Terri Born 1933 Mobility Visually Impaired Never had O&M instruction

Terri prophetically remarked that without the radio’s noise as a beacon she would “end up going off track 2” is chilling for many reasons. First and foremost, that Terri died exactly as she prophesized, she walked (without a mobility tool) off track 2  into the path of an Amtrak train. 

 One problem that may seem benign to sighted people, is her misplaced pride in fooling sighted people that she was not blind because she could walk a straight line to her coffee stand when the radio was on and thus did not need her long cane. If she had her long cane, everyone would have known that she was blind. Children who grow up blind or mobility visually impaired are taught this misplaced source of pride in deceiving sighted people making them question whether they have a disability. 

Let’s stop this lesson –and  replace it instead with a pride in the mobility tool that is obvious but effective. Terri’s story also defines the true difference between orientation and mobility. Orientation is having that beacon that tells you which way to head, mobility is using a mobility tool to make sure you have the path information needed to keep you safe from colliding with obstacles –to locate drop offs so you can stop in time. Terrie was run over by an Amtrak train, not because she was disoriented- but because she had no ability to detect Track 2 in time to stop.

And that’s the difference between orientation and mobility. It is very easy to be oriented without vision. But, walking without seeing where you are going is dangerous unless you use a mobility tool. It is impossible to see where you’re going when you’re blind and that is unsafe and that is dangerous and that leads to injury and death. And this is also a part of the legacy of Terri and her wonderful life lived without ever, ever having a mobility tool, and never being taught to use the one she occasionally carried with her.  She was prouder of deceiving sighted people that she was sighted; than she was of her long cane. 

In honor of Terri, I ask you to help me change the narrative. Let's make the long white cane a proud badge of honor.  Mobility tools enable blind travelers to keep themselves safe as they move about. And that is what we need to do for toddlers born blind. We need to give them pride in wearing their belt canes. They can learn to stop when they feel the drop and save themselves from mortal injury.

Visit our website: Email: info@Safetoddles.org TikTok Facebook YouTube
Thanks for listening! Please, leave us a review, ask questions and share with your friends!!
Please donate to help Safe Toddles Inc. achieve our mission to provide blind toddlers with a solution for walking independently with safety.
If you know anyone who needs a belt cane - go to ObtainCane

Transcript

 You can go where you want to, and you found you way here to the Safe Toddles podcast. I’m Dr. Grace Ambrose-Zaken your host. I have been teaching orientation and mobility to people of all ages and exceptionalities since 1991 and for 25 of those years I was also a professor of orientation and mobility teaching graduate students the art and science of travel when blind or mobility visually impaired. 

 This year Safe Toddles’ podcast is sharing the over 100 interviews of employed adults who were blind or mobility visually impaired that I conducted between the years 1999 and 2001. We are counting forwards from the oldest to the youngest. This week is the interview I conducted with Terri on 8/22/00

 I met Terri the day I drummed up enough courage to start speaking to her. She was working at the train station that I often used to commute to and from NYC. It was obvious to me that she was blind. She was always there – every morning. I was doing this project and I finally just asked her to be a part of it. The interview was terrifically interesting – and as I had always seen here behind her counter, rarely ever saw her moving about – I had no knowledge that she never had any formal O&M instruction – she was born mobility visually impaired – she lost all of her vision as 40-y-old wife and mother – 

 She was married twice to men who were blind, when she lost her vision she bought a long cane and used it to locate known objects. She fell and broke her leg, but that, she said was not because of her mobility, but because she slipped on the ice.

 She talks of having a soft life – that she really didn’t need to learn to use the long cane or get O&M instruction because she had her daughter working with her at the train station, wherever she went she had a system – I offered to provide her with O&M – I said one of my students could provide it – she turned me down.

One of the saddest days of my life was when I learned that Terri passed away- she was a smoker. She had a routine of taking the old elevator down to the train platform to smoke outside. Then she would ride the elevator back up to where the store and bathrooms were- Croton train station had four tracks- and the bridge above was where she worked. 

She stepped into the old elevator that day to return but something went wrong. Another passenger pushed the button and the doors opened; Terri assumed she was back upstairs. 

She stepped out, without her long cane, and walked her usual pace back to her store. Only she was on the platform and an Amtrak train was entering the track at a high speed- and she stepped off into the path of the train and died.

This is her story that she shared with me. 

Q. And where were you born?

A. Uh, The Bronx, New York.

Q. And where do you live now.

A. In Croton-on-Hudson, New York.

Q. And what do you do for a living?

A. I run a concession stand in a Metro North station.

Q. OK.  What’s your highest schooling?

A. I have, um, a Master’s degree and a BS and, you know, from there on down.

Q. Where did you go to college?

A. I went to Adelphi…

Q. Uh huh.

A. …in Garden City and then I took, uh, my Master’s at Hunter and Columbia.

Q. Ah.

A. In fact, it was the first Master’s degree given for the education of a special child.

Q. Oh, wow.

A. Way back in the year 1952, would you believe?

Q. Hah.

A. [laugh] A long time ago.

Q. Wow.  So, um, how long have you had a vision impairment?

A. Well, I was born with simple cataracts.

Q. OK.

A. But, in…  I was also born, obviously in 33 was right in the middle of the depression and, um, believe it or not, it took, I think, ten operations on one eye and twelve operations on the other eye to remove just one cataract, which, today, could be removed in 20 minutes.

Q. Wow.

A. And, um, therefore, I never had anything but shadow vision in my right eye and that eye, uh, was enucleated about 30 years ago because it was starting to affect the vision in my good eye.

Q. Yeah.

A. And, uh, um, I really never had much more than 5/200, but, for a girl, um, I saw very well, you know, anything within about 20 feet.  You know, I might not be able to tell what kind of buttons you had, what color buttons you had on your dress, but I would be able to tell what the dress was, whether it was striped or plaid or whatever.

Q. So, that was your good eye?

A. That was my good eye…that was my only eye.

Q. That was your only eye, right.

A. And, uh, um, I, uh, I went to a public school and, um, I had a teacher [inaudible] she’s dead and gone now, but, uh, um, she was so far ahead of her time, it was unbelievable, because, uh, because of the surgeries, I only started…I only started first grade when I was about seven-and-a-half.

Q. Oh.

A. And yet I was ready to go to high school when I was eleven-and-a-half.

Q. Wow.  [laugh]

A. And, uh, but, uh, she, first of all, you know, thought that it wasn’t necessary for me to write “5 X 6” 60 times or 50 times, or whatever you did in those days.  She did force me to write with a big, um, big pencil because it was, there was…it wasn’t that easy, and she taught me how to type when I was seven-and-a-half.  She realized…

Q. Wow.

A. …that reading small dark print is, was a whole be--  She didn’t force me to read the bulletin-type books because, with cataracts, you have a condition called nystagmus, I guess you know what that means…

Q. Sure.

A. …lateral movement of the eye…and I couldn’t focus on tall, thin print, but I could on short, fat print.  And I was very lucky.  I mean, she, uh, maybe skipping all those grades wasn’t the greatest thing because, by the time I got to college, I was only 15-and-a-half and everybody else was 18.

Q. Golly.

A. That was a little bit rough.

Q. So, uh, as a child, um, when did you first realize that you were visually impaired?

A. You know, um, I don’t have any…  You know, the mind is a wonderful thing, here.  I had 22 operations and each one of them I stayed in at least two weeks.  So, you have to figure that, that was almost a year out of my childhood and, um, right now, if you asked me anything, uh, about being in the hospital, I have no recollection of it at all.

Q. Oh.

A. And, uh, I guess, uh, defensive mechanism, or whatever, I just blocked it out and I never remember, you know, being in the hospital or anything else.  I have certain little things, like, I hate having anything put over my mouth, and that’s probably because of the ether and stuff like that.

Q. Yeah.

A. Uh, when I first got into, uh, into school, well, it was fairly obvious that, you know, I didn’t see as well as the rest of the kids…

Q. Yeah.

A. …and, uh, we used to go over to the Columbia Presbyterian Eye Institute, but then it was the Vanderbilt Clinic, and, uh, one day I really felt sorry for my mother because here we would wait three or four hours in the clinic and these doctors would gather around and say they’d never seen anything like this in their whole life.

Q. Oh.

A. You know…  But, uh, it probably made her feel great.  So one day, I just walked up to the chart and memorized it…

Q. [laugh]

A. [laugh] and I was so surprised because the next time to do it, she cried.

Q. Yeah.

A. But I have to say that one thing really, really helped me.  I have a photographic memory.

Q. Neat.

A. So, you know, that helps a lot because when I got to college, uh, I had a reader but, five minutes after she started to read, I’d fall asleep. You know? So, uh, basically, uh, I had to, you know, deal with stuff, because I really had to have a reader for was for history.

Q. So, um, what about your…when you were a kid…  When did you first start traveling independent of another person?

A. Very, very young.  Uh, I told you I went to high school when I was eleven-and-a-half and I lived on the lower east Bronx and, um, much to my mother’s trepidation, I got on the Third Avenue el and rode from 143rd Street to Gun Hill Road…

Q. Ah.

A. …and when I got off at Gun Hill Road in the wintertime, uh, it was like six lanes of ice and snow and fun. Right?  And, if there’s anything, I think the biggest, the biggest enemy of anybody with partial or even blind is wind and, you know…because it distorts your hearing.

Q. Yeah.

A. If you can’t hear, you’re very limited as to what you can do, you know, and, uh, there were plenty of times when, you know, I had no depth perception because I had only one eye, so, uh, it was…  It was…

Q. And that one eye is like 5/200, or something.

A. Yeah, but, you know, the doctor said to me later, oh, it’s impossible that you were able to do all that and not go to a residential school, and I said, well, look…

Q. Hah.

A. …I’ll go show you my diplomas.  [laugh

Q. Really.

A. [laugh]  But, uh…

Q. So, what strategies did you use to get across that big street?

A. Well, um, I used to wait for other kids to cross and I, uh, you know, I would be damned if I was going to ask for help because, of course, I could see. You know.

Q. Yeah.

A. I mean, I had this thing…  I remember one time a teacher said I was partially blind and I said, no, I’m partially sighted.

Q. Yeah.

A. So, I had this, uh, drive that…to use every bit that… every bit of vision that I had because there were other kids in my class who had so much more vision than I did…you know, it was a special class…

Q. Um hm.

A. …and I didn’t really even technically qualify for that because you had to be at least 20/200 to qualify for the old sight conservation--guide dogs [inaudible].

Q. Yeah.

A. But, uh…

Q. But, isn’t 5/200 worse than 20/200?

A. Yeah.

Q. So you did qualify.

A. I did, I was in there because they didn’t know what the hell else to do with me.

Q. [laugh]

A. [laugh]  I did qualify and, uh, one time there they said you should learn Braille. Well, I took the Braille slate into the first class. I picked up the Braille fairly easily and, this is the first class, and the first note, noise that that stylus…I said, oh, no, you don’t.  I put it away and, um, it was crazy because certain days I could see the board, if the sun was shining in a certain way…

Q. Ah hah.

A. …and other days, I couldn’t, you know.  And, in math, you know, like, with geometry, I used to follow…  She would say, Angle A…and I would watch her hand on the board go across and you know I'd come up with a couple of crazy things there.  But, as far as traveling, uh, I really tried to wait until somebody else was, uh, traveling with me.  The worse things were not even the six lanes of Gun Hill Road…  It was the double platform at White Plains Road…

Q. Oh.

A. …it…  The Third Avenue el was upstairs and the 241st Street/White Plains Road was on the second level.  And, but, when you were crossing down below, it was black as it could be.

Q. Yeah.

A. And there were little streaks of sunlight coming through.  And that was absolute murder. You know And, uh…

Q. Why is that?

A. Because it was…there was no light, there was noise from above, and there was noise around you, and, uh, and there were these little streaks of sunlight coming through the tracks, you know, ah, and down onto the pavement and it was very, uh, bewildering, you know.  And, after a while, there were a couple of girls there and, uh, you know, I have to say, in this day and age, now this was, I guess it was the early 40’s, there were these two black girls.  They said, come on, you know, we’re having trouble standing…getting up…standing up in all this ice, so, let’s hold each other up together.  Well, it was the greatest…

Q. Yeah.

A. …you know, it was just great.  You know? And, uh, um, they would get off at their stop and I would get off at mine and, uh, and walk home, you know.  A lot of time, my mother met me and I never could understand why she was getting… she was so upset if I was ten minutes late.  I know now, now that I have grandchildren.

Q. Oh. [laugh]

A. [laugh]  You know.

Q. Right.  [laugh]

A. You don’t realize that what was she doing, you know.

Q. Right.

A. Uh, I had an older sister and she, you know, we went to the movies…that was the only thing that you could do in  the summertime in the Bronx to keep cool and, uh, I…you know, whenever it came to captions and stuff, you know, explanations, especially the war pictures where you saw the waves coming in and everything and there was writing there, I couldn’t read that, and she would read it to me. She was great.

Q. So, now, to get back to school and back, did you also go to the store and things like that by yourself?

A. Oh, sure.

Q. Now, how did you learn to get to school on the subway, and all of that?

A. Uh, I had a couple of little tricks there…  I don’t know whether this is going to be helpful to you or not.  There were two different trains on the Third Avenue el at the time.  There was a 241st Street and a Bronx Park.

Q. Uh huh.

A. Now, if I got on the Bronx Park and got to Fordham Road, it would veer off and I would never get to Gun Hill Road.

Q. Ah.

A. And a lot of times, I couldn’t see it before I got on the train, but I had, maybe, six, seven, eight stops before I had to make the change, right?

Q. Right.

A. So, I would, uh, sit myself down opposite where the, um, the sign was…preferably with the sun not shining into my eyes, and Bronx Park was two short words—241st Street was a whole bunch of long, you know…   It was a whole bunch of writing.  That’s how I was able to tell.

Q. Ah.

A. [laugh]  …Bronx Park…

Q. So, there was no way you were going to ask anybody.

A. No, I…

Q. [laugh]  I understand, you do not want to ask anybody.  [laugh]

A. Right, in fact, um, you know who taught me how to travel and, you know, basically speaking, um, a totally blind girl.

Q. Oh.

A. Uh, do you want me to tell you…

Q. Yes, yes.

A. Ah, I got to Adelphi and I…  There was this girl Jo…Josie  [inaudible] from, from Evander and she…  I was a year ahead of her.  And she came and she said, why don’t we go to the dance at the Lighthouse?  I said, Jo, I can’t…I don’t know how to go there and, and I was terrified, you know.  Before this, I should say, if I dropped something on the ground or if I made a mistake, I went into the wrong house and somebody was laughing all the way across the street…of course, they were laughing at me.

Q. Yeah.

A. Right.  Ah, but, Josie said, well, let’s try it.  Well, we had to walk to the train at [inaudible] then take the train in and take the train up to, uh, go from, uh, the Long Island Railroad to the subway.  Then go from there up to 42nd Street, across with the shuttle over to the other side and then uptown.  So, it was, like, three different trains.  And I said, no way.  This is not going to happen.  But, you know, it was easy as it could be and I was watching out for her.  But, if we made a mistake, we just laughed like hell about it…

Q. Yeah.

A. …and, because there was somebody else there, you know…  As I said, before that, I felt that the whole world was laughing at me and I realized, in later life, that they don’t give a damn about me. You know, I mean…

Q. Yeah.

A. …you know, uh…

Q. Well, tell me, um, you…  Weren’t you already…  I mean, what was different about that trip versus what you had been doing your whole life…going to school by yourself on the subway?

A. Well, I don’t know.  I just thought that this was a great adventure and, uh, I just never thought…  I would never have done it on my own.

Q. So, were you restricted to familiar routes…places you knew how to get there?

A. Well, yeah.  I mean, I knew how to get from the Bronx out to Garden City…
 
 

Q. Uh huh.

A. …a couple of times I had to do it, but a lot of times my dad would ride me down, you know, to, uh, what do you call it, to, uh,  Penn Station, you know, and sometimes he would give me a ride out [dog barking] or whatever.  Uh, that must have been…  Because, even at Adelphi, um, there were a whole bunch of buildings, you know, and one class could be in the science building, one class music, you know…

Q. Right.

A. …and, uh, it was a fairly…  There were only maybe 200 people in the dorm and it got to be a very close society and, thank goodness, I, I got in with a bunch of girls that, you know, more or less though the same way as I did.  My mother had taken…  No, I went…I should have gotten…  I could have gone to Wellesley or Smith.  I could have…I qualified for both of those.

Q Wow.

A. But, with…  When we went up there, I went up there with my sister Helen, and she said, Terri, this is not for you.  We were not… We were poor.

Q. Yeah.

A. You know, and, um, a lot of the kids there, you know, you could tell, they were brought completely different, you know, economic standards.  Even the kids at Evander…some of those kids come in…half in skirts and nylons…  Wow, this is during the war when, you know, nylons was nonexistent.

Q. Wow.

A. So, I was outclassed, outaged, and everything.

Q. ‘Cause you were 16.

A. Yeah.

Q. Now, so, is it fair to say, then, that, um, growing up, although you did go to school and back by yourself and did incredibly interesting things like that, you felt restricted, uh, about traveling to unfamiliar places as a kid?

A. Oh, yeah.  I mean, if I went to an unfamiliar place, I would go with somebody else.

Q. Yeah.  And, do you…would you be able to learn as you were going with other people?

A. Uh, at that time, yes.  Later on in life, if somebody was to go with me, I never paid a bit of attention.

Q. Right.

A. You know, but, uh, at that time, if it was going to be meaningful to me, I remembered, yeah.

Q. Neat.  What kind of attitudes did your family have about you doing all this independently?

A.  I’m sure that they were scared to death, you know, but, uh, I had a couple of friends…  Oh, I should say that one thing that helped me a lot, which is not available to young people today, on Saturday I used to go to the Lighthouse.

Q. Uh huh.

A. And, uh, you know, whereas I couldn't roller skate, or ride a bike or anything else…  I could roller skate, I could bowl, I could swim, I could dance…

Q. At the Lighthouse.

A. …all that stuff.

Q. Neat.

A. That helped a lot.  And, and, then in the summertime, I went to a camp that was run by the New York Institute for the Education of the Blind…on Pelham Parkway.

Q. Uh huh.

A. Uh, that was great, that was terrific, you know, and, uh, I was in with a bunch of blind and partially sighted kids…  You know, if was funny, I guess it was what you do…  Uh, I was about nine years old, and I dropped a letter on the ground, and I started to feel around for it and the director, who was a real pisser, he hated…  He yanked me by my pigtails and said, can you see that letter?  And I said, yes.  Did you?  Yes, sir.

Q. Uh huh.

A. Well, then, stop feeling around for it because, he said, if you want to be blind, he says, then I know a lot of kids who would, you know, change places with you.  But the point of this what I'm trying to say is sometimes when you are in with blind people, you, you know, without even thinking about it, uh, uh, adapt some of the things that they do.

Q. Wild.  How did it make you feel when he said that to you?

A. Oh, God, I was mortified.  And then I realized, you know, he was right.

Q. Did you, or when did you get O&M instruction?

A. What?

Q Orientation and mobility.

A. Never.

Q. Never.

A. No.  Uh, uh, I guess to take this a little bit further.  I told you the, uh, when I was 15, I went to the State of New York and, uh, it was called Vocational Rehabilitation Service then.

Q. Uh huh.

A. It was funny…the gave me and IQ test, I didn’t know anything about an IQ test that to me was important.  So. Before…it was all verbal, of course, you know…

Q. Right.

A. And I checked every answer well I think I must have come up on the dumdum list…

Q. Oh.

A. …because they said, how the hell could you have a, you know, a 98 average in four years of math and come out with this?

Q. [laugh]

A. I don’t know what I did, but they gave it to me again and I guess it went up about 50 points.  I guess that made them feel better.

Q. [laugh]

A. They really didn’t know what to do with me.

Q. Yeah.

A. I was too young to work so they said, let’s put this kid in college.  And that’s basically speaking how I got to college, but there was really no need for mobility or orientation until quite a bit later.

Q. Well, so, did you hurt yourself?  Or run into things?  Or get lost?

A. You know, you mean during this period?

Q. Yeah.

A. Oh, I guess there were times when, uh…  I never got hurt.  No, I never broke anything.

Q. Uh huh.

A. I stepped on a kid’s bread, and he, I almost got into a fight with him.

Q. Oh.

A. I was coming down the subway steps and he was sitting there with his loaf of bread, and I guess, maybe, it was, maybe, it was the only loaf of bread that this kid was to have for a week.

Q. Oh, my.

A. But, I, uh, as I said, if I made a mistake and, uh, I counted the houses when I got to our street…  Uh, our house just looked a little bit different…it has two steps going up, you know, on the stoop, to…  Whereas the ones to the right and left of it only had one.

Q. Oh.

A. Sometimes I walked into the wrong house.

Q. Did you?

A. Yes, and, you know, I’d just walk out and, if anybody asked me, oh, my God, the sun got in my eyes, you know, most of the time I couldn’t see.

Q. Right.

A. Of course not.

Q. Of course not.

A. [laugh] [inaudible]

Q. Yeah.  So, did you ever…  When you got into people’s houses, are there other incidents where you felt disoriented?  Where you felt lost?

A. Ah, I think basically, uh, finding my way around Evander, sometimes, after coming in out of the snow, that was tough.  Coming in out of the sun to anyplace was, was a little tough, but, uh, I think I made up my mind when I was very young that I was going to use every bit of the vision and now, in retrospect, I’m awfully glad I did ‘cause I got a very good look at a awful lot of other things that were important to me.

Q. Yeah.  How did you learn your way around Evander?

A. Um, I’d walk up and count doors basically.

Q. Yeah.

A. Most of the time, the number was too far up on the door for me to read it.

Q. Yeah.

A. Ah, it got to be, maybe it was the second door in from where you turned around the corner…

Q. Right.

A. …and, and stuff like that.

Q. Neat.  Do you, um, have…  What, um…  Do you have a travel tool now?  Do you use a cane?  You know, or anything now?

A. I use a cane, but now I don’t see anything, you know, right?

Q. OK.  So, you’re blind now.

A. Uh, do you want to know?

Q. Yeah, what happened?

A. [laugh]  Well, uh, I, I would have been just fine, uh, if, uh, in 1964, um, I was buffing wooden floors in preparation for my daughter’s first communion and I thought I saw something on the floor…  Later on, it just turned out to be a beam of sunlight…  But, I reached down and I caught the corner of the buffer in my eye.

Q. Oh.

A. It didn’t bother me at all.  I took some aspirin and, uh, nothing.  Now, see, you can hemorrhage on the retina without ever really knowing about it.

Q. Yeah.

A. And we went down…we took the kids down to Washington, DC, um, ‘cause that was right after the Kennedy assassination, and they wanted to see, you know, the whole thing.

Q. Hm.

A.  …and I thought to myself gee…  I had been down to Washington before, but I wasn't really wasn’t seeing the way that I should be.  And then, one morning when we got back, uh, um, I opened up the drapes in the, uh, in the dining room and the whole top of my eye was all red…it was like…  I don’t mean bloodshot, I mean little red [inaudible] floating around…it was blood.

Q. Yeah.

A. Um, so I went back to the doctor who had, uh, who had seen me for all these years and, and, at this point, my daughter was born with cataracts, too.  Can you believe that?

Q. Oh, wow.

A.  And I went back to this doctor and, or course, he was in Europe—on my money, you know—

Q. [laugh]

A. And the doctor that was there said, there’s nothing wrong with your eyes.  I say well, if I hadn't had my two kids there that day to get home, I’m not sure I ever…

Q. Wow.

A. … would have gotten home.  But, um, it was really, pretty bad.  I went to a doctor in Ossining, and he said, well, you know, we can’t see back there because of all the scar tissue.  We’ll have to do a pupillary [inaudible]ectomy, which they just open up the pupil.

Q. Hm.

A. Well, you know, when they did that, um, this is tampering with an eye that’s already been operated on twelve times, you know, and, uh, so I walked around for maybe about two or three years with very, very little vision, ‘cause that’s it.  With retinal hemorrhaging, the scar tissue doesn’t go away.  It just, you know, stays there.

Q. Right.

A. And, uh, um, then they…  I had huge blisters on the outside of the cornea and the only way I could relieve them was to stand over the jet of the stove and let the water pour out of the [inaudible].

Q. Oh, my.

A. [laugh[  But, then they said, well, maybe the answer is a corneal transplant.  So, on March first, a day that will go down in infamy…

Q. Hm.

A. …um, I went in for a corneal transplant and, of course, as soon as he touched it, the who eye disintegrated.

Q. Oh, gosh.

A. So, you know…  And then, that was an adjustment because then, all of a sudden, the things that were involuntary now became voluntary and I couldn’t walk across a room anymore without remembering that there was a coffee table there that you could get a damn good…

Q. Whack…

A. Whack.

Q. Right.

A. You know.  And, uh, I didn’t have trouble with the basic things…cooking, vacuuming, I was sort of prepared.  I had a saw the handwriting on the wall you know.

Q. Yeah.

A. And, uh, I never had any kind of mobility or anything else like that and I never even, after my husband died in ’86…  A lot of people said, oh, why don’t you get a dog.  But, you have to love that dog and you have to… You know, that dog has your life in his or her hands and, I’m just not that crazy about animals, right?

Q. Right.

A. You’ve seen my place of business, there…there’s hardly enough room…

Q. [laugh]

A. …for us without a dog.

Q. Ah, you can that again.

A. You know…  And, uh, I lead a very soft life, actually.  I get a ride to the station in the morning with a fellow who does our papers and, uh…

Q. So, now, it was March first of what year?

A. ’72.

Q. ’72.  Now, I want you to tell me, what…  Did you, then, get any kind of services for the blind?

[side B starts]

Q. I asked you if you got any services for the blind and you said.

A. No.  

Q. No.

A. I was in a Flower Fifth Avenue Hospital, which, I think, is nonexistent today and I never saw a social worker, never saw anybody.

Q. Gosh.

A. [laugh]  And, uh, of course, my family was devastated. My daughter, my younger daughter was about 13 at the time and she thought it would be like Marcus Welby, you know, or Ben Casey. You go in and a couple weeks later your mom is dressed, driving a car.

Q. Right.

A. It didn’t happen that way and, if I didn’t have such a great family, I have two great daughters, and my husband, and…  When I came home first after, he said to me, thank goodness you’re home.  We have a paper to write, don’t you?  You know.  And I sort of…I, you know, there was a thought in my head at the time, save the pills and, you know, let's, you know, just end it all.

Q. Oh, wow.

A. But, you know…  You know what stopped me from doing it?  ‘Cause I said, you’ll be the ultimate screw up…you’d probably live and become a vegetable.

Q. [laugh]

A. [laugh]

Q. Good, I’m glad.

A. Well, yeah.

Q. Whatever it took.

A. I am…

Q. So, you’ve…

A. It’s a devastating thing.

Q. Yeah.

A. Just for general records.  Whenever anybody loses anything like that--sight, hearing…anything…a breast, anything, they should be able to talk to a psychiatrist…not a psychiatrist, a psychologist.

Q. Yeah.

A. Because you have that anger…  And you, and the first thing you think is, why me?  I’m a good mother, a good wife…

Q. Yeah.

A. …you know…  I’ve always the done the best I could…whatever.  And, we always had big, big time money problems because of all the operations.  And my mother lived with us, and she had about six.

Q. Hm.

A. For the first, maybe, 15 years we were married, we had, you know, one major operation every year and by the time we got the stand down [inaudible] of patients, we owed $14,000 and…

Q. Wow.  Gosh.

A. …uh, you know, it took us maybe three years of putting in 100 hours, but at least it was money coming in.

Q. Yeah.  So, you’ve never, to this day, had rehabilitation teaching or orientation and mobility instruction.

A. No.

Q. And, being totally blind since ’72, what steps did you take on your own to get you back up and taking care of your family again?

A. Well, taking care of my family or working?

Q. Both.

A. Well, as I said, my vision had not been good for maybe four or five years, so I basically had made some adjustments before. You know. I really wasn’t seeing much of anything that was useful before then.  And, uh, it wasn’t the big things like vacuuming…  I mean, you run the vacuum in a certain area, you hear something go into it, you go over it, you know.

Q. Yeah.

A. I never found cooking hard.  You know Every time, though, I used to go to bake a cake or something, both the kids would come…  Mom! We'll do it, you know [inaudible].

Q. [laugh]

A. I think they were afraid I was going to burn the house down, or something, you know.

Q. [laugh]

A. Of course, it was very hard for my mother, she was elderly, and she had gone all these years with me and everything else and now to see me lose it really just broke her heart, you know.  And I was dealing with that and, as I said, it would have been a whole lot easier if I had, you know, somebody to talk to.  But…

Q. Yeah.

A. …the main thing is Gerry Felzer [??].  He said, come on, we need you back at the station.

Q. Yeah.

A. And, um, so, I went back and it really, as I said, wasn’t all that much different from before because before then, I was still putting the 20s in one spot, the10s in another spot, the 5s one spot, and stuff like that, and, uh, uh, I was quick, you know, with…  this uh and whatever.  But I uh eight years or whatever. Uh, but as far as traveling around, uh, um, I had two kids that were kind of soft for me, you know, and as I said, I was. I live a very soft life.  Right now, there’s a young lady that works for me and, once a week she does my shopping. You know, I mean.

Q. Nice.

A. Now you see, my husband Joe is completely the opposite.  The first thing he did when he lost his sight was went to the Commission and got mobility, you know.  So, maybe you might want to talk to him.

Q. So, you say you have a cane now.

A. Yeah.

Q. Where did you get it?

A. I bought it from the Foundation.

Q. Uh huh.  American Foundation for the Blind?

A. Yeah.

Q. And, how did you choose that particular one?

A. What, the cane itself?

Q. Uh huh.

A. Uh, down through the years, I’ve know a lot of blind people and they just told me that this model cane was the best one.  So…

Q. What type is it?

A. Mahler.

Q. Uh huh.

A. Made for…well, they’re no longer in that kind of business.  Now it’s the Lighthouse I believe.

Q. And what does it look like?

A. Folding.

Q. Uh huh.

A. Uh, I think it’s white.  Did you ever see…

Q. It’s a folding cane and what kind of tip?

A. What kind…a plastic tip.

Q. What shape is it, do you know?

A. What, the tip?

Q. Yeah.

A. It’s just like the tip of a chair.

Q. Like a metal tip?  

A. Yeah.

Q. Neat.  And, the grip…

A. The grip is…  There’s a little rope thing that, when you fold it up, you sort of lock it into place.

Q. And, how long is it for you? How did you decide what length?

A. Well, you know, we’ve gone back and forth with the…  I don’t like too long a cane.  Uh, um, I like one that comes…  I think its 40 inches.  It was just experimentation there.

Q. Yeah.

A. And I never knew how to use it, but uh in that station you see yourself there's nothing square about that thing. You go around…

Q. Yeah.

A. In fact, a couple of weeks ago, I…  You know, I have to square myself when I go out so that thing. Because otherwise, out of the stand there, if you go off just a little bit, I could go God knows where, so I was walking and this fellow said, go left, and I said, oh, no, I don’t want to go left, but thank you very much.  This is something I always did, by the way…if someone offered me help, even when I had great vision, and were 70,000 people there,  I still you know say thank you and accepted the help, ‘cause I figured if I turn them down, the next person, you know, they won’t help me.  You know.

Q. Yeah.

A. But, any how, I’m walking and he said, go left, and I said, well, thank you, but I’ll keep going the way I’m going.

Q. [laugh]

A. I came back and he said, go right.  And I said, are you talking to me?  And he said, no, the dog.  They were training guide dogs up there.

Q. Oh.

A. [laugh]  I said, well, it’s a good thing I didn’t listen to you.

Q. [laugh]  That’s funny.

A. I have a, you know, I think the things that you want to talk about…acceptance, or whatever, if you could learn to laugh, you know…  There’s a crazy thing…  I have people…I’ll say, I’m sorry, I don’t see.  They’ll say, OK, I’ll hold it closer, you know.

Q. Oh  [laugh]

A. Or, one lady told me, I was standing in a store and I was…and Nancy was that's my daughter was checking out from, and I said, Nancy, don’t you dare put me in the middle of no place, you know.  I said, sit me over on one of these couches where there are stuff like that.  And, so, I’m standing there and supposedly looking at her and this lady says, I never can see these signs, and I said oh you know.

Q. [laugh]

A. And she comes over and she says, can you help me?  I said, my daughter will help you when she comes back.  You don’t want to help an old lady.  I said, yes, I want to help an old lady, but I’m blind.  Now you listen to me, lady; she says you’re looking straight at me, you don’t have a dog, you don’t have a cane, God could punish you and make it really happen.

Q. Oh, my.

A. [laugh]  But, you have to laugh about it.

Q. Yeah.

A. You know, [inaudible] back.  You know.

Q. Yeah.

A. Plenty of times, I wake up and…  I was never a big nature lover or…didn’t pay a bit of attention to flowers and everything else and in the front of our house now, I bet you there are about 200 plants.

Q. Oh.

A. I planted them myself, and whatever.

Q. Wow.

A. I’d love to be able to see them.  I’d love to be able to see my grandchildren, you know.

Q. Yeah.

A. There are a lot of things.  But, um, God’s been good to me too.

Q. Yeah.  So, um, what do you do with the cane?  I mean, did your husband teach you anything with it?  Or did anybody--

A. Nope.

Q. show you anything about using it?

A. I tried this one thing.  I was going over to the beauty parlor, so, as I was waiting for a cab, I was walking up and down the street, about 20 people wanted to take me right across it [??].

Q. Oh. [ laugh]

A. [laugh]  I'm trying to tell them, no.  I said to them, you know, I’m just. A practically . I really, I just use it, um, to get from the chair in the house…  and of course, if we go anyplace, I take it with me.  We go down to Atlantic City, Joe, and I, on the bus, on our own, and, uh, we tell the driver, when we get to Atlantic City, we need security…  They take us in, we play our machines, go and eat, and have great time [laugh]

Q. Nice.

A. We come home on the bus, and we’ve done it about ten or 15 times.

Q. So, what do you do with the cane?  I mean, you hold it in your left…

A. I hold it in front of me.

Q. In which hand?

A. My right hand.

Q. You’re right-handed, and what…  You hold it in front of you…

A. I don’t swing it back and forth.  No, I just tap it in front of me.

Q. Ah hah.

A. And that’s probably the wrong way.

Q. So, you just sort of tap it ahead of you, keep going forward.

A. Yeah, sometimes I just sort of carry it.

Q. Yeah.

A. If I know there’s not too many people around…  When I know there are people around, I will tap it, but not energetically, not tap, tap, tap, tap.  No.  Now, Joe probably does things completely different from me ‘cause he’s had actual training.

Q. Uh huh.

A. But, if there’s something in front of me, ah, you know, I know what to look for, or, you know, whatever.

Q. Yeah.

A. You know…

Q. How do you know what to look for?

A. Well, because I know there’s a garbage pale here, and a recycle there, and, I know, you know, which side of the door the handle is on in the bathroom, whatever.  You know, I mean, that’s the kind of thing I just memorize it, that’s all.

Q. Yeah.  And basically, um, you like to stay in areas that you’re familiar with.

A. Yeah.

Q. Or you go with somebody.

A. Yes.

Q. And, so, do you ever desire to be more independent?  To go by yourself more?

A. Um, there was a time that I, um, you know, that I sort of thought that way, but I was [spoiled] too.  We have a whole lot of friends. I mean my late husband and I—and Joe and I—have a huge number of friends here in, in Croton and any number of people, you know, if I had to go someplace, I just call them up.

Q. Nice.

A. And, um, you know, I’ve very lucky.

Q. Yeah.

A. Very, very lucky.  Uh, most people around the town know us and, uh, you know.

Q. Yeah.  No.  That’s great.

A. And uh when [Harry??} died, I made sure I got down there the next year even though I was pretty [inaudible] emotionally, but, you know, I felt…  Actually, you know what I did, I drew up the blueprints for our house that we live in, ‘cause I had taken a course in college, you know…

Q. Wow.

A. …and I drew the blueprints…or I told somebody how…you know, what I wanted.

Q. Neat.

A. But, uh, I enjoyed messing around with figures and measurements and stuff like that.

Q. Was that your house’s design the way you designed it?

A. Yeah.

Q. Neat.  That’s neat.

A. But, you know, we lived in the Bronx for two years and we had two plugs in the kitchen, so if you plugged in the toaster and the coffee pot, out would go the lights, you know.

Q. Oh.

A. So I made very, very sure that there were plugs all over.  I got more plugs than we know what to do with.

Q. [laugh]

A. And, um, we had closets that were slanted and, and…  Oh, you know what, I also cook on a grill outside, you know, a gas grill.  I won’t cook on a hibachi…I won’t cook on one of the big charcoal grills because when they flame up there’s not much you can do.

Q. Yeah.

A. But with the gas grill, you can just turn it off.

Q. Yeah.

A. Or else throw a bit of water on it.

Q. So, how many canes do you own?

A. My Sunday-go-to-church one and my bang-around one.

Q. [laugh]  That’s nice to have a Sunday-go-to-church one.

A. [laugh]

Q. So, it’s just very clean and…  Is it the same as the other one?

A. Yeah. They’re both basically the same.

Q. Yeah.

A. And, uh, uh, when my grandchildren used to walk with us, they used to put the cane…walk in front of me and put the can on their shoulder like a soldier…  You know, and they paraded around.  I said, comeback here.

Q. [laugh]

A. But you know, as far as walking around, both my girls were very [inaudible]. Don’t forget when I first had this accident, uh, Nancy was like about six or maybe it was eight, you know, and god love them.  Ah, they didn’t want me to be a blind mother. You know?

Q. Yeah.

A. When we traveled, they said, Ma, pick you feet up and walk.  Don’t, don’t, don’t, you know, walk as…  They knew a couple of my friends who walked around like they were going to fall off a cliff any minute.

Q. Yeah.

A. And, uh, I found.  They wanted me to, you know…   And they looked for everything.  Ma, you’re not looking at me.  Look at me.

Q. Wow.

A. You know, and that’s how tremendously, uh, [childhood patience??] because, ah, lots of people say, see, I told you she could see.  She put the money right in my hand.

Q. Ah [laugh]

A. They don't realize my hand is under there too.

Q. Isn’t that something?

A. But, uh, in so many ways, you know, they did not want a blind mother.

Q. Well, I know, I’m at that Croton station every day and it’s just so weird and sort of funny…all the different reactions that people do have when they’re not aware that you’re blind.

A. Oh, really? I thought everybody in the world knew it.

Q. I did, too, but there are people that, you know, like try to give the money to you and they’re not saying anything and they’re trying to get your attention.

A. Yeah, right.

Q. [laugh]  It’s like…

A. Yeah, that’s why…  Now, I…I used to do it on my own, but now, thank goodness, the business has, you know, increased so much that, you know, lots of times I’ll say, can I help you and I want these, these, these, and these.  I say, these or those.

Q. Right.

A. Or, you know.  But most people who are traveling when you're coming through, I see them enough that--

Q. Yeah.

A. All they have to do is say, hi, and I know what they want.

Q. I know.  You do.  [laugh]

A. But there’s a couple guys there that, you know, if you don’t develop a lisp or something so I can differentiate between you and your brother you know?

Q. [laugh]

A. …a stutter or something

Q. That’s funny.

A. But, you know, uh, I think I learned a lot about like any business there's just [inaudible].

Q. Oh.

A. Ah, it makes them feel they’re just not [inaudible] I try to make them feel special [inaudible].

Q. So, um, how do you feel about traveling alone to unfamiliar places?

A. Um, well, we’ve gone on planes and things like that, but, again, it’s [inaudible] different.  Um, it depends on where you’re talking about.  I know people who…blind people, who have, excuse me, a marvelous sense of direction and have traveled all their life and now they won’t go near a train or a bus in the city because that's too dangerous.

Q. So, is that you?  Do you feel like you have a marvelous sense of direction?

A. Not great, no.

Q. No.

A. You know, just mediocre.

Q. Have you ever been disoriented?

A. I guess once in a while, yeah.

Q. And what do you do?

A. I try to find somebody or something that's familiar--

Q. Neat.  What kinds of landmarks, what kinds of things would be familiar to you? What would help you?

A. A wall um, the change in the…like, if this fella leaves me out at the wrong spot um, I change my walk. Let's see, you know what the worst thing is for us poor blind people, those ramps that they have for the wheelchair.

Q. Why is that?

A. Uh, uh, I think one of the things they might do in mobility is line yourself up with the curb and step off of them straight.  If there is nothing to step off of, you just walk…  I know it’s happened to a couple of blind friends of mine, they walk straight out, diagonally out in traffic because of those ramps.

Q. Oh.

A. There is nothing…  You know, they’re good for one person but..  You know, I used to walk out of the station and walk to the curb and wait there, but I don’t do that now.

Q. Oh.

A. No, because without knowing it, you can be right out in the middle of that

Q. Ah. 

A. And, uh, when I had partial vision, oh, lots of times I used to walk across to Macy's or Gimbles or Macy’s or go someplace like that.  I had to.  Uh, if it’s too sunny on one side of the street, I’d just walk on the other side.

Q. Um hm.  So, OK…  How do you establish your position in the environment?

A. In what way?

Q. How do you know where you are?

A. How do I know where I am? Uh, sounds…  I usually, I usually just, you know…the shadow  vision…have you heard of that?

Q. Yes.

A. Uh, it works for me sometimes.  Most of the time I can tell if there’s something in front of me.  That helps me a lot down at the station because God knows lots of times there are things, you know.

Q. Yeah.

A. Especially with the construction, you never know…

Q. Right.

A. …what’s going on there.  Ah, I think by listening.  It doesn’t necessarily follow that blind people have better hearing.  It’s just that, if you break you right arm, you learn to use your left arm, you know.  So, blind people depend on their hearing more than…  I don’t think it necessarily means that it’s better.

Q. So, what kind of sounds…what kinds of things do you listen to?

A. Ah, movement in the air, ah, where a loudspeaker or music was coming from, you know.  That, that can help.  Ah, the absence of, of wind and stuff like that can help a lot.  Ah, where there is no wind, you can hear.

Q. Neat.

A. You can hear. I remember as a kid I wouldn't go out on a bicycle if it was a windy day. I would just, I just knew, I wasn't going to admit it at the time-- 

Q. Right.

A. I’d say, no, no.

Q. Right.  But you knew it would be harder to hear what was going on around you.

A. Absolutely.

Q. Right.

A. Like, sometimes I’d have to go down to MTA or whatever and I would go with my daughter Nancy and standing on that platform down there, there is no way in hell I’d be able to find the entrance to the door, you know to the train because it was so noisy.  I mean, try that sometime.

Q. Right.

A. Just go try it there on that platform sometime and try to figure out what kind of mobility would you have to have to find the damn train [laugh].

Q. [laugh]

A. [laugh[  It’s, it’s almost impossible when there’s that much noise.

Q. Yeah.

A. If we can get through, you know, the gate, right, down the steps, if you walk straight enough along the platform, but, uh, all that sound is not even relevant.

Q. So, when you go to Atlantic City…

A. Yeah.

Q. …with your husband, what do you do to get around the hotel?  Do you go to--I mean the casino.  Do you…what sorts of things are you doing there?

A. Well, uh, for a while there, we used to go down with a couple…when my late husband was alive and played blackjack for a while. I mean maybe 10 or 12 times.

Q. Oh, neat.

A. And my friend would tell me what I had and what the dealer had.

Q. Uh huh.

A. And one time he said to the dealer, this is my momma and I’m just, you know, advice and whatever.  So, he told me where to put the coins…you know the, not coins, the…I can’t think of the word.

Q. Chips.

A. Chips, yeah.

Q. [laugh]

A. And so about a half hour later, the dealer says to my friend, he says, 

"What kind of a move are you trying to pull?", 

he says, 

"What?" 

"you told me that lady’s blind; she is not blind. She can see."

Q. [laugh]

A. He says, 

"yeah". 

He says, 

"Look, I’ve watched her put the coin right in the middle of that circle every damn time."

Q. [laugh]

A. For God’s sake, will you move it to the left or to the right.

Q.[laugh]

A. You're going to get us both in the jail.

Q. [laugh]  That’s great.

A. Uh, right now, we just play the slots and really that's uhm the person who is, uh, guiding us in there, just take us to the dollar machines, the coin machines you know then we put our little card in we pray for that, you know we hope for that ding-a-ling, a ling.

Q. Yup.

A. And, uh, there’s always somebody nice, but it was funny…one time, I said to the fellow next to me, I said, is my right arm preventing you from using the machine. He says, 

" Damned if I know, lady, I’m blind."  Is that hysterical?  Of all the people in the world, two blind people…

Q. [laugh]  That’s funny.

A. But, uh, you know, we walk through, and I put my, and I use my cane a lot then, you know, because I don't want them to feel that they're dragging us around.

Q. Yeah.

A. And, uh, I usually do learn very, very quickly [inaudible].

Q. So, how would you locate the bathroom or…?

A. We ask.

Q. You ask somebody?

A. Yeah.  You’re never at the same location two times in a row, you know.  I mean…  Well, one time we were right near the bathroom, but we move around so much, you know, that it’s a just self-defeating.  You know, it’s a funny thing about that.  I remember an incident in college.  The first year and I was there, and I had this real wise neighbor she was hysterical. And uh she would say-- it was springtime and 

"Why aren’t you out?  She said "we're all outside but you’re around here because, of course, you’re not going to ask anybody to help you find the book that you’re looking for.  You know, so you stay in here; and we’ll all have a good time…and, by the way, you’re four aisles off.  After that, I said, hey, maybe I’d better ask.

Q. Yeah.

A. And I used to go to the supermarket and shop, you know, and there were quite a few times, you know, and I did ask the guy where’s this or where’s that, you know, but, uh, fortunately, when I did have good vision, I had enough to shop because I obviously used more vision.

Q. Neat.  Um, have you used, do you use maps of any kind?

A. You mean, Braille or embossed?

Q. Uh, yeah.

A. No.

Q. Do you use any kind of maps?

A. No, I only know that--uh, I use the maps that the kids have like the map of the United States.  That kind of thing. I don't with that thing, but no, I don't.

Q. So, how did you use the map of the United States?

A. It’s a puzzle.

Q. Ah.

A. And, you know, the states come out.  And I think that you know to know what shapes.

Q. Neat.  Did that help you understand things your own self?  Or did you know that ‘cause you’re so darn smart…[laugh]

A. We have a lot of [inaudible] you know, we’re just there and…  Well, that’s another thing.  People are kind of, you know, about their well they never know exactly what to say about the word “see”…

Q. Yeah.

A. …or things like that.  And I’ll be damned if I’m going to say I was in the--no they’ll say, did you see…Oh, I mean, were you in the room when the television was playing?  Now, isn’t that stupid?

Q. Yeah, it is.

A. I’m constantly saying, I read a book, I saw a movie, I saw, you know…

Q. Sure.

A. And after a while, people get so used to it, they say you know, they'll say to me did you watch Regis last night or whatever so and so?

Q. Yeah.

A. And, it’s a natural thing for them because I use it so much that they…uh, anything that you know people say to me, I just can't believe that you can’t see.  I say, that’s the nicest thing I’ve heard all day.

Q. Yeah.

A. Because I don’t want people to think, oh, she’s blind and she’s limited.  I want them to say you know she's a mother or she's working, or you know--

Q. Yeah, yeah.  What one thing that happens frequently when you’re traveling that you like the least?

A. Uh, not to be really sure where we’re going.  I think that’s always bewildering.  And sometimes, uh, people want to help and, uh, they could very easily help you to the wrong place.

Q. Yeah.  Has that ever happened to you?

A. Once.

Q. Tell me what 

[tape 2, side A]

Q. So, one time, you were down…  Tell me, tell me…

A. I was, I just met my a present husband and I went down to see him in Mount Vernon and, uh, oh, he knew all about, you know, he knew the complex, you know…a little bush and a little fence going into each thing and I said, how the hell do you know where you’re going and he said, you know, I just count the bushes.

Q. [laugh]

A. One time, we were waiting on the corner, and he knew which way we had to go and he said, oh, come on, I’ll take you.  We were all the way…  Well, fortunately, Joe know exactly, you know uh, uh, where we were, so we, you know, where we wanted to be.

Q. Ah hah.

A. But, uh, people mean well.

Q. So, this guy was telling you he knew and he…and you didn’t…

A. Oh, yes, he did.  You know, he was trying to be helpful, you know, and it’s amazing what they think.  I mean, I think…  I used to call it the beggar genius syndrome.  When people met me for the first time in a wedding or something, either they thinking I was on welfare sat on a little cushion all day, picking out what somebody else was going to cook me for the next meal or, uh, I had 180 IQ, ESPN--eh ESP, you know, perfect pitch, you know.

Q. Yeah.

A. They never think of you as being, you know…  The day after my daughter was born, the nurse was roaming around and I said, is there a problem?  And she said, well, I was just wondering who was going to brush our teeth this morning.  And I said, well, I guess the same one who's done it for the last 20 years.  You have, I mean…How did I get in there?  I must have done something to have this kid. You know?

Q. [laugh] So, now, um, you were saying that, um, not knowing where you’re going is one of the things that you like the least.

A. Yeah.  Loud noises, like, um, sometimes when I’m coming across the station and I told [nancy] I'm going to shove that box speaker, loudspeaker, uh, or sudden blast of music can really knock you off…

Q. Is it, like, also, maybe riding in a car?

A. Uh, in a car…  Uh, would I feel disoriented riding in a car? 

Q. Uh huh.

A. Only if the windows are open and we’re going probably 55 and it feels with the wind like you’re going 90.

Q. Yeah.

A. That’s the only thing that troubles me a little.

Q. Do you prefer the windows to be closed?

A. Yeah, I think…  You know, it’s funny.  As my vision was getting worse, um, it looked like, you know when we were in the car, it absolutely looked like, you know, a Charlie Chan movie, Charlie Chaplin movie.  with everything was going zip, zip, zip.  You know?

Q. Ah.

A. I really wasn’t all that fast, but…

Q. It just seemed that way.

A. And, uh…

Q. So, what do you do about, you know, feeling disoriented, like you said?

A. Well, uh, I usually stop if I can and wait ‘til the noise dissipates a little bit.  Ah, as I said, but [inaudible] it knocks you off for a minute or two but. You know, I have them put the radio…  You know we have a radio in the stand, and I use that as a beacon.

Q. Nice.

A. Everything is on an angle in that station and, uh, one day, I said Ah! what happened to the damn radio.  She said she turned it off you know to answer the phone. But you know it's just, hey I know I'll end up on track 2 if you put that damn thing on.

Q. Right.

A. Uh, it’s amazing…  That’s what I do.  I know if I walk straight toward that, I’ll walk straight into that thing, and I hear [whispers as if somebody else] see I told you she could see.

ME: Terri’s now prophetic remark that without the radio’s noise serving as a beacon she ran into more stuff- she blamed the environment “everything is on an angle that station” She told her daughter, that without the beacon she would “end of on track 2” which is chilling for many reasons. One problem that may seem benign to sighted people, is her misplaced pride in fooling sighted people that she was not blind because she could walk a straight line to her coffee stand when the radio was on and thus did not need her long cane. If she had her long cane, everyone would have known that she was blind. Children who grow up blind or mobility visually impaired are taught this misplaced source of pride in deceiving sighted people making them question whether or not they have a disability. 

Let’s stop this lesson –and  replace it instead with a pride in the mobility tool that is obvious but effective. Terri’s story also defines the true difference between orientation and mobility. Orientation is having that beacon that tells you which way to head, mobility is using a mobility tool to make sure you have the path information needed to keep you safe from colliding with obstacles –to locate drop offs so you can stop in time. Terrie was run over by an Amtrak train, not because she was disoriented- but because she had no ability to detect Track 2 in time to stop.

And that’s the difference between orientation and mobility its dangerous and we need to bring mobility tools up to the standard that it is impossible to see where you’re going if you’re blind and that is unsafe and that is dangerous and that leads to death and injury unnecessarily and that is a sad legacy of Terry and her wonderful life lived without ever, ever having a mobility tool, never being taught to use it. And never being proud of it in the way it should be. It should be a proud badge of honor to be able to keep yourself safe as you move about. And that is what we need to do for toddlers born blind. Is to give them pride in wearing their belt cane. They can learn to stop when they feel the drop and save themselves from destruction.

Q. Hah.  That’s funny.  What do you want sighted pedestrians to do when they want to help?

A. Um, ask me and respect if I say yes or no.  I mean if I say no, I’m fine, thanks. Just let it be.

Q. Yeah.

A. And, you know, uh, don’t try and turn me to walk.  As I said, all my life, when I had good vision and somebody offered to help, I always accepted it.  You know, some other person with lesser vision than I had, you know, they might not even ask. 

Q. Yeah.

A. I've heard some blind people I can be downright ornery, you know, and, you know, just get away from me.  You know, they'll cuss people out. You know it’s hurting it for the next person.

Q. Would it ever be that you would try to locate someone to get assistance from, or do you usually have them come up to you and ask you?

A. Well, um, like, say, if we’re in Atlantic City and call for security, uh, uh, and they come up and say, well, where do you want to go?  And, uh, yeah, we'll wait there because it’s probably up in unfamiliar territory and we have no idea, you know, where anything is, but a couple of times there when we stayed overnight, we had comp rooms, uh, when we were ready to go down to the casino, we just called, you know… A couple of bucks here, a couple of bucks there…

Q. Uh huh.

A. You know, it makes life a whole lot easier.

Q. Yeah.  [laugh]  You must be high rollers to be getting those comp rooms.

A. Yeah, uh…

Q. [laugh]

A.  Yeah, we get them once in a while.  We, we enjoy it.  You know, the thing is, years ago, I would have loved to have seen the rest of the United States, you know, the Grand Canyon, you know, the whole nine yards.

Q. Yeah.

A. But right now, uh, if we really went out to the Grand Canyon well whoopie, gee whiz, wow. You know, big deal.

Q. Right.

A. What is there aside from, maybe, the wind blowing or something like that that's going to be actual …you know.

Q. Which you don’t like anyway.

A. That’s right.

Q. [laugh]

A. Yeah, right.  But [inaudible]

Q. [laugh]

A. And, uh…

Q. Yes, spend the money where you have the most fun.

A. So, Joe and I enjoy this. Is something that we do. We used to both belong to a bowling leagues and we loved to do that.  We both, my late husband and I bowled with that Lion's, Lion's league. You know and yeah, it works. So, we stuck with what works cause it was actually better than anything else.

Q. Yeah.

A. You know, and neither one of us had the time [inaudible].

Q. Neat.  Um, have you ever been injured when traveling?

A. Uh, well, yeah, I, uh, maybe four years ago, um, I, I, uh…  We had a snowstorm and, um, I shoveled. I, I'm the family shoveler. I love to shovel snow and I said to Joe, it was a Wednesday night, I said oh look at this, it’s all flush and crisp and everything else.  I said, I'm gong to shovel this stuff out, you know, on the street. Because, never thinking that overnight it froze…

Q. Right.

A. …I stepped all off the curb and down I went.

Q. Ow.

A. I broke my leg.

Q. Ow.

A. Yeah, so the doctor said, you have a nice clean break.  I said, well, I’m delighted to hear that.

Q. [laugh]

A. You know my whole day would have been ruined.

Q. [laugh]

A. But, uh, that’s the only time.  You know, I had other bone breakage, but it had nothing to do with mobility.

Q. Yeah.  Do you belong to any professional or consumer organizations?

A. Uh, no.

Q. Um, how did ADA impact you?  Do you notice a difference before and after its passage?

A. Uh, yeah, I do, and some of it I don’t like.  Uh, it’s affected in a way, a great, great very adverse way…  Are you familiar with paratransit?

Q. Yes.

A. Well, before this ADA was in and before you had to go with bus routes and everything else, we used to be able to go down and see our friends in Yonkers and get on the, you know, the paratransit and go down.  You know it cost us, whatever.  Uh, now, you would really laugh if I told you, they would come here and take us to the bus stop two blocks away.  It was…  We would take a bus, they would meet us again and take us to another bus, and then at the end of the line, ah, meet us at the end of the bus line and then take us to our friend’s house.  I mean, it was absolutely and totally ridiculous.  Uh, the people who used it before aren’t using it at all.  It was really great, you know, to be able to go to a doctor’s appointment, you know.  But now, uh, if the doctor’s appointment is say in, Tarrytown, that’s OK.  But, say, it’s over in Eastchester, it’s get off the bus in White Plains and, uh, um, I know a couple of people who, um, at nighttime, you know, it’s a very lonely spot out there…

Q. Yeah.

A. …so, you get off, you know, and wait for the next bus.  They said, no, we’re not going to get off until they say--in that respect.  But then the plans being sidewalk, was of course a directive from ADA. That does not help blind people, but it’s good for people in wheelchairs.  You know, it’s very definitely a bad effect…  That cut down on Joe's and my independence is so much more worse because now there are so many more times when we have to go and ask for a ride rather than go through the nonsense of taking five hours to go a half hour, you know.

Q. Yeah.

A. It’s really, you know, like, they have masses for the handicapped, about seven a year and we used to be able to take turns handing down. And they get tired of handing back down. It's completely ruined it.  We have to get on, go by five different things, and it would take us three hours to get there…it’s not worth it.

Q. And that’s because …

A. That’s because of ADA they have to, if there are public bus routes near you, you have to use them.

Q. Oh.  I see.

A. And, you know, it’s very silly because most of the bus routes, bus stops do not take you to like JV Hall up here, or, you know, take you to, to malls and stores…they take you to highways.

Q. Right.

A. Whenever we filled out this application, they ask you silly things, like, do you know how to get on a bus. Yes, sure.  Ah, do you know how to put the change in the, uh, yeah.  Do you know how to find a seat, sure.  You know.  But they never ask, what happens when you get off the bus?

Q. Yeah.  Who asks that…paratra…

A. No, but they sent you this 15-page application, you know,

Q. For the paratransit?

A. Yeah.  And I, uh, then I couldn’t even get requalified because I never had any formal mobility.  Joe, Joe can still go on it because he did.  He had formal mobility training.

Q. So, it sounds like a good reason to get some formal mobility training.

A. Well, uh, except that I don’t go to the doctors.  Or I don’t go to Kaiser [??] in White Plains anymore.  I don’t have any use for it, you know.

Q. Yeah.

A. I’ve gotten along without it.  But there never would have been a marriage between Joe and me because he lived over in Mount Vernon on the other line.  So, you know, thank God we had paratransit then.  It would have been the end of a beautiful romance.

Q. Wow.  Wow.  Um, what do you attribute to your present level of mobility?

A. I think, probably, an awful lot of help from my friends.

Q. Yeah.  Neat.  Do you think you’ll ever get mobility instruction?

A. If I get to the point where I need it, uh, and as I said, uh, the first thing my husband did when we got married is he found out how to get to the deli, found out how to get to the corner store…I never learned that stuff cause.  As I said, I had slave labor…I had the kids, you know.

Q. Right.

A. [laugh]  But, uh, of course, I went up there when I could see, stuff like that but.  I don’t know I…  I’m not sure that I could put any more light on that one.

Q. You’re not sure what?

A. That I could put any more light on that subject.

Q. Hm.

A. Uh, really, I’m just blessed with a lot of good friends.

Q. Hm.  What do you think of blind mobility instructors?

A. They’re usually very good.  You know, the ones that I’ve heard about are very good.

Q. So you know some…

A. Well, do you mean blind mobility…  I never had one, so I don’t know.

Q. Well, that’s the interview.

A. Oh, terrific.  [laugh]

Q. [laugh]

Q. You sure did, thank you so much for spending this time with me

A. Oh, you’re quite welcome.

Q. And I’ll see you around Croton station.

A. Yeah, I hope it helped you a little bit.

Q. It absolutely did.  I find it absolutely fascinating that you can live your whole life without mobility instruction.

A. [laugh]

Q. Thank you so much.  You’re wonderful.  I’ll see you around.

A. Take care of yourself.

Q. Thanks a lot.  Bye.

ME: Terry is proof positive you can grow up mobility visually impaired, gifted intellectually, get married, raise a family, build a business all without ever having orientation and mobility. She was born 12 years before the long cane was invented. She went to college at age 15. She had tricks for locating curbs and her small school was filled with women who invested time in her – getting her to come out with them. She was befriended by a blind woman who had a long cane and who taught her to go to social events for blind people at the Lighthouse. She credits her with giving her greater confidence – but misplaced only because confidence and smarts cannot outwit the inability to see the path ahead. Terry’s story is powerful. It says- yes, blind or mobility visually impaired will continue to strive and thrive regardless of the obstacles they face. But what could Terry have achieved had she been allowed to walk through her world with independent safety? And not that a mobility tool exists for blind toddlers, why would we continue to insist that they are somehow better off when they have no ability to anticipate obstacles independently? Turn on the lights – it doesn’t help, put on the belt cane – it does.

Interviewed by:         Grace Ambrose

Interview date:          8/22/00, 8/29/00

Transcription             Lenni

Transcription Date:  1/10/01

Reviewed by:            Grace Ambrose

Review date:             9/15/2001