I adjust the strap of my hiking stick, making sure it sits snugly around my wrist. Turning to Jim I say, “Ready?” We set out together. We’re on the Rock Harbor trail, walking three abreast with Lake Superior rolling onto the rocky shore to our left. I take deep lung fulls of the cool air…
Considering my independence I realize I owe a lot to two companies, The Seeing Eye and Freedom Scientific. These videos were taken thirty years apart. July 4, 1985. Thanks Seeing Eye and Freedom Scientific.
For the rest of the summer we continued to build our traditions. The months of August and September are the busiest as far as the tourists are concerned. Instead of eschewing Bar Harbor during those months we learned to revel in the hustle and bustle. When the cruise ships began anchoring in Bar…
Sterling to Steel video In March Jim and I went to the Intersections, Forks, and Turn Lanes conference in Springfield MO. This video contains three clips from the two talks I gave. The quality isn’t grand but, what should I do? Fire the videographer? In the first one I describe my suicide…
The only bit of color in my drab dorm room at University College, Oxford, was the poster on the wall. I had put up the poster in an effort to make the place feel more like home. Cattle grazed in the field next to a pond surrounded by rolling hills. It looked lush, green, and…
I must begin this piece with a confession. I haven’t seen an ophthalmologist in about ten years. Hold on! Before you get the wrong idea, I really do care about the health of my eyeball and do not recommend a decade of not seeing an eye care professional. My left eye is prosthetic and needs…
Plenty of dentists have patients who are blind. A subset of those dentists have patients who are blind and who use a guide dog. But I’m willing to bet that there’s a very small subset of those patients who put their dog in the dog house during a dental appointment. I had to get my…
My life with blindness began in my mid-twenties. I had to learn how to do almost everything all over again. I had great teachers. Less than a year after I became blind my orientation and mobility, O&M, instructor suggested I work as a volunteer. His day job was with the Southeastern Blind Rehab Center, SBRC,…
The complete chapter, in audio and print. Audio on YouTube George I made my way up the snowy path and knocked on George’s door for the first time. He was a quiet, reserved man in his mid-eighties. He lived in an old farmhouse on a large farm in Dexter. George led me through…
Steel toe boots and a helmet? This is my Valentines Day present? It turned out to be one of the best! My husband, Jim, and I live on 18 wooded acres in the foothills of the Cumberland Plateau. We partially heat with wood that we harvest from our own property. It’s a three stage process…