists,
nutrition guidance, tips for selecting appropriate foods, a
glossary, and an index. The Braille edition is eighty-two pages
in length and costs $10. Contact Louis Braille Center, 320 Dayton
Street, Suite 125, Edmonds, Washington 98020-3590, (206) 776-
4042.

Baseball Computer Game Update Available:
     We have been asked to carry the following announcement:
     Version Eleven of the award-winning World Series Baseball
Game and Information System is now available. The game is being
played in forty-eight states on IBM-compatible computers with
screen readers and synthesizers. As manager in the game you have
many offensive and defensive strategic options available to you.
Version Eleven comes with 160 teams, including the 1996 pennant
winners and All-Star teams. There are two baseball games and ten
information programs. There are many improvements, most suggested
by users of the game. Baseball action during the game is
described in the words of many of the famous radio and TV
announcers. The cost is still only $15 to new users, $5 for
updates for old users. Send your check to Harry Hollingsworth,
692 S. Sheraton Drive, Akron, Ohio 44319, [phone].

PHOTO/CAPTION: Betty Niceley]
Betty Niceley Elected Vice Chairperson of BANA:
     In a March 1, 1997, press release the Braille Authority of
North America (BANA) announced that Betty Niceley, Member of the
Board of Directors of the National Federation of the Blind and
the NFB's representative to BANA, was elected Vice Chairperson at
its annual meeting in the fall of 1996.

Elected:
     Kenny Johnson, Secretary of the San Fernando Chapter of the
National Federation of the Blind of California, reports the
results of the chapter's January 11 election. The new officers
are Robert Stigile, President; Joy Cardinet, Vice President;
Kenny Johnson, Secretary; Helen Barnstein, Treasurer; and Don
Burns, Board member.

Recorded Publications Available:
     We have been asked to carry the following announcement:
     Recorded Periodicals, a Division of Associated Services for
the Blind, announces the availability of subscriptions to the
following recorded periodicals: Anthropology/Archeology, $36;
Civil War Times Illustrated, $28; Computers, $36; Computerworld,
$36; Discover, $42; Family Circle, $42; Forbes, $57; Harvard
Men's Health Watch, $36; Harvard Women's Health Watch, $36; Mac
User, $36; Ms. Magazine, $36; Organic Gardening, $36;
Pennsylvania Magazine, $28; Popular Mechanics, $36; Popular
Science, $36; Psychology Today, $30; Radio Digest, $36; Science
News, $48; Science and Medicine, $48; Scientific American, $48;
Skeptical Inquirer, $22; Smithsonian Magazine, $36; Stroke: a
Special Report, $16; Taste of Home Cooking Magazine, $28; The
Sensitive Gut: a Special Report, $16; Timely Topics "TIME," $36;
and Trains Magazine, $36.
     To receive any of these publications, send your request to
Recorded Periodicals, Associated Services for the Blind, 919
Walnut Street, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania 19107, or call (215)
627-0600, extension 3208. You may pay with cash, check, money
order, VISA, or MasterCard.

Elected:
     In its annual elections the Kankakee Heartland Chapter of
the National Federation of the Blind of Illinois elected the
following officers and Board members: Bill Isaacs, President; Dan
Boudreau, Vice President; Marjorie Stouffer, Secretary; Ruth
Isaacs, Treasurer; and Board members Eileen Boudreau, Frank
Richmond, and Marcia Beck.

Braille Transcription Service Available:
     We have been asked to carry the following announcement:
     I am Jolene Boshart and have been a member of the Federation
since 1978. I now own a Braille translation company, called J. B.
Translations. This is your opportunity to get affordable,
accurate Braille translation at $.45 per Braille page, because I
believe that blind people should have access to Braille at an
affordable rate. I have used Braille all of my life and taught
Braille for sixteen years. I provide expert translation and will
pay particular attention to the layout of each Braille page. I
can work from print material as well as scanned text or text
taken directly from a disk. (Save all documents in an MS-DOS
format.) My English major enables me to provide minor grammatical
corrections and spell-checking, if desired.
     My company also offers custom typing, including interviews,
papers, and other manuscripts. Prices: $1.25 per double-spaced
page of regular print, $2 per single-spaced page of regular
print. Large-print materials are also available at $.45 per page.
     Quick turn-around on materials. Discount pricing available
on quantity brailling or typing.=20
     For further information contact J. B. Translations, 2019 S.
10th Street, Lincoln, NE 68502; phone: [phone].

Attention Blind Women Going to New Orleans:
     The Committee on the Status of Blind Women of the North
America/Caribbean Region of the World Blind Union has asked us to
conduct a focus group during the National Convention discussing
issues and challenges of socialization for blind and visually
impaired girls and young women. If you were blind as a child or
very young woman and would be interested in taking part in this
discussion, please consider volunteering for this activity. The
discussion will take place at 9:00 p.m. Wednesday, July 2.
Participants will be asked to read a short paper beforehand. To
express interest in this project, contact Barbara Pierce at 237
Oak Street, Oberlin, Ohio 44074-1517, or e-mail
[e-mail]. Please indicate the format in which you
prefer to receive the paper--Braille, large print, or e-mail. Be
sure to include your postal or e-mail address.

Mississippi School for the Blind Reunion:
     Plans for a school reunion are underway for former students,
employees, and friends of the Mississippi School for the Blind,
which was located on Capers Avenue. This celebration is scheduled
to be held August 29 to August 31, 1997. All who are interested
in participating in this historic occasion should contact
Gwendolyn Stokes as soon as possible at [phone]. Her
address is 987 Chastain Drive, Jackson, Mississippi 39206. Please
come and renew old friendships.

National Church Conference for the Blind:
     We have been asked to carry the following announcement:
     The 1997 National Church Conference of the Blind will meet
in Denver, Colorado, July 27 through 31. There will be music,
Bible study, seminars, and tours for your enjoyment. For further
information call [phone] or write NCCB, P.O. Box 163,
Denver, Colorado 80201.

Brailler Repair Available:
     We have been asked to carry the following announcement:
     Is your Brailler getting a little sluggish? Whatever the
problem, let Alan Ackley recondition it. Trained at Howe Press,
he uses only factory parts. He has restored more than 1,500
Braillers from over forty states and Canada. He is a certified
transcriber. Fast turnaround, reasonable charges, and all work
guaranteed. Call [phone] or e-mail to
[e-mail] or just ship your anemic Brailler to
Ackley Appliance Service, 627 East 5th Street, Des Moines, Iowa
50309.

Correction:
     In the March, 1997, issue we published Lonnie and Gail
Wagner's notice of a home-based business opportunity with
telephone training and support and an audio-tape system for
beginners. The toll-free number listed was incorrect; the correct
number is [phone], extension 02972. We regret the error.

Attention VI Teachers:
     Teachers of the blind and visually impaired are planning to
get together during the 1997 convention and share ideas,
experiences, and friendship. If you are working in this field or
interested in doing so, listen for an announcement of the time
and place of this meeting.

Audio Cable Guide Available:
     We have been asked to carry the following announcement:
     An audio cable guide is available on four-track cassette
twenty-four times a year. Premium Cable Listings gives up-to-date
information concerning broadcast channels, cable networks, and
premium movie services as well as sports information for regional
sports networks. The guide is $28 a year or $10 for a four-month
trial subscription. Call [phone] for more information, or
send a check or money order payable to Premium Cable Listings,
107 Cloverwood Court, Baltimore, Maryland 21221.

Elected:
     The NFB of Missouri held its annual convention April 11 to
13 in Springfield, Missouri. Officers elected were Gary Wunder,
President; Tom Stevens, First Vice President; Rita Lynch, Second
Vice President; Dick Morris, Recording Secretary; Jim Moynihan,
Corresponding Secretary; Carol Coulter, Treasurer; and Debbie
Houchen and Bill Neal, Board members.

For Sale:
     We have been asked to carry the following announcement:
     I have for sale a 1.44MB, 3.5-inch portable disk drive for
the Braille 'n Speak and Braille Lite series. This drive is only
for the Blazie notetakers mentioned. Brand new these drives cost
$600; asking $250 plus shipping and handling. Contact Isaac Obie,
755 Tremont Street, Boston, Massachusetts 02118, or call (617)
247-0026, e-mail: [e-mail]

Recorded Tutorial on Searching the Net Now Available:
     We have been asked to carry the following announcement:
     "Top Netsearch Guide: How to Find What You Want to Find on
the Internet" is now available. This recorded tutorial teaches
how best to use AltaVista, the most comprehensive index to the
World Wide Web, how to use Yahoo and other important directories
of Internet resources, how and why to search Usenet using
AltaVista and DejaNews, how to find information on a wide variety
of topics of broad interest, and how to accomplish all these
things using e-mail. The tutorial comes in two- and four-track
versions and with a supplemental disk containing an html file of
pointers to the resources discussed and other files of interest.
Prices are as follows: the four-track version, $19.50; the
two-track version, $22.50. Add $2 shipping for either version.
Contact Dean Martineau at Top Dot Enterprises, [e-mail],
[phone], 8930 11th Place SE, Everett, Washington 98205,
Deamar's Domain: http://www.eskimo.com/~deamar
     Also be sure to ask about tutorials for Windows 95, which
may now be available.

[PHOTO/CAPTION: Mark Noble]
Elected:
     Noel Nightingale writes to report that in February Mark
Noble, Second Vice President of the Greater Seattle Chapter and
member of the Board of Directors of the NFB of Washington, was
elected to chair the Advisory Council to the Washington State
Department of Services for the Blind.

[PHOTO/CAPTION: Lucy Carpenter, 1918 to 1997]
In Memoriam:
     We are saddened to report the death on March 30 of Lucy
Carpenter, President of the Eastern Orange Chapter of the NFB of
New York. Lucy and Dick Carpenter founded the chapter in 1975,
and they were chapter leaders from then on. Dick died in 1991.
Lucy will be deeply missed.

Tae Kwon-do Jungtion Self-Defense Seminar:
     NFB New Yorkers in action! Join Marie and Rodney Kouthoofd
at 8:00 p.m. on Tuesday, July 1, and benefit from their extensive
experience in the martial arts. This convention seminar will be a
hands-on, practical, step-by-step self-defense class for anyone
eighteen or older. Accompanying Rodney and Marie will be
assistant instructors Pam Whaley and Steve Winner. Together we
will discuss issues pertinent to self-defense instruction in
basic techniques using cane skills as well as a confident
attitude and awareness. Our goal? to prepare you for situations
that may arise in an attack. Registration, $10. If you have
questions, call Rodney or Marie at [phone] or (716) 392-
3826. No prior experience necessary. Join the fun; you'll get a
kick out of it.


.