My parents knew that no school in our area could teach a child who was blind. They also knew they couldn't educate me themselves. So, they had to do the unthinkable. They had to send me away to school before I turned 5 years old.

For me, spending my first 4 years as an only child, and then suddenly being placed in a dorm with about 80 other students of all ages, was not a life I was expecting. Back then, I didn't know what coping skills were. I had a lot to learn. Fortunately, my parents had taught me how to do exactly that. The question was, could I do it?

The school didn't give me a great academic education. There were people there, however, who taught me much about who I was on the inside.

This episode touches on some of the failures and triumphs I experienced along the way.

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As a very young child, you can only know your own condition. If you can't see, you don't quickly grasp the fact that others have something you don't have. It's even harder if you have light perception, because then people tell you that you can see. But, can you? This is the complicated story about how my parents who knew nothing about blindness, and I, who knew nothing about sight struggled to finally understand and deal with the situation.

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In this story, my grandfather and I walk through my grandparents' apple orchard. In part, this is a sound painting of events that took place in the orchard each time I was there. People say that a picture is worth a thousand words. How many words does it take to describe a special sound, a special time, and the partly unwanted life-changing wisdom I learned among the apples? I kept being drawn back to that place. It wasn't just to hear the sounds. It was also to search for what I remembered and longed to change. I dedicate this episode to my grandfather: a man who was wise even beyond his many years. I wish you had known him. Perhaps when you finish this story, you will have some idea of the man who was my grandfather and also my friend.

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It all started with ear-hand coordination and Daddy's faith that I could do what some thought impossible. No, it's not the normal way one acquires a recorder. Even so, that was the day my knowledge and enjoyment of sound changed forever, and I changed right along with it. Just another story that goes way beyond the telling.

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It started with a simple childhood game of ball I played with my grandparents. My Mom and Dad kept improving the game. Slowly, it became less a game, and more a way of life.

From this game and other fun times with my parents, I discovered I could use my non-visual senses to create a mental image of my surroundings. In a way, it was a transition from blindness to Sight. I learned to use this image to understand where I was in any given space without ever using my eyes to see the objects and people that might be in the same space. It may be as close to normal vision as I will ever have, but it has allowed me to See, in my own way, and to be totally unafraid of the dark.

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For a year or so, around age 12, I had often played by an old abandoned well. I would throw stones or other things into it to see if I could hear them hit the bottom. I could hear the echo from the well if I spoke into it. I could smell a strange but rather pleasing odor coming from it. I kept being drawn back to it to learn more. I just couldn't stay away.

There is a lot more I could say, but who wants to give away all their secrets. Just come along with me, and you will discover them just as I did.

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Daddy and I were walking from the creek to the river to fish. Strange how a short walk can have such a life-long impact on people’s lives. When we got to the river, fishing was the furthest thing from our minds. It was the silence of the land and the quiet relationship between father and son that was very much needed that day.

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Episode Notes

How does a 6 year old blind child safely walk almost any place he wishes before he learns to use a cane?

How would you do it if you were somehow prevented from seeing the ground in front of you? How would you know what your foot would land on next? What if it's a flight of steps? It might be a rock that moves under your foot. You could be stepping into a pool of slippery mud. How would you keep from falling?

If you're blind, you need to figure out how to deal with these and other similar situations. Who knew that fishing trips would be my answer?

So, come along with me. Put on your fishing garb and prepare to get wet. The water is nice, and there's a lot to discover.

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If you have ever tried to explain what something you can see might look like in the mind of a person who was born without sight, you have likely happened on an experience that taxes your knowledge of whatever language you speak.

Visual objects can be much more easily described. Other people who see may recognize that you are describing an alligator or perhaps a squirrel long before you finish, even if you do not tell them what it is. They have either seen the same thing, or they have seen something that is close enough to have them fill in the remaining details. This is because our vocabulary of visual words is much more robust than that of non-visual words.

Try to describe either animal to a person who has never seen without mentioning color or any reference to other animals. What makes this difficult is people who see have always had visual concepts, and they likely explain things from that context. People who are born without sight do not have those visual concepts to fall back on, and this makes it all but impossible for people who see to know what image a person who is blind will form in their mind.

This is exactly what my parents were up against when I started asking all kind of questions about what critters looked like. The fact that they came as close as they did is a testament to their tremendous desire to help me see the world in a way I could understand.

This story is dedicated to that persistence. It is also a story of their love for me that gave rise to this persistence in the first place.

Episode Notes

At the age of six, my father taught me to cross the road that went in front of our house. Little did I know then that there were so many roads, so much traffic, so many city block angles, and other things that would tax my hearing, power of discovery, and my wits.

It is many years later. I am still crossing roads, both literally and figuratively. I have learned two things. Not all roads are alike and one needs all their skills to figure out how to cross all kinds of roads when one is blind. Come to think of it, ultimate discovery starts at one side of the gap of knowledge and one has to figure out how to get to the other side. This episode, however, is only a story about physical roads. I’ll leave the discussion of metaphysical roads for another time.

Enjoy my travels. I certainly have.