Dr. Jo born 1939 with low vision, became blind age 11

Jo was gifted in math and was quite capable, the first born – she helped look after her 3 siblings. Although long white canes had been used for 5 years when she became blind, one was not provided to her when she needed it. In school, there were plenty of ways for her to learn independently -she had talking books and eventually learned braille to read independently, but the most natural independence of all- walking, she was taught a dependent solution. The only solution they could think of was for her to walk with an escort to keep her safe, which she wanted no part of.

Jo grew up as an independent child -her low vision allowed her to walk on time and yet, she was keenly aware, as an adult of how unsafe she was crossing major avenues with incomplete knowledge of exactly where the cars were, before and after she became blind. She had incidents that clearly demonstrated the difference between orientation and mobility. She was oriented – no problem. But knowing where you are and where you are going is just half of the equation – the other half is mobility – mobility with blindness or a mobility visual impairment requires a mobility tool. And she lived for 17 years without effective mobility tools. She survived – but is that really the legacy we want for children who are born blind? What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger? No, I don’t think so. Instead let’s recognize the value of mobility tools to all people who are blind or mobility visually impaired- welcome them much like you already welcome wheelchairs, as addressing a need. 

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Transcript

This week we have Josephine DeFini – or as I know here, Jo. She was a work colleague of mine which would explain why she was one of the first people who I interviewed for this project. She was born in 1939 with low vision, she stated she became blind after an operation to fix her retina failed – prior to that she had low vision that became worse as she neared her 11th birth day. Jo graduated High School 1957 and immediately got a guide dog. She was gifted in math, and was quite capable. Although long white canes had been used for 5 years when she became blind, one was not provided to her when she needed it.

 Q. All right.  So, I’m with Josephine DeFini.  What’s your date of birth.

 A. Is that necessary?

 Q. [laugh]

 A. [laugh]  Thirty-nine.

 Q. [laugh]

 A. Not my age…my date of birth is 1939, March.

 Q. OK, March, 1939.

 A. Yeah.

 Q. Where were you born?

A. New York City.

Q. OK.

A. The Bronx.

Q. In The Bronx.

A. Yeah.

Q. Where do you live now?

A. Manhattan.

Q. OK.  What do you do for a living?

A. Um, I am the clinical director of social work, uh, for the Lighthouse…Lighthouse International.  I don’t know how you want me to answer that.

Q. However you feel [laugh]

A. Well, you know, I mean, I don’t know what you’re after taking, so…

Q. Well, just for the oral record, I just want to have that on there.  Where did you go to college?

A. Well, I did my undergraduate work at Adelphi University in Long Island and I did all of my graduate work at New York University.  That’s my Master’s in social work and then a PhD in clinical social work.

Q. OK.  How long have you had a vision impairment?

A. Um, about 50 years.  Well, I started out with poor vision as an infant but it really wasn’t detected for a while and then I had usable vision until I was about 10-1/2 or 11 and then lost it following surgery.

Q. What’s the name of the vision impairment?

A. I have detached retinas.

Q. Um, when did you first learn, um, traveling independent of another person?

A. Not till I was really out of high school because back in the ‘50s and ‘60s, they really didn’t teach, uh, teenagers mobility, independent mobility until they were finished, uh, with, let’s say, high school because most of the, most of the public schools I went to…uh, public schools had bus transportation.  I moved around independently without a device in my house, right around my neighborhood, you know, my street that I lived on.  But mostly I used sighted guide.

Q. Sighted guide and, um…

A. When I was in about my last…my third year of high school, the end of my third year of high school during the summer, as a matter of fact, I came to the Lighthouse for some evaluation because I was a student that was headed for college and, so, they did some evaluation and I had a little bit of mobility cane use by nothing significant.  I guess they were checking out to see what my capabilities were.  But, at the same time, my parents and friends had been talking about a guide dog, so I was kind of set on getting a guide dog, which is what I did as soon as I graduated high school.

Q. Oh.  So, how did you learn to travel independent of other people?  I mean, you had the little cane use…   Was that with a mobility instructor or…

A. Well, I had very minimal instruction with a mobility instructor.  Mostly, as I said, to check my dexterity to see my capability, my sense of orientation.  I guess I had a good sense of orientation.  I mean, I knew and understood neighborhoods and blocks and left and right and that kind of thing and, even when I traveled with sighted guides, I kind of knew where I was going.  I knew if I was going from my house at that time to the subway station, that I had to walk X number of blocks and there was a pattern to, you know, to the blocks that I walked.  I knew when to turn left, when to go straight ahead.  So, I think my sense of orientation was pretty good.  Uh, so, when I got my guide dog, I was just…  I was good.

Q. Yeah.

A. I just was good, you know, as part of my, uh…  And maybe, maybe because I could see for, you know, the first ten years of my life, even though my vision was, uh, what they would call today, low vision…

Q. Um hm.

A. …I think that having had that vision probably helped me with a sense of orientation.

Q. So, you knew about, um…  The first ten years…  You must have known how addresses worked or concepts like that.

A. I understood streets, I understood crossings, and I understood traffic patterns. Uh, I understood different neighborhoods.  I ran lots of errands for my mother…going to stores and things like that…grocery stores, the supermarket, the laundry, the movie theaters.  I mean, I also was the oldest of four children, so, I really also helped out a lot with my, um, sister and brothers.

Q. Um, what attitudes did you encounter about traveling independently?  It sounds like people encouraged it as just a part of normal, everyday life.

A. Uh, well, they did and they didn’t.  My family was protective in that they didn’t like the idea of a cane and that was probably my greatest influence in terms of a guide dog.

Q. Um hm.

A. Even my neighbors…  I think they had the stigma of a person with a cane and, uh, they were much more receptive to a guide dog and I think I picked up that stigma at the time.  You know, the old stigma of the blind man with a cane.

Q. Um hm.

A. So, and that a dog was more positive and I think that’s probably…  Today, I think it might have been very different.  It’s wonderful to have a dog but, at the same time, I think I probably would have tried my hand more with a cane, uh…  But, I can’t say…it’s hard to say.

Q. Um hm.  So, what do you attribute to your ability to travel at your current level of independence?

A. Practice.

Q. Practice.

A. And hard work.  And just…  I mean, I’m not, I’m not sure what the question, uh…how I can answer that best.  Um, there is a determination to be able to do things on my own.

Q. Um hm.

A. While my family was protective, they were also not discouraging.

Q. Good, yeah.

A. And they did give me, um, um…they gave me some leeway, you know.  They gave me some leeway and I did a lot of traveling and I think there were very proud of that.  They were proud of the fact that I had initiative and, I think…  Again, I have to say this as the oldest of four children and having had a certain, uh, a certain family position, you know…

Q. Yes.

A. …a status of the oldest and also being looked up to…  You see, my brothers and sister were all younger when I lost my vision as a child…I was only 10-1/2…you know, they understood but they didn’t understand.  Oh, you can’t see us.  OK, but can you still tie my shoe?

Q. [laugh]

A. You know.  Oh, you can’t see but, here, look at this for me or help me with this.  So, you know…  And I think that the fact that I had some vision and not all of it…  I also instituted my own adaptive technique in terms of what I did around the house.

Q. For example.

A. I used a lot more touch.  I mean, I remember helping my brothers, my little brothers dressing.  I couldn’t see certain things but I would feel their shoes.  I would, you know, help button their shirts or whatever and a lot of it was tactile.  It was just sort of adaptive.

Q. Yeah.

A. You know…

Q. Um, what are your childhood memories of traveling, riding bikes, public transit, family trips?

A. Well, it’s interesting.  I never rode a bike because, even early on, they detected certain retinal concerns…

Q. Um.

A. …so, in those days, anybody who had a retinal problem was restricted from physical activity.  So, I was always excused from gym, I wasn’t allowed to ride a bike, I wasn’t allowed to skate…although when my family wasn’t home, I would put on skates and try to skate up and down the hallway in my apartment….

Q. [laugh]  Great.

A. which I did.  And I would hold onto the walls, and stuff like that.  But, you know…  But there was a concern.  I was never very athletic and always discouraged rather than encouraged.  The family trips…  I mean, we did a lot of that.  I mean, my father drove, of course, and, uh, we would go…  He would take us places.  I grew up in The Bronx and go to City Island on Sunday.  We’d go downtown to shows on the, you know, on the weekends.  So, uh…things like that, you know…  The family had picnics, you know, especially in the summertime, there were lots of picnics.  And outings…family outings.  We also had…  My mother and father had, you know, quite an extended family…uncles, aunts, cousins, and they were all very close, so holidays were always, you know, a fiasco, I mean…

Q. Hm.

A. …always tons of people…cousins and relatives around.  So there was always a lot of activity.

Q. Would they talk to you about what you were driving past or…

A. Uh…

Q. …especially after the age of ten…were people trying to clue you in about things that were out there.

A. You know, I honestly don’t remember.

Q. No.

A. Maybe it was just general conversation or maybe I asked questions.  Um, I kind of always had…I kind of had a sense I knew where we were going…

Q. Uh huh.

A. …but I don’t remember how that actually…  In truth, I don’t remember how that was initiated.  Um, I don’t know.  I’d have to think more about it and see what I could remember.

Q. Uh huh.  So, what were you doing in the back seat of that car?  Were you playing with your brothers and sister, keeping an eye on them, making sure they didn’t [laugh] throw each other out the door.  [laugh]

A. All of the above.

Q. Paying attention.

A. All of the above.

Q. Uh huh.

A. It was kind of, like, uh…  They were pretty good when we were driving and I don’t think we went on very extended trips.  You know, we would go to…  The distances weren’t that far.  It was always a routine where we would go to my grandmother’s…my father’s mother…my paternal grandmother…on Sundays for Sunday dinner.  That was always something we did, and that was just a ten-minute drive, you know.  Um, other trips…well, maybe we could have been in the car an hour.  It was mostly bickering between my brothers.

Q. [laugh]

A. My brothers were always, you know, were always at it…

Q. Right.

A. …and there was probably a lot of yelling about sit still and stop kicking me and, you know, uh…  Yeah, sometimes I would tell them stories.  I would make up stories.  They liked it when I made up stories.  I couldn’t really read from too many books.

Q. Right.

A. So, I would make up stories.  Things like that.

Q. Who was your favorite teacher and why?

A. Oh, I have to name names or can I just…

Q. You can just…

A. [laugh]  I’m trying to remember what his actual name was.  He was a math teacher when I was in about the seventh grade and, uh, he became my idol.  There were two, actually, but he was my first.

Q. Um hm.

A. He became my idol because I think he was the first one to…  And I was totally blind by then…I guess I was about 13…and, uh, he became my idol because he was the first one who really acknowledged that I had a brain.

Q. Hm.

A. You know, and would pick me out as someone who was, uh, was able to…to do things using my mind, you know, and my brain.  And that I was quicker than the other students.  And he, um, he fostered that, you know.  He nurtured that in me.  Uh, he would put a math problem on the board and he would say, OK, who has the answer to this and he’d call on me and I would always have the answer…

Q. Yes.

A. …before anybody else.  So, I became, like, you know, a star pupil and I was never a star pupil…I hated school.

Q. Interesting.

A. I hated school because when I, when I could see…I had some vision…I couldn’t see enough to read.  So, in my very early years, I was, I was, uh, pointed at as being retarded or delayed…

Q. Oh, gosh.

A. …so, I was always excused from reading.  The teacher would say, OK, you don’t have to read.  You can sweep the floor, you can be the blockwood…blackboard monitor, you know, that kind of stuff.

Q. Hm.

A. You can run errands to the nurse…and the kids hated me.

Q. Right.

A. ‘Cause I had all these great ______________________

Q. [laugh]

A. But in the meantime, you know, I hated this and the kids would torment me.

Q. Yeah.

A. They’d steal things from me.  You know, we used to have these jars of paste and stupid things and they’d always steal them from my desk and they’d steal my crayons and all that.  But they really, they really resented that it kind of looked as though I was favored.

Q. Yeah.

A. The reality was that the teachers didn’t know what to do with me.  They didn’t understand that I was having vision problems.  No one understood until I was about eight…

Q. Oh.

A. …when they did these kinds of eye tests.  They’d stand you up in the classroom and say cover one eye and read this thing.  I couldn’t read anything.  So then they sent for my mother and…  You see, I think, in truth, thinking back, in the full retrospect, I think I was so adaptable [laugh]…

Q. Right.

A. …in the way I behaved and that I, I just…  That no one ever caught up with me for a while.

Q. Right.

A. When I think back now, the way I did things with minimal vision, I shudder.  I mean, I remember crossing very large streets and not being sure of what was coming.

Q. Oh, my.

A. And you’re not seeing things until the last minute.  Um, so, it…  You know, I think back now and I really don’t know if I ever really knew what perfect vision was, you know.  I think I had enough…  Once I got glasses, also, when they finally realized my eyes were so bad, and they gave me, um, I guess at the time, it was bifocals that I had…  The glasses that had a line across the…a semicircle across the bottom of it…

Q. Right.

A. …and I would have to look through.  My vision, of course, was much better when I had those glasses but even then, they put me in something called a sight conservation class.

Q. Oh.

A. Uh huh.  The good old _____________________.  So I must have been at least legally blind, although I never knew…I never knew…understood…  I never know anything about that when I was a kid growing up.

Q. So, was that a pull out thing where you were in the typical classroom and then you would go to the class…

A. Yeah.

Q. Yeah.

A. Yeah. I would go to what was called, uh, um, the sight conservation class.  But even that…  By the time that happened, I was, maybe, in that class for two years, and it’s really funny, ‘cause the things that I remember…  The only things…  The things I really remember about those classes when in those years when I had usable vision was when I started to learn to read.  _______________ I really began to be able to see and I had large print books.  And what a torment.  It was tortuous.  Actually tortuous.

Q. What do you mean?

A. I couldn’t…  And the reading was the hardest thing.

Q. Yeah.

A. Very hard.  And, and, um, and, of course, I didn’t enjoy it very much and I used to have to practice and my mother wasn’t very helpful with it.  She used to make my brother try to listen to me read and the kid had no patience to help me at home.

Q. Did you like and appreciate the large print books?

A. All I remember is being a drudge.

Q. Yeah.

A. I couldn’t…  I mean, I could see but it also was…  I think they didn’t give me good reading skills.

Q. Hm.

A. They didn’t teach me well.  I don’t think that they spent enough time with me, not understanding at the time that my skills were limited.  All I remember of this classroom was that the teacher used to take a…what we called at the time, cheese boxes.  You know, when you had a long box like this and you’ve got big wedges of American cheese.  The boxes were…  She’d bring them in and we’d paint them up in very dark blue with this ridiculous red flowers that she put on them.

Q. Hm.

A. She painted them and she’d use them and she’d make like a step ladder of boxes for papers in the school for us to drop our papers in, like, our work assignments and things.  I remember these ugly boxes.  [laugh]

Q. [laugh]

A. That and about the only other things I was good at in those days was playing tiddly-winks.  I was a tiddly-winks champ.

Q. [laugh]

A. The only one in class who could beat everybody.  I had a special knack.  Those are the only things I remember.

Q. [laugh[

A. It was a horror.  And then that summer, 1949…’39, ’49, ’50…  I really probably lost a lot more vision.

Q. Hm.

A. It was August…this month, in fact.  And, um, I was around the house and it must have been 100 degrees…and we didn’t have air conditioning in those days.

Q. Right.

A. And I had not worn my glasses for a couple of days because I couldn’t stand, you know I was--- The heat on your nose and the persper--…  And it came Sunday and it was time to go visit my father's mother, Grandma, again, Sunday.  So I put my glasses on and suddenly I looked and I said to my mother, ma, I can’t see…with my glasses…I can’t see any better, is what I meant.  She said, well, you haven’t had them on for a few days, maybe you have to get used to them again. I said, OK.  You know [light laugh], went to my grandmother’s house and my sister and my brothers used to love to play baseball and there’s an empty lot and they'd go off to the lot to play baseball with the other kids.  And my mother gave me a dime, she said I could go buy a comic.  And that was one of the streets I remember, I couldn't--I wasn’t sure I was crossing properly.  I went to the store and I looked at the comics and I could see the bright colors of the comics but I really couldn’t see the comics.  

Q. Um hm.

A. All I could see was there was a comic--I used to love the teenage comics.  There was this one called Nellie the Nurse and I could see that she had a white uniform cause she was a nurse.

Q. Um hm.

A. And I bought this comic book and I think I was even holding it upside down.

Q. Oh.

A. Anyway, I bought it.  Well, the crowning thing was, I walked into my grandmother’s house for dinner and I turned and said to my mother, why is it so dark in here?

Q. Yeah.

A. That was it.  Then the whole roof fell in, you know.  Everybody got hysterical.  Bright, sunny August day and there were lots of windows in my grandmother’s house and then they started…  We tried to figure out what was wrong.  So I went to a doctor two days later, um, and he confirmed that the retina in the good eye had detached and was practically detached.  It was just, like, you know, what they might call today…  They couldn’t even call it finger count-- because my mother was, how many fingers…

Q. Right.

A. …and I really couldn’t see them.  So I probably had enough vision to tell the difference between, uh, the difference between the curbs and the gutters, when to step down and when to step up.

Q. Uh huh.

A. I could see a--forms but I couldn’t identify who they were.  I could see a figure…shadow vision, whatever you want to call it.

Q. Right.

A. So, they did surgery and it didn’t work.

Q. Right.

A. So that was that.

Q. Hm.

A. So, then I lost it completely, you know.

Q. How did that make you feel?

A. Well, it’s interesting because, again, as a kid and living with, um, impaired vision, um, I don’t think I was as traumatized as I should have been.

Q. Um hm.

A. You know, all I remember thinking was…  Because of what I couldn’t see, of course when school started, I didn't go back to school.  I thought, thank god, I'll never have to go to school again.

Q. [laugh]

A. I remember that being very powerful in my life.

Q. [laugh]

A. So what I…  But, somehow, somebody introduced me to what was at the time called talking books.  And I had a fabulous time…

Q. Hm.

A. …I was home all day and I read and I read and I think that helped me a great deal.

Q. Ah.

A. I read on talking books and I just, you know, I loved it.  I swallowed it up.

Q. Yeah.

A. But that didn’t last very long.  And then some social worker came to my house.  [laugh]

Q. Um hm.

A. That was terrible.  [laugh]  She came to my house.  She wanted me to go to school.

Q. [laugh]

A. She tried to convince my parents about these special schools.  She actually came from…I shouldn’t name it… she came from the New York Institute.

Q. Is that right?

A. Yeah.  And my father was a very--as I said they were very loving…  My family was not of the great educators. I mean, my mother quit school when she was in the seventh grade because her father died and she was, she was second oldest of five children and she and her sister went to work as seamstresses in a factory, you know.

Q. Yeah.

A. You know, they had no welfare in those days.  My father was probably a bright man, very self-taught, but probably out of school by the fourth grade to help his father run a laundry truck.

Q. Hm.

A. So, you know, they, you know…  Education to them was something children should have.  But anyway, so the social worker came and talked to them about the New York Institute and my mother and father were both there.  And something about going to the school and staying there.  I remember this and I was there and I said to…  She said, I have any questions. I said, well, do I have to stay there?  And, uh you know cause I didn’t want to go and stay in school.

Q. Right.

A. And she said, well, yes, once you come, you have to stay and I said, then I don’t want to go, you know.  [laugh]

Q. Right.

A. So she said to my father, she told him that she really…he really shouldn’t let me get away with that and that, you know, the indication was that I was spoiled.  So he said, if she doesn’t want to go, she doesn’t have to.  And he threw her out.

Q. [laugh]

A. So that was. [laugh]  I really think that was my saving grace.

Q. Yeah.

A. My saving grace at the time.  Um, but then there was the public school system kicked in and somebody came around and so I went to public school.  You know, I went in to a regular public school with what, at the time, was a Braille class.  And then I began to learn Braille and learn my, you know, and picked up on skills and I, I got good…  I got pretty good…

Q. Um hm.

A. …in to the term.  Um, the Braille classes in those days had kids, as you know, who were from first grade on up to eighth grade.

Q. I see.

A. That’s how they had a class…in different levels and you came in to certain levels----you came in to learn your skills, to get some study helps.  Uh, you spent lunch hour there, but then you were farmed out to the other classes, you know, for geography, history, English…whatever it was.

Q. How did you get to school?

A. They bused us.

Q. Uh huh.

A. The Board of Ed bus.

Q. So, they picked you up at your front door…

A. Yeah, because I was out of the neighborhood.

Q. Um hm.

A. You know, they had Braille class…  I lived in one place and the Braille class…school was I another area.  So they bused me and the teacher there was excellent.  She was very, very good. 

Q. Did you have any kind of mobility device to…

A. No.

Q. No.

A. I had a fight with the school, though, because they insisted on my having, um, escorts.  You know, they would assign a kid from the class to go with you?

Q. Right.

A. And it would annoy me.  I mean, that’s what I think…  And I don’t know how it started again, but I told them I was able to get around these places without any devices and they would get mad at me because they would find me in the hallways and, like, they would insist that, you know, the kids would use the elevator and I said it was too slow.

Q. Uh huh.

A. And then they gave up.  And they left me alone.

Q. [laugh]

A. But there were times, like I said, when I made a friend, you know, we'd walk to an English class with the friend, the friend would be glad so she could ride the elevator, you know…

Q. Oh.  [laugh]

A. ________________ thing.

Q. [laugh]

A. Even all through high school, I didn’t have any mobility devices, I just, I just could get around.  Whatever it was, I could get around.

Q. So, did you trail?  Did you hold onto the…

A. Yeah.

Q. …shoulder…

A. Yeah. I would trail.  No, I would never hold on…I wouldn’t hold anybody’s shoulder.  No, not on your life.

Q. No.

A. No.  I trailed mostly.  Um, the only time I ran into trouble was, the high school I went to was a large high school…5,000 students…and it was up in The Bronx.  William Howard Taft, you’ve probably heard of it.

Q. I know the president.  [laugh]

A. She knew the president.  It was one of high schools.  I was bused to the high school but, once I got there, it was my domain, you know.  The school is in the shape of a figure eight…I figured it out.

Q. Oh.

A. And, you know, it had just a rectangle with a cut through the middle so we could go through.  And I knew my way around.  I just did.

Q. Uh huh.

A. And I could trail or I could walk the straight hall and I could, you know, I kind of knew certain things.

Q. What did you use for landmarks in that school?

A. Uh, the corridor which cuts through the center of the building.

Q. OK.

A. And…

Q. You could hear that…you could tell the opening.

A. Yeah.  Yeah, I could tell that.  Also, depending on where the classrooms were, you know, I mean, I don’t know.  I can’t tell you exactly what they were, you know, in terms of landmarks.  I’m sure there must have been some landmarks.  Certain doorways, certain turns in the hallways…in the corridors.  Uh, maybe where the elevators were placed, the stairways, you know.

Q. So, a lot of sounds and a lot of…

A. Yeah, probably a lot of sounds.  Yeah a lot of--and then there were sometimes, like, it was a very long hallway and there may have been like a connecting door, you know, a corridor door…

Q. Uh huh.

A. …and whether…  If it was closed, then fine, I could open it. If it was open then you knew you were coming to something that was going through the archway, kind of.

Q. Right.

A. Going into the archway.  And, uh, I just…  I don’t know.  I just, I think because, again, having adapted to using other ways and other you know senses, I managed to find my way around the school and they would always complain to what we called the Braille room teacher at the time, and he would come in…  He was a really sweet guy.  He’d say to me, [as if her teacher] honey, we don’t want to get in trouble.  I’d say, no, we don’t.  What’s happening now? he'd say [laugh] [as if her teacher] "You know, they saw you walking down the hallway and you didn’t have your eyes open.  And eventually, they did give up.  They left me alone.

Q. Good  [laugh]

A. Uh, we had four minutes to change classes and if I had to wait for the elevator to get from one floor to the fourth floor, I mean, it was ridiculous.

Q. Right.

A. It just annoyed the hell out of me.  And I was a big kid.  I mean, I wasn’t this puny little thing, you know.

Q. Right.

A. So I could shoulder my way pretty easily.

Q. [laugh]

A. Um, so I guess they figured I was OK and knew where I was going.

Q. Do you ever remember getting completely lost and then finding yourself again and being real proud of that or…

A. No.  I’ll tell you one thing that I did that was really awful.  And it’s awful because…It was in high school…  This is all high school, now mostly.

Q. Hm.

A. I had really kind of begun to be budding in the field of math. And when I went into high school, I took algebra and I took geometry and then I got better and better and then I got into the advanced algebra courses, and I took solid geometry and the guy who was chairman of the department really kind of nurtured me.  He thought it was, like, the cat’s meow.  He wouldn’t even let me take the Regents…he said it would be a waste of his time.

Q. Oh.

A. So, he gave me a 99 on the Regents exam.

Q. Wow.

A. He quizzed me a little bit, but then I said, if it’s such a big deal, why don’t you give me 100?  And he said, no, he never gives anybody 100.

Q. [laugh]

A. And I took an advanced math class when I was in high school…college prep…anyway, I remember leaving his office and we had a discussion about some…  I used to…  There was a sort of a club, a mathematical club and we’d go in just for the hell of it and we would have these crazy puzzles and things to solve, you know.  It was like a recreational thing.

Q. Uh huh.

A. So I remember coming out of there…we had been working on some recreation thing and I thought I had it figured out and I was walking down the hall…it was a very long corridor, now, I remember, it was on the second floor and I was very absorbed in this and I knew at the end of the hall I had to make a right-hand turn.  And I remembered that…I remembered ____________.  And I was thinking about this problem…thinking about this problem and I anticipated as I came to an opening and I just automatically turned…automatically…and started falling down a flight of stairs.

Q. Oh.

A. What happened was, the middle of the corridor had this huge open, winding staircase and I just wasn’t thinking so I must have gotten the sense that this was the opening of the turning and I, you know, I turned…  And I tripped on the top but fortunately I didn’t fall down the whole flight of stairs.  But in those days we were wearing these things called Capezios, you know.  These little…they’re almost look like ballet shoes…

Q. Oh.

A. Slip-ons.  And I remember tripping and I grabbed the banister and I wound up sitting on the top step.  My shoe went bumpabumpa down the stairs.  And in those days I had…  I don’t know if you’re familiar with the old tile arithmetic plates…  Do you remember those?

Q. No.

A.  Oh, they’re metal and they had these little pieces of tile in them and you would do your math by…  It’s a wild kind of thing.  I’m sure it’s extinct by now.  Anyway, this thing is metal and it fell out of my arm and went clang clang clang [laugh]  And two of the teachers came running out to see what happened.

Q. Uh huh.

A. Oh, I said, I dropped my slate, well I guess they must have seen--so they reported it to my teacher and he came and he said, oh said, oh, I understand you fell down the stairs.  I said, oh, god, I didn’t fall down the stairs.  I started to trip on the step and I was thinking and I forgot where I was turning.  But my stuff made so much noise that everybody came out…

Q. Right.

A. …so, I mean, that’s about…  The other times that I might have had a mishap was, I did trail the walls and one of the things I guess I did do… I used to walk very fast.  Um, and once in a while I would hit a water bucket, you know…

Q. Yeah.

A. …a mop with a bucket and once I knocked one over completely.  The bucket just went over, so.  [laugh]

Q. [laugh]

A. You weren’t happy about those kinds of things.  It didn’t happen too often, but I thought, well, you know, they shouldn’t leave that stuff…

Q. That’s right.

A. …out in the middle of classes anywhere where kids… Anybody… The halls were packed with students. There were 5,000 students in the school at the time and when they give you these bells to ring and you have to change classes, and you know, everybody was running.

Q. That’s right.

A. So, I said, well, that, that could be [inaudible]  But that’s the kind of stuff that we had, basically, you know.  Um…  It was a great time.  I don’t really remember how it…  High school was wonderful.  I mean, I had my problems with some classes…I was not a very good history student.

ME: In high school, there were plenty of ways for her to learn independently -she had talking books and eventually learned braille to read independently, but the most natural independence of all- walking, she was taught a dependent solution- The only solution they could think of was for her to walk with an escort to keep her safe. 

So, even though by the time Jo became blind long canes had been used for 10 years already, they were not shared here -a middle school student or provided to her in high school. She wanted a dog guide, which was a much older mobility tool Morris Frank got his first dog guide in 1928 – as an adult. And dog guides are still only available to someone once they have graduated from High School. This was understood- Jo was evaluated on the long cane, but she was never provided one 

This suggests that independent travel tools for blind persons were considered the domain of adults.  They were invented for blind adults. It took decades to bring long canes to high schoolers (1960s). How can it be? 

There exists no logic – why would it make sense that once we figured out that a blind adult could be safer with a long white cane, that we need to find a way to make devices for blind toddlers – because they need our protection most of all -why did it take 70 years from the advent of the long cane for blind adults to conceive and build a pediatric belt cane for blind toddlers?

Q. Well, would you, like after school, go out and hang out any place?

A. I couldn’t.  See, that was the one drawback and that’s, that’s the one thing…  It’s funny, because when I was in college, I was. We, we were doing a paper once, I think it in English class, and the one thing I wrote…  I wrote a paper on hanging out and I said that one of the things that happens with disabled students, um, is that, because the school’s not in your neighborhood…  See, you’re not a part of your neighborhood.

Q. Right.

A. You get bused in and you get bused out, so, I really didn’t know anybody in my…  I mean, I knew some of the kids I grew up with originally in my neighborhood, but I was not attending the schools they were, I was not having the same, um, kind of schedule they were, and so, when they came home, they had a clique and I was not part of that clique.

Q. Yeah.

A. They were not very accepting.  You know, once in a while, I would try…  They would come home after school…  They were teenagers.  What would they do?  They would walk up and down the block waiting for the boys to come out.

Q. Hm.

A. Or they would…  I remember even doing this…going into…  A couple of them lived in my building and once in a while I guess they’d feel bad, they’d invite me down to be with them after school and they would sit there the whole time and the biggest activity was tying on clothes.

Q. Yeah.

A. And trying on bras…that was the big thing.

Q. [laugh]

A. And they’d look in a mirror and they’d do all this stuff and they’d fuss with their hair and so…  Basically, I could be there, but could be involved, but it wasn’t like, you know…it wasn’t the kind of activity they could share with me in the same way.

Q. Yeah.

A. So…  But, after school, what would happen is, you know, I would have a lot of telephone friends.

Q. Yeah.

A. That’s what happened.  I spent hours on the telephone.

Q. So, from what I gather, um, you really didn’t have a mobility instructor or did you?

A. No.

Q. OK.

A. No. You’re right.  I did not have a mobility instructor.

Q. So, you had a little bit of assessment.  Somebody sort of checked you out on a cane and then you went straight to a dog guide.

A. Yeah, and I told them I wanted to get a dog.  I think what they were really checking out, also, was the fact that I had good orientation.

Q. Uh huh.  It would be nice if you could anticipate the stairs with some sort of tool.  [laugh] 

A. Well…

Q. You would know where you are, but [laugh]

A. I know, but nobody introduced it, even in high school.

Q. Interesting.

A. No one came and said…  No, never in high school.  The only place they introduced it was here at the Lighthouse.  At the end of my third year, when I finished my junior year…and they did an assessment to get me ready to see…  See, I wanted to live away from home.

Q. Uh huh.

A. And they wanted to see, I guess they did psychological testing, and they did these…

Q. Wild.

A. …stupid things.  They made me put a rubber mat together.

Q. [laugh]

A. And they made me count little things, you know, nuts and bolts and you took one from this…and put it…  And I was so…

Q. [laugh]

A. …I can’t tell you how bored I was.

Q. Here’s this math scholar, right.  [laugh]

A. I had these rubber pieces, red and black, and I had to make a red mat with a red diamond in it.  It was really funny.  I don’t know how…it was coincidental.  I made this beautiful whole red mat and in the center was the black diamond and for some godforsaken reason, right smack in the black diamond, I had one red dot.  [laugh]  I mean…

Q. Sounds pretty to me.

A. …but it wasn’t supposed to be that way.

Q. Oh, you weren’t supposed to do that, I see.

A. I think I forgot at one point and my mind would drift.

Q. Right.

A. My mind would drift.

Q. I’m sure [laugh]

A. So this, for a month I went through this and, um, you know, they decided it was OK to go to college.  Because the state was going to sponsor me.  That was…

Q. Ah.

A. …that's all that kind of stuff.

Q. Yeah.

A. But, I really didn’t have any kind of, um, mobility…  Now, in all fairness, all fairness, I don’t know if I would have requested it or suggested it but I was very, um, I was negative.  I was not responsive to their help for mobility.

Q. Um hm.

A. You know.  I mean, I could get around fine, you know, especially indoors.  I had no problem.  I traversed the whole building and the school and so I didn’t have a need to have a mobility device at that point.  Um, and I didn’t go out very much.  You know, every place I went there were buses.  I was bused…even down to the Lighthouse when I came sometimes on Saturdays.  They had transportation.  All the kids were picked up.  All of us.  So, it wasn’t until I finished high school and got my dog and I went to school, that I did a lot more travel.

Q. How did you learn your way around your college…and with the dog, and…

A. Um…

Q. What was that like, getting your dog?

A. I’m trying to remember…  What do you mean, what was it like?

Q. Well, was it, uh…

A. Oh, it was wonderful.

Q. Yeah.

A. Oh, it was just like…  I had this huge hairy shepherd at the time, I was 18. And it was, like…  Oh, we were at Morristown for months because he was my first dog.

Q. Uh huh.

A. It was wonderful.  I had the best time of my life.

Q. I bet.

A. There were some…  There was another couple…other, younger people there.  See, what they do is they save summer months for the students who are out of school and they do that now also.  If you’re a student, you know, you’re in school all year.  You really can’t take the time off, so the months of July and August at these guide dog schools are usually filled with students.  You know, young people…

Q. Um hm.

A. …and, uh, there was another…  I remember there was…  And they would match you up…we’d work in pairs.  They had some older people and they had some slower people but there was this one other fellow from Texas…  I’ll never forget, he had a big black dog named Nipper and, uh, I think…  I don’t remember if he was finished from high school or if he was working…  I don’t…  Yeah, I think he was on his way to school also. Anyway, um, they matched us up to work together and we had a wonderful time.  We’d race our dogs.

Q. Oh, fun.

A. And we were really fast, you know.  We were young. We were fast. And it was a new experience and it was a lot of fun.  So, I don’t know…  So, then, we left and came back home and what I learned was, we really shouldn’t do that.  You shouldn’t race your dog.

Q. [laugh]

A. ‘Cause it scared the shit out of everybody.

Q. [laugh]  Oh, it was scaring everyone else.

A. Everybody else, not…

Q. Not you and your dog.

A. No…  Scaring everybody.  I mean, I, first of all, I couldn’t walk with anybody because they couldn’t keep up with us.

Q. Uh huh.

A. Um, and also, you know, we’d go into stores and people would just be horrified at this huge dog and this person racing through the store…

Q. And you’re very tall.

A. Uh, yeah.  It wasn’t a good image at all.  Cause I’ll never forget, that I went into one store and as I passed down the aisles, I heard one woman, she said, [in a loud whispher] see that great--see that great big girl with that lion?

Q. [laugh]

A. I thought to myself, oh, my…

Q. That’s a good idea.

A. …what an image.

Q. [laugh]

A. I mean, it was not the kind of image you want to leave behind.

Q. So, you got your dog, you’re out, you’re at stores by yourself, you’re at college.  You’re not going with people…you’re going independently.

A. On my own, yeah.

Q. How do you prepare for that?  How do you find your way around?

A. Well, what did I do at the time?  I think I must have had…  There was somebody who showed me initially… There must have been some orientation around the college in the first place.  Someone, I’m sure, showed me some of the paths.  Now, in terms of the buildings…  You know, there were paths to follow.

Q. Uh huh.

A. There was…   Adelphi had a lot of green…greenery at the time.  It was a real campus.

Q. Yeah.

A. So there were cement paths…

Q. Good.

A. …outside the dorm and I could follow the paths.  Yeah, did I get lost?  Of course I got lost.  I mean, there were times I’d go around and around.  You know times I would come to a building and it was the wrong one.  But eventually, I mean [laugh] I could figure it out.  Um…

Q. Was that with using sighted assistance?

A. I would go along and say, hey, where’s East Hall?

Q. Right.

A. Or, what building is this?  And there were always students around.

Q. Yeah.

A. Or, where do I get to, uh, Blodgett, or whatever the hell the science building was at the time.

Q. Right.

A. So, sure, I was always asking questions.  And then the students were going to certain buildings and I would follow them.

Q. Uh huh.

A. So, I mean, eventually, you know…  The only time it really became very difficult, very difficult…and I know at one time…  We used to have some very heavy snowstorms…

Q. Oh.

A. …we had some heavy snowstorms out there that would cover everything and there were no paths.  And, of course, the students always would just cut crisscross along the campus and that kind of thing and the dog was pretty good.  I mean, she could after a while, you know, you go to a building…you go there often enough.  But there were times when there was so much snow and everything was so buried that, um, one time I was trying to come back to my dorm and I couldn’t, I couldn’t, I couldn’t figure it out.  And this dog would come up to this huge pile and snow and she’d stop and I’d say, no, no, and I’d retrace my steps.  This must have gone on for, god, a good 40 minutes and I was getting so upset.  I couldn’t find anything.  She keep coming and I’d yell at her and say, no, that…  All of a sudden, one time, like I would be here.  A pile of snow. All of a sudden way up here, I would hear a banging.  I figured out that there was somebody at the window and I heard her say, go around, go around.  And I realized what happened was, the steps to the entrance were buried.

Q. Oh.

A. Absolutely buried and the front door was buried…

Q. My…

A. She was telling me to go around to the side of the building where they had cleared a path.  Until I figured that out, you know…  And the poor dog had never encountered snow up north. So anyway I hugged her and I said, you know… She was trying to show me steps that were under all this snow.

Q. Wow.

A. So, that stuff was…  But, you know what I mean.  That stuff is a rare instance.  Uh, where you can be very confused about what’s going on.

Q. Sure.

A. That was a real awful kind of time.  But once, you know, you figured this out, then it was you know…

Q. So, you really haven’t used any other, any kind of cane or any other mobility tool or just…

A. Well, I’ve used a cane minimally.  There was actually a time between dogs.

Q. Uh huh.

A. When my first dog had died and…  In fact, I was working here back in those days.  Because I was here for a while and then I left and then I'd come back.  But it was back in the ‘60s and I'd lost my dog.  She had died in a surgery.  And, I said I didn’t know if I’m ever going to get another dog again.  It was difficult…

Q. Yeah.

A. So, for a couple of months, I used a cane coming up to the Lighthouse.  And, you know, if I need to, I can do it.  I’m not comfortable with it.  And then there are times when I’ll go out and meet somebody and I’ll go a short distance with a cane.

Q. What kind of a cane would you use then?

A. What kind of a cane?

Q. Um hum.  What kind do you like?

A. I use a folding cane.

Q. Folding?

A. Yeah, ‘cause I need to, you know…  I need to…  Once I’m going where I’m going I like to get rid of it.

Q. Yeah.

A. I like to fold it up and just put it away.  So, I always use a folding cane.

Q. Do you have a particular kind of tip that you like better?

A. No, no.  I’m not experienced enough to know.

Q. Uh huh.

A. I just know that I need one that doesn’t stick in all the cracks.  That makes me crazy.  Or that goes down the holes in the sewer things.

Q. Have you ever tried a roller tip or anything like that?

A. No, no.  I’ve never tried a roller tip.

Q. Have you ever tried a…

A. Betty has, I never have.

Q. …an electronic travel aid…

A. No.  Did I ever try an electronic travel aid?  Um, when I was at Morristown one time getting another dog, they were trying these funny kinds of glasses that you wear.  You were supposed to able to there were overheads.

Q. Sure.

A. But, no, I never really…  Did I ever experiment with another kind of…  Well, I’ve seen them, yeah.  Around here, Bob would sometimes come up with a cane and we’d go down and we would, you know, it would beep if there was an overhead.  It would have a higher beep and a lower beep if there was something in front of you, but I never really used them outside. It was just testing them around here.

Q. What’d you think of them?

A. Um, I don’t know.  You know, I have trouble with a lot of things that I’m not comfortable with because all these beeps and noises and being outside in the streets with the horns and everything else, I don’t know what…  I think they could work very well for some people…

Q. Um hm.

A. …and maybe they could work very well for me if I concentrated in that area, but I can’t…  I don’t have enough of an opinion.

Q. Yeah.

A. I certainly think that, uh, there an option, You know. I wouldn’t say no, they have no…  You know, I think they’re…  I think any device you could come up with that helps people is a plus.  And I wish I were better with a cane because I think there are times when, you know, when I could…when I use it, if I could feel more comfortable, it would be better for me.

Q. Um, how many canes do you own?

A. Well, there’s one behind the door there, standing up.

Q. Yeah.

A. Right?

Q. Yeah.

A. I have one at home standing up in a corner.  I have one here I the bottom of my desk.  I have a few…three, four.  You know, different places.  Um…

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

A. Well, what do you mean, traveling…what…with my dog?

Q. Yeah.

A. Oh, I do it.  How do I feel about it?  I don’t know.  I mean, it’s something you do.

Q. Uh huh.

A. I mean, if you were telling me that…  I went to Washington a couple of weeks ago to a conference.  I went alone.

Q. Uh huh.

A. Um, the hotel wasn’t too bad.  I think I figured it out.  I was only there three days.  Um, it was OK.

Q. Uh huh.

A. If I were there longer, I probably would have, you know…  Once or twice… What happens in strange places is they often have, like, elevator banks then four or five elevators…  even like here, you know.  We have four elevators and depending on which one you come off of…

Q. Right.

A. …you have to turn.  Well, the hotels do the same thing.  So, there were times when I’d come off the elevator, make a left turn and realize that that wasn’t the direction and I would have to…  I spent some time doubling back and forth in those couple of days.  But, it’s workable.

Q. Yeah.

A. I mean, it's not. I don’t find it, uh…  Now, if you were telling me that I was going to go off to a foreign country…

Q. Right.

A. …obviously, I would have more concern about it and.  I think what I’ve learned in my senior years here is that you need to do a little more groundwork before you just…  You know, there was a time when I got my first dog and I did a lot of traveling.  I would just go…boom.

Q. Yeah.

A. Yeah, and I’d get there and I’d figure it out.  Now, probably, what I try to do is I surprise myself.  I say, hey, look at this.  I can actually figure this out before I get there.  

Q. How? 

A. Or I can do some preparatory work.

Q. Like what?

A. Like what?  Well, for instance, this last conference.  I never did this.  I’ve attended conferences over the years…lots of conferences.

Q. Um hm.

A. I just get on the plane and I’d show up.  Well, the last year or two…  I went to a conference in San Francisco about two years ago and in one of the brochures, I noticed that it said for special needs.  Suddenly, I said, well, what does that mean?  So I called them to find out that I could get certain arrangements or materials in advance…

Q. Nice

A. …or I could find out some things.  I never did that before.  I would just show up at things.  [laugh]  I always did.  No one ever told me that there was… There was never anything special in the years that I grew up.  That was the problem.

Q. Right. 

A. So, I never came to expect anything.

Q. Right.

A. I mean, I went all through college with a hand slate and stylus.

Q. Wow.

A. And a Braille writer which I didn’t use in my classrooms.

Q. Right.

A. I had a hand slate…a pocket slate and a stylus.

Q. My goodness.

A. And all through graduate school with that kind of stuff.  Maybe…  Then I began to use, you know, a little tape player, but, truthfully, I used the Braille pocket slate and stylus.  Carried in my pocketbook everywhere I went with my little Bible…you know kind of thing.  So I never really came to expect anything in preparation for…

Q. Well, say you’re going to go to an unfamiliar place in New York.  Would you create a map for yourself?  Do you use maps?  Do you…

A. No, I don’t use maps.  I sometimes would like to but I’ve never found any of the maps here very useful.  The only maps I’ve ever, ever seen in my life that were wonderful were the maps they had in Morristown which were laid out street by street. They actually carved them.  Uh, they had them made and carved

[side B]

Q. OK.

A. You could learn the route by following this map.  Now, I do have… Maybe it’s faded a little over the years, but I have, I have very good visual recall.

Q. Oh.

A. I do have…  I think because of all my math training and especially when I was doing a lot of geometry and stuff…solid geometry, you know I have a lot of three-dimensional kinds of thinking.  You know, the thing that still makes me crazy is when I don’t know something and what I’ve been intending to do more probably is avoiding certain things.  For instance…  I don’t know if you know the West Village.

Q. Not really.

A. Well, the West Village is like, uh, it’s like someone went through it and decided with a little, a little hacksaw which way the streets should go.  There’s no rhyme or reason.

Q. [laugh]

A. You know, you’re walking down the street, right, and you might come to an intersection, except the corner…there’s no corner on the next side…it just goes into four lanes of traffic.

Q. Oh, right.

A. So you have to go this way or this way and I…  Those things make me crazy, or something that winds up coming into a circle.  Or suddenly Broadway and Fifth Avenue merge at 24th Street and you can wind up nowhere…if you know Broadway…if you know that area.

Q. Right.

A. So, I mean, those are the kinds of things which I wish people would put on a map.

Q. Yeah.

A. But I never see it.  All I see are these stupid maps they have on these floors which to me make absolutely…  I mean, I can’t figure…  I don’t even take the time to…  The blocks of rooms--that is such a waste to me.

Q. Ah.

A. I mean it’s silly.  It doesn’t…  I should say that.  You know, again, it’s a tool that’s useful for some people.  To me it makes no sense.  If I walk down the hallway, I’ll figure it out.

Q. Right.

A. You know, that kind of thing.  Um, but in terms of traveling around, you know, you just don’t know…and it’s very hard sometimes to figure out, um…  New York is not too bad because there’s rhyme and reason and there is a pattern to the streets.  But, I don’t know…  What was the question?  [laugh]

Q. No, you were talking about maps and …  so, you get to this place, say, where you’re talking about where the streets merge in the West Village, um, what do you do about it?  I mean, do you ask for assistance, do you?

A. Yeah.  Sometimes I’ve wound up in trouble because, not realizing it…like when I was first doing this, not anticipating the crossings and things, I would wind up, you know, realizing that now the cars were coming, not only from in front of me, but behind me and alongside of me and…

Q. Right.

A. …all this kind of thing and you get a little panicky.  And I would start yelling at the dog, thinking she’d missed the corner any why isn’t she going straight, and there was no straight.

Q. Uh huh.

A. So what really happens is, quite honestly, since I don’t live in that…  If I lived in that neighborhood, I think I would know more, if I actually lived in that area.  But since I only go there at certain times, I either take a route that I absolute know, even if it’s a little big longer…

Q. Right.

A. …you know, and avoiding that craziness, or I’ll ask someone.  And, of course, it’s funny because you’re got to watch what you say…is there a street on the other side of this street?

Q. [laugh]

A. You know, do the curbs line up?  They don’t even know what you’re talking about.

Q. Right.

A. So, um, if somebody says, and if I’m not sure of a crossing and someone says do you want help, I say, sure, may I follow you?

Q. Yeah.

A. I just let is go at that.  I’ve gone beyond the point of having to feel that I can master everything.

Q. Yes.

A. You know it's like I don’t care anymore.  It’s not worth it.  Um, you know to do, to prove every point to myself.  I’m beyond that.

Q. But, in a sense, you have mastered it…

A. Yeah.

Q. …because you’ve taken every advantage of what’s out there…

A. Yeah.

Q. …to get what you want, which is to get over to the other side.

A. I suppose that the bottom line to me is this, OK.  If I’m in a confusing area or if I’m faced with a test which is very complicated and somebody says, do you want some help, I can say yes.  If there’s no one there to say do you want help, I know I can work it out.

Q. Right.

A. So, you know, that’s the bottom line.

Q. Well, do you ever initiate…like, you hear that somebody’s there and you say, excuse me, can I get some help from you?

A. Oh, sure.  If I want it, absolutely.

Q. How do you do that?  Do you sort of hear them?  What do you do?

A. Well, I figure this.  If I’m really in an area where I’m kind of stuck and I’m not sure what I’m faced with and I need some help and I’m not sure…  I mean, I’ll say, excuse me.  If nobody answers, who cares?

Q. Uh huh.

A. There’s nobody there to tell me I’m not talking to anybody…

Q. [laugh]  Love it, love it.

A. …right?  You know.  If somebody’s then there, they’ll answer me.

Q. Right.

A. Most of the time, you can hear people or…

Q. Uh huh.

A. …what happens very often, though, is you hear people but they are either not tuned in to you because they’re running in a different direction…

Q. Right.

A. …or they’re further than you think they were…

Q. Right.

A. …then you are from where you’re standing.  You know what I mean?

Q. Yeah.

A. Um, so you don’t get a response anyway.  But, I figure, you know, if they don’t hear me, then it doesn’t matter.  What can they…  You know, no one can tell me you’re being silly.

Q. Right.

A. That a palliative--[talked over]

Q. Right, I love it. 

A. ‘cause if someone was there, they would respond or they won't respond.

Q. [laugh]  that’s cute.

A. So.

Q. Talking to the pole.

A. The reality is, you can’t worry about a lot things after a while [laugh] you know.  Um, you do the best you can and…  I think I learned something from having a guide dog, too.  I learned something that was very important.  And what the instructors always said, and I think this is very meaningful, if you make a mistake, that’s not what matters.  What matters is that you’re able to correct it…that you can find your way out of it.  You know, so if it takes you a little longer, so if you get a little frustrated… The point is, it’s not the mistake you should focus on.

Q. Right.

A. And I’m sure you tell the students this, also.  What’s really important is that you stop and say, OK, now what did I do?  And to retrace your steps and to try to figure out, you know, what’s going on.  I had a very funny…  This is a very funny example of something because they also tell you with a guide dog, you know, they’ll say, follow your dog…let the dog lead, follow your dog.  Well, there’s a very bad crossing up here around the Lighthouse, on 60th Street and Lexington.  A really terrible crossing.

Q. Oh, yes.

A. Terrible crossing.  You know, just facing the bank.

Q. Yes.

A. It’s terrible because it’s a narrow street and there’s a lot going on and the traffic comes west from east and it’s just…

Q. They seem to be forever doing construction there.

A. Yeah, there is construction there.  And in the middle of the street is a metal plate and it tends to get very hot, especially with the very bad weather we’re having.  It’s get very, very hot, that plate.  And my dog has decided that she is never going to cross that street.

Q. Hm.

A. So, what she tends to do, if I’m facing north and there’s Lexington Avenue on my right…

Q. Um hm.

A. She veers out into the middle of Lexington Avenue and will make a wide thing around that metal plate.  And I have to…  I fight with her every time I go over there to keep her from doing that.  So, the other day [laugh] I’m stepping off the sideway, one foot into Lexington Avenue with my hips swinging ready to go over to back across 60th, and this dog is fighting me every step…  Backing up on me and not wanting to move.  So, finally, some, some man said, or some woman said, oh, there’s a metal plate.  I said, I know, I’m trying to get around it, but she’s really afraid of it.  And she said, well, she said, maybe it’s ‘cause there’s smoke coming out of it…it was steaming mother thing.  This woman turns and says, yes, you really should listen to your dog.  [laugh]  And I said, well, I said, you know, she’s right.  I knew this dog was done good for a reason.  It's bad enough the plate, this metal plate is hot as hell…it’s like  a 100 degrees that day and then there’s smoke coming out of it…steam coming out of it, you know.  She was showing good judgment, but it was really funny.  She said, you should listen to your dog.

Q. [laugh]  Um…

A. So, anyway…

Q. [interruption for telephone]  Well, I’m wondering if there’s anything that happens frequently when traveling that you like the least.

A. Yeah, it rains.

Q. [laugh]  Bad weather.

A. I hate it when it rains.

Q. Uh huh.

A. It really does, you know, bad weather in itself cuts out your hearing.

Q. Yeah.

A. It really does cut your hearing.  And construction.  I mean, I think one of the things, and I was talking about a cane before, like, I really am…  I'm envious of Betty, you know, Betty Bird.  She’s fabulous traveler, cane traveler.  And I wish I could be a good cane traveler.  But then I stop and I think, well, with the amount of construction going on in this city, um, the things that you come upon…  It’s getting worse and worse and it’s getting harder and harder to really understand what you’re up against.

Q. Um hm.

A. You know.  So, I don’t know anymore if a cane…  You know, if that kind of traveling, if I would feel as secure.  I, I don’t know if I would.  Having the dog does make me feel more secure in terms of construction, but that is such a problem.

Q. Yeah.

A. Um, the area I’m living in…  Not only is it just construction on the streets, but the area I’m living in, they’re now doing what they call--they're pointing bricks on the apartment buildings and they’ve got all this scaffold out.

Q. Ah.

A. And the scaffolding are almost like, you have to walk between lanes, almost, like lanes are set up on the sidewalk.  And it’s just…  I mean, it is just unbelievable.  It’s very, very difficult.  So, I think that that’s really become…  Um, I don’t have the patience that I did.  I don’t find…  I don’t find these things like a challenge any more.  I just wish they would go away.

Q. Yeah.

A. You know, at one time, it was, like, oh, man, this is really great.  But, it’s not so great any more.  It’s a pain in the neck.  It’s more than I need to cope with.  More than I want to cope with.  So the noise, the construction…  um, the weather conditions.  All of those become just additional, uh, factors to have to deal with.  You do it, I mean, there’s no question…  You do it.

Q. Yeah.

A. You know. But you just say sometimes, you know, you’d prefer you didn’t have to.

Q. Have you encountered actuated intersections?

A. What’s that?

Q. The ones where they’re no longer on a cycle…the cars trigger them.

A. No so much here, but I have, um, out of town…out of the city areas, other areas.  Yeah, yeah.  I’ve seen…  I don’t know…what have I done about them?  See, I guess some of me also does have to trust the dog sense.  Uh, and also you just check things out, you know.  If I’m not sure…  One of the things I’ve taken more to doing, and I don’t know if it’s a factor of my, my aging process or, um, what do you call it…that things have become more complicated, but, I probably stop more often now and try to see…  If I’m not sure what’s going to happen, I, I may let the traffic go by.

Q. Yeah.

A. I may wait it out.  I, unfortunately, have a reputation of not doing this.

Q. Oh.

A. You know, of trying to beat the lights and beat the this and make the L crossings especially, you know, before the lights change.

Q. Uh huh.

A.  But there are times when I’m in an unfamiliar area and I’m really not sure what’s going on, um, and I’ll just try to wait it out or I’ll ask.

Q. Yeah.

A. And I have no problems asking.  You know, I have no compulsions about saying well I shouldn't ask. I ask.  If people there, I’ll ask.  Is this light changing?  Is there a light here or is it just a stop sign?  Now down in the West Village, you have a series of streets where there are only stop signs.

Q. Right.

A. You know, so, some of them you come to know there are just stop signs at certain streets if you travel them enough, but, otherwise, it’s, um, it’s guesswork.

Q. Yeah.

A. You know, it’s just guesswork.  And you try to figure it out.

Q. What do you want sighted pedestrians to do when they help?

A. Oh, when they help?

Q. if you have somethig--

A. Get out of my way.

Q. [laugh]  Well, that’s OK, too.

A. And I love people who step off the curb and say, can I help you, and then they’re walking backwards, they thinking they’re helping…  You know, just go away.

Q. Oh, my.

A. They don’t know how to…  Well, they’re better.  I have to say pedestrians are much, much better.  Obviously, we’re doing a lot of education of the public so they really are better.  Um, what do I want them to do?  I don’t know, it’s hard to say.

Q. Yeah.

A. You know, they’re not bad, they’re OK.  Sometimes, they’re a nuisance in that…  I guess my one wish is the people…  If I’m going along the street and I look like I’m OK, you know, not to stop you and say, can I help you?

Q. Right.

A. I mean, you know…  Or, I’m out there a lot of times, and this is specifically with the dog…  Constantly they’ll say, you’re dog’s in the street.

Q. [laugh]

A. Or, the dog is off the curb.  You know, it's like Jesus lady, what do you think I’m doing?

Q. How do you handle it?  Do you just ignore…

A. It depends on my mood.

Q. Yeah.

A. Sometimes, I’ll just say, yes, I know.

Q. Right.

A. And that’s it.  And sometimes, they’ll be satisfied and they’ll go away.  Sometimes, they’ll say, well, do you want to get him back up?  No.

Q. [laugh]

A. Sometimes, I’ll get…  I’ll say, well, she needs to go to the bathroom.  Oh, OK.  You know if I’m really frustrated…  I mean, some guy came and said to me, well, she’s peeing now.  I said…

Q. [laugh]

A. He says, she's doing, yeah, she’s doing, she's peeing.  I said, yes, thank you.  You know.

Q. [laugh]

A. People are just funny.  I guess the thing that, that disturbs me the most, but I deal with it is that, it’s like the inferences from the public…

Q. Yeah.

A. …is that you really don’t know what’s going on.  

Q. Yeah.

A. You know.  They have to tell you all these things because you have no sense that your dog’s in the street.

Q. Right.

A. Or that you’re missing a certain thing.  That this…  There’s a sense that you’re unaware.

Q. Yeah.

A. And that’s unfortunate. That's unfortunate. But, I don’t know…  I guess it’s also because they probably cannot understand not seeing how you would know.

Q. Right.

A. It’s their…kind of their lack of understanding.  But, um…

Q. Um…  Just a couple more and then I’ll let you back to work.

A. I’ve got to get my dog out.

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

A. Well, that’s two questions, right?

Q. Yeah.

A. Professional organizations?

Q. Uh huh.

A. Sure, I belong to the National Association of Social Workers.  Uh, I’ve belonged to a number of things over the years professionally, you know.  Psychotherapy Associates.  Uh, I don’t know if these mean anything to you but, professionally, I have, yeah.  And I was a member…  I am a member, now, of…but an inactive member of the American Council of the Blind.

Q. Uh huh.

A. I’m a dues-paying member.  There was a time year's back when I was, uh, president of the New York State Council, for [sounds like] American Council of the Blind.  For a number of…for about three or four years.  Um, that kind of thing.

Q. How did ADA impact you?  Do you notice a difference before and after the law was passed?

A. Um, I don’t think it’s impacted me specifically a great deal, except, um, I feel that I have, when I’m denied something, I have something to call up.  That’s of course, a big help.  So, I guess, I’m answering…  I’m saying yes and no at the same time, which is probably not a good way to phrase it.  Most of what I’ve done, I think…  I guess this is what I feel.  Most of what I’ve done, I’ve done before the law has really come into place, given the fact that I’m not 20 any more.  You know.  So, most of the big battles were battles that I’ve had to, to struggle with and things that I’ve had to work my way through with very little, you know, legal support.

Q. Like what?

A. Um, I’m thinking.  Just, I guess, going to school and demanding certain things.

Q. Um hm.

A. You know…  I can’t even truly say accommodations, because I never really had much in the way of accommodations.  But when I got to college, there were certain classes they wouldn’t let me into because they felt, uh, I couldn’t handle them.  Um, and it wasn’t a question of saying, well, maybe we can make some accommodation for me, if you think I can’t handle it.  OK, when I took biology, they didn’t want to let me into the lab…

Q. Oh.

A. …because they were afraid…  I don’t know…  I don’t remember why, so, what happened was, I had become friendly with one of the biology teachers and, so, he let me in on the weekend when no one was there.

Q. Oh.

A. So, there were manipulations that I did.

Q. Right.

A. kind of things.  Not bad, just getting around the people who said no.

Q. Yes.

A. Kind of thing because there was no way to say you have to let me in, you have to do this.  And it’s interesting, because I was talking to someone recently who works at the, who is head of the, um, disabled students’ office at one of the schools.  And he said to me, which is true, you know, even though there’s the ADA, there’s still many places and teachers who feel that, yes, they have to let you into the classroom but they don’t have to do anything more.

Q. Right.

A. You know, there are still those people who walk fine lines.  They can do certain things but they haven’t really…they’ll find ways to get around things.  So, I didn’t have even any of that support when I was going to school.  So, I that I just had to find my own way to get around.  I had to prove everything.  I guess that’s been the hardest thing.

Q. Yeah.

A. I could never be a student.  I had to be a good student.  I couldn’t just be a good student, I had to be a terrific student.

Q. Right.

A. You know, it was always that kind of thing.  I could not do my assignments, uh, on Monday and Tuesday.  I had to do my assignments six, seven days a week.

Q. Yeah.

A. I had to always do more.  I had to always be one step ahead of everybody else.

Q. Well, practically…  Like, wheelchair ramps, does that, that affect your travel at all like it does a cane traveler?

A. No.

Q. No.

A. Well, how does it affect a cane traveler?

Q. Well, sometimes, it’s hard to detect.

A. Well, I was just going to say, when you said a wheelchair ramps, what I think…  I was thinking of ramps as actual ramps into buildings.

Q. Oh, curb cuts, I guess…

A. Curb cuts.  Curb cuts, yes, can be tricky, uh, because, what’s happened, too…  Now in the schools, you know, they’re teaching the dogs to stop at curb cuts.  Initially, when I first got some of the other dogs, the were regular curbs so what happened was, as I was traveling, I began to realize that the dog sometimes doesn’t stop because there is no curb.

Q. Oh.

A. The dog keeps going.

Q. So, you could wind up out in the street.

A. So, you wind up out in the street until you suddenly realize you’re in the street.

Q. Right.

A. So, you eventually…you begin to look out for it yourself and that means that when I’m walking down the street and I’m coming to what I think is the end of the street because I can hear things…I listen for…how close am I to the traffic?  How close am I to my, to the, uh, perpendicular traffic.  If I’m walking this way, how close is my perpendicular traffic.  Am I coming to a corner?  You know.  So, I have to be very much…  I don’t think any person who doesn’t see or has low vision can just decide that the dog or the cane is going to do it for them.

Q. Right.

A. You know, um…  You know, they can say, trust your dog, but the reality is that, if you don’t know what’s going on, it’s not going to work.

Q. Right.

A. So, you have to trust the dog to make certain decisions… For instance, I know that at one time…  Or there will come a time where I…  I was trying to cross…  This has happened on Second Avenue and it’s happened on, um, Fifth Avenue sometimes…  It’s very bad weather.  It’s raining hard and there are trucks and buses going by and I cannot hear anything.  Cannot hear anything.  And I think I have the light eventually and I’ll say, forward, to the dog.  And I say, OK, this is it. You know, I suspend everything--put all my trust into this creature.

Q. Yeah.

A. Then I hit the other side and I say, god we made it, you know.

Q. Yeah.

A. And there’s another thing that’s happened on the streets.  It makes me crazy.  In summer especially, these ice cream trucks…

Q. Oh.

A. These Mr. Softees…They stop at the corners and their motor’s running.  And some of them are very loud.  And you can’t hear the changing of traffic.

Q. Oh.  Right.

A. You can’t hear it.  So, between the construction and that, it cuts out your ability to really hear clearly what’s going on.  So, it’s the noise level that’s become more of a, you know, a burden than anything else.

Q. Because is that your primary kind of landmark?  Is that what you use, um…

A. What?

Q. Noises…sounds of things.  What are your primary landmarks?

A. Noises are a deterrent.  I mean, I’ll use certain noises that are constant.  For instance, on one of the streets I travel on, there is a, an exhaust fan or something coming out of a store.

Q. Uh huh.

A. But it’s always there…it’s been there for years.

Q. Yeah.

A. So, I know that I am two-thirds or 60 percent down the block when I hear that noise coming up.

Q. Right.

A. And I’ll know I’m at a certain point…  That’s the store.  That’s the one store that has…  And I know that, to the left of that store is this and to the right of that store is something else.  I mean, I’ve learned that and that’s a constant.  Um…

Q. But mostly you use…

A. What do I use as landmarks?

Q. Yeah.

A. I’m so bad at this.  I don’t really know.

Q. Hm.

A. I use, well, streets, I mean the number of streets you walk.

Q. Um hm.

A. You can tell when you come to a corner, you know, when the building falls back and you’ve got air pressure or you’ve got…  Sometimes there’s sound, but there are so many sound these days.

Q. Right.

A. I don’t know which you can depend on.  If I come to a corner…   Certain times, people will say, sometimes, why don’t they use those audible light signals that they have out of the city?

Q. Um hm.

A. And other places, I don’t know, the bells or the birds or whatever they are.  But there are some, some corners where, if you listen, the light box clicks.  It happens down here on the corner of 59th and Lex.  You know, when you’re crossing there…

Q. Yeah.

A. The light box, especially on the other side of 59th…of, er, Lexington, the light box clicks. So, if you pick up a sound, you know you can count…you can then try to use it.  Um, smells, smells interceding  People say, can’t you smell it?  No, because I’ll tell you one…  There are pizza stores and there are drug stores and they have bins. And when you get the smell it’s not the entrance way.

Q. Right.

A. It’s the bins and you’re walking into the bins.

Q. Right.

A. And you can’t trust that.  There are some stores I can tell when I’m coming to them.  For instance, if the doors are open, there’s a shoemaker…  I can always smell a shoe repair.

Q. Yeah.

A. Because that comes from the store itself.  You know, it’s not a vent.  But, uh…

Q. Subways, I bet you can smell.

A. Sometimes you can smell subways, but you may be smelling them from the grates in the street.

Q. Oh, right.

A. Right?

Q. Right.

A. Because the smells come up, you can’t always tell the, the, uh, stairs from the smell.  Sometimes you can pass things.  The other thing that is interesting the difference between a cane and a dog is, is you see the dog is taught you to keep you away from things.

Q. Right.

A. The cane, you pick up everything.

Q. Right.

A. So, in some ways, the cane is more informative.

Q. Yeah.

A. Much more informative than the dog.  I mean, there can be…  If you don’t have a reason to stop in a certain place on the street, you can go by something and never know it’s there.

Q. Right.

A. Because the dog will keep you away from it.

Q. So, you have to be even more vigilant…

A. I think, I think that, rather than talking about landmarks, um, I probably need to use my hearing much more.

Q. Uh huh.

A. Just my senses, my judgment.  I don’t know what you’d call it.  Uh, those kinds of things.  You know, getting the sense of spatial relationships, getting a sense of distances.  Have I walked this block yet, should I be coming to the end of it by now?

Q. Uh huh.

A. You know, and that kind of stuff.  But in terms of actual landmarks, I’m trying to think about anything that’s really consistent other than the vent on that store in that street.

Q. It’s really a time/distance awareness.

A. Yeah.

Q. You know this is how long it takes, you know how many streets you have to cross…

A. Well, in the subways, for instance, you may say there are certain landmarks.  I mean, I listen to turnstiles all the time.

Q. Uh huh.

A. Because there are always nine times out of ten, they’re active, unless I’m traveling at midnight.

Q. Right.

A. So, if I’m looking for a certain entrance, or if I’m looking to get out of a subway that I haven’t been in before, I listen for turnstiles.

Q. Um hm.

A. I listen for stairs.  People, you can hear people going up and down stairs.

Q. Um hm.

A. I have to be very careful I don't ride escalators with my dog.  I just never have.

Q. Yeah.

A. And I have to be very careful because the new escalators are silent and you cannot hear them until you’re almost on them.  I almost encounter [phone rings] For some reason, I came up against something and I don’t know why, but I put my hand out and it was the side of an escalator.  And that’s how I knew it was there.

[break for phone]

Q. This is so historical.

A. The fact that I’m 60…that makes it historical.

Q. [laugh]

A. [laugh]

Q. This is really about…  I call I an oral history…

A. Yeah.

Q. …but it’s really just, for me, I am just so fascinated by people who travel for, you know, their whole lives…

A. Yeah.

Q. …and what experiences shaped them.  Why they think they do it as well as they do.  So, it’s been great.  It’s been exactly what I as looking for.

A. I just… But in talking to you, it’s been interesting because I don’t think feel like I have anything that I can really say, this is what happened and this is how I did it and this is what unfortunately…  

[break for phone]

A. In thinking about it, I wish I were better at plan…  Not planning ahead, but being able to think things through and, unfortunately, it’s been…  On one hand it’s been good, because it’s made me just, like, you know move ahead and on the other hand, it’s not be helpful because, uh, maybe I’ve blundered through things.  You know what I mean?

Q. Yeah.

A. Every, you know…  It was Margaret Galligan, whom I don’t think you know, who used to say, no good deed goes unpunished, you know.  You get adventuresome, you pay the price.  But at the same time, some good things have come out of it.  It’s one of the things that I think that’s come out of it is it’s helped me to say, so what if you’re going to something that’s unknown.  What the worst thing that could happen?

Q. Right.

A. You know.  So, you fall down the stairs.  I mean, you don’t want to fall down the stairs, but…  Or, you get there and you flounder around or you have to figure out what to do, so, it hasn’t prohibited me from doing things.

Q. Right.

A. And on the other hand, when I figure something out or make a plan in advance, I say, wow, this is great, I can breeze right through, I don’t have to worry about anything.  I can’t believe that this could be so easy, or this could be so uncomplicated.  So, um, both systems are OK.  You know, I would said to someone, don’t hesitate because you don’t know where you’re going.  On the other hand, if you can figure it out, good.

Q. Yeah.

A. You know, kind of thing…

Q. You have that drive and determination.

A. Yeah.

Summation

In Jo’s case, she grew up as an independent child -her low vision allowed her to walk on time and yet, she was keenly aware, as an adult of how unsafe she was crossing major avenues with incomplete knowledge of exactly where the cars were – she had incidents that clearly demonstrated the difference between orientation and mobility. She was oriented – no problem. But knowing where you are and where you are going is just half of the equation – the other half is mobility – mobility with blindness or a mobility visual impairment requires a mobility tool. And she lived for 7 years without effective mobility tools. She survived – but is that really the legacy we want for children who are blind – you lived through hell – what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger? No, I don’t think so. Instead let’s recognize the value of mobility tools to all people who are blind or mobility visually impaired- welcome them much like you already welcome wheelchairs-